Image by Óscar CR from Pixabay
When Lif was late in boyhood, near to coming of age in his Viking village, it was decided by his grandfather Erik the Grey, leader of his clan, famous Viking captain whose word to his own was held as second only to Odin, king of the Norse gods:
“Lif has the heart of the greatest of warriors, but the stature and mind of a shipbuilder, and so shall he be.”
And so Lif faithfully was at age 31, making the strong ships that his people traveled on to their adventures at sea to provide for the village. He had designed the ships on which his own grandfather and father would take their final journeys to battle, and to Valhalla. He was respected by the warriors and also by his fellow builders, and all was as well as it could be for a Viking man whose fate was milder than to sit after his first life was finished in Valhalla to await Ragnarok.
Or so Lif thought until the late winter before his 32nd birthday.
The day of his vision was as ordinary as any winter day could be; on quiet days he went up into the forests to see what trees should soon be cut, or to the docks to see which ships should be decommissioned and the parts that could be salvaged repurposed into new ships, for as soon as the icebergs ceased their regular journeys, the Vikings would be out seeking resources … for spring and summer were brief, and time was always short.
On this day Lif had been happy in the forest, in a light snow … many trees had come to their full age and were ready to make strong ships, and before long he would direct his logging team to go fetch them out. He came home to his wife Lifthasir well-pleased, and she had for him his favorite stew, skyr, and the fragrant bread of the late winter with pine bark added to the flours of oat and rye. Their five children were well-fed and happy as well, and they liked pine needle tea while their father had his stein of strong, sweet mead.
It was winter, and every body counted; Lif's five children still slept not far from the bed in which they had been made, and there was a good fire going. Lifthrasir was a tall and ample woman – the joke was that Lif had gotten him a regular Brunhilda of a mate that many a warrior envied. But in reality, that too had been decided while Lif was a child; his grandfather had selected Lifthrasir's family because they were large both in stature and in mind, so that Lif's children would be both warrior-sized and building-minded.
But the main thing was that Lif's bed could never be cold with his wife in it, and she liked cuddling in the winter as well as she liked all that had gone into rapturously making their five children. So, all was warm and well, and the last thing Lif expected was to open his eyes in Valhalla – but so he did.
For ambience...
There was no mistaking Valhalla if you were as devout as Lif was, any more than later descendants of his in the Christian period of Northern European life would fail to know Heaven when they reached it – the great palace was far larger and grander than Lif could have imagined, but by that alone he knew where he was, because spear shafts and shields could only be built up so well in regular life. He built houses also, so he understood how mortal hands never could have made such a place. Seeing the insignia of the shields of his ancestors back and back to the beginning of recorded Norse history above him was only added confirmation.
It was feast time – Lif could smell the everlasting boar roasting, and the onions, turnips, leeks – and the warriors coming through the doors wounded but laughing as they healed yet again. Another good day of training for them – and he knew many of them.
“Welcome home, Lif!” one of them said as he passed by.
“But how?” said Lif to no one and everyone in particular. “I am a son and grandson of warriors, but I am small in stature and merely a shipbuilder. All I did today was assess some trees!”
Then he heard a great laugh, and saw the figure of his grandfather Erik, smiling at him – the great captain whose deeds were still told in Viking halls with pride and in the lands of their enemies with terror.
“Come in, Lif – come and dine first, and then I shall show you how you will attain your seat with your father and me!”
Then Lif realized he was in a vision, granted him by powers greater than himself … but Valhalla was no place to show fear, so he walked forward boldly into Erik's embrace.
“You are still small,” Erik said, “but you are good and strong, and you were always brave – and chosen, Lif!”
No man of the North refused a second good dinner in a day, and indeed, this was a feast. Every day Lif felt like his wife did his best to give him a taste of Valhalla, and his perception turned out to be correct, only there was so much more and better – no end to the boar, the onions, the turnips, the bread, and the ale, the mead, the buttermilk, and fresh fruit – in the winter, who ever heard of such grapes, and pears, and apples? But this was Valhalla, every day – and Lif marveled that he was there, laughing and talking and drinking with many old friends and relatives who were as delighted to see him as they had been on Earth.
The night in Valhalla was for storytelling among the warriors, and nearly all those stories were of the past. Lif longed to hear stories from his father and grandfather's past, for there had never been enough time for that in life, but –.
“When you come home, my son, we have until Ragnorök for stories,” father Leif said to his son Lif “but there is not time for that on this your visit.”
Behind them, the figure of Erik loomed, a grave expression on his face as he reached his hand out to Lif.
“Come with me,” he ordered, and Lif obeyed, following his grandfather to an empty hall where there was a wall with a strange window – it was clear, but it seemed that the whole earth below was passing beneath it, rotating by.
“When you were a child,” the old warrior said, “do you remember hearing what your father and uncles heard from me about Ragnorök?”
“Yes, Grandfather, I do – you said that men should worry less about the end of the whole world and be vigilant, for the world does not need to end for all that we love to be ended.”
“There was a reason then for that,” Erik said, “and that reason has grown mightier since.
“You know that there is one law among our people, Lif – from all others we take what we need and if they dare withhold what we desire they must die, but among our own, we hold together all things that are ours.”
“Yes, Grandfather, it is the law of home and hearth and kindred.”
“The law has been broken in your village, broken with such impudence that it has come up to Odin's throne for judgment, and judgment has been rendered. By the spring of next year, your community and all that it has is planned to be sold for mere chattel to outlanders.”
“What?” Lif said. “Who would dare so such a thing – who among us has done such treachery?”
“Those who have done business with powers mightier than you or any mortal warrior could face, powers with great bewitching magic that will cast forth the spring of a false sun, by which all ships thus guided will be lost, and so the power of our clan broken.”
“I will go fight them anyhow – for my wife and my family to live, I'll fight whoever I need to fight!”
“Ah, indeed, the heart of a brave warrior is in you, but that is not Odin's command for you.”
Lif quieted down immediately, for above even the voice of Erik, the voice of Odin was to be obeyed.
“None of what is planned shall ever be. Odin will not have it, and the Aesir stand as one against it – however, not until Ragnorök will your portion of the world face so severe a trial, so you are to build the ships by which the faithful and the loyal are to go to a new land that Freyja herself is preparing for you.”
“We are all going to Fólkvangr?”
“No, for it is not at this time the will of the gods that you die – but it shall be a place for you to start anew, a new community in which there shall be freedom and peace and prosperity, into which the traitors shall never enter.”
Erik stood and approached the window.
“It is not given to mortal man to see the future in general,” he said, “but if three speak for him, then he may.”
Lif then heard a chord such as mortal ears had never heard – “Three thus speak,” said Thor, Baldr, and Freyja together – and the window showed Odin plunging his spear into the earth and creating a fork in it, splitting it in two and drawing a new sea in between, and then casting down the false sun … and through a mist, ships sailing … ships with Lif's own distinct marks upon them, and before them, a land rising green and flowering in its spring from the mist.
“There are yet 13 full moons between you and this voyage, as there are 15 full moons between you and your 33rd year of life – and in that year, you shall be on that new green shore,” Erik said.
“But wait – how can this be? All the ships I will build this year are already spoken for – there are captains and voyages and all things made ready for the campaigns of the spring and summer!” Lif said.
Erik smiled, and for half a second, Lif noted that his hair glinted from iron-gray to pure, glorious white – but as strange as this whole thing was, Lif did not register the meaning of that at the time.
“I had you married to Lifthrasir,” Erik said, “that you might from time to time taste of Valhalla, and also have a hint of what Odin and Frejya enjoy in the matters of love and wisdom. Freyja has given your wife wisdom for a good reason – you next should tell her what you have seen.”
“But what if she doesn't believe me?”
“I had you married to her,” Erik said, “because I knew this day would come, and when it did, she would believe you. Have no fear, for the spirit of the warrior in you has also met the spirit of the shield-maiden in her – in the morning, you will find that she has been given the idea that you need, given 13 months to do so. All else we shall take care of from here.”
Valhalla was, after all, part of Asgard, the temple-fortress of the gods.
Erik touched the window again, and the scene changed to a couple asleep in bed – Lif saw himself cuddled up with his wife, her golden braids draping over his face..
“Return to your rest on Earth now, and sleep well, and have no fear,” Erik ordered. “Do as you are commanded, and all shall be as it has been decreed for you and for those who hear your word.”
“How shall I convince the people?” Lif said.
“The ones who are going with you shall come to you, for you are the building grandson of Erik the Grey. At that time, fear not and tell them the truth – by that time, they also shall sense the rising of the false sun, and shall help you make ready.”
“But what about those who are just … you know, stupid and slow to believe change, Grandfather? You know there are just some people who – you know what I mean?”
“When you were a child, what did the elders tell you about Odin's business?”
“The only part of his business that I need to know is what I am commanded to do in it.”
“Thus know that such people are Odin's business, and his decision to make. Your portion of his business has now been set before you, so go rest, for there are yet only 13 moons before all this must come to pass, and the time will not seem nearly long enough. Go now, Lif, and rest.”
Erik reached out his hand and touched Lif's forehead, and the next thing he knew, he was waking up in the pale dawn beside his wife Lifthrasir, to whom he said nothing about his vision that morning for he was due to go down to the docks and choose which ships were to be dismantled before that year's shipbuilding.
Yet Lif was not yet well on his way before a sudden, mighty blizzard blew up – everyone had to return home and wait that out, so the ship assessment would wait another day while Lif's conversation with his wife would not.
Lifthrasir and the children immediately embraced Lif when he came through the door – they had been frightened by the sudden violence of the storm and worried about him, and their combined warmth completely drove off the chill. So, with their little ones happily playing around them, Lif held Lifthrasir's hands and told him of the vision he had seen the night before.
“I believe you,” she said. “You would not tell such a lie in the hearing of the gods, and beside that, the truth you speak is whispered among the women as it is.”
“It is?” Lif said.
“I have not troubled you with it, for before today it might seem the tittering of the idle ones, but there is word that they here who give worship secretly to the death worm, Jörmungandr, are doing business with the Great Dragon of the eastern lands and preparing strong magic for the Winter Solstice, and seek to seduce and encircle all to serfdom and slavery. So, it is nervously said that we shall have a little Ragnorök of our very own, for it is known that Freyja and Hel agree this shall not be, and if those goddesses agree on anything, then surely Odin does as well.”
“You are right – I would not have taken you seriously before last night,” Lif said. “But now – how am I to build the ships over my allotment?”
“Tell me this – in the vision your grandfather showed you, how were the waters the ships sailed upon, and the winds?”
“Only enough to fill the sails, no more,” Lif said.
“Did it seem a long journey, Lif?”
“Not so very long, and a straight line.”
“Then instead of taking all of the ships apart that are no longer fit to carry our warriors on their long war journeys, instead put the best of them into the back work docks and let them be, and there you begin in having ships ready for next year.”
“It is well thought, Lifthrasir, and thank you.”
The next day Lif went about his yearly work with a light heart and clear mind – his business was set before him, and there was no need yet to explain anything but to do what was always done, for three good weeks.
Lif, Chief of Shipbuilders – thus he was known and respected upon his arrival among the docks, and it was said of him that he was like a mirror, for all honor given to him all men who heeded him reflected back to those men. He had no rivals in the trade, only partners and happy workers, all of whom knew they were going to eat well that day and for many to come, for as always to begin this season, Lif had a Viking sea king's feast prepared for all who were about the business, a feast to which many captains and warriors would come.
It was difficult for Lif to see how anything could possibly be wrong among the festivities … that year's feast was so warm and winsome it echoed his time in Valhalla, although instead of boar, they had fish.
And yet on came Stark with this word: “O Lif, I wish that you would spare a few of the better decommissioned ships – we may have need of them!”
It was the same hour in which Erik had showed Lif the window to the future … and Lif heard that Chord softly speaking out that he had heard then … and so listened carefully as he and Stark walked outside of Shipbuilder's Hall under the last of the winter's new moons.
More ambience...
Old Stark was not a kinsman to Lif officially, but he had sailed and fought beside Lif's grandfather Erik as a young man, and their two families were close.
“I have been wanting to speak with you of a grave matter since the autumn, but there was nothing to be said until all ships that were to come home were here, and we knew whom Aegir and Rán had kept back for themselves in their halls in the deep.”
Stark's one remaining eye glinted.
“Many families wept this year and cast their salt tears into Aegir and Rán's domains, but for every tear the never-filled sea has received, we will someday give thanks, for we have another year to work – enough of the enemies of our people within went to roll around the world with that worm they worship!
“There is a plot afoot, Lif, and it works by powers that should not have ever been united – there are those among us who have been seduced by the tales of those who live on the great inner lands and have their castles and their serfs living in pathetic poverty with no chance of excellence and glory, and even further east, to the lands of emperors called holy but are nothing like, and shahs and moguls – and they wish to bring this land under such a rule.”
“Never!” gritted Lif. “I care not who they traffic with among the jötunn loved by wicked men of all the world – though I am shorter in stature than Erik the Grey, and also not so broad as Leif the Brave, to my last breath will I fight this thing.”
“Lif,” Stark said gently, “you are a better man for this time than he who handles the sword, for the sword can lift no curse as this upon our land – it will be Thor with Mjölnir, and the rivers at his back, that must do this, for if there is a false sun in the sky, what shall there be but a southern-type storm on snow, and thus, a flood?”
“It is our Ragnorök, although not the Ragnorök,” Lif said, and shuddered.
“And long it has been in coming,” Stark said. “Your grandfather and my father knew it, and so did their fathers, and their fathers. Since Rome fell, this thought has been cherished among many – but if all who aspire to it have been thrown down, what else shall the end be here? But this wisdom has been hidden by greed from many eyes.”
“What about the common people – men such as are here with us? They have nothing to gain from such a scheme – how will they be suborned to this?”
“Who do you know, Lif, if they did not know what we know, who would not give up much for an earlier spring, and a warmer and longer spring and summer? Thus the false sun shall be received as a savior at first, until the motives behind it are known – but for those to whom the wisdom of freedom is too little, it will be too late.”
Lif shook his head.
“I hope we need many ships because the spirit of our people is strong enough to resist.”
“We shall see,” Stark said. “There is one more thing – we can trust Eddan among the elders, and he has seen a vision that fits here.”
Eddin was among the younger elders, about the age of Lif's oldest living uncle, brother of his father, and before long he also came out under the moon.
“Ten voyages ago, I was asleep on my ship, and I saw the upper deck removed and what I thought was an iceberg looming ahead – but it was not that but a mountain, bursting through the surface of the sea, covered in Aegir's fire which rolled down and grew the mountain in every direction. As morning came, a dove came and planted upon the cool new land a linden tree, and in that tree as it grew up, there came a swarm of bees to live there.”
Eddin looked both ways, and then pulled out a stone jar, of such bright stone as Lif had never before seen.
“When I awoke, this was on my captain's table, just as you see it, and inside was this.”
Eddin opened the jar, and from it came a fragrance that recalled to Lif both the smell of their local spring and the sweet, incomparable mead of Valhalla. It was honey, from the new land, tasting of minerals, the sea, and spring, all at once when Eddin shared a drop with both him and Stark.
“That is the honey of a land in which we shall have to work hard to make good for us,” Stark said, “but that is also rich enough to reward our efforts.”
“We are Norsemen – when have we ever asked for an easy time?” Eddin said, and laughed.
“Not when we were in our right minds, at least, and at right worship, Odin be praised!” Stark said.
Lif remembered then how his grandfather had died … often he said he had survived one too many battles, and thanked Odin for the attack on their kinsmen down the coast by a rival sea-faring nation. “For what Viking warrior wishes to die in bed!” he had said, and gone down to the ship his grandson had built for him, triumphed with his crew even in death, and sailed on to Valhalla as he wished.
Stark and Eddin were advancing in age, and Lif saw that they were glad for this time, and that they had a part to play in it … all that remained was that he, the young shipbuilder, not let them down. So, they three would “speak,” the one by his building, the other by his wisdom and knowledge of history, the other by the drops of honey from the new land to which they would go … to all that asked, they would merely tell the truth.
Spring came, 12 moons before the next one, and all seemed as it had always been. Lifthasir and the family moved down to the home Lif had built for them for shipbuilding season so they would not be so far apart, and so Lif's children played among those of warriors and captains and tested their skills and strength in play while the work went on – the regular decommissioning of older ships and the building of new ones as the sea slowly cleared of the barriers of ice and the time for new voyages approached.
It was at this time that Lif noticed the discontent among the people – a complaining he had not heard before, and thus dissension. This spring was beginning on the cold side, and harsh, and although of course for the women and children this was especially difficult, it was unmanly for Viking men to complain.
“We hate staying in for the winter – this is wonderful weather, even as it is, for the sun is coming back northward and it is so much brighter!” Lif's uncle Thurin said one day.
“We need earlier springs, and warmer – this is getting ridiculous now!” a cousin answered him, and by that, Lif knew that indeed the seduction of the common people had advanced a pace, even among his own kinsmen.
But none of this was yet serious; a lot of it was boredom and anxiety over being delayed, and it was resolved when at last the time of getting to sea came, delayed but not denied. Because of the delay, however, Lif found himself with one ship built more than was required for the spring, so he thanked Odin and put that ship back in the back docks with the solid short-trip ships he had spared from the previous year.
Spring went on to summer, and ships came home laden with goods – the Viking warriors had been successful thus far, and not a ship had been lost although some of the warriors had been taken, as the sacrifices always had to be made, to their appointed places with Odin, Frejya, or Aegir and Rán.
For the first time Lif also noticed something else that had been going on for about three generations; some brave captains came back with ships loaded with goods they had gotten from places in which nature itself yielded with no need for bloody combat – the voyages were further off, and had names such as Greenland, Iceland, New Vinland – but the point was, there were many, many good places to go, and from this, Lif took courage. He also decommissioned some of the ships that had taken the longest voyages, for one could see how greatly they had been battered, and put them in his reserve so he and those with him could reinforce them.
“For they shall see one more journey,” he said, and by this time, many were those who heard him who understood his meaning. It was observed by those of free mind: all goods obtained had been distributed fairly and freely as always among the people to appearances, but there were many becoming open in their resentment and wishing to make a difference.
Then it had been discovered that there was a group of leaders who had been subtly stealing from the people and had amassed great wealth to themselves – but in one night their treachery had been exposed and destroyed along with them, pierced by lightning and the point hammered home by thunder. An unheard-of-that-far-north dry thunderstorm had come over the location and turned it into a flaming ruin so bright that –
“It is almost like the rising of a second, false sun,” Eddin said.
It had been necessary for warriors and shield-maidens alike to form a bucket brigade to keep the flames from crossing the grass to the people's crops – the common people joined them in the struggle to bring water from the river to put out the flames, a struggle as brave as any that any Viking had ever fought to victory.
“And so only the river could quench the burning,” Lifthasir said to her husband. “This is Odin and Thor's last warning.”
Some received the warning; others as summer drew near its close became even more open in their greed and resentment, although no one else stole that Lif ever heard about. Others began to speak as if having such a fire in the sky would bring the spring sooner after the coming winter … the numbers were even enough by harvest time that Lif could see why the matter could not be fought out by mortals.
“Such a war among ourselves would leave nothing left,” he said to his wife. “In the spring if we fight and do not build ships and plant, the few who survive the coming winter will be overrun by the usual outlanders coming across the seas.”
The autumn remained warm for the same extra length of time that the spring had remained cold, so Lif built three extra ships that year, but only two were needed, so the third went into the reserve, and as the last of the year's ships came in at mid-autumn, he examined them and marked certain of them in advance, knowing that after even careful winter harboring, they would not be fit for another very long voyage. So he took them to his back docks in advance, and on the day the first shimmer of ice kissed the shore, he found that he had 50 ships in reserve.
Autumn was the time of preparation for winter harboring, including repair, and Lif was quite engaged in these matters with his fellows, but one evening when he came home he heard the Chord again gently sounding over his little children playing by the creek. The three largest ones had dug themselves a little pool, and the two littlest ones were taking out the dirt between that and the creek so the creek water could flow into the pool. All this was being done by hand, and it was slow, but definite, because the force of the water itself was beginning to take over.
Then Lif remembered … on one of his grandfather's maps, it showed that one of the great rivers was slowly moving to break out to the sea at a shorter route than it had kept formerly. Erik the Grey had redrawn that map personally because of the danger it posed to the back docks and the village should there ever be a great spring flood that breached the remaining land between the river and the sea there – not in his lifetime had it occurred, and not in his son's lifetime, but –
Lif's eldest child, Astrid, picked up a great flat stick at last, and shooed her littlest siblings away from where stones would cut their hands. Already at age eight, her father occasionally referred to her as “my little shield-maiden,” for there was a great deal of her great-grandfather, Erik the Grey, in her aspect and bearing. She looked like him with his spear as she raised the stick high and then plunged it into the earth, forcing it to fork so that the water from the creek could at last come through … and then her father remembered his vision of Odin, forking the land and bringing the sea through.
The next day Lif went to the river behind the back docks, and was shocked to see that the land between the river and the new outlet there would be to the sea was nearly gone. The rivers and the creeks were running low at this time of year, and so it would not be apparent to a passer-by what was happening, but – just as Lif looked, a little clod of dirt fell off from the remaining land barrier into the river. There was perhaps one more winter left for it, but if afterward the river ran strongly enough, or ice choked the river and it pushed hard on the land – or, of course, if it was cleaved asunder by Odin himself – indeed, the land would fork, and the back docks and the ships in them would be swept out to sea as the whole river changed course. So would at least half the village.
“There are but five full moons yet,” Lif said to his wife that evening, “and if I did not know that the time is so appointed, I would take you and ours from here today, for even without Odin's breach, that place will scarcely make it to the spring.”
“If we understand the message correctly about time is appointed, it may not – the first full moon of the spring will actually be seen on the last day of the winter,” Lifthasir said, and showed him the calendar. “But there are three days of the full moon, so it could be any of those days.”
“We shall be ready on the first – surely by that time, too, more people will see the need to be ready,” Lif said.
“Perhaps, and perhaps not, Lif. You only have 50 ships. It is Odin's business to fill them, but if you were meant to have more than 50, you would.”
Lif sighed.
“I know that you are telling me the truth, my wife. I hate to see what is happening, but as you remind me and I see in our own children, humans are human and cannot be strong in every way.”
More ambience
Husband and wife and little ones went with everyone else to see the “second sun” that rose after the Winter Solstice – the longest night of the year was indeed lit up as no night had ever been before, and the people were amazed by it.
“But the real sun does not smoke and smell strange,” baby Erik said softly to his father Lif.
“Of course, my son,” Lif said. “You see. So do I.”
So many captains and warriors were overjoyed – the spring melt would come sooner, their days at sea would be longer, their family's crops would grow – no one excited thus thought that the burning was polluting the ground and the strangeness would be taken up by those plants, or what the cost would be to keep the burning going – after all, they were not a rich people.
“So we will break down to fighting among ourselves, and seizing what we can to keep it going,” Stark said to the elders who were also seeing what he was seeing, “and meanwhile, our grounds will be poisoned even if this greater heat were not to melt the snow too soon. We must avoid breaking the one law of our people, even if we must start all over again.”
“It is important to waste no time arguing,” Eddin and others shared among the people. “Tell those that ask of the visions, and make ready, for we only have the winter to complete our preparations to leave.”
Lif said little to anyone but stayed about his work. Those who meant to go with him checked and double-checked the soundness of the ships, and then laid in what stores they could of their own winter supplies.
More ambience
By the mid-winter, one moon before the last, the majority of the community, filled with the promises of a future made brighter by a second sun, had chosen all that went with that. Lif stayed about his business at that time of year, selecting new trees and decommissioning older ships that had not come well through the winter harboring – and so, he came to 55 ships at last, all of which he needed because of a comment he made at the yearly feast: “The trees seem to insist there is still only one sun.”
Among Norsemen, that meant much, for all human life would come again after Ragnorök from the World Tree, Ydraggisil, so if the trees made in that image were insisting there was still only one sun, the second had to be false.
This was the tipping point – for the first time in living memory at the great shipbuilder's feast, an argument came to blows and swords, and it was as if Lif was again at Valhalla … except that the warriors who fell in this contest would not rise again. He looked up through the skylight, and in the daylight of the true sun, the 13th moon since the time of his vision at Valhalla was full was seen in daylight.
Lif made his way out of the shipbuilder's hall, as did those who knew what this meant – they went against the tide of those coming to the hall to fight fo their friends. Instead, they gathered their families, boarded the 55 ships, and waited as the sounds of fighting and battle overtook their village, slowly moving downward toward the water's edge... and the false light of that false sun crackled and stank as it was put up, lighting the way of this destruction.
Those in need of refuge came – frightened women and children -- and Lif boarded every one of them that came to the docks. Friends of his who had at first not believed that they had to turn from the false sun – captains brought their ships as well, and boarded more. But no one launched, for there was yet no wind – until midnight, at the vernal equinox, when the early full moon became, truly, the first moon of that spring.
Lightning, Odin's naked spear, flashed through the sky, and Mjölnir was heard – and then there was an crash as Thor knocked down the false sun into the great snow bank to the east of the village as his father's spear cleaved it from the top – then Mjölnir swung back among the clouds and they released their snow, heated by Odin's spear, as rain – and all that water and ice came rolling down the great river to the little land that remained in that place between the course of that river and the sea – and the lightning pierced it, the thunder hammered it home, and the river found its way to the sea there at last, completely changing course and driving the sides of the land apart, bearing up Lif's ships and pushing them straight out to sea.
Then the wind rose and filled the now 78 sails, and behind them, the tumult of the ice and water sent up a mist that mingled with the thunderstorm and rain, hiding all that was there behind except for the flashes of lightning. Every person that did not have to guide a tiller or work an oar was weeping, for fear or sorrow, until that was done, and before them, the full moon slowly went before them to the west, peeking through the mists on calm seas.
Lif, at the tiller of the ship his family was on, almost felt he was in a dream … the dream had reached down to the place where men like him lived. There was no way to steer but straightforward, through that long night, westward and southward as Eddin had marked on his own maps for the new land.
For that night, a day, another night, another day, and another night, the 78 ships sailed and rowed on in the mist, lashed together so they could not lose one another … light danced through a still, heavy mist during the day, and at night, the full moon came from behind them and then guided overhead. Lif lashed himself to the tiller, and as on the night of his vision he was set back to sleep, he was given the ability to not sleep and guide the people who trusted him, straight onward.
At dawn on the third day, the land seen by both Lif and Eddin in their voyages at last appeared, and Lif guided all 78 ships carefully into its natural harbor, shielded from the winds of early spring … and at last, the true sun came out upon them all, in all its welcoming warmth. Here, the snow had already melted, for Aegir's fire still played deep within the heart of the island, and the ground itself was warm, but only in places of geysers did that heat arise to the surface, and not at the place where they had landed.
Life's demands went right on – there was as yet no time to stop and celebrate, for it was just into the spring – shelter and food and medicine and planting and exploring and understanding and working to make a life in peace – there was neither need nor time to raid as of yet, but just making of the new island a home, a home yet without a name until Lif's 36th birthday, when for the first time he thought to look toward his old home … but it could not be seen. The mists still shrouded it at the edge of the horizon.
“For that is still only Odin's business, my son – but your business you have done well.”
Lif turned around, and there again stood the figure of Erik the Grey, his grandfather.
“Others will someday come through those mists, seeking this new home,” the figure said, “and now all that wish for the light of freedom in these regions have a secure place that they may come. Well done.”
“All that you showed me was true,” Lif said. “There is still only one part I do not understand. Here we have no battles to fight – it will be a decade before we can travel the seas and pull from the world anything that we need, and yet at the same time, the land itself yields us so much as we make learn of it and tend it that, frankly, in a decade, we may end up being content living a very different life than such that go to Valhalla!”
“You do not think that the bravery that you and all of these have shown is not sufficient, Lif? Ten thousand men sitting now with me in Valhalla would wish that they had your courage, small in stature as you are, and with everything to lose – but that will be your story to tell, Lif, when you and those who have made this new land your home come at last to sit and dine with me, and your grandfather, and your father.”
The figure transformed, and Lif fell on his face into the sand, for there stood Odin, king of the gods, his white beard and robe radiant with his joy.
More ambience
“Rise, Lif,” Odin ordered, and bent and took his hand and picked him up. “Valhalla never had a shipbuilder, but it does now – rise, my son, and stand in your place here among your people, and know that your place with me, in Valhalla, is secured – live on in the valor of this life, and worry not about raiding the other lands of the world! Make the most of this place of water, wood, and fire that I bid Freyja and Aegir make for you, and make ready for other brave souls, seeking freedom, who also shall come. You have done well – continue to do well, until you sit with me!”
“My lord,” Lif asked with trembling voice, “may I be permitted to ask one question?”
“Of course you may, my brave child.”
“What shall the name of this place be? We cannot settle easily upon it.”
“Ah,” Odin said, “you have had too much to do to gather that from Eddin's stone jar, eh? I showed him the name, but I will show you now – behold the linden tree of his vision!”
Lif followed the line of sight by Odin pointing the butt of his spear, and there was a great linden tree indeed, in bloom, and in it, a huge and busy beehive.
Odin waved his hand, and all the elders and leaders of the people were suddenly there upon the shore, and just as suddenly down on their faces.
“My lord!” came the combined voice.
“Rise, my loyal people. Lif tells me that you are having trouble settling upon a name for this place an yourselves. Today, know this my will: I have settled you into a place of peace through industrious work – nothing of war from outlanders shall trouble you and your descendants for many centuries hence, and if you are still wise as a people then, you will not long have conflict among yourselves and so make yourselves weak. Only by that way will outlanders ever find you weak enough to attack – so I leave the final length of your peace in your hands, and those of your descendants.
“But in peace here, you must have constant courage, and when there are too many as can well live here, then those among you who are brave must go forth as a swarm of bees to new lands – for so you are now, a people who will turn your courage into all that is necessary to live upon your ingenuity and skill. Henceforth be Hivlanders, the people of Odin's own cherished hive, and as you attend to the law I have given you to care for one another, your prosperity shall always be hard-won, but certain, and sweet as honey!”
And thus it was, decades hence in Valhalla, that a new golden shield went up to extend the roof: “Lif Hivlander, Leifsson, Eriksson,” as Valhalla's shipbuilder at last made it into his final port of call until true Ragnorök came. None of that first generation of Hivlanders would fail to add their shields there!
Great story. It was a bit hard to follow (a bit early 20th century) but it was well written.
You are right about the early 20th century ... J.R.R. Tolkien and Arthur Conan Doyle (late 19th there, actually) in particular... also the music of Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner, so, late 19th and early 20th... I also think that the Norse myth I read was also pretty aged as well... so, you caught me, at the Scott Street library, pulling down all the books from age 9-16...
So you were referencing children's story books. Great job. 😍
Not quite ... I was reading Sherlock Holmes through -- all 60 stories -- by age 16, but I started with Norse myth around nine ... Tolkien and C.S. Lewis between there and my 20s... children's works, then adult ... so, Valhalla's Shipbuilder has a lot of ALL OF THAT... plus, I did a bit of extra research on Norse beliefs about the dead to fill that out... there are some historical references too ... Eric the Red, and Leif Ericsson... but the most important thing was at the very end of the last book I read in childhood ... the name of the couple that survives the end of days are Life and the Will to Live ... Lif and Lifthrasir. So, I started there ... suppose a small-scale Ragnorok... Lewis and Tolkien give us certain conflict elements that match .. brothers fighting brothers as the harbinger of the end and climate change trouble gives us a match there with older myths...
But this is also the story of Hive, and Dan's role in getting us here ... Justin Sun has his cameo, and China does too as the Great Dragon comparing with the World Serpent of Norse myth ... the "false sun" ... Stark and Eddin are fellow co-founders of Threespeak with Dan (Starkers and Eddie Spino), and they have that scene where they can watch what is going to happen on the "strange window" when "three speak." Also, Lifthrasir has her role because Dan's wife was instrumental in getting the initiative going ... so, you do sense the early 20th century reading I was doing, but also there are unique Hive-based elements!
I'm not familiar with all the players but I !LUV how you incorated all that into this story. Very creative.
@deeanndmathews, @wanderingmoon(1/1) sent you LUV. | tools | discord | community |
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Thank you ... and thank you for the LUV!
I'm like this ... if I am going to do something like this, I DO IT. I'm glad that you enjoyed it, and thank you for reading all 7,500 words of it!