Status Updates From Die glücklichen Krieger

The man replies: "I am the Icelandic skald"
"Welcome, skald," says the king. "Did I hear correctly earlier tbis evening, that you composed a lay for me?"
"You did indeed, sire," days this man. "I have composed a very precious lay for the greatest hero on the North, & for you, his king. This lay I paid for with my blisd & sun, & my daughters, moon & star, & with my own beauty & health, hands, legs, hair & teeth,...

The future saint Olaf addresses his army:
"I bow designate you the defenders of the kingdom of Norway, & the time has come for us to burn the Norwegian peasants' dwellings to charcoal...whereever you see a churl...cut off his head. If you see a cow, slaughter it...wells - piss in them. You are the liberators & defenders of Norway...

" why are you lame in both legs?" They ask.
"Because," says he, " that is the only cure for being lame in only one leg."

- skål to that!

When we who composed this narrative came to Verdal one day a thousand years later, & beheld the blue heaths to the east - whence the king led his final march into Norway, bereft of clerics, firsaken by skalds, abandoned by friends & livers, but backed by a foreign, heathen army - the stones were then silent in Stiklestad, of course, & nothing remained of King Olaf's sagabut a soughing in the leaves.

Among this group is a stately, ruddy faced old man, who says: "I had toiled hard to dig a well, deep & clear, when King Olaf Haraldson turned up with 15 of his commanders, bearing the sign of the cross. The highest 3 in rank, he called his wise men from the east. The other 12, he called his apostles...all of these men, both the commanders of his army & the king himself, came & pissed in my well."

The daltmaker replies: "we have had plenty of kings in Norway, but the only ones that proved of any useto us were thise that we sacrificed for good harvests & peace"

It had not been long since 12 popes in 2 decades were laid low by their rivals, poisoned or murdered in some other clandestine way, while others were first beheaded & then hanged by their feet, not counting those who were blinded, had their noses chopped off or their tongues torn out, or ended their lives in dungeons or snakepits, or were paraded backwards on asses in the city streets

Bishop Grímkell was clad as a pauper, staff in hand. The accounts say that he carried in his scrio no treasure apart from an old fermented cheese - one of those sorts produced in the north that stibk most of all the things known in Christendom & cause thieves, pilferers & cutthroats to avoid any pilgrim who carries such an abomination.

This force comprised more highwaymen, bark-eaters, & brigands than any before it. The rank & file were fed gruel, those above them lutefisk, & the captains meat. At first, the men were not given weapons, so that they would not kill each other...the men were poorly clad & wrapped their feet in birch-bark until spring arrived with warmer air.

As glad asOlafwasof this fighting force, the lords in the east were no less gratified, in this time of famine, that the king of the Swedes should have thieves & paupers & other wicked rabble rounded up on the mainland & shipped off to be slaughtered west of the Baltic.

At that time, Christianity had gained only a small foothold east of the Baltic, & the Swedish stewards doggedly resisted gathering taxes for pope or patriarch...good Swedes were loyal to Thórr, while the commons, who did not speak Norse, put most faith in the god named Jumala, who holds a fine staff in his hands. Yet nothing more shall be told here of his excellence.

He kept in his bag, which never left him, a swt of small knives, supple pliers, & awls. With these tools, he said, he had earned a good reputation...by gouging out eyes or tearing out rebels' tongues, or torturing captives & hostages. Upon beholding these tools, the monks assign Olaf the task of removing the flesh from the bone on the heads of martyrs & other holy men, digging out their eyes, pulling out their

Within the town walls ( of Kyiv) was a monastery that grew onto one of the greatest in that part of the world, as it was in possession of several items of profou d interest to most Christians: first among them, a finger of the blessed protomartyr Stephen. Learned men argued that this finger was one if the best safeguards against shortages of butter, & was extremely effective against grasshoppers

When the Mass reaches this point, King Cnut the mighty kneels next to his bosom friend & lays 1 hand on his breast to find his heart, at the same time recuting several holy words from the Psalter in Ulf's ear. As he speaks, his other hand drives his dirk between the Jarl's ribs & through his heart, killing Jarl Ulf Sprakaleggsson instantly.

King Olaf "never learnt how to walk properly on his own two legs on dry land, & instead wadfled about, ever on his sea legs...such was King Olaf's learning that he knew only 2 solutions to any predicament: 1 being baptism & the other murde. Due to his childish ignorance, he constantly had to have others at hand to tell him when to baptise & when to strike..

Sigvatur... Asks numerous questions about the habitations of trolls (ie of the Inuit) in Greenland. Thormódur tells him of those great wonders: of the creatures that dwell there in human form, but do not hold manslaughter to be the highest of accomplishments...nir does that race submit to a king or lird ir bishop, & it has neither lawmakers nor tax-paying landholders, nor anyone of rank...

At 1st, King Olaf has horses to ride, but his troops eat them, compelling the king to march like everyone else, though he has men carry him over gullies & rocky terrain, due to his ungainliness & clumsiness on dry land

Those were bountiful years in Denmark, both on land & sea, & the commoners' welfare improved, as always happens when the lords of the land remain distant, taking their wars with them.

Having had nothing to eat but what he has picked out of the rubbish heaps, his mind drifts to the sorrowful fate of the skald who was one of the greatest heroes & lovers of women that ever lived in the North (i.e himself 😃) : not even the dogs sniff at him; he is buried alive north of the world.

Thormódur is moved by this girl who values her own happiness to the point of tears, in contrast to the dry-eyed women from whom he had parted, the nost eminent in the North, who had tossed his life-egg between them like a toy at Hornbjarg.

Just as the Inuit are completely ignorant of warfare, so too are they ignorant of vengeance & other practices pertaining to justice.

These things have given rise to the saying that the Inuit are ignorant of the srt of drowning at sea.

I must tell you that if I had loved myself more than you, I would never have allowed you to leave the Jökulfirdir for Djúp. Yet when I gave you to another woman, I had full posession of your love & the power that goes with it.

In Greenland, the Inuit "always had an abundance of food, in both good & bad years, & their bodies wobbled with fat. They feasted joyously while everything undertaken by the Norsemen - reputed to be wise, industrious husbandmen - went amiss"

Holding his cross, Bushop Grímkell sang the sacred psalm 'miserere', gazing humbly toward heaven as ropes were tossed over the rafters & the old men strung up. In this manner, Norway was dedicated fully to Christ.

In his address, Olaf explained how all great kings in Christendom had always proclaimed the true faith with fire & sword... He declared nothing to be better than torture & flame for persuading people to repent & reform

As written earlier in this book, Æthelred was such a peacable king that he made war on none but his own subjects & then only if he found himself forced to strengthen their Christian devotion or collect unpaid taxes

King Thórkell found it quite troublesome that the bishops should be the only ones capable of interpreting the will of Christin matters of greatest interest to a warlord, such as howbattle was to be conducted against Christian men, what justified burning innocents & other wretches alu e, & when Christ deems it right & proper to set fire to churches.

Many Englishmen came to parley with King Sweyn & pledge him their allegiance, stating that they preferred their ming to be a foreign, heathen patricide & sworn enemy of christians than a native, devout Christian king who carved bones in peacetime & vomited in wartime, & never commanded his troops against anyone but his own subjects.