Feb 19, 2025 1:32 am
Viðar couldn’t bear it. Hard is it for a true warrior to win a spear-maiden for another. Aye, to spend one night with her and not to think what should have been his ever after. It ate at him like a worm in the guts, all those nights Olaf retreated with Hrist into her tent. And Viðar thought he even saw some change in the Warrior of Wotan, in the day. It was something in her face, as if she misthought herself, as if she sensed that something about her man was not part of the one who had won her that first night, and thus she wondered just why she continued to give herself to him.
So in time Viðar approached her, told her all, and told her, moreover—or so the hirðmen say—that he claimed nothing of her now; he only wanted her to be undeceived of his treachery and the trick that two men had unfairly played on her.
Astrid contemplates Olaf’s daughters, whose arms are full of flowers, as they near completion of their tasks in the field. This lasts until a cloud briefly dims the noonday sun.
A trick, by the way, which some say was a potion from a Sagæstreland witch bargaining for her life, or from a ring stolen from a lost caliph, or from a sacrifice to Loptr, made by the two of them, the blood of a cat and of a hen, the hen in the act of laying an egg.
Astrid pierces Ulfarr with a lingering glance.
Tell me, old friend. What do you suppose Hrist said to Viðar, when he told her all this? What would you have said, were you in the place of Wotan’s chooser of the slain?
So in time Viðar approached her, told her all, and told her, moreover—or so the hirðmen say—that he claimed nothing of her now; he only wanted her to be undeceived of his treachery and the trick that two men had unfairly played on her.
Astrid contemplates Olaf’s daughters, whose arms are full of flowers, as they near completion of their tasks in the field. This lasts until a cloud briefly dims the noonday sun.
A trick, by the way, which some say was a potion from a Sagæstreland witch bargaining for her life, or from a ring stolen from a lost caliph, or from a sacrifice to Loptr, made by the two of them, the blood of a cat and of a hen, the hen in the act of laying an egg.
Astrid pierces Ulfarr with a lingering glance.
Tell me, old friend. What do you suppose Hrist said to Viðar, when he told her all this? What would you have said, were you in the place of Wotan’s chooser of the slain?
