King Olaf's Christmas
Canto 12 of "The Musician's Tale" from Tales of a Wayside Inn
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
At Drontheim, Olaf the King
Heard the bells of Yule-tide ring,
As he sat in his banquet-hall,
Drinking the nut-brown ale,
With his bearded Berserks1 hale
And tall.
Three days his Yule-tide feasts
He held with Bishops and Priests,
And his horn filled up to the brim;
But the ale was never too strong,
Nor the Saga-man's tale too long,
For him.
O'er his drinking-horn, the sign
He made of the cross divine,
As he drank, and muttered his prayers;
But the Berserks evermore
Made the sign of the Hammer of Thor2
Over theirs.
The gleams of the fire-light dance
Upon helmet and hauberk3 and lance,
And laugh in the eyes of the King;
And he cries to Halfred the Scald,4
Gray-bearded, wrinkled, and bald,
"Sing!"
"Sing me a song divine,
With a sword in every line,
And this shall be thy reward."
And he loosened the belt at his waist,
And in front of the singer he placed
His sword.
"Quern-biter of Hakon the Good,5
Wherewith at a stroke he hewed
The millstone through and through,
And Foot-breadth of Thoralf the Strong,
Were neither so broad or so long,
Nor so true."
Then the Scald took his harp and sang,
And loud through the music rang
The sound of that shining word;
And the harp-strings a clangor made,
As if they were struck with the blade
Of a sword.
And the Berserks round about
Broke forth into a shout
That made the rafters ring:
They smote with their fists on the board,
And shouted, "Long live the Sword,
And the King!"
But the King said, "O my son,
I miss the bright word in one
Of thy measures and thy rhymes."
And Halfred the Scald replied,
"In another 't was multiplied,
Three times."
Then King Olaf raised the hilt
Of iron, cross-shaped and gilt,
And said, "Do not refuse;
Count well the gain and the loss,
Thor's hammer or Christ's cross:
Choose!"
And Halfred the Scald said, "This
In the name of the Lord I kiss,
Who on it was crucified!"
And a shout went round the board,
"In the name of Christ the Lord,
Who died!"
Then over the waste of snows
The noonday sun uprose,
Through the driving mists revealed,
Like the lifting of the Host,
By incense-clouds almost
Concealed.
On the shining wall a vast
And shadowy cross was cast
From the hilt of the lifted sword,
And in foaming cups of ale
The berserks drank, "Was-hael!6
To the Lord!"
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1Berserks: Ancient Norse warriors who fought with frenzied rage in battle, possibly induced by eating hallucinogenic mushrooms
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2Thor: Scandanavian god of thunder, rain, and farming; his characteristic hammer is called Mjolnir
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3Hauberk: a defensive shirt, often of metal mail, that extends to the knees
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4Scald: Longfellow's spelling of the Scandanavian for scop, a bard or poet who often played an instrument such as a harp and sang, among other types of songs, histories of glorious battles.
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5Quern-biter: A name typical of those given to swords in Norse times, Foot-breadth also. A quern is a hand-operated mill for grinding grain.
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6Was-hael: The origin of the modern word wassail, it is a form of the Old Norse for to be (was) and hale (meaning healthy). The toast means, in effect, "Be in good health."
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