The Runecaster: A Tale of Ancient Germany

By Thomas White

The Roman Empire of the first century is the largest Western civilization yet seen in the history of mankind. Only the dark and forested lands of Germany stand between Caesar and the subjugation of the known world. And in those German forests reside two young men. Their names are Armin, a young German prince who will unify the German tribes into one people, and Bjorn, his companion and Runecaster who will foresee its happening. Together, they will cause the greatest military defeat that Imperial Rome has ever suffered and change the history of the world.
This is their story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796064704

Thomas White

A native Northern Californian, Thomas White is a retired professional musician who has performed in both the U.S. and Europe. He resides in Carmichael, CA. THE RUNECASTER is his first published novel.

Book preview

ERILAZ

THE FIRST PART

OF THE SCRIBINGS OF BJORN

I, BJORN, BORN IN Nord, the land of fjords, and for a time dweller in Germany and now of Anglii, do in this, the sixtieth summer of my life, set down on these parchments a record of that time when in the first stages of young manhood, I came to know Armin of Germany.

I begin my tale in the coastal village of Os, in the Nord province of Pelamork, during my sixteenth summer.

*   *   *

I meet Erik on the reed-shore.

Erik is the son of the village chieftain, and my best friend in this village of Os on the shore of the sea known as Skaggerak.

You’re lazy, Bjorn. He stands in the water up to his thighs. You are always late.

He waits with impatience, for we are to cast our nets and spend the day fishing. Erik is my age, we are both by our Nord calendar, sixteen summers. Growing up together, we have learned how to weave and mend fisher-nets, how to catch the fish known as Hering and how to use a spear.

I make my way to the shallows on the shore-bank carrying a linen sack filled with bread and cheese for us, as Erik and I will be here most of the day. My mother has baked the bread fresh this morning and the cheese is from my father, made from goat-milk, and has aged for some weeks. It has a sour aroma, but it is soft and sweet to the tongue. Erik says that my father’s cheese is the best he’s ever tasted, though I know that Erik has probably tasted none other, since my father is sole cheese-maker to the village.

The shore is some distance from our village, Erik is already stringing the net. I set the sack of bread and cheese on the bank.

I had to wait for father to cut off the cheese for today. And mother taught me new words to scribe while I waited.

Erik bows in mock-solemnity. "Ah, then you are forgiven, son of the beautiful Erilaz Leiv."

I blush, for Erik often chides me of Leiv, my tall, slender, blonde–and yes, as he says; beautiful–Erilaz mother, who has, like all of her kind, knowledge of secret things and powers. Yet I know that his jesting is as much in wonder as it is in humor. I strip off my leggings, take off my linen over-garment, and like Erik, I am then covered only in a small cloth that cups my groin. Yet, unlike Erik, I also wear a Torc of beaten gold that lies around my neck. I am the only male in Os to wear this necklace, since it is a sign that I, like my mother, am Erilaz, gifted with the powers of seeing and foretelling.

It is just after the solstice of mid-summer and the weather is warm, slightly humid on the shallow banks. The water laps lazy into the shallows of the fjord in this brief time of summer, when the catches are always good. It is a time when netting them is not very hard work, and the fish, called Hering, or: "sea-sweet", are tasty, especially when boiled with the onions and leaf-greens that grow on our steep hillsides.

I saw Kaarin looking at you last night, Erik smiles at me as we pull the net together, our young muscles tightening at the gathering of the fish. I think she desires to join you in the Rubbing Game.

I shrug. Though I know of this Rubbing Game, in honesty, I have never experienced it.

Erik smiles, and it seems quieter than his usual grin. I would feel very lucky if she desired to play the Rubbing Game with me.

As we grapple the filled net to the shore, I tell Erik, Then you should.

Erik glances at me in surprise. His hair is long and thick and falls to his shoulders, not cut in the bowl-shape of my own.

Her eyes are for you, not me. Have you never played the Rubbing Game at all, Bjorn?

I shake my head.

Eric gives me a secretive smile. It makes a man feel sweet all over. Haven’t you ever felt sweet all over?

I do not tell Eric that yes, sometimes during the night, I wake up feeling sweet and oddly filled from dreams I can remember but vaguely, though in them I seem to be standing on a high Tauern, and there is gold all around me and a voice whispering, You shall write of this, Bjorn….

And two nights ago I had the same dream, though when I turned in my dream toward the direction of the voice, I saw a blond God carrying a great gold shield and a long golden lance. He smiled down at me and whispered the same thing, You shall write of this, Bjorn….

For the past several days, after the dream where I finally looked upon the Golden God’s face, I have had the feeling of something imminent in my life, that it may change very suddenly and very soon, though I do not tell this to Erik, even if he is my closest friend.

As we fish, Erik keeps talking about the Rubbing Game until I realize that the conversation has made me warm all over, even warmer than the shallow summer water in which we fish, and then laughing, Erik points to my groin-cloth, which has become distended.

"Ah, Bjorn, then you do have the curiosity of all young men, yet I have heard that Erilaz males do not have such reactions."

I blink, look down at my groincloth, which stands out as if a spearing pole were imbedded in the cloth. I blush. Eric laughs. I am still warmed, but now the warmth is concentrated in a part of my body that both frightens and fascinates me.

We need to complete the fishing, Erik’s laugh has sly and unknown humor to me. "We cannot let the village starve because you have suddenly discovered that you have a svans, Bjorn. Come, there are still Hering to catch."

We continue the fishing, though occasionally, Erik gives me a secret smile, as if he knows something of me that I am yet to discover.

*   *   *

For the first sixteen summers of my life, I am Bjorn of the land called Pelamork. I am from the small fishing village of Os, where great mountains come down to fall into the sea, and what little level land exists, is used to farm root-vegetables and fish the small reed-inlets, where the water is shallow. My father is Norvik of Os though my mother, Leiv, originally comes from a land to the south called Anglii.

At a very early age I am taught the art of casting Runes by my mother, who being Erilaz, is a Seer. I am taught so, because at my birth, I am encased in a cowl which has to be removed by my mother, a sign from Odin that I will be blessed with Sight.

My father is tall, with red hair and green eyes like many in Os, but I am fair-haired and blue-eyed like my mother. I seem to have none of my father’s features, though he is a handsome man, gentle and most loving of both my mother and me. Yet sometimes I catch him looking at me with curiosity, as if I am of one world and he quite another.

At a very young age, when other boys are puling from their mouths, and staining their groin-cloths with piss and offal, I am taught by my mother the arts of Seeing and interpreting Rune-stones, for even as a babe, as I suckle her breast, she whispers to me of inherited and mysterious secrets, opening for me, even at a very early age, portions of my mind that I know very few can experience. And when my young eyes are focused enough to see and my brain deepened by her Gentle arts to comprehend, she begins to teach me the craft of Scribing, which is the putting of thoughts into visible symbols, so that they can be read and pondered over. For though none in Os, save my mother, are knowledgeable of this, all are fascinated by it.

One night in my thirteenth summer, she casts Rune-stones and foretells for me.

You will journey far from here, Bjorn, and you will see great and wonderful and terrible things, she says in front of our fire. You will write of them, and they will be remembered for a thousand years.

I blink. But in a thousand years, the ice will have frozen the earth. For it is foretold that in a thousand years, Odin and his chariots will sweep down to take the faithful to Valhal, and those not chosen will wander the Ice of Nothingness forever.

She laughs, soft and deep. Not all of it.

It is at the beginning of my sixteenth summer that I begin having the dreams of the Golden God and his shield and spear.

Erik and I fish along the shallows, I tell him what my mother told me of my life and about what will become of me. He smiles at me. Will I accompany you on your great journeys, Bjorn?

I smile at him, yet as I do, a great cloud descends upon my mind. The blue sky beyond us grows gray for a moment. Erik’s smile is suddenly painted on his face in blood.

I see blood. It fills my vision. My mind has opened involuntarily. All I know are dead. Gone from me. There is blood.

My mind is shot through with a painful heat. Brief, like a lightning bolt. I shake my head to clear my mind, as Erik points to the open sea, the Skaggerak.

Tell me again of the world out there, Bjorn.

I smile at my best friend and again tell him of what I have learned from my mother. Across that water to the south on a foggy island are the Zealanders. They count their victims by the number of heads tied to the sides of their long boats. I am told that they once raided here and slaughtered all but the young men and girls, who they took back to their island kingdom to breed among their own.

Erik laughs. Unless their women were as comely as ours, I would not rub myself into one of them.

I laugh. "Do you wish to hear about the world, or talk about your svans, Erik?"

He grins at me, mock-bows. Continue, oh Great Learned One.

I smile back. Beyond the Zealanders are the German, who are like the Zealanders, fierce and savage warriors. I have heard that even farther south, there is a race of men that are made of iron and leather and called Roman. Even the Zealanders fear the Romans.

He stares out across the water. Do the Germans fear the Romans?

I am told that the Germans fear nothing and no one, Erik.

That night in front of our fire, after my father has retired and my mother is teaching me things of signs and portents, she takes my face between her smooth hands and looks deep into me.

"You are a male child born of a Erilaz mother, and her voice is soft and sweet as she looks at me with both love and, I think, a slight sadness. A male is born to a Erilaz but once in many lifetimes, Bjorn, for our kind usually knows only the birth of daughters. It is a sign from Odin that you will be gifted with both male and female wisdom and those same longings. This is a gift given by the Gods. It robs you of one function, yet bestows upon you a far, more important course of life. You must learn to accept it."

I am filled with her, her gentleness. Her Truth.

She enters me. Tells me.

I will never father a child, I whisper.

She smiles, kisses my forehead. She raises back, I stare into her gentle beauty. Her hands are on my cheeks. She nods, gently.

For a moment, even in my youth, I do not want this.

Take my powers, I bow my head.

I cannot, it is Ordained, her whisper is oddly soothing.

Her hands are gentle on my shoulders.

We are silent for a moment. I lean into her, she holds me almost as I remember when I was a babe, seeking the milk from her breast.

I have seen, I whisper.

Her voice is equally soft. What have you seen, Bjorn?

I look at her then, and I am pained to tell her. I have seen blood.

It is as if she knows. I want to clutch her, protect her. I want to cover her. Our eyes meet. And even then, young as I am, I realize that she knows. That we know.

Then it will happen, and her voice is soft. You will live a long time, she kisses my forehead, my cheeks and finally my lips. And you will witness more than most men and many women will ever dream.

*   *   *

I am in the forest, walking toward the next village that lies east along our coast-land, for it is near that village that there are alder trees whose thin, pale bark can be cured into the parchments that my mother and I use for our scribing.

Between the two villages, which lie a half-day’s walk from each other, the forest comes down to the shore, thick and dark. Some of our people fear walking through these woods even in the daytime, for there are strange carvings in some of the trees and chipped into the moss-covered boulders, symbols that are said to predate even Odin, though I have no idea how that could be, since Odin created the world.

I am in the forest when I come to a large moss-covered rock whose surface is covered with an ancient carving. Though I have passed this rock many times, on this day something about it draws me to it and there is a faint ringing in my ears, for the impression chipped into the rock, that of a strange and elder forest God, seems to begin a gradual change. The moss turns the color of the sun, and suddenly, overcoming the image of the rock, I see the face of the Golden God of my dreams.

And again, as is happening to me with more and more frequency, my mind opens.

The forest around me is still, not a sound of creature or twitter of bird or rustle of leaves.

It is then that the Golden God of the rock speaks to me, and the face is more handsome than any visage I have ever witnessed. My heart beats, my bladder tightens as I hear the deep, resonant voice.

You are of me, Bjorn, and you will be with me….

My heart swells in my chest as if it would burst through my ribs, and I am filled with an emotion deeper than anything I have ever felt.

I…, I gasp, I do not know you….

…I am Armin….

And as suddenly as the face appears, it fades and is replaced with a glow that is the red of fresh-spilt blood, and there is a heat and stench from the rock that flows out over me like the blast of a fire. I stagger back, and as I do, my mind yet again opens, and I see flame and hear screams of butchery and death.

And a single word roars in my ears.

Zealanders.

I feel them, hear them. They are in my village, and they are plundering and killing….

I turn, run from the rock, back along the path that I have taken and I run blindly, for the roaring in my ears and the sights of my mind are of terrible things.

But as I run through the forest, the Gods are not with me on this day, for before me opens a brush-covered ravine into which I tumble, rocks and brambles tearing at me until I reach the bottom, stunned. It is much Later when I regain my senses. My clothing is torn and ripped. There is caked blood on my skin from bruises and scratches. My head reels, and when I try to stand, I am sick. I cling to a small sapling and vomit. When I am purged, I clamber up the ravine and back toward my village, my heart thudding and racing. I do not realize how long I have lain senseless in the ravine, until the forest ends and I see what has happened.

The village of Os is destroyed. Log houses and wattle-huts burn. Bodies are strewn and hacked, blood steams in the air. The smell of death permeates the burning village. I stagger through the piles of bodies and find my parents, butchered.

My father Norvik is cut almost in half, gentle mother Leiv lies sprawled over his body, her golden hair black with blood from the ax that split her brain. Her gold Torc has been ripped from her neck, the skin scraped and broken where it was torn from her. The chieftain, Erik’s father, is speared to the wall of a burning building, his entrails spilt from his body and looping on the ground like purple snakes. My friends, the people that I grew up with, now all dead, slaughtered like cattle. The stench of death hovers around the village like a miasmic fog.

I sit in the square, bow my head and sob, my body heaving. I have nothing to vomit, for there is nothing left in my stomach. Kites circle above me, awaiting their charnel feast.

In the entire village of Os, I am the only one alive.

Yet as I lurch to my feet and look around the carnage, I realize that none of the youths of my age are among the dead. It is only adults that lie sprawled and butchered.

It is then that I stagger from the village and run along a path trod by many feet. The path runs again into the forest that separates the village from the reed-banks of the Skaggerak. I run blindly, my voice a youthful wail, calling out to the Gods for succor.

And out of the gloom of the trees, I see a huge, hairy giant standing in front of me. Too Late I realize what it is, and before I can cry out in terror, a large arm swings toward the side of my head, and I know no more.

*   *   *

When I wake, I am lying on dank wood and my body is gently rocking. I look down at myself, I am bound hand and foot. I hear water lapping.

Twice I have lost my senses today. The second time….

I remember.

There is a dull ache at the side of my head where the flat of the Zealanders ax landed. I do not think the skin is broken, but my head feels heavy and swollen.

I look around, it is dark, and I hear moaning beside me. My eyes affix themselves to the gloom and I can see the other youths of my village, bound like myself. We are in the hull of a boat, and above us on slats of long-wood, Zealander oarsmen speed us through the waves of the Skaggerak.

Bjorn, I hear a whisper beside me. It is Weld, a young man of my village.

What has happened? I whisper back, even though I know the answer.

The Zealanders. We are being taken across the sea to their land.

I look through the gloom at the other figures, and I do not see Erik.

Is Erik…? I begin.

Weld shakes his head, and a sudden pall comes over me, dark as the sight of my slaughtered parents.

Weld’s voice is a whisper. They came seeking what they called the Rune-caster. The leader of the Zealanders thought Erik this Rune-caster, for they said that he was tall and young and blond. Like you, Bjorn…

There is a great emptiness in the pit of my stomach. What of Erik?

He had a knife and stabbed a Zealander and then tried to run away, they chased him into the forest. We heard his screams when they found him. And then they killed all but we youths, and took us captive.

Erik. My parents. The village of Os, slaughtered, because the Zealanders have come seeking a Runecaster.

Have I been the cause of this?

The boat rocks as the Zealander oarsmen speed across the sea to their land.

*   *   *

We reach Kobn, a log-walled fortress that is capitol to the island kingdom of the Zealanders. Before we disembark the long-boats, our clothing is forcibly stripped by them.

–I am to become a Zealander slave and mated to one of their women–

I finally look at my captors. The men are bearded, tall and muscular, and the women, though bare of breast, are comely in an untamed way. Several of the women stare at me with brazen looks in their eyes, and I blush as I realize that they are focused on that part of my body used for procreation. They discuss me between themselves. I hear what they say, though it is obvious that they think I do not know their language, which is very close to our own. For they are complimenting me on my blond hair and fair skin and height, and, I realize in a hot blush, the shape and girth of my male parts.

Pretty as a girl, but a man between his legs, I hear.

They laugh, and walk away.

We are taken to an enclosure built of logs. We shiver in the coolness, for though it is still summer, the sky is overcast and I realize that the sea-fog must constantly permeate this town of Kobn.

While we are in this pen, some of the Zealander people lean against the logs of the perimeter and discuss us among themselves.

I see Kaaren, who with her red hair and womanly figure, parades around the enclosure rather wantonly, and I see several Zealander men laugh and nudge each other as they watch her. And even though I am captive and know not my fate, there is a sudden regret in me that I never overcame the shyness of my nature to ask her to indulge in the Rubbing Game.

It is then that a large group of horsemen ride into the square.

*   *   *

There are twenty of them, they are mounted on large roan and mottle horses with thick and flowing manes and tails. The riders wear leather-strapped leggings and linen over-garments as do we of Nord. Their beards are trimmed, their hair falls neatly down to their shoulders, a man-braid over each ear. Though most of them have hair of a light color, there are several among them with coal-black braids, yet all seem tall and proud, making the Zealanders in comparison look like inhuman savages.

I hear muted, frightened mutterings among the Zealanders.

Herrmanduri.

These men are not Zealanders, they are German.

One of the Germans notices me and, dismounting, comes to the log fence. He is tall, muscular with hair and beard black as night. He wears a cape of soft fur, and by his helmet of beaten bronze, I instinctively know that he is the leader of these warriors.

He fixes me with a stare that is at first curious. I realize that he is staring at my Torc, which despite attempts by the Zealanders to remove it, is still securely around my neck.

You scribe. It is affirmation, not question. His voice is soft and deep.

I blink in surprise, for excepting a slight roughness to the words, his language is identical to my own.

I was taught by my mother, I begin.

The tall German nods. He seems in age to be over thirty summers, the same age as my father.

My father…, my eyes momentarily fog with remembrance.

How old would you be? The German asks.

I have counted sixteen summers.

And you cast Runes. Statement, not query.

"My mother was Erilaz, and the words come out of my mouth before I can stop them. She had the gift of Sight…." and my voice stops, choked.

There is something in the German’s eyes that seems to understand my emotion, for when he speaks, his voice is soft. You are the one, then. Tell me your name.

I am Bjorn, from Os, I whisper.

The black-haired German’s voice is quiet. The Gods have just smiled upon you, Bjorn from Os.

The Gods killed my parents and burned my village. I disbelieve the Gods. I am surprised that the statement comes out of my mouth with such boyish ferocity.

The German touches my shoulder. His hand feels gentle and like that of a friend. Some believe that man invented the Gods, not the other way around, Bjorn of Os. You may believe that right now because of what has happened to you, but as you grow older, you will realize the truth of things. You will come with us.

I look around the enclosure, for the other survivors of my village are staring at us in curiosity. Am I to be your slave, then?

The German shakes his head. You are not slave, Bjorn of Os.

And my friends? They are all that is left of my village, I say. Everyone else was killed.

The muscular, black-haired German looks at the other youths in the pen with me.

I was sent only for you.

The German looks at one of his companions. Find him clothing to cover his nakedness, for he shivers in this dank air, and by Woden, I am anxious to escape it myself.

And I leave the friends of my youth in a log pen among the Zealanders.

We travel south of Kobn, across the island kingdom of the Zealanders, and each league takes me farther from what I was and have been.

There is no one. My parents are dead, slaughtered by the Zealanders. My friend Erik lies butchered in the village of my birth. The youth of my village are to be divided among the Zealanders like tokens won in a game of chance.

I will never see my home again, of this I am certain. I wish to die. I am sixteen summers and I wish Odin to sweep down and take me to Valhal. Yet even in my dismal mourning, I remember my mother Leiv and her prophecy for me.

–You will live a long time and you will witness things of which few men and not many women will ever know–

And I will only see my parents when Odin calls me to Valhal and I am allowed to fish in the Eternal Sea.

But then I remember, that cannot happen.

For I do not believe in the Gods, anymore.

–Nor Prophecies–

THE SECOND PART

OF THE SCRIBINGS OF BJORN

AND SO IT IS, that at the age of sixteen summers, I, Bjorn of Os, son of Norvik and Leiv, the Erilaz Seeress, begin my journey into the lands of Germany in the company of the Marcomanni tribesmen led by the black-haired muscular German who I come to know as Yeupp. Yeupp, whose gruff outward manner is but a mask, for he becomes both friend and guide as we cross the narrow sea that separates Zealand from the flat marshlands of northern Germany.

On the first night of my life with these Germans, as we stay in a mean fishing village on the shore of the Skagt, I wake on my pallet crying from dreams of blood and death, and it is Yeupp who comforts me with words that might be used by a parent to a frightened child. And he bids me talk of my life in Nord before I was taken so violently by the Zealanders. I tell him of my mother and her powers and gifts, and as I talk, his brown eyes grow soft with understanding.

"Then you are truly the Erilaz boy born but once in many lifetimes." and wonder diffuses the gruffness of his voice.

I blink in surprise at his statement.

He then laughs, and bids me sit beside him on the pallet. "Even we Marcomanni know of Erilazs and their powers, and of Erilaz boys that are born but once in many lifetimes. He cocks his handsome head. I should not hold you with my arm around you, young Erilaz, lest you mistake my meaning, for I am not of that nature."

I think on this. Then, I do not know of this nature of which you speak, Yeupp.

He peers into my face, as if to see through my eyes into my soul. In truth?

In truth. Explain it to me, Yeupp, I whisper.

But he shakes his head. If you do not yet know, there are others more well versed than I, who will explain it to you.

And though he sits beside my pallet that night, lest I have more nightmares, there is no more said on the subject, which only further confuses me.

*   *   *

If before, my education was of Scribing and the art of Seeing from my mother, now my education is of different and far more worldly things as I travel south with Yeupp and the twenty Marcomanni warriors through this new and strange land of Germany.

Of the Marcomanni, ruled by their chieftain Maroboduus, Yeupp tells me that they are only one of many German tribes, and they are so numerous that it makes my young head spin. For there are Cherusci, Chatti, Tecteri, Bructerii, Allemandi, and others, who are so varied and often dissimilar in customs, that the only thing they have in common is language and the spirit of Herrmanduri, or being Germanic brethren.

We ride on large horses, and though my buttocks are sore from the first day of the riding, it takes me not long to become adjusted, for I am supported by a leather seat which Yeupp tells me is a sattel and made from the tanned hide of the great German bison known as Oryx. And since there are four upright extrusions on this seat, which rest against my buttocks and the insides of my thighs, I have little trouble staying astride my tall mount.

I observe this German vastness, which contains no mountains such as the land of Nord, but is instead a country of thick-timbered rolling hills and plains of tall grass, broken by broad marshes and wide rivers.

We spend nights in villages ringed with circular wooden palisades, whose houses are built of thatch and log and wattle-clay. And on the door-mantles of these buildings are carvings such as were in my village of Os, though much more ornate than the plain symbols of Nord, for I find that the Germans have many more Gods than those with which I was raised, and even in certain tribes, the same Gods are called by different names.

There is one particular Goddess that seems to be prized above all others, a votive carved out of rough rock, whose oval body and pendulous breasts and swollen slit represents both fecundity of the female and the fertility of the earth. Her name is Erde, and each time I see the representation of her form, I am intrigued and a heat flows through my young body that both stirs and confuses me.

Erde.

Goddess of fertility and procreation.

I think of Rubbing Games.

*   *   *

Germans are both hospitable and friendly, though there seems a dichotomy, for sometimes at night around the central fire where men gather for an evening of stories, I hear tales told of fierce and bloody battles, both past and recent, for the Germans can turn from placid folk to savage warriors almost instantly.

I hear of a great battle that took place over fifty summers ago when the Germans fought with the Romans against the Gaulish King Vercingetorix. And I ask Yeupp of this, for I have been given to believe that the Germans and the Romans are now mortal enemies.

The Romans trade with us, is Yeupp’s answer. Our King allows them in our land, but what trust there is between us is a facade.

The more south we travel, toward the land of the Marcomanni, the country becomes forested with evergreen and alder and smells sweet.

Yeupp looks at me as we ride. "You hair is growing almost to the back of your neck. You are looking more and more German, for I notice your once pale skin is gaining a tann from the summer sun."

I smile at Yeupp, who in our long trek has adopted an almost fatherly attitude toward me, and I think it a much warmer kinship than I had with my real father Norvik, who though loving, was often distant toward me, as if he did not quite believe our blood relation.

My skin does feel warmer, Yeupp.

It is the sun. Yeupp turns in his sattel, points out to the rolling plain through which ride. Look, Bjorn, see our vastness.

I do, and am again amazed at this unending land.

For Yeupp tells me of large herds of deer and sheep and goat and oryx. And there are many wild bear whose meat is much prized, yet whose fierce teeth and claws are known to leave careless German hunters either dead or disabled from missing limbs. There are two types of swine, a domesticated animal sweet of both temper and flesh, and a wild boar of slashing tusks, whose meat is tougher, more flavorful, but if not roasted thoroughly, can cause an ague that results in a most painful death of seizure and vomiting. Yet Germans find the taste of this boar so delectable that they gladly risk the danger.

Germans that live inland from the sea do not eat much fish, which in Nord is a diet staple, save for a sweet river fish that they call foreln. Their diet is mainly of fleisch which is their term for the meat of ox, swine, bear, rabbit and sheep. I am told by Yeupp that the fleisch is more amenable to the German temperament.

They prefer their cows-milk to be sour and curdled, a taste that takes me some time to acquire, though their beer, which they drink like water, is cold and tart and much stronger than the sweeter brew of Nord.

The Germans press and brine their root-vegetables in great clay cauldrons during the gleaning season, which assures them the sour-sweet fruits of the earth during the winter, which though not as long as the winters in Nord, is every bit as cold and desolate.

Winter, Yeupp says, is when the God Woden eats portions of the sun and causes night to be longer.

I mention to Yeupp that in my land, in the cold time of winter, Odin causes the sun to shine all day. It is then that Yeupp laughs and tells me that Odin is only Woden by another name, and Woden is capricious, for the farther south, the shorter the days and the greater the God’s appetite for the delicious orb that lights our days.

And as we ride on this journey to the capital walled city of the Marcomanni, I grow to admire Yeupp, who at thirty-two summers of age, becomes indeed as a father to me.

I am young, the young adapt.

My memories of Nord begin to fade into my inner brain more with each day I travel through this vast German land.

*   *   *

The log-walled town of Maroboduus is