Hakon of Rogen's Saga

1

FAR TO THE NORTH in Norway, where the winter sea has a deep voice and at midwinter the sun hides its face, lies the Island of Rogen. I was born on that island, in the year of the Great Hunger, when only kings and earls slept with filled stomachs. My father was Olaf the Lame; my mother Sigurd Hakonsdaughter, who could claim kinship with the mighty Earls of Tronhjem. My mother died giving birth to me, and I was suckled by the slave woman Gunhild who had had a girl child two months before. A motherless child is both an object of pity and of scorn. He learns early to depend upon himself, for he is hardened by never having experienced the mother's gift to the child, that love which never asks why. Love came to me only as a reward, something which depended upon my own behavior. Rogen was my father's birthright. For nine generations it had passed from father to son, and no king in his castle had more power than my father had on his island. Nineteen families lived on Rogen, about two hundred human beings, all subjects of my father. In our hall, besides my father and myself, lived four young unmarried men, five women whom the sea or sickness 1 1 had made husbandlcss, and seven children, all of whom were fatherless. These were all freemen. My father owned four slaves, who also lived in our house: three men and one woman, Gunhild, who had suckled me. These slaves were not mistreated, yet absence of liberty is in itself mistreatment. Let those who defend slavery try once, themselves, to be slaves. But these were not the thoughts of my childhood, for a child lives in an expanding world, where tomorrow is an unknown land. Among the slaves was a man named Rark. He was my friend, and gave to me — if not the mother love that I missed — at least the father love that my own father either could not or would not give me. I believe that my father never forgave me for causing my mother's death. I hardly ever remember him smiling and I never heard him laugh. His world was one of gloom, of evil forebodings, of disasters lurking behind each day like hungry wolves behind trees. His birth present to me was a feeling of guilt, which covered me as a cloud does the mountaintop. My father was not really lame, but his right knee was stiff from an arrow wound that he had received in a battle against the Danes. Rogen, my childhood kingdom, was not very large measured with the strides of a grownup; but with a child's steps, which never go in a straight line, it was a huge world. To the south and to the north it ended in a mountain. These two mountains were identical in height, but the southern one was peaked, and therefore appeared higher. The top of the northern mountain was a flat plateau. 2 East of the northern mountain, which was named after Thor, a small peninsula jutted into the sea. This peninsula was low and formed a crescent, like a newly born moon. Here nature had provided us with a harbor, protected on three sides by Rogen itself; and to the south, where it faced the open sea, by a small island, on which the sheep grazed in the summer. Thor's Mountain was part of our homes; it loomed behind the buildings, shielding us from our worst enemy , the northwest wind. It was easy to climb and had good summer grazing for our cows — a friendly mountain with shrubwood for our fires and hares for our pots. The southern mountain was steep, difficult to climb, and had poor grazing; its name was the Mountain of the Sun. There were openings in this mountain, entrances to caves inhabited by fairies and elves. It was even told that one of them was the entrance to Hades, the World of the Shadows, where those who do not die in battle go after death. The grownups told tales about the Mountain of the Sun to scare the children into behaving ; and we were all terrified of it, especially at night, when sleep had closed our eyes and we were left with only our imaginations to see by. Between the two mountains was a fertile valley that had good...