Jan-Maat’s Reviews > Wayward Heroes > Status Update

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.

The crone replied..."Christ has created all men to be men of peace, even though rulers & heroes constantly want to kill us."
Thorgeir replied: "I do not know what sort of person you are, old woman, & will thus never admit that your Christ is wiser than my mother Thórelfur or my sworn brother Thormódur Kolbrúnarskáld, & I hope that we sworn brothers will never be beguiled into making peace with others."

Books on the art of war state that nothing is more perilous for a valiant warrior wielding a sword or other noble weapon than to find himself putted against a peasant armed with a post or a tree stump.

The Duke of Normandy compains that the Norman peasants "stubbornly resist paying taxes, squandering their labour instead in ditch digging & other earthwork, or erecting fences & building brudges & mending roads, or many other kinds of miserable drudgery, instead of maintaibing my barons & their castles."

"& you Thorgeir, are a foolish man not to have gone to the castle to be baptised"
"Why did you not go to the castle yourself?" Asked Thorgeir Hávarsson.
"I am doddering, & I have no desire to betray Ódinn in my old age...another skald will...by Christ spread the good names of kings whom we extolled by Ódinn & Thórr."

-plus ça change

The greybeard looked up & stared hard at the man, before answering: " you are speaking to the Jomsviking Thórdur, the Skald of Strutharaldson. I will not, however, kiss you in greeting, though we are compatriots - for you are all covered in tar."

Thorgeir Hávarsson lifted the barrel's lid & emerged, black with tar. Sitting there by the deck cargo was a tall bard, with green tartar on his teeth & his vhin showing through his beard. He was wearing a tattered & torn black vloak, & his bare, sinewy forearms sported 2 bands of gold, both of them heavy & worth a great deal.
Thorgeir said: "I am tired of listening to your twaddle. What a liar you are..."

Together with these were squat men with pot-bellies, bandy-legged, bull-necked, pale-haired, ruddy-cheeked rascals, grinning as they waddled along. The rabble thronged round, their tongues flapping with praise & eyes glistening with tears of joy to witness such an appalling gang of thieves & villains adorned with the cloak of light, ready to be anointed with holy water & chrism & to recieve absolution for their evil

In order for you to indulge blamelessly in the entertainments to be had from a victorious campaign of manslaughter, arson, plunder, & rape, Richard demands nothing of you in return, apart from the trifle of receiving baptism & the Holy Spirit & becoming Christians.