The Saxon

Hi hyne þa ætbæron to brimes faroðe,

Swæse gesiþas, swa he selfa bæd.

-Beowulf

The day did wax unto night, and as the cloudless sky grew mellow in its blue, a Saxon man approached the seashore. The Scandinavian shore on which he stood jutted out on two sides, water in the middle, called fjord by those who were native to its soil, for the Saxon was far from his home across the North Sea. This watery inlet was formed in the days before the walkings of men, at least before their deeds were chronicled, by receding ice that carved the land whilst it retreated northwards away from the Sun. Thus, two mountain ridges rose, green with leaf and grass, warmly embracing the currents of the sea. Orgetorix was the Saxon's name, a token from his mother, who told that it was the name of a great warrior-king, a famed Gallic ancestor who urged the Helvetian horde from their sacred grove out to fight with Caesar of Rome, and who died in pagan honor, by his own hand. He was proud to be named such, yet here among the alien soil of Scandinavia, he was but a stranger, called by most the Saxon.

He walked to a group of men by the water, who stood congregated around a long-boat, whose draconian prow reached heavenward, chiseled out of pale wood. The Saxon left behind the forested grove from which he had lingered, the tree-carcasses whispering in the wind, the dead leaves rattling from their ghostly boughs, muting the dark silence as he walked water-ward. The year was early in the annals of Northern Europe, the last of the Romans having left England only over a century prior, abandoning their old garrisons; Vindolanda, so famous now for its record on old oak of Latin doings and birthday parties, barren. The Saxon's great-grandfather had crossed that narrow road where the whale rides, now called the English Channel, to follow those great princes of Germanic folk, Hengist and Horsa, in their conquest of the destitute Britons with their Druid priests, yet now the Saxon man did find himself across another sea, and so here he walked.

The men were congregated around the long-boat, whose freight was but a single man, an earl of some repute, though, ignorant of most matters of the Danes-men, the Saxon knew not his name. The dead earl lay among his earthly treasures, and at his head lay the mast, on which his honorers did place a golden standard, which fluttered in the wintry wind, shiny threaded fabric, and upon this bed the earl was to be born out by the sea, to a watery grave; the sea, so deep and mysterious, sapphic and sapphire, filled with mystic charm. This realm is the grand graveyard of the world, where many a lich-body was buried, like the memories of yore, forgotten among the waters of time. Tonight, the sky did mirror life, as flowing sky rivers, lit emerald fire and flame red, fluttered among the stars, serpentine, now called the aurora borealis; the Valkyries sky-dancing as told by lore, as they accompanied the earl back to the halls of Odin in Valhalla. Holy Thor did rest Mjölnir this night, for the skies were calm and quiet, save for the light.

A priestly man did stand among the throng, his long beard gleaming silver in the aurora-light, his eyes blue as ice and weary. He spoke a eulogy in his own tongue, in a language so foreign to the Saxon, yet so very familiar. Though stranger in a strange land, the Saxon's heart did rend as the priest cried to the winds, as the men assembled cried and banged their chests in grief, for loss is so very universal that it permeates all separation, whether by culture, language, or religion. The eulogy did last an hour, until they set the boat out to the ocean, where it would sail far from this isolated fjord, its destination never known, and they all prayed safe voyage to Valhalla. The priest, as his hand did slip away from that draconian prow of the ship, as it did sail aloft, the sound of gentle sea lapping on its wooden hull fading in the night, whispered something hidden to the men, which they all repeated. A single man did stand there who spoke the west-Saxon dialect of Orgetorix, and so he translated for him the simple phrase: “We sindon norðmenn” We are the Norse.

END

Cotton MS of Beowulf, housed in the British Library

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