The Ravine

Story #2

Of all the classes Bobby had to take in school, History had to rate in his top three, right behind Lunch and Recess. He liked it because it gave his young and otherwise anchorless mind information and ideas to hold his attention. Because of this lofty position on his attention meter, his History teacher, Mr. Paulson, ranked highest among his other teachers in terms of free time spent together. It was not unusual for Bobby to spend his recess time sitting at a lunch table talking about the days History lesson.

For the past week, the class had been focused on European colonization of the Americas.

“I still can’t believe that Europeans thought the world was flat until Christopher Columbus proved that it wasn’t.” Bobby said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Well, there is evidence that says they didn’t.” said Mr. Paulson.

“What do you mean?” asked Bobby.

“A few years ago, some Archeologists found the remains of a settlement in Canada that is older than Columbus by almost 500 years.”

“Who was in Canada back then?” asked Bobby, obviously interested.”

“Well, the same people as where here when Columbus came.” Said Mr. Paulson, looking in the air as if trying to recall a forgotten fact, “Columbus was met by the Taino people, but the earlier newcomers came in contact with the Inuit.”

“But who were the newcomers?”

“Oh, the Europeans were the Norse.”

Bobby knit his brow, “so, they were from…Nor?”

Mr. Paulson chuckled, “No, Norse was their work for the people from the North. They were from Scandinavia, essentially Norway, Sweden and Denmark.”

“Hey, my mom is Norwegian!”

“So am I, and Swedish on my Father’s side, but in 100 A.D. they were better known as Vikings.”

“I’m guessin’ you’re not meaning the football team.”

“No, these were more like Pirates, but even that description may not do them much justice.” Mr. Paulson thought a moment, “the Library has a few books on Vikings, why don’t you get a couple and read them over the weekend, and then we can chat some more next week.” Mr. Paulson looked at his watch, “Lunch is almost over, time to go back to class.”

Later, when Bobby had a free period, he went to the Library and checked out two books on Vikings. He spent the rest of the school day going through the motions but always found himself paging through the library books, grabbing various nuggets of information each time he did.

Finally, the school day was over. It was Friday, tomorrow was Saturday. He had to get his homework done tonight if he wanted to go to the Ravine tomorrow. Luckily, it was early May, so the school year was winding down and the homework was light, Mrs. Laughlin was the only teacher to give homework, and she only gave two math worksheets, one of which Bobby had finished in class.

When he got home, Bobby sat down at the dining room table and scratched out the remaining math work sheet. He put the worksheet in his notebook and put the notebook in his backpack. Bobby took the backpack to his room and put it on his bed. Then he reached inside the bag and took out one of the two books about Vikings. He pushed the backpack over, laid down on the bed and proceeded to mentally devour the book.

He read until it was time for dinner, and since his mother had a rule of no books at the table when they were eating dinner, Bobby marked his page and left his book on his bed. When they were all at the table and eating, Bobby stopped eating and looked at his mother.

“Mom, you said you’re Norwegian, right?”

“Yes.” Replied his mother, inquisitively.

“Does that mean you’re from Norway?”

“No, I was born in Littlefork, twenty miles away.”

“Then how are you Norwegian?” Bobby asked, confused.

“My grandparents were from Norway, and they came here in the early 1900’s.”

“Does that mean your grandfather was a Viking?”

“No, but I do remember him talking about some of his ancestors being Vikings. I wish I had been more interested when he was telling those stories, but it reminded me too much of history, and history was my worst subject in school. I guess all the year numbers resembled math, which I hated even worse.”

Dad looked up from his meal, “I remember my grandmother saying that our ancestry comes from Germany and Sweden.”

“So, you’re from Vikings too, Dad?”

“And Saxons, maybe. Grandma used to say that her ancestors came from Saxony.”

“So, we have Vikings all over the place!!”

“Yep,” said Dad. “I guess I gave up my axe and sword for a ratchet and a tire iron.” He looked down at his plate again, chuckling at his own joke.

After dinner, Bobby walked upstairs, deep in thought about what he had read and what his parents had said about their own possible connections to Vikings. He silently chastised his parents for not paying attention when their grandparents had been telling their stories. He quickly forgave them though when he remembered how he tended to tune his own grandpa out when he talked about how easy kids had it today compared to when he was growing up.

            Bobby went into his room and changed from his school clothes to his pajamas. It was Friday so he was not required to shower until Sunday night, so he curled up in bed with his book.

In his book, he read that, for the most part, Vikings were farmers. The inheritance laws and traditions in Scandinavia practiced primogeniture, which meant that when a man died, everything he owned went to the oldest son. Younger sons were expected to make their own fortune. The only problem was that when they found a nice place to farm it usually came with occupants that were unwilling to give up part, or all, of their land.

The only contradiction to this were those that, instead of going to Britain, Ireland, or France, continued west, and found Iceland, which was occupant free. As with anything that is free, and worth the while, there were soon more takers than there was land. Soon they were venturing further west and found Greenland. Unfortunately, it was soon found that Greenland was not green at all, and not very conducive to farming. Knowing that there was truly little left for them to the east, they continued to go west. They found more land and followed it south until they found land and climate more favorable for farming. Unlike Iceland though, this land, which they called Vinland due to the wild grapes they found, was occupied.

The people they found they called skrælings, or “little men” but like a hive of bees, they found that their sting and numbers were anything but little. The book told of several accounts of the Viking’s encounters with the natives.

Even though the Vikings were known, and feared, for their fighting abilities, the natives seemed to give as good as they received. The “little men were so formidable in fact, that the Vikings were obliged to leave their colony after only a few years, and not more than ten.

With his eyelids bouncing off each other, and images of Vikings and skrælings dancing and fighting in his head, Bobby closed his book, turned off his light and drifted off to sleep.

The uber annoying, molar tingling sounds emanating from the alarm clock caused Bobby’s eyes to spring open promptly at 8:30 A.M. His mind had been hacking and slashing in his dreams all night, so his body was anxious to get outside to allow his mind even more freedom.

As usual, Mom was already up and about, doing something or other somewhere in the house. As luck would have it, his room was relatively clean so all he had to do was go to his dresser for a pair of everyday jeans and socks, and to his closet for a shirt. He walked across the hall to the bathroom to brush his teeth and thumped down the stairs into the kitchen to announce his presence to his mom.

“Mornin’ Mom.” He said, scanning the kitchen for something to eat.

“Good morning, there’s scrambled eggs and sausage on the stove. Toast too if you want it.”

In his adolescent reasoning, he didn’t have time for bread to toast, but he put some eggs on a plate with three links of sausage, sat down at the table and proceeded to shovel. His mother came up behind him and placed a glass of milk in front of him.

“Fanks, Mum.” He said over, around and through the mush that occupied his mouth.

“So, where are you going today?” Mom asked as she sat on the edge of a chair.

“Vinland!” Bobby said and shoveled another fork full into his mouth.

“Finland? What could there possibly be in Finland?”

“Do, Midlan, mid a Bee!”

“Oh, Vinland, what’s in Vinland?” she asked, propping her chin in her hand.

“Skrælings.”

“What on earth are skrælings?”

“Little men.” Bobby said, matter-of-factly.

“Oh, well, have fun in Lilliput then, Gulliver.”

Bobby stopped mid scoop and looked at his mother with his nose wrinkled and his eyebrows knitted.

“Huh?” he grunted.

“Never mind,” Mom said, rolling her eyes, “have fun and be careful.” She walked away chuckling and saying something about “the mind of a child.”

Bobby ate the last scoop of eggs, popped the remaining piece of sausage into his mouth, and downed the last of his milk. He put his plate and glass in the sink and jog/walked to the door, stopping long enough to put his toes in his shoes, and shuffled them onto his feet. He threw his shoulder and hip into the screen door as he hit the handle with his hand. He was free!

Bobby walked into the adjoining garage, put his hands on his hips, and looked around. He remembered reading that the preferred weapon of the Viking was the axe, but he also knew that his dad would not think highly of him if he took his dad’s wood axe to the ravine with him.

“Guess I’m gonna be a Viking swordsman”, he mumbled to himself as he looked for a suitable weapon. He found a gardening stake left over from his mother’s planting. It was long enough to be impressive when he swung it, but light enough that he could swing it. “I’ll call you ‘Fortune Taker.’”

Olaf Halfdanssen had been in Vinland for six months. The colony had been started three years earlier when Lief Eriksson had ventured from his father’s settlement in Grœnland. As Olaf walked out of his house, he felt the cold wind coming from the east, off the great expanse of ocean from which he had arrived. The land was good. It was fertile and grew good crops. Olaf was not a proficient boat builder, but even he could see the exceptional resource the settlement had in large, mature, and straight trees. This resource alone was justification for settlement, but the vast schools of herring that teemed offshore, and the abundance of fur bearing animals in the forests were other reasons to put down roots.

Olaf could remember his father saying, “For every good thing that was granted by Odin to Man, it seemed that Loki was allowed to place a thorn to dig into Man’s side. Loki’s thorn in Vinland were the “little men,” or skrælings as Olaf and his people called them.

To Olaf, they seemed to have been spawned by Hel herself. If they attacked, they attacked at night, allowing their dark skin and clothes to blend with the sunless surroundings. Olaf also believed that they were shape shifters, as several times he had been looking at a forest creature or a tree, to suddenly have a skræling launching an arrow in his direction, only to see him melt away again before his eyes.

Today, Olaf was to meet Bjorn and Svein for the purpose of hunting. Because of the threat that the skrælings posed, the leadership of the settlement discouraged hunting by any group numbering less than three men and forbade hunting alone. Even though this was an inconvenience, Olaf had to admit the solid logic and voted in favor when the issue was brought before the Thing.

A strong, low voice rumbled through the morning air to Olaf’s right, “Ver heill ok sæll, Olaf.” Bjorn extended his hand as he walked forward. Olaf grasped Bjorn’s forearm, as Bjorn gripped his.

“Ver Heill.” Said Olaf, looking Bjorn in the eyes. “Have you seen Svein?”

“Ja, I rolled his mead-soaked carcass out of bed. He will be here shortly.”

“Good, we will need his bow, he is better at a distance than both of us.”

“It is nice to hear you finally admit that.” said a voice from behind them.

Olaf looked at the sky with a half grin, “Unless he drinks himself to sleep the night before, then he is basically worthless.”

“But still a better hunter than you will ever be.” Said Svein with a slap to Olaf’s back.

“A better shot, but you still have to find the game, which you cannot do, even if it is in a pen in front of you.”

“Careful, Olaf, or you will only get the horns of whatever I shoot.” said Svein, straightening his body to its full height.

“We had better get hunting,” said Bjorn, with a slap on Svein’s back, “or you will not shoot anything.”

The three men chuckled as they headed to the edge of the dark forest. Of the three, Bjorn had been in Vinland the longest, having arrived two years before Olaf and Svein. In the two years that Bjorn had been in Vinland, there had been several losses. Three men had died of dysentery, two were lost at sea when they were caught by a sudden storm while fishing, and four were ambushed by skrælings while hunting or trapping. These last losses had prompted a calling of the Thing. The Thing was an assembly of all adult men of the colony to propose and vote on the rules under which the colony would function. Another function of the Thing was to act as a court to hear cases and administer justice when disputes occurred, or infractions of the rules occurred.

All three of the men were armed with bows, but they all carried a second weapon. Olaf had his sword, “Fortune Taker” on his waist, and Bjorn and Svein both had axes in their belts. Being his father’s youngest son, Olaf was given a sword as a gift and told to “Go viking and take your fortune.” For this reason, he named his sword “Fortune Taker.”

Svein was the better archer of the three, so he took a position between his other two comrades who were about ten to fifteen paces on either side of him. They entered the trees silently, looking as far ahead as possible and glancing down every few steps to look for dry branches or any other noise making obstacle that would give away their movements or position.

Olaf and Svein had hunted together many times before. They had grown up together in Vestfold in Norway. Their families were close, so they had many opportunities to spend time together.  For this reason, they worked well together. Olaf, with his sharp eye, noticed even the smallest detail that told of the presence of game. Svein, for his part, was the marksman. There were many times Olaf had been sure that their quarry had escaped, only to find it in the under brush impaled by one of Svein’s arrows.

Bjorn was a couple of years older than Olaf and Svein but had met them in Skein shortly before Bjorn had left Norway. Olaf and Svein had gone to Skein from their home in Kragerø on an errand for Olaf’s father. Bjorn had told them he was going to Iceland and that they should join him. The boys told him that they could not at that time but in two years they would be of age and they would go there then.

As fate would have it, Olaf and Svein found Iceland in much the same state as Bjorn had when he arrived there, crowded. All the best land had already been settled. Some had left to try to settle in Grœnland but found that the growing season was too short to grow crops. The word had been passed of a new colony to the west that seemed promising. This is how Bjorn, Svein and Olaf were reunited in Vinland, each in their own time.

The edge of the ravine dropped quickly from the rim to a depth that was six or seven times a man’s height. At the bottom of the jagged, V-shaped scar was a stream that meandered through the forest as it governed the twists and turns that the ravine took. Crouching at the edge of the ravine, Olaf looked to his left at Svein. Svein was also at the rim where it made a bend and continued past him, leaving Svein on a small shoulder of land beyond which Olaf could not see. Svein was looking into the ravine to his left. Olaf could see that Svein’s attention was being held by something in the ravine but was unable to see what it was.

Olaf silently made his way towards Svein. When he had gone half of the distance, Svein looked in his direction and raised two fingers in front of his lips in a sign for silence. As Olaf came even with Svein, he looked where Svein had been directing his attention. In the bottom of the ravine, near the stream were three skrælings moving along it. They were crouching with arrows knocked, moving slowly, single file. The first man was glancing at the ground as if following animal tracks. The last in line gave a signal to the opposite rim of the ravine from the one on which Olaf and Svein were watching from. Olaf looked where the skræling had signaled and saw two more skrælings in the underbrush.

Olaf knew that if they were on the far rim, they would also be on the near. He looked farther down the ravine, past Svein, and saw another Skræling looking intently towards himself and Svein. Olaf put a hand on Svein’s shoulder to warn him when suddenly the skræling disappeared. No more than three breaths later he saw Bjorn where the skræling had been. He signaled for Svein to target the front Skræling on the far rim while he would target the one behind. Olaf chose to target the rear skræling by the stream.

Bjorn fired first, his arrow embe dding itself in the side of the skræling’s chest and he collapsed, falling headfirst into the ravine. The front Skræling, hearing his comrade fall, looked behind in time to see the man fall. Svein loosed his arrow which found its way to the skræling’s throat. Olaf saw his target look in the direction of his now dead friends, and then turn to see where the attack came from only to be met by Olaf’s arrow as it entered his chest.

As the arrow left his bow, Olaf crouched as the two remaining skrælings each shot at movement but nowhere near any of the Norsemen. Olaf jumped over the edge of the ravine and slid down the slope. He drew his sword and prepared for an attack. The lead skræling charged at Olaf with his small stone axe raised above his head. Olaf swung “Fortune Taker” as the skræling advanced, parrying his blow and spinning left. He swung his blade again and watched as it sank deeply across his attacker’s spine, causing him to sprawl, face down on the ground. Olaf turned and cleaved downward with his sword, emptying the contents of his adversary’s skull on the stream’s bank.

Olaf heard a shout behind him and spun, blade at the ready, and prepared for another attack, only to have the last skræling fall face first before him with a steel axe protruding from the back of his head. Olaf looked up from the prostrate body to see Bjorn start walking towards him from where he had thrown the axe.

“Well, that is no way to treat a friend!” Olaf said in mock anger as he watched Bjorn bend over to retrieve his axe. “What if you had missed?”

Bjorn stood up and looked Olaf straight in the eye, “But I did not.”           

Olaf looked at the dead skræling and back at Bjorn, “No, no you did not.” and began laughing with Bjorn and Svein joining him in his mirth.

“Bobby?” came his mother’s voice from the top of the ravine.

“Down here, Mom.”

“What are you laughing at?” she asked as she looked over the edge of the ravine.

Bobby scrambled up the steep slope to the rim and walked to where his mother stood. “nothing.” He said as he swung the gardening stake at a dandelion.

“And what was all that yelling I heard when I was walking up here?” she asked as she peered into the ravine as if looking for a body.

“I was fighting skrælings.” Bobby said matter-of-factly.

“Sounds like they were giving you quite a challenge.”

“Not for a Viking.”

Bobby walked with his Mother back to the house and put the gardening stake back in the bucket in the garage where he had gotten it from. He stopped and looked at the hatchet his dad kept with the camping gear, then, after thinking, shook his head and went into the house. He stopped in the kitchen and looked at his mom.

“Mom, can I have a bow and arrow?”

Bobby’s mother looked at her son with a face that said that she was wary of the possibilities, “That, you can ask your father.”