Albert Bierstadt - Autumn Landscape The Catskills

Thralls of Skuld - Chapter 3: Blood and Yarrows

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The Danir had advanced through Scania quickly, aiming to invade Götaland, the land of the Geats, from the southeast and catch the army unawares. King Gorm’s troup was large but moved swiftly. Svidland was still scattered across jarldoms and smaller kingdoms, and the Geats were the first frontier towards the larger, northern powers of Svidland. King Gorm had brought thousands of warriors from the land of the Danir. They had been unleashed with fury onto the Geats, who indeed were taken aback. But the Geats quickly gained their composure, and retorted forcefully. After months of Danir raids, the Geats had known a storm was coming, and they met them bravely in the early morning hours, finally given a chance to avenge themselves.

The gilded halls of the afterlife would see a rare feast tonight. There was no doubt the valkyries soared high in the sky that day, divine warrior-maidens who picked the strongest of fallen warriors and brought them to Freyja and Odinn. The heath was littered with prospects on this day.

The smell of blood was foul and sweet and intoxicating. The air was thick with clanking of axes, the loud thudding of shields blocking deadly blows. Grunts, shouting, someone screaming loudly, and the wet gargle of someone drowning in their own blood at Eira’s feet. A javelin was singing through the air. The woman to Eira’s left did not duck fast enough as it pierced her layered woolen tunics and threw her on the ground. The dead woman had afforded herself only a helmet, but it had not helped her. Eira thanked the Gods for the spoils of previous battles, as she moved fast through the crowd, protected but unhindered by her leather vest.

Where Gorm had found all those berserkers, she did not know. They were wild warriors wearing bearskins and driven by Odinn’s bloodrush to perform carnage unlike anything Eira had seen before. It was clear that the Danir King’s first and foremost goal was to strike fear in the entire land of the Sviar. The concise, well thought out formations and shield wall advancements Eira knew from Geir’s leadership style in smaller battles were nowhere to be found on the heath that day. The berserkers were awful beasts. They screamed as they advanced, their voices deep and growling, their minds not in this world any more. Like vølur performing rituals, their eyes were blankly floating in another realm, but their flailing arms and fast feet had a presence, a divine knowing of where to strike, that couldn’t be learned. Eira understood now why people said that berserkers were said to be blessed with Odinn’s seiðr, because they were not of this world.

The Danir were gaining ground, moving forward through the hordes, one foe at a time. They moved more collectively, shoulder by shoulder, suffocating the scattered opposition. In a fleeting moment of air in their advance, Eira took in the scene around her. Geir’s enormous person cleaved the way ahead, wielding an axe that most people would not even be able to carry. On his flank was Magnus, as always, never leaving the great Thorian warrior’s back open. To her right stood a Danir warrior with an exceptional sword, a great feat of iron which was rarely found in the ranks of the common men, who mostly wielded axes and spears. The warrior was uncommonly unscathed for someone who had fought alongside them for hours. Wiping blood off her own brow, Eira did not know whether to respect him or disdain him. He must be either an exceptional fighter, or an exceptionally cowardly one, to look untouched on the seventh hour of fighting. 

Her eyes shifted back to the Geat in front of her, knowing a wandering eye on the battlefield could mean death in seconds. Her enemy had made that exact mistake, and Eira charged at him, shield first, smashing his helmet to his brow, her axe whispering through the air before it reached the soft tissue of his chest. When she looked up again, the unscathed warrior had disappeared from the brigade. Maybe his fate had finally caught up with him.

It was chaos, but it was somehow effective - each side fought with awestruck inspiration in a way that made blood rush to Eira’s ear and left a slight smile on her face as she placed her axe between a young man’s eyes. This was the way to live, and this was the way to die. There was a unison in knowing that. It transversed Danir or Sviar, enemy or foe. Drunken on the bloodshed, every warrior on the heath that day felt that they were fighting for a spot in Freyja’s hall Folkvangr, or Odinn’s hall Valhalla, and each enemy was but an aide on the way to that glorious afterlife.

That, of course, was not the whole truth. They were not there to enter Valhalla in a fury of blood and glory, but because King Gorm had a self-serving vision, in which he ruled over all the men of the northern lands. He was more than willing to sacrifice the lot of them to make it happen. Eira had not seen the famed Gorm, did not know the face of the man she was fighting for. Ingmar, Thorstein and the other jarls, who had travelled north with them on their grandiose longships, were also nowhere to be seen. But all of this was easy to forget in the overwhelming confusion and roar of adrenaline.

Maybe the stark absence of their own noble rulers was the reason something across the battlefield stood out so boldly, distracting her momentarily from the life and death scene unfolding in front of her. Far across, in another battalion of warriors, stood a man in the midst of the common men, who looked anything but common. Strong, swift and frightening, the man towered over his surroundings. Wielding a highly adorned iron sword, and clad in a hauberk the like of which Eira had rarely seen on the battlefield of commoners. His presence stopped her in her tracks. This man was not supposed to be on this heath. Had the Geats made the unlikely move of unleashing a high ranking magick wielder on the commoners?

Something caught in her throat, harsh and violent. Maybe her body knew before her brain that she had made a fatal mistake. She did not see the Geat before he was above her, planting his axe deeply into Eira’s clavicle with a squelch and a crunch. Hard and precise. A perfect blow, her leather armor helpless against it. Eira fell to her knees, her eyes wild as she tried to orient herself. The sky was gray, harsh above her. The ground was cold. The air sang with clangs of iron on wood. Thunder, or maybe the waves of a stormy ocean, welled up in her ears.

In seconds she was soaked by thick, warm liquid, each pulse drawing out her lifeforce. She began to whisper, desperately, the only prayer of galdr she could think of for strength to face what was coming. Give heed!  For I did not creep behind a shield. For I lived sworn as a blade of the Æsir. By Tyr! Ask first Eir for mercy…  Her voice failed her, and the forcefulness required of galdr was just a croak that eventually waned. She had never tried dying before, but knew this must be what it felt like. The hands of Skuld grabbed her, cold palms twisting her heart. She was thrashing, looking for a way to wield off the enemies closing in on her to deal the final blow. If she could only muster a swing of her arm, a signal for help. Something. Anything. 

In a crack of fire, the air around her seemed to explode. It was like the spark of a blacksmith’s hammer on the forge, but booming loud and forceful. The Geat towering above her flew through the air, as if grabbed by an invisible valkyrie. An exclaim of pure shock and fear escaped from someone close to her as they were propelled through the air. From the corner of her eyes, she saw other people land with hard thumps on the earth around her. Unmoving. She wanted to look for the source, to understand the change in the air, but she could not turn her head. She thought she might have lost the last of her life’s blood. The pain dulled, but it did not vanish. Skuld’s hands loosened as the gaping feeling in her chest dissipated. Two ravens circled above her in the sky and she knew surely, with Odinn watching, that this was it.

…

When she woke, she felt like she had not existed in months. There was a pressure on her chest. She knew Geir was somewhere by her shoulder, and she told him the last thing she had thought of before she had closed her eyes, eons ago: That this was it. She felt like he ought to know that she was leaving him. But instead of Geir’s face, she saw another person lean over her. Light blue eyes, dark hair. Someone she recognised faintly, a resemblance of someone she had only seen briefly the battlefield. An unscathed warrior with a great sword. But she couldn’t stop herself from leaning backwards into the shadows, a swooping feeling in her stomach of falling into a void, as everything disappeared around her.

…

A stabbing pain from her throat and chest jolted through her, telling her it had not been a dream. Was she home? She couldn’t be. Her bed was moving. The sharp herbal scent of yarrow and comfrey poultice rose from just below her nose, stinging her and overwhelming her senses. It smelled like Unn’s hands. The wet dressing on her clavicle was a cooling contrast to her burning skin. 

She listened to the sounds around her for a while before they began to make sense to her. She heard the waves first. The chatter and clanks, thumps and scuffling of people around her. Then, seagulls. They must be close to shore. Slowly, as if the muscles around her eyes had weakened completely, she blinked her eyes open. The sky above her was a light wash of grey with streaks of blue peeking through, a smatter of fluffy clouds dappled across. It must be the early hours of the morning, Sól not having ridden onto the sky in her chariot yet. Eira’s bed swayed gently up and down. If it was not for the pain, she might think she was flying. She blinked a long, slow blink, trying to lift a cloud from her mind. When she opened her eyes again, Geir’s grey eyes were staring down at her, a frown on his face, his ginger hair falling wild and uncombed towards her.

He did not say anything for a long time. She was not sure if her sense of time was off, or if he was really just standing there, inspecting her. Eventually, he reached for something at her side, pulling out and opening a small leather pouch. “‘Reckon you’ll want this” he mumbled gruffly, stuffing small pieces of willow bark into her mouth. She did not fight it. 

Her jaw felt slack, but she chewed meekly anyway. At least the stiffness of tetanus had not set in her jaw. The bitterness of the bark made her wince. The line between Geir’s brow deepened. He still had not spoken, and it was unnerving. He was a thinker, yes, when it came to strategy and the ways of the world, but words always came easy to him and he was never quiet for long.

“What…” she began, her voice hoarse like grainy sand. He turned his head stiffly, holding out a large palm to cut her off. He knew what she wanted to ask, and he did not want to answer.

Morning Mists

(c) gif by riverwindphotography

Annie Stegg Gerard (@anniestegg)

📷: terez_ses

John Bauer.

Albrecht Dürer, Painting of a slice of agate, c. 1492

Bramble: The Mountain King (2023) | Skogsrå, 'The Mistress of the Forest'

"She was a shapeshifter that mimicked what men wanted to see in order to lure them away. When they were close enough to touch her, she would transform into something monstrous. She'd rip their chests open, hang them up in the trees and draw strange powers from their still-beating hearts. No one would ever see those men again…"

Friendly friends

This is one of my favorite paintings I've done.

These are Huldra or Hulderfolk from Scandinavian folklore. Hulderfolk are seductive forest spirits and their name translates loosely to "hidden" or "secret". They're said to look like normal women with the only difference being the hole in their back that resembles a hollowed tree and the long cow-like tail which they hide under their skirts. If you encounter a Huldra and treat her with respect, she will be very helpful (sharing the best fishing spots or tending to your charcoal kiln), but mistreat her and the punishment will be severe (being beaten to death with her tail or taken into the mountains never to be seen again).