They reached the Stone a short while before dusk and pitched camp, together with other groups of men, on the ground that the Göings had, by ancient custom, been used to occupy, on the bank of a brook that ran through birch trees and thickets on the southern side of the Stone. Traces could still be seen there of campfires around which they and their predecessors had sat at previous Things. On the other side of the brook the Finnvedings were encamped, and from them there came much noise and shouting. It was said to be a greater hardship for them than for other men to sit without ale around the Kraka Stone, and it was, accordingly, an ancient custom among them to arrive at the Thing already drunk. Both the Göings and the Finnvedings were encamped a short way from the brook, and only came to it to water their horses and fill their pots; for they had always thought it wisest not to crowd unnecessarily close to one another if the peace of the Thing was to be maintained between them.
The Virds were the last to arrive at the meeting-place. Any man looking at them could see at once that they were a race apart, without resemblance to other peoples. They were enormously tall men with silver rings in their ears, and their swords were longer and heavier than those of other men. They had shaven chins, long cheek-beards hanging down on either side of their mouths, and eyes like the eyes of dead men. They were, moreover, short of speech. Their neighbors said that the cause of this aloofness was that they were ruled by their womenfolk and were afraid lest, if they spoke, this might be discovered; but few dared to ask them directly how much truth there was in this report.
They were encamped in a grove east of the Stone, where the brook ran broadest; there they were apart from the other tribes, which was the way they liked it to be. They were the only men who had brought women with them to the Thing. For it was an old belief among the Virds that the best cure for a woman’s barrenness was to be found at the Kraka Stone, if a man did as the wise ancients had prescribed; and young married women who had borne no children to husbands of proved virility were accordingly always eager to accompany their menfolk to the Thing. What they had to do would be seen tonight, under the full moon; for the whole of this evening the Virds would be in possession of the Stone, and their concern that no stranger should see what their women did after the moon rose was well known among both the Göings and the Finnvedings. For it had happened on more than one occasion that those who to satisfy their curiosity had approached too near the Stone while the women were there had seen a winging spear or a hewing sword as their last sight on earth, and this before they had had the chance to witness that for which they had come. Nevertheless, inquisitive young men of the Göings, and such of the Finnvedings as had not drunk too deeply, nursed the prospect of a fine evening’s entertainment; and as soon as the moon’s glimmer could be discerned above the edge of the trees, some of them climbed up into the branches to good vantage points, while others crept forward through the thickets and undergrowth as near to the Stone as they dared.
Father Willibald was much displeased at all this, especially at the fact that young men of Orm’s following, who had received baptism at the great feast and had since paid several visits to his church, were as eager as the rest to see as much as they could of witchcraft at the Stone.
“All this is the Devil’s work,” he said. “I have heard tell that it is the custom of these women to run around the Stone in shameless nakedness. Every man who has received baptism should arm himself with strength from Christ against such abominations as this. You would be better employed in axing a cross for us to raise before our fire, to protect us this night from the powers of evil. I myself am too old for such work; besides which, I cannot see well in this dense wood.”
But they replied that all the crosses and all the holy water in the world would not prevent them from seeing the Vird women perform that evening.
Magister Rainald was seated beside Orm in the circle around the food-pot. He sat with his arms round his knees and his head bowed, rocking backwards and forwards; he had been given bread and smoked mutton like the rest, but showed little appetite. It was always so with him when he was contemplating his sins. But when he heard Father Willibald’s words, he stood up.
“Give me an ax,” he said, “and I will make you a cross.”
The men round the fire laughed and expressed doubt whether he was capable of performing this task. But Orm said: “It is right that you should try; and you may find it more profitable than climbing into the trees.”
They gave him an ax, and he went away to do the best he could.
Clouds now began to pass over the moon, so that at times it was quite dark; but in the intervals the curious among them were able to see what the Virds were doing up at the Stone. Many men were assembled there. Some of these had just finished cutting a strip of turf, long and broad, and were now raising it from the ground and placing stakes beneath to hold it up. Others were collecting brushwood, which they placed in four piles at equal distances from the Stone. When these preparations had been completed, they took their weapons and walked some distance toward the ground where the Göings and the Finnvedings were encamped. There they remained as sentries, with their backs to the Stone, some of them going down as far as the brook itself.
The noise of bleating was now heard; and from the direction of the Vird camp four old women appeared, leading two goats. With them came a small, bald man with a white beard, very old and bent, holding a long knife in his hand. After him followed a crowd of women, all wearing cloaks.
When they reached the Stone, the old women tied the legs of the goats together and fastened long ropes around their backs. Then all the women helped to heave the goats up over the top of the Stone and make the rope fast, so that the goats were left hanging down, one on either side of the Stone, head downwards. The little old man gesticulated and chattered petulantly until they had got them into the exact position in which he wanted them. When at last he was satisfied, he ordered them to lift him to the top of the Stone, which they succeeded, with difficulty, in doing. They pushed the knife up to him on a stick, and, taking it, he seated himself astride the Stone just above the goats. Then he raised his arms above his head and cried in a loud voice to the young women: “This is the first! Go ye through earth!”
The women tittered, and nudged one another, and looked coyly hesitant. At length, however, they slipped their cloaks from their bodies and stood naked; then they walked in a line toward the raised strip of turf and began to creep under it, one by one. A terrific crash from the direction of the Finnvedings’ camp suddenly echoed through the silence of the night; then cries and groans were heard, followed by loud laughter, for an old leaning tree, into the branches of which many of the young men had climbed, had collapsed under their weight and had crushed several of them as it fell. But the women continued to creep under the turf until all of them had passed beneath it, whereupon the old man raised his arms again and cried: “This is the second! Go ye through water!”
At this the women walked down to the brook and waded out into the midst of it. They squatted down on their haunches where the water was deepest, held their hands over their faces, and, amid much shrieking, plunged their heads beneath the water, so that their hair floated on the surface, after which, without delay, they came up again.
Then the old women lit the piles of brushwood around the Stone, and when the young women had returned from the water, the old man cried: “This is the third! Go ye through fire!”
The women now began to run around the Stone and to leap nimbly over the fires. As they did so, the old man slit the throats of the goats, so that their blood ran down the sides of the Stone, while he mumbled words of ritual. Nine times the women had to run around the Stone, and nine times lap blood, that it might give them strength and make their wombs fruitful.