But when Orm peered down toward the end of the church through the smoke of the pitch torches, Gisle was nowhere to be seen; nor could he be discovered among those who were asleep beneath the tables. But since Rannvi’s place was also empty, their parents thought it most likely that they had both become drowsy and, as befitted well-brought-up children, had retired to rest without disturbing their elders.
That evening Father Willibald, thanks partly to the good offices of Asa and Ylva, received promises from four of the women present that he might soon baptize their infants, provided that he did so in the same tub in which he had baptized Harald Ormsson and with equal ceremony. But still none of the guests was willing to be sprinkled personally, despite the merry humor they were all in as a result of the good food and drink they had consumed. So Father Willibald had to contain himself as patiently as he might, though he had hoped for more spectacular results.
The next day, which was the concluding day of Orm’s feast, the drinking reached its climax. Orm still had plenty of smoked mutton uneaten, and the greater part of a fresh ox, as well as two tubfuls of feast-ale and a small tubful of strong mead, made from lime honey, and he said that it would reflect little credit on him or his guests if any of this was left when the feast ended. All the guests were anxious to ensure that his honor, and theirs, should not thus be sullied. They therefore promised to do their best and, from the first moment after they awoke that morning, set to with a will. It was their intention, they said, that both their host and his priest should find themselves beneath the table before the last cup was drained to its dregs.
Orm now took the priest to one side to ask his opinion on an important matter. He wanted to know, he said, whether God would regard it as lawful to baptize heathens while they were unconscious from drink. “For, if so,” he said, “it seems to me that a good work might be performed this evening, the way the day is beginning.”
Father Willibald replied that Orm had raised a moot point, and one that had been much debated by holy men who had devoted their whole lives to studying the craft of conversion.
“Some scholars,” he said, “hold it to be lawful, in circumstances when the Devil shows himself particularly unwilling to yield. They support their contention by quoting the example of the great Emperor Charles, who, when he desired to baptize some wild Saxons who held fast to their ancient idolatry, had the more obstinate of them stunned with a club as they were dragged forth to baptism, to quell their violence and blasphemous outpourings. It cannot be denied that such treatment must cause the Devil considerable vexation, and I do not see that there is much difference between stunning heathens with a club and befuddling them with ale. On the other hand, the blessed Bishop Piligrim of Salzburg, who lived in the time of the old Emperor Otto, held the opposite view, and expressed it in a pastoral letter of great wisdom. My good master, Bishop Poppo, always used to hold that Bishop Piligrim was right; for, he used to say, while it is true that the Devil must be discomforted by seeing his followers baptized while they are unconscious, still, such discomfiture can only be temporary, for, once they have recovered their senses and have learned what has happened to them, they lose all the feelings of reverence and love of God that the sacrament has imparted to them. They re-admit the Devil to their hearts, opening them wider than before to let him in, and rage more furiously than ever against Christ and His servants; so that no good results from the ceremony having been performed. For this reason the holy men whom I have named to you, and many others besides, hold it inadvisable to baptize men when they are in this condition.”
Orm sighed. “It may be as you say,” he said, “since you have it from Bishop Poppo’s own lips; for he understands the ways of God better than any other man. But it is a great pity that he should be of that mind.”
“It is God’s will,” replied Father Willibald, nodding sadly. “Our task would be rendered too simple if we could enlist the assistance of ale in our endeavors to baptize the heathens. More is required than ale: eloquence, good deeds, and great patience, which last is the most difficult of all virtues to acquire and, once acquired, to retain.”
“I wish to serve God as well as I can,” said Orm. “But how we are to further His cause among these good neighbors of mine is more than I know.”
So they left the matter at that, and the drinking proceeded merrily and apace. Later in the day, when most of the guests were still more or less upright on their benches, the married women went in to Ylva’s son to bring him name-gifts and good-luck wishes, after their ancient custom; while the men, feeling the need for air, went out on the grass to indulge in games and tests of strength, such as finger-tug, wrestling, and flat-buttock lifting, amid shouts of encouragement and laughter; and many a good somersault was turned; while some of the more daring among them tried their hands at the difficult sport known as knot-lifting,1 without, luckily, anyone overtasking his strength and breaking a limb or dislocating his neck.
It was while these sports were in progress that the four strange beggars arrived at Gröning.
1. A sort of invitation to break one’s neck, played by strong, drunken men after a feast. One (the weaker) sits on the ground, while the other (the stronger) kneels on his hands and knees. The latter is the man who risks his neck. The weaker man sits with his knees drawn up and wide apart, puts his arms outside his thighs and locks his hands under his knees. The strong man then puts his head forward between the other man’s knees and into his locked hands, and tries to rise to a standing position, while the victim does his worst by pressing his knees and his locked hands round the strong man’s neck. It was (says the author, in a letter to the translator) “a frightful game, only played by drunk men.”
CHAPTER SIX
CONCERNING FOUR STRANGE BEGGARS, AND HOW THE ERIN MASTERS CAME TO FATHER WILLIBALD’S ASSISTANCE
THEY looked as beggars usually look, trudging on foot with sack and staff, as they arrived at the house craving food and drink. Ylva was seated on the bench before the house in earnest conversation with the mothers of Gisle and Rannvi; for both these young people had come to her that morning in a state of extreme bliss to say that they were well content with each other, and to beg her to speak persuasively on their behalf to their respective parents, so that the wedding might be arranged as soon as possible; in which project Ylva had willingly undertaken to help them to the best of her ability. When news was brought her that there were beggars standing at the gate, she bade her servants request Orm to come to her, for he had ordered that no strangers were to be admitted until he had himself first carefully scrutinized them.
So he examined the travelers, who replied freely to his questions; but they did not seem to him to be like ordinary beggars. Their leader was a big man, broad of loin and well fleshed, with a grizzled beard and sharp eyes beneath his hat-brim. As he moved, he trailed one leg behind him, as though it might be somewhat stiff at the knee. He answered Orm’s questions in a bold voice, and it was plain from his accent that he was a Swede. He said that they had come from Sjælland and were heading northwards across the border; a fisherman had brought them across the Sound, and they had begged their way up from Landöre.
“But today we have eaten nothing,” he concluded, “for hereabouts the houses lie far apart, and at the last house we visited we were given nothing to put in our sacks.”
“Nevertheless,” said Orm, “you carry more flesh than I have seen on the bones of some beggars.”
“There is nourishment in Danish and Skanian pancakes,” replied the other with a sigh. “But I fear their effect may wear somewhat thin, and I with it, before I come to the Mälar country.”