The Iron Arrow Head or The Buckler Maiden: A Tale of the Northman Invasion

Us by others;
Slay our host and
Fire his dwelling,
And resume the
Azure swan route."

These Northmans had for their divinity Odin, the God of the North, who promised to the brave, killed in battle, a home in Walhalla, the brilliant residence of the celestial heroes. Nevertheless, relying more on their own intrepidity than upon the aid of their God, they never invoked him. "My brother in arms and myself," thus did Gunkator, a famous sea-king who frequently ravaged the castles and churches of Gaul, speak of himself and his fellow pirates; "my brother in arms and myself never sacrifice to the Gods; we place our faith only upon our oars and our own strength; we get along very well in that way." Several of the chiefs of these pirates claimed to have issued from the embraces of Trolls, sea sprites, and the Ases and Dwalines, gentle fairies, who delighted in dancing by the light of the moon on the ice of the northern lakes, or in disporting themselves among the snow-covered branches of the tall fir-trees.

Well might Gaëlo, who was in command of the black holker with the sea-eagle ornament at its prow, trust to his own strength; it matched his bravery, and his bravery matched his skilfulness. Nevertheless, what surpassed his skilfulness, his bravery, and his strength, was the masculine beauty of the young pirate chief, as, with one hand resting on his harpoon, covered from head to foot in his flexible armor of iron scales, Gaëlo stood in the prow of his vessel. From his belt hung by his side his long sword and his ivory horn whose notes were well known of the pirates. His pointed casque, almost devoid of visor, exposed his features, browned by the sea air, because no less than the heroes of the Saga, Gaëlo "never slept under a roof, nor emptied his cup near a sheltered fireplace." It was easy to surmise from the intrepidity of his eyes, and the curve of his lip that he also had often "from dawn to dusk sung the mass of the lances," perchance also carved his own shirt from some altar-cloth, and, who knows, more than once, burnt down an abbey after having eaten the abbot's supper. But he certainly never killed the abbot, if the latter was defenceless and offered no resistance. No; the noble cast of Gaëlo's face bore no trace of ferocity. Though he was of those who practiced the principle of Trodd the Dane of the country of Garderig: "A good pirate never seeks for shelter during a tempest, and never binds his wounds before the end of the fray; he must attack an enemy single-handed, defend himself against two, never yield to three and flee without shame before four" – though Gaëlo followed this maxim, he also practiced this other given by the good chief. Half to his fellow champions: "Women must not be killed, nor must little children be tossed in the air to be received for amusement upon the points of your lances." No; Gaëlo had not a ferocious face. Far from that, particularly at this moment did his face denote the most tender sentiments. His eyes snapped with the fire of gentleness as from time to time he turned his head towards the other holker that was vying with his own in swiftness.

Indeed, never before did pirate vessel present to a mariner's eyes a more charming sight! Constructed in the same proportions as Gaëlo's, only finer and more dashing, the second holker was painted white. The spare oars and the bucklers ranged in a row like those of the black holker were of azure blue. A gilded swan ornamented its prow. On the top of its mast a swan with outspread wings and engraved upon a sheet of polished copper, responded to the rising evening breeze, which also raised a streamer of azure blue embroidered with a white swan. Within-board, swords, pikes and axes, symmetrically ranked, hung within easy reach of the rowers, who were clad in flexible armor, not of scales, but of iron mail, with casques with short visors on their heads.

Like Gaëlo, the chief of this second holker was standing near the craft's prow, with one hand upon a long harpoon which its holder frequently used in order to turn the vessel's head aside whenever it grazed the edges of several islets, grown with willows, that lay in the vessel's course. This Northman chief, slenderer but as tall as Gaëlo, was a woman, a virgin of twenty years, known as the Beautiful Shigne. Like the female warriors whom she chieftained, Shigne wore an armor of steel mail so fine and flexible that it might have been taken for a grey silk. This species of tunic descended from the maid's neck to just above her knees, and fitted so closely that it betrayed the robust contours of her bosom. An embroidered belt gathered the coat of mail around her waist, from the belt hung, on one side, her ivory horn, on the other her sword. No less plainly outlined were the Beautiful Shigne's nether limbs, likewise encased in flexible iron mail. Her shoes were made of the skin of the sea-lion, and they were tightly laced around her ankles.

The warrior maid had laid her casque at her feet. Her hair, of a pale blonde, parted over her wide forehead and cut short at the neck, framed in with its ringlets a daring white face slightly tinged with the rose. The cold azure of the northern heaven seemed to be reflected in her large, clear, blue and limpid eyes. Her aquiline nose, her serious and haughty mouth, imparted an austere expression to her masculine beauty.

Before now the sagas had sung the bravery of the Beautiful Shigne, one of the bravest of the "Buckler Maidens" or "Skoldmoë" as the Northmans called them. The number of these female warriors was considerable in those countries of the North. They took part in the expeditions of the pirates, and not infrequently excelled them in daring. There was nothing more savage or more indomitable than these haughty beings. One instance, taken from a thousand others, will convey an idea of their character. Thoborge, the daughter of the pirate Eric, a young "Buckler Maiden," beautiful and chaste, always armed, always ready for the combat, had refused all applicants for her hand. She chased them away with contempt, wounded and even killed several of them when they presumed to talk to her of love. Sigurd, a pirate of renown, attacked Thoborge in her home on the isle of Garderig, where she had entrenched herself with her female companions in arms. She resisted heroically. A large number of pirates and of "Buckler Maidens" met their death at that battle. Sigurd having at last seriously wounded Thoborge with the blow of a battle axe, she confessed herself vanquished and espoused the pirate.

Of such a nature was the savage chastity of these brave daughters of the North. The Beautiful Shigne indicated that she was worthy of her stock. An orphan since the death of her father and mother, both of whom were killed at a sea battle, the young female warrior-maid had been adopted by Rolf, an old Northman pirate chief, who was celebrated for his numerous excursions into Gaul. This year he had come in less than a fortnight from his northern seas to the mouth of the Seine, and was now ascending the river with the intent to lay siege to Paris at the head of a fleet of two thousand ships of war that were leisurely advancing under the strokes of their oars and were preceded by the holkers of Gaëlo and Shigne. The two had the lead of the fleet by about one league. It was the result of a challenge.

"The arms of my virgins are more robust than those of your champions," the Beautiful Shigne had said to Gaëlo. "I challenge your holker to compete in swiftness with mine. The arms of your champions will be tired out before my virgin mates begin to slacken the strokes of their oars."

"Shigne, I accept the challenge. But if the test turns against you, will you allow my holker to do battle side by side with yours in this war?"

"You must be looking for help from me in case of danger," Shigne answered, smiling haughtily; saying which, she motioned to her mates to bend more vigorously to their oars and to start on the race.

Gaëlo issued a like order to his men, and the two holkers rapidly rowed away and ahead of the Northman fleet, each trying to gain the lead of the other. For a long stretch the Buckler Maidens had the advantage, but thanks to their redoubled efforts, Gaëlo's "Champions," as the Northman chieftains styled their men, recovered the lost distance. The sun was now sinking behind the wooded hills of one of the islets of the Seine when the two craft were speeding forward abreast of each other and with equal swiftness.

"Shigne, the sun is going down," observed the pirate Gaëlo. "Our vessels are exactly abreast of each other, and the arms of my champions are not yet tired."

"Their strength is great, seeing that they held up against my virgins," was the answer that the heroine made, accompanying the words with a disdainful smile.

"Do your words mean praise for my champions, or do they imply mockery? Explain your thoughts more clearly."

"Had we not a battle on hand with the Franks, my reply to you would be an invitation to land on one of these islets and to fight, seven against seven. You would soon enough discover whether my virgins are a match for your champions or not."

"Must you, then, be vanquished in order to be pleased?"

"I do not know – I never have been vanquished. Orwarold asked my hand from Rolf, our chief. Rolf answered him: 'I give you Shigne if you can take her; I shall have her to-morrow on the isle of Garin, alone and armed; go there.' Orwarold came; we fought; he wounded me in my arm with a sword thrust; I killed him. Later, Olaf wished to marry me. But just as the combat was to begin he said: 'Woman, I have not the courage to raise my sword against you.'"

"Shigne, be just. The sagas have sung the prowesses of Olaf; he is brave among the bravest. If he did not battle with you, it was not out of cowardice, but out of love."

The Amazon laughed disdainfully, and rejoined: "I slashed Olaf's face with the point of my sword, that was my answer to him."

"Your heart is colder than the ice of your native land! You reject my love because I am of the Gallic race!"

"I care not about your race! Olaf and Orwarold were, like myself, born on an island of Denmark. They could not vanquish me. The one tried and failed, and lost his life for his presumption; the other did not dare. The one I killed, the other's face I marked for life."

"Promise me, at least, that you will be no other's wife."

"An easy promise. Where is the warrior powerful and brave enough to vanquish me?"

"And if you were vanquished, would you not be filled with anger? Would you not ever after hate the victor?"

"No! I could only admire his courage!"

"Shigne, you and I could not cross swords in combat. Either you would kill me, or I would have to kill you; in either case you would be lost to me for a wife. But, seeing a combat is thus interdicted to us – would you at least love me if I accomplished some great deed of valor? If the sagas of your country sang my name side by side with the names of the most renowned warriors?"

"Your bravery will never throw mine into amazement."

"Yesterday an old Gallic fugitive serf notified old Rolf that the Franks had fortified the abbey of St. Denis in such a manner that it was impregnable."

"There is no fortress, town or abbey that is impregnable. All that may happen is that we may be detained several days before the monastery of St. Denis, which Rolf had expected to capture by surprise. It is an important post. It lies close to Paris."

"Will you love me if I seize the abbey of St. Denis, single-handed with my companions?"

The face of the Buckler Maiden became purple. The throbs of her marble bosom raised the mail of her armor. Straightening up to her full length, she haughtily answered Gaëlo: "I will capture the abbey of St. Denis, reputed to be impregnable."

Immediately upon these words, the Beautiful Shigne ordered her virgins to row back and join the fleet of Rolf, whither the white hull of her holker darted like an arrow.

CHAPTER IV

A BERSERKER

Following with saddened eyes the light holker that carried away the warrior maid, Gaëlo remained silent and pensive, while his champions rested upon their oars. The steersman, a man of about thirty years, of a merry face and clad in the coat and wide breeches of the skippers of the Seine, was named Simon Large-Ears. He owed his surname to an enormous pair of ears, that stood out far from his temples, and which were as red as his nose. Simon, once a serf of the fisheries attached to the abbey of St. Paterne, had, jointly with three other companions, who were seated on the oarsmen's benches, and who wore the Northman pointed casque and cuirass of iron scales, run away to the pirates and offered them their services in the capacity of pilot and oarsmen, the moment that the numerous Northman fleet had appeared at the mouth of the Seine. Simon and his comrades, as well as many other Gallic serfs, who availed themselves of the opportunity to drop their servitude and revenge upon their masters the ill-treatment that the latter subjected them to, only demanded from their Northman allies a share of the prospective booty.[1 - "Often the fury of the Northmans was inspired less by their Odinic fanaticism than by the vengeance of the revolted slave and by the rage of the turn-coat" – Michelet, History of France, Vol. I, p. 395.]

Leaning on his harpoon, silent and pensive, Gaëlo contemplated the holker of the Beautiful Shigne as it rowed back and became indistinct in the light mist that frequently rises at sunset from the surface of the river's waters. Simon Large-Ears, seated at the poop, and, as pilot, holding the rudder in his hand, said to one of his companions surnamed Robin Jaws, by reason of his lower jaw-bones protruding like a Molossian's:

"Did you hear the conversation between the Beautiful Shigne and Gaëlo? What savage she-devils are these Northman virgins! They must be courted with rough sword whacks, caressed with battle-axe cracks, and their hearts can be reached only by boring through their breasts, and if you don't, then these furies make you wed death. How do you like such betrothals?"

"I would prefer to court one of those African lionesses of which Ibrahim the Saracen was telling us the other day," and turning towards his bench-mate, a gigantic Northman of a beard so blonde that it seemed almost white, Robin said: "Helloa, Lodbrog! If all the women of your race receive their lovers in that manner, there must be more dead bodies than new-born ones in your country."

"Yes – but the children of these virgin warriors, whom none possesses until after he has vanquished his chosen one with the sword, become men, everyone of whom are worth ten others in vigor and bravery," answered the giant gravely, and raising his enormous head he proceeded: "All such children are born, like myself, berserkers."

"Aye, aye!" put in the other Northman oarsmen in a low voice and with an accent of deference that bordered on fear. "Lodbrog was born a berserker!"

"I do not deny it, comrades," replied Simon; "but by the devil! Explain to me what 'berserker' means."

"A warrior who is always terrible to his enemies," explained one of the Northmans, "and sometimes dangerous to his friends."

The giant Lodbrog nodded his head affirmatively, while Simon and Robin looked at him in astonishment, not having understood the mysterious words of the pirates. At this moment Gaëlo approached his men. He had awakened from the profound revery into which the disappearance of the Buckler Maiden plunged him. The Northman chieftain looked determined.

"My champions," said Gaëlo in a resonant voice, "we must be ahead of the Beautiful Shigne and seize the abbey of St. Denis ourselves! Yours shall be the booty, mine the glory!"

"Gaëlo," observed Simon, "when I heard you mention the feat to your warrior maid, I, who am well acquainted with the abbey of St. Denis, where I have recently been more than once, when I was a serf of the fishery of St. Paterne, may hell consume it, I took your words simply as a lover's jest. Guarded as the abbey is, and fortified with thick walls, the place can resist five or six hundred determined men. How can you think of taking it with only fifteen? Come, Gaëlo, you must give up the plan."

"My braves," resumed Gaëlo, after a moment's silence, "if I were to tell you that a serf, a swine-herd, is at this very hour a count, the seigneur and master of a province that Charles the Bald, grandfather of Charles the Simple, who is now king of the Franks, presented him with, you would answer me: 'A serf, a swine-herd, become master and seigneur of a province? It is impossible!'"

"By the faith of Large-Ears, that would, indeed, be my answer. A swine-herd can never become a count!"