Havelok the Dane Part 40

Raven went back to the sea, and he will now be in Denmark or else on the Viking path with Sigurd, for that is what he best loves. Arngeir bides at Grimsby, high in honour with all, and the port and town grow greater and more prosperous year by year. Wise was Grim when he chose to stay in the place where he had chanced to come, if it were not more than chance that brought him. I suppose that for all time the s.h.i.+ps that are from Grimsby will be free from all dues in the ports that are Havelok's in the Danish land. Witlaf, the good old thane, bides in his place yet, and he rejoices ever that he had a hand in bringing Havelok up. Nor does our king forget that.

Indeed, I think that he forgets naught but ill done toward him. Never is a man who has done one little thing for him overlooked, if he is met by our king after many years, and that is a royal gift indeed.

I would that all married folk were as are this royal couple of ours. Never are they happy apart, and never has a word gone awry between them. If one speaks of Havelok, one must needs think of Goldberga; and if one says a word of the queen, one means the king also. Happy in their people and in their wondrous fair children are they, and that is all that can be wished for them.

There was one thing wanting for long years, that I and Withelm ever longed for for Havelok -- a thing for which Goldberga prayed ever. I came to them from Queen Bertha in Kent, when good old David died; and at that time Havelok was not a Christian, but surely the most Christian heathen that ever was. I knew that he must come into the faith at some time; and I, at least, could not find it in my heart to blame him altogether for holding to the Asir whom his fathers wors.h.i.+pped. It was in sheer honesty and singleness of heart that he did so, and I had never skill enough to show him the right. But Withelm, who has long been a priest of the faith, and shall surely be our bishop ere long, had more to do with his conversion than any other.

Yet it did not come until the days when Paulinus came from York and preached with the fire of the missionary to us all. And then we saw the mighty warrior go down to the water in the white robe of the catechumen, and come therefrom with his face s.h.i.+ning with a new and wondrous light.

Then he founded a monastery at Grimsby, that there the men of the marsh, who had been kind to him in the old days, might find teachers in all that was good; and there it will surely be after many a long year, until there is need for its work no more, if such a time ever comes.

So the land grows Christian fast, and good will be its folk if they follow the way of king and queen and their brothers.

Now have I finished also, and this is farewell. Look you, husbands and wives, that you may be said to be like Havelok and Goldberga; and see, brothers, that you mind the words that Grim spoke to his sons, and which they heeded so well --

"Bare is back without brother behind it." And that is a true word, though it was a heathen who spoke it.

THE END.

1I have to thank the Mayor of Grimsby for most kindly furnis.h.i.+ng me with an impression of this ancient seal.

2Now Nishni-Novgorod, from time immemorial the great meetingplace of north and south, east and west.

3The garth was the fenced and stockaded enclosure round a northern homestead.

4The seax was the heavy, curved dagger carried by men of all ranks.

5The northern sea G.o.d and G.o.ddess.

6Men drowned at sea were thought to go to the halls of Pan and Aegir. Ran is represented as fis.h.i.+ng for heroes in time of storm.

7The Norns were the Fates of the northern mythology.

8The "Witanagemot," the representative a.s.sembly for the kingdom, whence our Parliament sprang.

9The greatest term of reproach for a coward.

10The gold ring kept in the Temple of the Asir, on which all oaths must be sworn.

11The sanctuary of the Asir. Thorsway and Withern in Lincolns.h.i.+re both preserve the name in the last and first syllable respectively, both meaning "Thor's sanctuary."

12The northern equivalent of the Saxon "Folkmote," or general a.s.sembly of the people.