Bloodsnake and Battlewolf – the Botners of Jórvík

TheDeaconBosco: Many thanks! Very glad you’re still reading!

As for my first characters - that’s very true. The first Geirr was slightly hypocritical, I thought. It was a big thing for him to think of himself as true to the Hálfdanings, but when push came to shove he rose up against Dan Ragnarsson and then took his crown, over what amounted to a petty grudge over a slight from when they were children. You’re right that Bragi was a bit too much of an ideal ruler. This younger Gæirr, though, is more than a bit narrow-minded and pompous - and therefore quite a lot of fun to write!

The two situations with Geirr and Úlfhildr, and Bragi and Sigrid, were a bit different. At the time of his marriage to Úlfhildr, Geirr was little better than a common swain - a brand-new member of Hálfdan’s band, who had seen maybe a few battles but nothing major. But when Bragi took Sigrid as his mistress / common-law wife, he was the king of England and a great-grandson of Ívarr hinn Beinlausi through his grandmother.

Part of my having written that the way I did was gameplay-based, though: to explain in writing the -400 prestige hit Bragi took for marrying Sigrid.

Asantahene: As always, thank you very much!

Actually, this Gæirr started out with a martial skill of 8, and then got Wounded. As far as ambitions go, that one is easier than falling off a log!

Beladriel: You’ll have to wait until the next AAR instalment before I answer that question! ... Or at least lampshade it.

OOU, though, I found the prospect of writing about a wholly-fictional fish-out-of-water thrust early into Viking raids and running a stead a better basis for telling a story than starting with a well-established, historical character.


Eighty-One. Undertaking

‘You’re hatching something in that mind of yours,’ Fríða told her husband.

In the early spring of Gæirr’s fifth year as king, he and his wife had taken their son to the long-house on the lands of their kin outside Jórvík. Little Bragi, who was wont to toddle everywhere and seek out for himself every hidden nook and every dark edge of any room he happened to be in, now lay on his father and mother’s bed, his skin hot as though afire. Now he was snoozing, albeit fitfully; it was his father who was restless – though not wholly from his son’s illness; that, his wife was aware.

Gæirr’s ears flushed slightly, but he did not speak.

‘Well, that answers my fray,’ Fríða smiled thinly. ‘You don’t even want to tell me, your wife? You needn’t bother hiding it – you know I’ll find out anyway, no matter what you do.’

‘I haven’t even started making ready yet,’ Gæirr sighed. ‘But for the est of my kin I must do something. One deed mighty enough to blast open the doors of Valhöll to make me bekenned when at last I go to meet my fathers. One deed that my father and my son would be proud of.’

‘What? Was it not enough that you sent off your sister with a bride-price to make the dvergar green, to wed the King of the Svíar these weeks past?’ And then it struck her what Gæirr was thinking, and her roust took on an unmistakably angry edge. ‘And is it not enough that you stay at the side of our son? Our only son, Gæirr, is too weak to stir from his bed! And you will fare yourself off! Would he be proud of a man who could not stay near him in his illness?’

‘I have bidden the best of seiðkonur and healing-witches to his side, Ragnfríðr,’ Gæirr answered her coolly. ‘Don’t think my love for little Bragi wanting! For his sake also, this must be done.’

‘Is it truly?’ Fríða snarked. ‘And where is it you are hoping to do this mighty deed of yours, o stour King?’

~~~​

Gæirr and Fríða did have their strides between them, but they never sook each other long, and soon enough after he let her know where he would go í víking, how, and with how many men, she found herself ready enough to forgive him. To tell truth, Gæirr knew his wife as well, and knew that even if she sought no est from others, she still loved the est of the deed of might itself. In that, she was a true Dane indeed!

For many weeks, Gæirr shunned the Þing and kept rede only with his nearest hirðmenn, and spent his time at the wharfs making fast his longships for a long faring – and still not enough with his young son Bragi, so thought his wife till the end. Onboard went many sacks of bread and tuns of ale, and strips of dried flesh of fee and swine. Gæirr was still young, still full unbekenned of the likely wracks of such an undertaking, but he understood the end his father had met. The same would not befall him if all could be made ready the way he’d set it up!

‘I don’t like it at all,’ said his stívarðr.

‘You don’t have to like it, uncle Swærcir,’ Gæirr told him. ‘Only do as I bid, and see to it that all the fare-meats are ready when they are needed.’

‘The whole thing is a waste,’ Swærcir Steinsson warned. ‘You would do better to make your fastenings nearer to home.’

‘A good stívarðr ought to know,’ Gæirr said, ‘that no fastening worth making comes without its share of plight, Swærcir. You told me as much yourself, when you asked me for the stead which you now hold.’

‘Yes, but—what you are thinking… it’s…’

‘Breathtaking? Spellbinding? Utterly awesome?’ Bragi grinned at his uncle.

‘More like utterly mad,’ his uncle glowered. ‘Don’t get cocky, young Gæirr. Better men, older and wiser men than you, leading more men than you, have died seeking after what you are now hoping to do. The heleth Ólrekr Róstensson comes to mind, and you know what happened to him!’

Gæirr set his head to one side. ‘As the old skáld tells it, Ólrekr won. He got the gard he came for!’

‘That may be, but his gæfa ran out! He died in shipwreck, in a storm which rose as he was leaving.’

Gæirr laughed aloud, waving his stívarðr off. ‘Uncle Swærcir, luck is there to be taken to the full, and I tell you now – mine shall not run out. Not on this faring!’

~~~​

The weeks went by, and the docks at Jórvík waxed busier and busier with the flittings and rearings of armed men back and forth between the high hall and the docks. Gæirr had seen to all and had seen to it well – each of the wyrm-headed longships which sat in the docks had been overhauled and now shone as though all the woodwork were brand-new. The sails were freshly cut and gleamed white in the late spring sun. The weapons of his here all gleamed bright and keen, and the men themselves buzzed like bees in swarm. Soon they would be aboard those ships and ply their pine southward, out into the Ermarsund and around to the west. The few of them who knew where they were headed afterward, kept their lips sealed tight, though their own keenness for the seas and what lay beyond them spread like a low in dry straw. Even Kjartan Knútsson, having afterwent empty-handed from his ill-reded lode to the Krímskagi in the East, was not dampened in his mood and thus kept from wending out on yet another faring out to sea!

Gæirr himself could not help but worry. Not of any of the plights or the storms of the seas ahead, or of the battles that lay in store, but of how his riche would fare behind him. Already, he knew, the forereding af Lonborgs were busy hatching plots of their own. Long had the af Lonborgs wooded themselves under Bútnari rule, and Ose Ingadóttir was iwis to bid for the crown when he was off í víking. If she still did not bear a grudge against Bragi for killing her grandmother, and against Sigrid for killing her father, then she was no true Dane. It did not overrush Gæirr at all that she would shift her feet toward the throne in Jórvík when he was away.

Gæirr had seen his father often enough swat down jarlar and þegnar whose yearnings after might would make for unfrith if left to themselves. He took the young Ose aside for a few words, and that seemed to be an end of her plotting – for the time being, anyway. Still, he would have Guðrøðr keep his eyes on her in his stead.

All was made fast for the long faring. All Gæirr and his Vikings wanted now was a steady southerly wind, and they could set sail on their undertaking. When at last the day came at last, and a strong gust rose up from the north, Gæirr and his men sat around the dock and shared a single bowl of water, together washing their cheeks and brows, and together grooming their beards, and thus all were made one aught, brothers in arms: Dane and Angle and Briton. Only then did they take to their ships and shove off from the English shores – for many of them, maybe for the last time.

All was heady glee, all were high souls and soaring rousts as they set off, and they sang songs of raids and fights long past, and of the mighty one yet to come. And when one of the Britar who yet wit not whither they were bound was overheard by the king, where indeed they were bound in these forty ships of theirs, Bragi turned to the black-bearded karl and gave him a toothy, drightly grin.

‘Rómaborg.’

Asantahene: 'Cheeky', I believe, happens to be this Gæirr’s middle name!

netrom10: Very glad to have you onboard! And I will of course be sure to check out your Jutlandish Saga when I get the chance.

Hannibal X: Got it in one! Given that the Goths do feature somewhat prominently in Old Norse storytelling, I figured they wouldn’t have been unaware of the 410 sack of Rome.

Nikolai: Unfortunately for the Romans it didn't quite work out that way...

GulMacet: It was a rush, that was for sure!

Anyway, as far as the story goes I thought I would take a slightly different tack this time around and try out a history-book / primary-sourced style. This is probably just a one-off. I just wanted to try it out in several different voices before I move onto the next instalment of this AAR, and see if my writing is suited to it. Please do let me know what you think of this one!


An excerpt from the Chronicles of Egypt under the Sons of Ahmad ibn Tūlūn, written by ‘Amrū ibn Hamdūn ibn ‘Abd-al-Wāhid ibn al-Jattāb of al-‘Andalus, court historian for Hajjī Khumārawayh ibn al-Hamad ibn Tūlūn, Sultān of Egypt

… It was in the first days of Safar, in the year of the Hijrah 369, when the hateful red-bearded Majūsī landed on our shores and brought many disasters upon the long-suffering believers. Those who do well whilst living piously will always attract the eyes of the greedy and the envious, and here also this was the case. They landed on the shore outside Bouna, and at once began despoiling the lands around it. Like wild animals they leapt upon even the innocents, took the able-bodied amongst them onto their ships, and slaughtered the rest who could not flee. Those who did flee made their way into the wilderness – may Almighty God have protected them! – or they came unhappily unto Bouna, as they did in such droves that no more than a week had passed before every street in the great city was overrun, and men and women alike slept under eaves or in watering-troughs.

The Majūsī, who worship all manner of idols and openly blaspheme the One, raised up a great racket with their spears and their shields, and demanded that the believers of Bouna surrender the city to them, and that if they did so, they would keep our lives. The faithless words of the idolaters are never to be believed, however, and knowing this, valiantly the guards at Bouna put up a long struggle against them.

One tale from Bouna at this time goes thus, which I have on good account from no less than three i-Mazighi traders who managed to flee the city before it fell. One captain of the wall guard of Bouna, an elderly man named al-Fadl, was entreated by his fellows to sup first, for they respected his years and rank, and wanted him first of all to be well-fed and at ease. But each time he was invited to eat, al-Fadl declined. Again and again this happened, and the other guardsmen grew more and more upset and perplexed at his stubbornness. Over and over they approached him, until at last he rebuked them all:

‘Away from me at once! The Majūsī are at the walls, and the i-Mazighi are within, and our meat and drink are running low. It is pleasing to God that I abstain in these days so that you my children, who are stronger and more fit to fight off the mušrikūn who threaten us, may sustain yourselves while we wait for help, and so that the poor men of city and country may be fed. The will of the Almighty is that justice be done!’

So spoke al-Fadl, and so towering was his piety before the One that none of the other guardsmen dared to contradict him. Always they left his seat of honour open and a full meal set before it, but for two weeks he would not touch it. Only when one believing ship-captain from Tūnis, with bravery and with the help of the Almighty, guided his ship into the docks at Bouna with fresh supplies and food, did al-Fadl again touch meat or drink.

But the cruel Majūsī would be moved neither by reason nor by appeals to mercy, and they stormed the walls on the 25th of Sha’aban in the same year. Al-Fadl and all the other guardsmen fought them off as best they could, and killed a great many of the hateful infidel, but were in the end met with martyrdom at their hands. When the last of the martyrs of Islām at Bouna were thus despatched, they overturned the city’s street stalls, pilfered every silver dirham they could, and set fire to many houses in their bottomless avarice. Almighty God is to be thanked that the havoc they wreaked when they took the city was not worse, for they struck and left it in great haste, moving onto El Tarif and Sūq Ahras before they boarded their ships and sailed off. Though the armies of our mighty Sultān regrettably arrived too late for the sake of Bouna, the prayers of the faithful prevailed, and they did not strike again further east, but rather struck northward against other wealthy cities in the Bahr al-Rūm.

A letter from Theofredus, Captain of the Guard of His Holiness Paschalis PP. III, to Atto Davides Rex of Langobardia, dated 10 June, Anno Domini 981

To the Most Excellent and Eminent Atto, August Emperor of the Langobards, of the Ligurians and of the Tuscans, and our dear friend and brother in Our Lord Jesus Christ,

I implore you with every tender and fervent appeal to your most kind and righteous heart, swayed in the noble mercy so loved by Our Lord by the appeals of even the meanest member of your own glorious kingdom, now to come to our aid. We find ourselves still most cruelly besieged by the foul barbarian hordes of the English chieftain Garius, whose wicked avarices and lusts know no right or civilised bounds.

The fiends – for they are hardly fit to be called men – landed first in secret just by the village of Ostia, and there thieved from the countryside every pound of horseflesh they could lay hand on, before they rode suddenly into Ostia and set to their devilish works according to their barbarous customs, burning it to the ground. Garius has left a trail of ashes and slaughtered bodies all the way up the Tiber, thieving with total abandon everything of worth his men could lay hold of.

It is loathsome for me even to think upon, let alone put it into writing – and it grieves me yet further to trouble your most noble mind with the sufferings of our people, but your august Majesty must understand the urgency of our situation. There is not one corner of our beloved City, the throne of Blessed Apostle Peter himself, which does not echo with the wails of orphaned children and grieving widows. Unchecked, for the pagans have denied our beautiful city all access even to fodder for our animals, and murdered the soldiers who dared resist, they strip the heart of our ancient city itself of every last strip of silver, every precious stone, every scrap of bronze.

Throughout our streets, they parade with their carved wooden idols of the devils they worship, and burn our livestock in their hideous rituals. Every time they see a holy house of God in our fair city, they smash its doors and windows, scale its walls, topple its crucifixes, deface and desecrate its statuaries, murder the priest and deacons, and thieve even the consecrated host in its vessel, before setting the sanctuary alight – I can hardly bring myself to describe it to you in writing without bursting in outrage. Do not doubt, either, that Our Lord in Heaven hears the cries of the young and blameless daughters of Rome, whose modesty and chastity the barbarians have shamed in the most public, most violent and unnatural ways! Or of the men both young and old they have likewise injured after the manner of the Sodomites, and forced to aid them in their crimes! Though more still, should Garius endeavour to breach the Leonine Wall behind which so many of the innocent lambs of His Holiness’s flock have sought refuge, may yet bear the same fate…

In the name of Christ, dearest and most august Atto, as a brother, as a fellow-soldier in faith, as a neighbor whose justice and mercy are so rightly famed throughout Christendom – again I beg of you, raise your men and march to our help! Aid us in driving this English pestilence back into the foam of the sea from whence it came, for the salvation of all our souls!

An excerpt from Peder af Langtopt’s Chronographeia

The vernacular verse historical work, the Chronographeia of stavropegial monk and chronicler Peder af Langtopt, is notable amongst the histories of the Five Heathen Kings of England for some highly critical treatment of the raids these kings undertook both in Scotland and on the continent, missing even in earlier Orthodox authorities’ accounts. Here is one example, from his treatment of Gæirr II’s infamous sack of Rome in 981 AD:

‘Hvornár Ger han for Romborgs strendær sætt,
Fyl blodig in hans hedinn stolthed rætt,
Han fœrste þen an Numid’r skyr y-grept
Ær pá þet Tibrens bakkær siþþen svept.
Og sá á Sardinærœ ornt’ hans sidst
Fæl værk af morþ og þyveri æmidst.
Stor hobbær guld og sœlver fatt’ tilbag’,
Þet likær Ænglalœnd dá aldrig ság!
Men hvo veþal rettvis var ænskær kyng,
Hvornár gjort þesar ekkers-tárern bryng?
Trág œl þen hallern Ængl’ets myrgel var,
Midjordærhavets hverig strond stœn’t sár.’

‘When Gæirr unto the Roman strands set sail,
Full bloody in his heathen pride affirmed,
He first attacked the shore of Barbary,
Before upon the Tiber’s banks he swept.
And in Sardinia’s midst thereon he wrought
His last grim work of death and thievery.
Great heaps of gold and silver brought he back,
The like of which England had never seen!
But just how righteous was this English king,
When to these widows’ eyes he brought such tears?
While all the Angles’ halls were merry made,
The Middle Ocean’s every strand groaned sore.’

A very merry Christmas and Yuletide to you all, and many thanks for the feedback, everyone!

GulMacet: I was thinking that was more to do with Gæirr being from England than him being ethnically English. Though he is that, too, at least in part. At this point, the Danish and the English have lived together for over 100 years, and as Sigrid pointed out they even speak a similar tongue now.

TheDeaconBosco: Wow, your father was born in Annabah? Or El Tarif or Suq Ahras? That's cool!

As far as how a Portuguese dynasty ended up on the Italian throne - I’ll have to go back and get a look at the save-game. Italy has been kicking back and forth between the Karlings and their rivals for a few generations now; I took a look at the title history tab and it seems a single dynasty can never control it for more than two generations... I’ll let you and Hannibal X know what I find out, though!

Gæirr is a bit of a prig, indeed. But he does have those generous and just traits, so I wouldn’t write him off just yet!

Hannibal X and netrom10: Oh, yes. That’s being foreshadowed a bit too heavily, I think!

Nikolai: Don’t worry - this one really was just a one-off, I think. I may revisit the history-book / primary-source collage format once I’m done with this AAR, though. Narratives are fun, but they are really involving!

Asantahene: Along the same lines - yes, I do plan to do more in this style! But we still have another fifty or so years of life left in Bloodsnake and Battlewolf!

Again, everybody, many thanks for your feedback - it’s very greatly appreciated! And as a belated Gregorian Christmas / Boxing Day gift to you all, here’s chapter 82!


Eighty-Two. For the Fallen

The day of Gæirr’s afterwending to Jórvík from his faring in the Middle Sea was afterward yclept by the skáld the ‘day of two dawns’, and on good grounds. For the first sun rose in the east over the North Sea, and the second when the white sails of the dragon-headed fleet showed themselves sailing up the Ouse, laden so heavily with the fire of the seas and the frost of the floods, with gems and þrælar and with every thing of dear worth that the hulls of the ships were creaking under the weight, and they rode so low in the water that the shields of the oarsmen themselves were wet. Such heaps of wealth were there upon the ships, that it seemed under the sunlight that all Gæirr’s fleet was burning as though it were going down to a barrow.

Gæirr went down amongst the folk of Jórvík to a mighty roar from the throng. For he had stormed Rómborg from the sea, and before him the mightiest of the Christian gards had fallen into his grip. The whole of the world under the sway of Hvítakristr was brought trembling to its knees before him, helpless as he had ransacked their kirks and bore away their gold. He grinned and raised his arms, for the whole of the folk were hailing his name. A flood of gleaming frets filled the gate up to the hall, and drew after it all the townsfolk, such that the gestir had to keep the gates shut for fear that they would trample each other to death. Gæirr was known for his open hand, and of these new takings much would come flowing back out of the hall ere he was through!

Gæirr made his way up to the high seat, where his wife and son awaited him. He took them each in his arms and kissed them both, ere he showed them the booty from this faring, the high fells of it which were being borne up by the men of Jórvík behind him. To each of his kinsmen and –women, starting with his nearest and dearest, he gave the first tale of gold and silver. Only his mother Sigrid looked on with worry – though it was her son coming home, hale and welcome, she had no eye to the wealth he’d brought with him, only to the wild gleam in his eye. And well might a mother worry about that.

‘Friends,’ Gæirr roared to all those gathered. ‘Take as you will! The blessings of this faring are as much yours as they are mine! First to you, my hirðmenn – take your share and freely!’

So much was there that every man and woman in the great throng in the hall had in hand some glimmering fret or mints of silver and gold, yet the mighty fells of gold and silver stood as before, as though none of them had drawn near at all. Gæirr then began giving second shares, and thirds, and at last the fells were whittled down before them.

Gæirr and his men then took up a symbel and as they drank toast after toast to the gods and to each other, they began to tell tales to the rest of the hall of the fights they’d fought, of brave foemen who had striven mightily against them, of the frempt sights and shores they’d seen, of the women who had kept their farings merry. And when the horn came back to him and he had drunk deeply enough of it, Gæirr amongst them boasted loudest of all, as well he might. Though with his wife standing on and filling the horn for him and his bold fellow-drings, wisely Gæirr did not speak of any women he might have had on those strands far from home. Though she might not have minded, for he had brought none back with him!

However, the mother of the king had left the hall, and when Gæirr was free, he followed.

‘Mother? Why have you come out of the hall?’ asked her son.

‘You might have dazzled the kirtisveinar in there with that outstall of yours, but I’ll have no truck with it. Your father would never have made so much of himself as you do!’

‘Father is no longer King in England – I am,’ Gæirr griped. ‘And do you tell me, mother, that your husband didn’t go on raids himself? Or that he didn’t bring back wealth to you? Or that he didn’t earn his name from his deeds abroad?’

‘All that he did,’ Sigrid answered. ‘But all that was the lesser tale. What he did with it was not for his own sake, or for his own name. It was for yours and mine, and it was for the good of the kingdom.’

‘And what I am doing is not?’ Gæirr frayed her stiffly.

‘Had you ever given thought, Gæirr, that this kingdom you have, you owe in whole to the forethought and wisdom of your father? Had you ever borne it in your mind, that your ransack of Rómborg could not have happened, had Bragi not warned you of the forerede of the jarlar of the Austr-Englar, the Morkfolk and of Heimtún and Bedufjörðr? That like as not, your lands would have split apart and burst at its seams, and a worse end befallen you?’

Gæirr scet his kin highly – or so he had thought of himself. But his mother’s words stung him.

‘I don’t need you, mother, to set me in mind of what Father has done. I shall do as I must.’

‘Will you, indeed?’ Sigrid crossed her arms. ‘Then do as a son ought.’

~~~​

Gæirr could be a very stubborn man, but his mother knew she could sway him. The Konung set aside two hundred merkur of gold under his mother’s rede. These he brought into Jórvík, where he had bought the longest slab of sheer white stone that could be found, and had it set upright in the midst of a lea just outside Jórvík. All would see that this was the stone of Bragi the True, raised by his son. All would see the est which Gæirr had rightly given to his father.

Sigrid, in truth, took more upon herself in righting the stone and having the runes cut upon it than her son did – and often were the times when she hid her eyes from all who came near her, for it seemed they had tears in them always. Sorely, even as a fighter misses a hand or a leg, did she miss her Bragi. She would never hear of going over any other man’s threshold, though as the mother of the king with her looks still upon her she was sought by some of the older jarlar.

‘Do you seek my mother?’ asked Gæirr of the latest ysent.

‘No, indeed,’ the kirtisvein spoke. ‘It’s you I seek, Gæirr King. You must know that this lea and the walds around it are the lands of my lord Holta-Guþfast. If you want to right a stone upon them, you must either buy them from him or speak cheap with him for their hire.’

Gæirr laughed aloud. ‘All these you see about you – these are the King’s Walds. I have every right to raise a stone here. Go back to your Holta-Guþfast and talk sense to him, if he has any.’

The kirtisvein was not happy, but he did look ashamed of himself – he knew, truly, that the King he’d been sent to had the rights he bespoke. Without a word he went back the way he’d come. But a second svein from Holta-Guþfast came the next day, and then a third the following. Gæirr was irked, and for a short time he thought on sending the next kirtisvein back to Holta-Guþfast with his hat nailed fast to his scalp. But Holta-Guþfast was known to Eilífr Birghirsson, who told Gæirr that the odd jarl had a markworthy liking for the blossoms of the wold.

‘Fríða,’ he asked his wife, ‘don’t we still have some well-grown sun-eye roses in that lea near Steinnhof? I shall send this Holta-Guþfast a few cuttings from those – see if that sweetens his mood.’

‘We do indeed. Well-thought, my king,’ Fríða told her husband with a grin. ‘You’re learning fast!’

The sun-eyes were met well. From that tide forward, the work of the stone-workers and the rune-master Gæirr and Sigrid had hired to cut the runes went unhindered either by Holta-Guþfast or his sveinar. The stone that was raised to Bragi’s name was the mightiest of its kind to be seen anywhere in Britain or in Ireland, and Sigrid had seen to it that the words of her songs to him were truly struck fast into the stone. The shapes of ships and hests and heres, of spears and shields striking and breaking, were all starkly hewn and hued between them. When at last it was raised in earnest, the whole of Gæirr’s hirð stood around and drank their mead in its shadow, ere Sigrid teemed one full horn of the sweet drink out upon the ground before it. And then she knelt down before the stone and wept, loudly and fully, her tears mingling in the cold ground with the blót she had given.

~~~

While in the cold, grim northern seas the men of Eiríkr Þórvaldsson had found a new land – the tales of whose sweet green fields were drawing many Danes and Norræne men to fare boldly across the western waves there to build a new life – Gæirr kept himself busy even after his undertakings. For his own name having raided Rómborg, and for his father having raised a stone, for his kingdom he gave the following for all to hear at the Þing, every Angle and Danish karl of them.

‘My friends – some of you, my brothers in arms – the strides which you bring onto these grounds, finding no settling amongst yourselves, have sorrowed me mightily. To lighten your burdens and mine, I have spoken with the lögsögumaðr and with the goðar and gyðjur of the riche, and together we have borrowed from the sides of the Englar and from the reckoning-ways of both the Danes and the Greeks, to make a new crib of reckoning. From this day forward, to have any standing in law, all tales shall be reckoned either in their full right wording on any errand-writs or writs of business, or in this new crib taking one Angle rune, each to betoken one tale only. In the middles of the town turghs of Jórvík, of Dunholm, of Lonborg and of Tíshlið shall be righted in stone the reckoning-ken. From this day forward, Þórr willing, all cheap done within the marches of this kingdom shall be done in a fair and rightwise way! Within this law, let no man fear to come before me, that his right may be given him!’

All was done as Gæirr had spoken. Slabs of stone cut with the shapes of Mjølnir, the Hammer of Þórr Ettinbane, and the runes of Sigrid’s writing meant for the reckonings of gold and goods written beneath them, were set up in every turgh of every market-town in England. From then on, it became sheerer under the law to tell who was right in any given stride, and who was wrong.

Through all of this, the king himself for all his works in the name of fairness came to be yclept amongst the karlar of the towns, Gæirr hinn Réttláti, or Gæirr the Rightwise. The byname brought a sheer gleam to the king’s eye, and a haughty straightness to his back whenever he heard it – but indeed it had been earned, for by the strivings of his mother and his wife, better was he able to hear the karlar of his riche, that he might do right by them.