V No Man Shuns His Doom
IT is told in the saga of Olaf Tryggvason how Nornagest came to him when he was at Nidharos and abode some while in the king’s hall; for many and wonderful were the tales that Gest bore. Evening after lengthening evening as the year drew toward winter, men sat by the fires and hearkened. Tales they heard from lifetimes agone and the far ends of the world. Often he gave them staves as well, for he was a skald, and was apt to strum a harp underneath the words, in English wise. There were those who muttered he must be a liar, asking how any man could have fared so widely or been so old. But King Olaf bade these be still, and himself listened keenly.
“I was living on a farm in the Uplands,” Gest had said to him. “Now my last child yonder has died, and again I am weary of my dwelling—wearier than ever, lord. Word of you reached me, and I have come to see whether it is true.”
“What you have heard that is good, is true,” answered the priest Conor. “By God’s grace, he is bringing a new day to Norway.”
“But your day first broke very long ago, Gest, did it not?” murmured Olaf. “We have heard of you again and again. Everyone has—though none but your neighbors in the mountains have seen you for many years, and I supposed you must be dead.” When he looked at the newcomer he saw a man tall and lean, straight in the back, gray of hair and beard but with few lines across the strong bones of his face. “You are not really aged after all.”
Gest sighed. “I am older than I seem, lord.”
“Guest of the Noras. A strange and heathenish nick-name, that,” said the king slowly. “How did you come by it?”
“You may not want to hear.” And Gest turned the talk elsewhere.
Right well did he understand the craft of doing so. Over and over, Olaf urged him to take baptism and be saved. Yet the king did not make threats or order death, as he did with most who were stubborn about this. Gest’s tales were so gripping that he wanted to keep the wanderer here.
Conor pressed harder, seeking Gest out almost daily. The priest was eager in the holy work. He had come with Olaf when the latter sailed from Dublin to Norway, overthrew Hdkon Jarl, and won the land for himself. Now the king was calling in missionaries from England and Germany as well as Ireland, and maybe Conor felt a bit left out.
Gest gave him grave heed and soft answers. “I am no stranger to your Christ,” Gest said. “I have met him often, or at least his worshippers. Nor am I plighted to Odin and Thor.” His smile was rueful. “I have known too many different gods.”
“But this is the true and only God,” Conor replied. “Hang not back, or you will be lost. In just a few years a full thousand will have passed since his birth among men. Belike he will come back then, end the world, and raise the dead for judgment.”
Gest stared afar. “It would be good to believe I can meet my dead anew,” he whispered; and he let Conor talk on.
At eventide, however, after meat, when the trestle tables had been taken from the hall and women carried the drinking horns forth, he had other things to talk about, yarns to spin, verses to chant, questions to meet. Once a couple of guardsmen happened to speak of the great battle at Bravellir. “My forebear Grani from Bryndal was among the Icelanders who fought for King Sigurdh Ring,” one boasted. “He cut his way close enough to see King Harald War-Tooth fall. Starkadh himself had not strength to save the Danes that day.”
Gest stirred. “Forgive me,” he said. “There were no Icelanders at Bravellir. Norsemen hadjiot yet found that island.”
The warrior bristled. “Have you never heard the lay that Starkadh made?” he flung back. “It names all the worthies who came to the fray on either side.”