The Legend of Freya

By Pia Funk Pedersen

The Legend of Freya begins somewhere in Denmark as the sun is melting away behind sloping hills to the west and dusk envelops the land in dark velvet. On the very edge of a grass-covered point, with her face toward the vast blue sea and her silhouette imprinted on the darkening sky, stands a tall, beautiful woman dressed in traditional Viking clothing. Her face reflects deep sorrow. Oblivious to the colourful scene unfolding before her, she seems to be lost in her own thoughts. Thoughts that reach back to a time when she was young and carefree. Discover the truth behind her sorrow while you join the headstrong Freya and her people as they navigate the stormy seas of life a thousand years ago in a story about ordinary Viking people doing their best to survive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jun 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483432908

Book preview

Freya.

Chapter 1

My house even if it is small and humble,

Still I am the master of the household.

If only two goats and a poor bed

I favour for begging.

W e are somewhere in Denmark, shortly after King Rorik had entered the afterlife along with his horses, loyal slaves and gold in abundance.

The sun melts away beyond the sloping hills to the west and dusk envelops the land in dark velvet.

Out there at the extreme end of the grass covered point, with her face against the vast blue sea, stands a tall, beautiful woman, dressed in the conventional Viking clothing; her silhouette an imprint on the evening sky.

Her face reflects a deep sorrow.

Although her green eyes follow the setting sun, she is oblivious to the colourful scene unfolding before her.

She seems lost to her own thoughts, thoughts reaching back to a time that saw her young and carefree. It felt only like yesterday and Freya, which indeed was the name she bore, had loved to roam through the town with its brown timber houses, across the wide town square, past the busy shipyard and on to the bustling harbour with its noise and spicy odours.

Big blue barnacles literally grew and spread upon the posts carrying the jetty, and Freya recalled how she often had been lying, belly down, looking at those amazing blue things through the clear water.

Her father Harald had informed her that this particular bridge was built when he was just a boy, and that many grand ships with colourful sails wrapped around their masts, had moored to this pier during his lifetime.

As long as Freya could remember, her people had traded staples of honey; handy craft products, mead and ale, and much more from that place, why, she herself had helped her mother carry the merchandise down to the foreign ships. She mainly recalled those days because of the pain that kind of hard work caused in her tiny arms.

If any of those who knew her from childhood, could see Freya now with that empty look on her face, they might have thought that somebody had cast a spell on her, and turned her into stone, were it not for the tears that trickled down her pale cheeks, like lonely beads from a broken necklace.

Nothing could stop those tears; her homesickness was like an aching wound, and the anger she felt toward Knut was so intense, that it engulfed her entire person; yes, it penetrated every bone in her body.

The circumstances, she and her friends now found them in, made her feel powerless, and all of a sudden, she feared that what they had decided to do was not wise at all. For the sake of her unborn child, they perhaps should have done away with Knut instead. Then they would not have needed to flee and be on the run, which was now the case, to their own detriment.

She loved her town and her place so dearly. How beautifully the vast, dense beech forest encircled the town, as a green protecting wall, built by nature itself. Handsome ships lay side by side in the harbour, with masts reaching for the sky. Still on land, looking a bit apologetic, were longboats in the building process, their skeletons virtually growing out of the ground.

Those vessels were the pride of Freya’s blue-eyed father Harald, a big strong man with blond hair and beard, his hair greying at the temples; in his day one of the finest shipwrights among the Danes.

His proficiency and skills had earned him a head position at the local shipyard. Whatever you needed done concerning ships, Harald was the man you turned to.

The name of the town, in which Freya grew up, was Roiskelda. When she was a little girl, her mother told her that the town was named after the founder Roar. He built it around a sacred spring. Whether this was the true reason, she could not tell, but Freya wanted it to be true, because her mother had said so.

A lot of the things her mother told her, she cherished and stored in her heart like treasures, including memories of some of the best days of her life, when she enjoyed her mother’s delightful company, as the older woman shared with her daughter a life’s experience and wisdom.

Their town looked like most Zealand towns did in those days. The dwellings, thatched timber houses, were of a rectangular construction. One section made up the main living room. At one end was the storeroom and at the other end a section for cattle and poultry.

In autumn all areas between the houses turned into black slush; a recurring nightmare each year, when the rainy season started. Not until middle of winter would it become a bit easier to move about in town, when the ground stiffened and hardened, as the frost embraced the land.

Freya and her family lived in quite a pleasant house. It was not big, but had ample room for two generations to dwell together. Colourful, woven rugs in various sizes lay on its earthen floor. Oskar, Freya’s husband, had blond curly hair and beard, brown eyes and tanned skin. He had been abroad for a while, so during that period of time, and up until the time of their departure, she shared their bed with her grandmother. Her brother Hjalve, who was a lanky youngster with brown hair and blue eyes, shared a bed with his father.

*

The slaves had their quarters in the stable section, where Harald had made an alcove for them. They were a married couple they had owned for as long as Freya could remember; they were now aged, but Harald did not intend to replace them with younger folks, for as he said, he knew them so well now, that they were like kin to him, not slaves.

In Freya’s opinion, their house was huge, but not as big though, as houses belonging to those who were really well off, families in possession of much more gold and silver than her own. Granted, many people lived in houses consisting of only one single room, in which also the cattle stayed. Compared to that class of people, Freya enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle within the privileged middle class of her day.

Surrounding the town was a rampart; a bank of earth so wide and solid that one could easily ride a horse on it. At a certain point, beneath the bank, a passageway was made leading out from the town and deep into the forest bordering it. This was an emergency escape route for use in the event of war or unrest, and it was wide enough to accommodate many fugitives at any given time. They could easily hide the entrance, and the escapees were sure of a head start that would get them far away into the dense forest, before the enemies could take up pursuit. As a means of escaping, the passageway was used rarely though, since relations among the Danes were generally peaceful and inoffensive. That was how it used to be, anyhow. Winds of change had started blowing recently.

Suddenly feeling exhausted, Freya sat down, leaning her back against an old oak tree. The evening air was cool, and she wrapped her shawl tighter to her shoulders.

She continued reminiscing.

How their house had looked like. Particularly the living room adorned with tapestries, rugs and table covers, all made by her mother. She had great flair, that woman, for weaving lifelike figures of people and animals. Her handiwork really was something else. Freya and her grandmother also made woven rugs and blankets, but they could never measure up to her mother’s high artistic standard.

Once did Freya attempt to put figures of lambs on a rug, but failed miserably: They looked like wooden boxes hovering over a muddy field, and although her mother had commended her for the lovely ‘sheep’, she decided to stick to less complicated patterns from then on.

White and brown sheepskins covered the large coarse pinewood chairs that her father had made. He had carved images of birds and animals on armrests and chair backs. When the chairs were new, they gave out a pleasant resinous aroma, and the furs smelled sweetly of sheep.

As a little girl, Freya would sit right at the back of a chair pretending to be in a den, the sheepskins forming a pleasant wall around her. Often she would fall asleep there, so when her parents needed the furniture, they would carefully carry her to bed. Sometimes she would wake up, listen for a while to the pleasant subdued noise of her parent’s conversation, until she dozed off again, and soon drifted back in sleep.

Freya had woven a bed spread for her and Oskar’s bed. It had taken quite a while to search through the surrounding countryside and forests, in order to find the various plants and funguses, needed to produce the colours she wanted for the wool. She was truly thrilled with the results, for she managed to create strong shades of blue, yellow and green. The indigo dye came from three days old urine. Her mother had discovered the blue colouring properties of urine by mere coincidence, and had soon passed on her discovery to the other women in Roiskelda, so now indigo blue was common in households all over town.

More childhood memories found their way to Freya’s thoughts. Perhaps the gravity of her present situation caused her instincts to search for ways to soothe her troubled heart. She recalled when they themselves had nothing to sell, but still went to the harbour just for the sheer pleasure of being there and savour the exotic and colourful goods from far-away lands. These could be wonderful silk fabrics, or hair slides made from bone or wood in fancy shapes and adorned in intricate patterns.

When they headed for the harbour, her mother would, as a matter of custom, wear her best skirt, her finest leather belt with the spearhead shaped buckle made of bronze, and her favourite shawl arrayed with woven images of brightly coloured birds.

The idea for those birds she had conceived one day she came across a sailor, who was trying to sell a big and magnificent bird. Strangely enough, that bird could utter many human words, and of course, the wealthiest man in town had purchased it for his wife.

Freya wished she had gotten it instead, because only a week or so later, the poor thing had died from lack of proper care and nourishment.

Freya had been thrilled on another occasion, when her mother had bought a very beautiful brooch for her. The merchant had described to them a huge, grey animal with a trunk-like snout. Protruding on either side of the snout were two long pointed things, the length of a man’s arm. They were in fact teeth, he revealed, and from one of those the brooch originated. Freya and her mother had looked at each other in disbelief. The brooch had the appearance of something made from an animal all right, but that it actually came from such a strangely looking creature, they doubted very much.

The brooch, however, was extremely beautiful: it was white as milk and smooth as the inside of a scallop, and she loved that thing so dearly, that it actually was the first of her possessions, she thought of bringing with her, when she fled her home.

Something Freya never came to terms with was the slave market in the harbour. Those unfortunate people, and in particular the children, always looked sad and miserable, and Freya sensed they had cried for days on end. If somebody snatched her from her parents, she thought, and brought her to a strange and far away land, where people spoke a tongue she could not comprehend, she too would feel miserable and devastated. She asked her mother whether she thought it rightful to take other folks as slaves, but her mother only reluctantly expressed her opinion on the matter, and Freya had to push her to do so.

She explained that slaves were good for work you did not fancy doing yourself, such as dirty or very heavy work like digging, or handling cattle. Freya did not really get it. If the work were too heavy for the women in Roiskelda, wouldn’t it be too heavy for the slave women too, not to mention the child slaves, who were expected to work alongside their adult fellow slaves?

Freya’s mother had then explained how all things came about. Sitting on her mother’s lap, Freya was told, A god of ours chose a certain man and his family to rule over mankind. Another man and his kin should be the workers of the world. Finally, a certain family should slave for all others. This is how it’s always been, and we should leave it that way.

Freya used to get rather doubtful about the whole slave thing. If somebody forced a man of the ruling class into slavery, would it not violate the will of the gods? Could it be that the very idea of keeping slaves, in its essence was wrong? She used to feel so embarrassed by those thoughts, and quickly focused her mind on other matters.

Freya’s grandparents found the idea of keeping slaves repulsive to them, and they never acquired any. The elderly couple they had working for them, were just poor people they had felt pity for, and offered shelter and food in exchange for their labour. They were diligent workers and although the man had a stiff leg, stemming from a childhood accident, he never complained, but always put in a full day’s work as any other able-bodied man. His disability meant that he never had been able to go on Viking raids with his peers, so when Harald’s parents offered him and his wife to work for them, they gladly accepted.

Years ago Harald had granted them their freedom, but they refused to leave their master; they feared they might lose their secure and steady life, so they stayed and for their labour, they were given a small annual allowance in silver.

Freya suddenly realized how much her mother had influenced her, as she continued to reflect on the past. Not only had her mother occupied a dominant part of Freya’s life, she also held a prominent position among women of her own class for many decades. By being a kind and selfless person, she easily made friends with the townspeople. She functioned as midwife for many years, and people consulted her as a völva or wise woman, because she knew the power of plants and herbs, and successfully prescribed their use for various ailments. Additionally people would seek her advice on a variety of issues, from women’s problems and child rearing, to politics and matters of religious tradition. She never claimed to be a prophetess, though, able to predict future events; the skills she possessed and her ability as a midwife, were simply passed on to her from her own mother, who in turn likewise had received them from her mother.

It was as simple as that.

Finally, Freya returned in her mind to the present, painfully aware of not just her own predicament, but also conscious of the distress her friends were suffering. Having been forced to flee their homes and leaving behind friends and family, with the prospect of perhaps never returning, were tough on all of them, but right now she could only deal with her own plight. However, reflecting over the past had brought her some comfort, but she sincerely wished that this was all just a bad dream and that, when she finally woke up, she would be lying in her bed in Roiskelda.

The fact was, unfortunately, that five sunsets ago, they had left Roiskelda and soon they would leave their beloved country. It was so definite. She already missed it so badly. She even missed the two old slaves, whom they had entrusted with caring for the house and those possessions they were unable to bring with them. They too had expressed a desire to go, but Harald did not allow them to, for he doubted that they could survive the journey ahead of them. Harald made them swear that, if any of his family ever returned while the two of them were alive, they would see to it that the house and belongings of the family were handed back to those, and he then had a stone carved with the following words: ‘THIS ESTATE BELONGS TO HARALD OLAFSSON AND HIS DESCENDANTS’. Subsequently he buried the stone in a certain place so that if any quibble arose over ownership, they could bring the stone to The Counsel, which would then be able to render a fair judgment on the matter.

Chapter 2

Out in the woods alone

Do not lose your weapon,

A man in the field

Knows not when the spear is needed.

H arald was confident that the area, in which he had chosen to set up camp for the night, was somewhere in Jutland. They had sailed for three days and nights, and finally anchored the boat in a narrow inlet, lined by trees almost to the waterline.

The journey had been rough, not so much because of sea conditions, but rather due to lack of adequate room for the passengers. Supplies of food stored in large barrels, took up much space and at one point they felt tempted to dump some barrels of dried meat, but had refrained from doing so anyhow. They did not know how long they would be on the run, so provisions were essential for survival, at least until they were sure that Knut’s men or potential bounty hunters no longer pursued them.

Anyway, when Harald suggested that they went ashore and took a break, nobody objected but welcomed an opportunity to get out of the boat and stretch their legs, and also lie down properly and get some sleep, something which had been practically impossible on the journey.

By now, it was most likely that their escape had come to the knowledge of Knut, because not only two dinghies had gone missing, but also undoubtedly, some slaves would report straight back to Knut, as soon as their masters were out of sight.

This was not to say that their plans were common knowledge. They had always met only at Harald’s place; he could trust his slaves’ unconditional