A third now joined them at the Stone. He was the chieftain of the Finnvedings, called Olof Summerbird; and he had already won himself a great name, though he was yet young. He was a finely proportioned man, dark-skinned, and with piercing eyes and a proud look. He had been in the Eastland, having served in the courts of both the Prince at Kiev and the Emperor at Miklagard, whence he had returned home with great wealth. The name Summerbird had been given him on his return because of the splendor and bright color that he affected in his dress. He himself was well pleased with this nickname.
All the Finnvedings, both the chosen men and those who sat behind them, shouted with pride and triumph as he strode forward, for he looked in sooth like a chieftain; and when he took his place by the other two in front of the Stone, the difference between himself and them was manifest. He wore a green cloak, sewn with gold thread, and a shining helmet of polished silver.
After pronouncing peace upon the assembly, as the others had done, he said that his belief in the wisdom of old men was perhaps not fully commensurate with their own. Wisdom, he thought, could sometimes be found in younger heads; indeed, there were some who thought that it more often resided there. He would not disagree with the old men when they said that peace was a good thing; but everyone ought to remember that peace was nowadays becoming more and more difficult to keep. The chief cause of this, he said, was the unrest that was being aroused everywhere by the Christians, who were very evil and cunning men.
“And, believe me,” he continued, “when I speak of the Christians, I know what I am talking about. You all know that I have spent five years at Miklagard, and have served two Emperors there, Basil and Constantine. There I was able to see how the Christians behave when they are angry, even when they have only one another to vent their spite upon. They clip one another’s ears and noses off with sharp tongs, as revenge for the smallest things, and sometimes geld one another. Their young women, even when they are beautiful, they often imprison in closed stone houses and forbid to have intercourse with men; and if any woman disobeys, they wall her up alive in a hole in the stone wall and let her die there. Sometimes it happens that they weary of their Emperor, or that his decrees displease them; and then they take him and his sons and bind them fast and hold glowing irons close to their faces until their eyes sweat and so go blind. All this they do for the glory of Christendom, for they hold it to be less of a crime to maim than to kill; from which you may gather what kind of men they are. If they behave so toward one another, what will they not do to us, who are not Christians as they are, if they should become strong enough to attack us? Everyone should therefore beware of this danger, that it may be met and stifled before it grows greater. Have we not all witnessed how, in this very place, a Christian priest only last night forced his way to this Stone and committed murder here, in the full sight of the Vird women? He had been brought here by the Göings, perhaps so that he might commit this foul deed. This is a matter between them and the Virds, which does not concern us Finnvedings. But it would surely be good if the Thing could declare that any Christian priest who appears among the Göings, the Virds, or the Finnvedings shall instantly be killed and shall not be kept alive as a slave, much less be permitted to practice his witchcraft undisturbed; for otherwise much mischief may be caused and strife be provoked.”
Thus spoke Olof Summerbird, and many nodded thoughtfully at his words.
He and the other two chieftains now seated themselves on the three chieftain-stones, which rested on the grass bank before the Kraka Stone, and the Thing began. It was an ancient custom that those quarrels should first be decided which had originated in the arena itself, so that the first case to be debated was that of the magister. Ugge demanded compensation for the death of Styrkar, and wished to know to whom this Christ-priest belonged, and why he had been brought to the Thing. Orm, who was among the chosen twelve of the Göings, rose and replied that the priest might be regarded as belonging to him, though he was in fact no slave, but a free man.
“And one would have to travel far,” he added, “before finding a more peaceable man. He has no appetite for violence, and the only things he knows how to do are reading manuscripts and singing and winning the favors of women. And he came here on a mission which he will never, now, as things have turned out, be able to fulfill.”
Orm then told them about the magister and his mission; how he had been sent from Hedeby to offer himself in exchange for a priest who had been enslaved by the Finnvedings, but who had now been killed by them. “Which matter,” he said, “will doubtless be discussed later. But as regards the manner in which Styrkar met his death, those who saw it happen can testify. For my part, I do not think this priest capable of killing a grown man.”
Sone the Sharp-Sighted agreed that those who had witnessed the affair should be heard. “But whatever the judgment of the Thing shall be in this matter,” he said, “it shall not result in a feud being declared between the Virds and the Göings. You, Ugge, shall judge this case alone. The man is a foreigner, good for little, and a Christian to boot, so that he will not be missed much, whatever your decision. But you cannot demand compensation from us Göings for something that has been done by a man who is a stranger to our tribe.”
The witnesses were now heard. Many men had seen Styrkar topple backwards from the Stone with a loud cry; but whether anyone might have struck him from the farther side of the Stone, none could say. Not even Toke Gray-Gullsson, who sat among the Vird twelve and who had been the first to arrive at the scene of the crime, knew for certain; but he declared that the cross which the Christ-priest had been holding in his hands, and which had been his only weapon, was made of such frail twigs that it might have served as a good instrument to kill a louse with, but would have made little impression on such a tough-hided old fox as Styrkar. It was his belief, he concluded, that the old man had slipped and had broken his neck in the fall; but the people who knew best what had happened, he added, were the women, for they had been on the spot and must have seen everything; provided, he said, some means could be found of persuading them to speak the truth.
Ugge sat for a while deep in thought. At last he said that there seemed to be nothing for it but to hear what the women had to say.
“According to our ancient law,” he said, “women can be regarded as admissible witnesses; though how such a decision ever came to be arrived at is more than a man can guess. It is not our custom to use women’s evidence where we can avoid it; for while to look for truth in a man can be like looking for a cuckoo in a dark wood, to look for the truth in a woman is like looking for the echo of the cuckoo’s voice. But in this case the women are the only persons who saw exactly what happened; and the murder of a priest on holy ground is a matter that must be investigated with care. Let them, therefore, be heard.”
The women had been waiting to be called, and now appeared, all together, the young ones who had danced round the Stone and the old women who had assisted with the ceremony. They were all wearing their finest apparel and ornaments, bracelets and necklaces and broad finger-rings and colored veils. At first they appeared somewhat bashful as they walked forwards into the space between the judges and the semicircle of chosen men. They had the magister with them, looking woebegone, with his hands tied and around his neck a rope, by which two of the old women led him, as they had led the goats to the Stone on the previous evening. A great shout of laughter arose from the assembly at the sight of him entering thus.
Ugge cocked his head on one side, scratched behind his ear, and looked at them with a worried expression on his face. He bade them tell him how Styrkar had met his death; whether their prisoner had killed him or not. They were to speak the truth and nothing else; and it would be a good thing, he said, if no more than two or three witnesses should speak at the same time.