The Long Ships by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0007560702
Amazon: B003WUYOP2
Publisher: NYRB Classics
Published: 2010-12-15T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWO

HOW THEY PLANNED A CHRISTENING FEAST FOR KING HARALD’S GRANDSON

ORM was now in better spirits than ever before, for every enterprise to which he laid his hand flourished. His fields bore a rich harvest, his cattle waxed fat, his barns and storehouses were full, a son had been born to him (and he had good hopes that it might not be his last), and Ylva and his children enjoyed the best of health. He took good care to see that there was no idleness among his men once dawn had broken; Asa kept a sharp eye on the female hands as they toiled in the dairy or sat on their weaving-stools; Rapp showed himself to have a good hand at carpentry and smithery and at setting snares for birds and animals; and each evening Father Willibald invoked the blessing of God upon them all. Orm’s only regret was that his home lay so far from the sea; for, he said, it sometimes gave him a feeling of emptiness to have no sound in his ears but the murmur of the forest on all sides, and never to hear the whisper of the summer sea or feel its salt on his lips.

But sometimes he was visited by evil dreams, and then he would become so agitated in his sleep that Ylva would wake him to ask whether the night mare was riding him, or whether there was any trouble on his mind. When he had awakened and had fortified his courage with strong ale, she would hear, perhaps, that in his sleep he had returned to the Moorish galley and had been rowing his heart out as the whip snaked across his shoulders and the groans of his fellows filled his ears and their wealed backs bent painfully before his eyes; and on the morning after such a dream he loved to sit beside Rapp, who never dreamed, in the carpenter’s shed, and exchange memories with him of those far-off days.

But worse than these were the two dreams that he dreamed about King Sven. For the Moorish galley was but a memory of the past, but when he dreamed of King Sven and his wrath, he could not be sure that they might not be omens of ill luck to come. When, therefore, he had had such a dream, a great unrest would come over him, and he would describe in great detail to Asa and Father Willibald all that he had seen in his sleep, in order that they might help him to arrive at the dream’s meaning. On one occasion he saw King Sven standing, smiling evilly, in the prow of a warlike ship that rowed nearer and nearer toward him while he, with but a few men manning his oars, strove desperately, but vainly, to flee. The second time he was lying in the dark, unable to move a finger, listening to Ylva screaming piteously for help as men carried her away; and then, of a sudden,

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