The Saga of the Cattle Killerby Bertil Falk |
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And Gardar read his poem with a mystic voice, vibrating with magic and cruel vengeance.
He who holds the hammer
may shield the house and fields.
The toller of thunder
will not kill the cattle.
He who dares to do death,
despite the rites of gods,
may mercilessly die.
Thor must save the brave.
“Thus the spell is in place,” Gardar said, “and may Thor protect this place, its people and its animals in the future.
“But that is not all. Now we will find out what has been happening and who the perpetrator is. Four or five of you are suspected. Let us begin with Gunnlaug Egilsdaughter. You loved Svavar the Gray-haired, but he turned you down.”
“And because of that,” Gunnlaug said scornfully, “I would have killed my husband’s goats and sheep? You need to come up with much better evidence.”
There was a murmur of agreement in the air.
“I did not say that you are the one who committed these crimes. Did I?”
“Then do not tell me about some old love stories!” she spat at him.
“Well, there are a few more suspects. Svavar, ever since Sigfather killed your horse during that thunderstorm, someone has killed Sigfather’s animals. This is a fact, which seems to point at you.”
“I am not guilty,” Svavar replied.
“Perhaps, perhaps not, but you have been very successful over the past years in killing roe deer and other animals. Isn’t that true?”
“I can see what you are driving at. Maybe it is dangerous to bring clever brats to a place like this.”
Gardar laughed. “Whatever happens. You have not only promised, you have sworn an oath. Is it not the truth, Svavar, that you have been borrowing a crossbow from the household of Sigfather ever since his son brought home this new weapon from a raid on the continent?”
“What the heck is this?” Sigfather roared.
Gardar turned to him. “Do not get excited. Remember your oath. Calm down.”
Svavar looked Gardar straight in the eye, saying, “There is truth to what you say. Yes, I have borrowed a crossbow now and then, but I have always returned it. I never stole it.”
“Why have you done this?”
“I could not ask Sigfather to lend it to me. Sigfather does not like me. He wanted to marry Gunnlaug, but she always turned him down. She wanted me. She did not marry him until I married another woman.”
“Well, if you have borrowed a crossbow from a locked chest in your neighbor’s house, how did you get inside that chest? Did you break it open?”
“No.”
“So how did you get away with it? Sorcery? Did it travel through the walls of the chest and through thin air straight into your hands?”
“No.”
“Then how?”
There was absolute silence for a few seconds. Then Knut Haraldsson raised his voice. “Please, stop this. I think it is enough.”
“I understand that you know everything, Knut, but do not interfere now. This must be settled. The truth is, Knut, that your father opened the chest in the middle of the night, when Svavar wanted to do some hunting. Harald was the only one who had access to the key.”
“It is true,” said Harald the Blind. “Svavar has always been very kind to me. Not all have been kind to me over the years. So why should I deny him when he wanted to borrow the weapon? It made it much easier for him to hunt than the ordinary weapons he has.”
“Well, you say that, but there is one thing that you forget.”
“No, I do not forget anything at all.”
“You forget that if you could open it for him and lend him a crossbow, well, then you could easily open the chest and give him some knives. And knives were used to kill the animals.”
“I never borrowed any knife from him,” Svavar intervened. “Only a crossbow. And how do you know that knives from that chest were used when the animals were killed? Do you have any proof?”
“I think so. When Harald opened the chest for me, there were a couple of knives with dried blood on the blades. I think they were used to kill the animals.”
“So you think that I am the killer?” Svavar said.
“You, or someone else. I mean, Harald could easily have taken out the knives and lent them to someone else. He could have given them to the master of the house. Sigfather, I saw you standing by a dead animal a few nights ago.”
“Yes, I was there. But the deed was already done then. I did not borrow a knife that night.”
“But you came to me later that morning and asked me to open the chest,” Harald the Blind said.
“I did and one of the knives was still wet with blood.”
There was silence.
“I do not think that you did it,” Gardar said. “But how about you, Knut? You must have been able to take the key from your father and open the chest.”
Knut Haraldsson only laughed.
“One thing that we can be practically sure of,” Gardar continued, “is that Harald himself did not kill the animals. He is too blind for that. Unlike his son, Knut has very good eyes.”
“I did not do it,” said Knut, still laughing.
“Well, Harald, did you open the chest for someone else?”
“I did it for Sigfather. Not very often, only for the midwinter-sacrifice and when he went to the Thing. The knives used on a daily basis in the household are not in the chest. We only keep the sacrificial knives and the weapons in the chest. And then I opened it for him as said a few nights ago.”
“Did he take a knife then?”
“I think that he only looked at them. I could not see, but he murmured something I could not understand.”
“What did you murmur, Sigfather?”
“It must have been an oath.”
“And you are sure that you did not open it for anyone else?” Gardar again asked, now turned to Harald.
“This must be stopped,” Gunnlaug said. “This is ridiculous. In his eyes we are all thieves and killers.”
“Not all of you. Only one, and that one is you, Gunnlaug. You are the one who stole a knife and you are the one who killed the animals. And I will prove it. And I will tell you how you did it.”
She stared at him. Speechless.
“I found as soon as I came here that the killings were all committed in the name of Odin, the One-Eyed master of magic. And who is his sorceress here? You are, Gunnlaug! You have his one-eyed face on that brooch of yours. You once tried to put a love-spell on Svavar through the invocation of Odin.”
It was all silence now. Gardar turned to Sigfather.
“Tell me, Sigfather, when did you last sleep with your wife? It must have been very long ago, because she used to sleep with Harald, a blind man, but not exactly helpless in bed. And when Harald fell asleep after making love, Gunnlaug took his key from under his armpit, opened the chest, took out a knife and went out and killed your animals. Then she put the knife back in the chest and the key back into the bag in sleeping Harald’s armpit.”
“Why should I take knives from the chest, when we have knives in the household?”
“Because the knives in the chest are sacred. You had to kill the animals with a sacrificial knife.”
“Why should I do that?”
“Do you think I don’t know what Odin demands? He demands the use of sacrificial knives! Sacred knives!”
Gardar raised his hands. “Some days ago, Gunnlaug came and told me to come for supper. She then observed that I left my chisel and hammer beside this rock. During the night someone killed a sheep using a sacrifical knife.
“And after that, the perpetrator in the name of One-Eyed Odin poked out one of the eyes with my chisel. You did it in order to tell me that my sorcery is of no use. But how wrong you were: my sorcery is three times three stronger than yours. It is always blessed not only by Odin, but by Thor and Frey as well.”
“Why should I do that?” she repeated.
“Double revenge, sweet revenge, on Svavar and on Sigfather. You always tried to get your husband to challenge the man who turned you down. But Sigfather had no reason to do so. Then came that thundering night, when the horse, scared by the thunderbolts, went wild.
“The horse was terrified and ran straight into Sigfather. He fell under the horse and had to kill it with his sword in order to save his own life. It was your hope that Svavar would challenge your husband after that. But Sigfather went to Svavar and the case was settled, maybe in an unfriendly spirit, but nevertheless settled.”
“It was then that you got the idea of killing your husband’s animals,” Gardar continued. “By killing them you punished him. At the same time he would suspect Svavar and ultimately challenge him and you would get your revenge on Svavar.
“Since you are dedicated to Odin, you killed the animals by poking out one of their eyes. You could not possibly have sent a more visible signal to me. When I got to know the facts, you became the prime suspect in my eyes.”
Gardar paused. “You thought that Sigfather would believe that Svavar was behind the killings and therefore ultimately challenge him. But nothing like that happened. And I think I know why. Because your husband suspected that you were the perpetrator. Isn’t that true?”
Sigfather Sigtyrsson nodded.
“Yes, I almost knew that it was she. Not from the very beginning, but after some time I became suspicious. I never caught her red-handed. It was just a strong feeling. I could not talk to her about it. I could have been wrong. I also suspected my neighbor.
“At long last I decided to find someone who could stop this. I heard about you and your skill when it came to runic spells. You came here. A few nights ago, I saw you, Gunnlaug, leaving the house in the night. Since you were gone for a long time, I followed you and saw you killing the goat with a knife and poking out one of its eyes with Gardar’s chisel.
“Later that very morning I asked Harald to open the chest and I found the knife you had used. I did not want to tell anyone about the shame you had brought over us. But Gardar lived up to his reputation as we have now seen.
“But tell me Gardar, son of Varin, when did Svavar pick up the weapon?”
“Harald was asleep when Gunnlaug returned the knife and the key,” Gardar explained. “Soon afterwards, Svavar arrived and woke Harald up again, while you, Sigfather were still brooding over the situation. After killing a roe deer, Svavar returned the crossbow and Harald put it back into the chest.
“Maybe Harald fell asleep again, only to be roused a third time by you later in the morning. It is a fair guess that the chest that night was opened three times before the cock crowed.”
They all stood there in silence. Gunnlaug looked at them with anger in her eyes.
“I think that we have reached the end of the track,” Gardar said, “and I am sure that my runic stone with its invocation in the name of Thor will work.”
It took three days before Gunnlaug Egilsdaughter gave up her stubborn silence and talked to them again. Gardar managed to play chess with both her and her husband.
“How often do you play chess between yourselves?”
They said they never did.
“It’s about time you began,” he said. “I know a person who says that chess is even better than making love.” Thus he succeeded in getting man and wife reconciled.
Sigryn Sigfathersdaughter walked with him on the track into the forest when he left Ullergaard the next morning.
“You think that your spell will work?”
“You can see for yourself that it works,” he said.
“No. It is not the incantation that works. It is the way you solved the problem. It has created a new situation and makes things work again.”
Gardar stopped and took her hands. He looked into her black eyes.
“You talk too much,” he said. “Promise that you will never say anything like that again to anyone else in the future. Always remember that it is the spell that is working. You see, what I said may not have a lasting effect. But a spell on a stone is there forever, reminding them. And that kind of memory is the real spell.”
“I see what you mean,” she said. “When will you return to us?”
“Maybe some day, when I feel like marrying or something like that.”
“Please come soon.”
“On the other hand,” he said, “who wants a woman like your mother as his mother-in-law?”
He left her standing on the path. Had he looked back, he would have seen her standing there watching him. But he did not look back.
Copyright © 2009 by Bertil Falk
