[ There is a ferryman in Nordskag's west sea who mans a boat
between Kongehjem and Straumfjord, a main port to Drowda.
He tells stories until they pass an island, where he shivers and
goes silent. It is the only place that he is afraid to speak of. A
traveler drops a purse. He lifts his lyre; playing to the waves. ]
"Past icy dreary Kongehjem, beneath the chill grey sky,
Arnøya rolls with mist, small ferries drifting by.
There men built nineteen hearths, nine score years ago,
for the hillock's guarded harbor, its gentle lazy flow.
In muddy sludge and winter sleet, in dross and iron rain,
they took on oaths of enmity, to Rand's most cursèd name.
Though hate begets fear, they should have feared more
His great unholy fame, the ken and wiles of yore.
A guest graced their halls, his eyes all wit and charm,
much wisdom neath his brow, strength laid in his arm.
The last to flee his lodge, which fell to knife and flame,
crushed in bloody war, with raiding knaves to blame.
Maiden wife took a shine, to this now fairest guise,
evr'y word with a smile, evr'y joke with a reprise.
To the captain was she wed, though she'd not been bed,
a gift by which the guest was most pleased instead.
Many battles the captain saw, but won them all in vain:
a bushy-browed Lothar, one-eyed with cold grey mane.
The home is not the field, where a beaten man will yield,
one's love is not a war, and maidens bear no shield.
One morn the guest awoke and decided with a yawn,
to saddle well his horse and vanish with the dawn.
A poor bard would I be, should I not make this our stage:
Ingrid the witless damsel, husband Hakon sworn to rage.
Like an ill omen she arrived, and set the wald afire,
as a Demon ripped from Hel, Pride's living breathing ire.
There they could have slain her, by Lothar code been true,
yet in anger they could not, knowing Pride wished them to.
Lined up close on name-day, Ingrid's children count to five,
yet missing is the sixth among them, born with golden eyes.
Since they could not destroy, the next best was to bind,
to raise her up in guilt, of foul wretched birth remind.
With boots of barest leather and clothes in tattered scraps,
to keep her as a servant, washing floors and checking traps.
But strength does come with age, and even small and eight,
she had a certain power, that the belt could not abate.
Four years too quick did pass, and like steady growing grass,
that most weedy spindly girl became a clever little lass.
Of this Hakon wasn't fond, and while he couldn't with steel,
with far simpler earnest methods he hoped to sate his zeal.
"To the forest," he would say, "and you must find your way,"
"to someone else who will suffer you - leave here this day."
In truth he hoped she'd freeze, in November's snows go,
and trip upon the jagged rocks, tumble away in the floe.
But Pride came for her then, not in the flesh but when
an ashen beast came to, and there led her to its den.
Nordskag's west is oak and yew, birch, spruce and alder,
and in the caves beneath, a loyal hound named Balder.
[ You get the feeling there is more to say. But the sun is rising
in the rosy sky, and the man refuses to sing any more. He
sets his lyre down and speaks a final verse, bereft of music. ]
Though there's far more to say, my poor breath is short:
the girl lived to plant her boots on Middeskag's port.
She'd be called Agnes no longer, for Signe was stronger,
yet someday the runaway shall go back to that fort..."
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