Styrbiorn the Strong quotes

I say unto thee, as last year I said and the year before last: when thou shalt be sixteen winters old I will give thee thine inheritance.”

“Waxed is the bairn, but not the breeks,” said Styrbiorn, and his face was red as blood.

“When thou shalt be sixteen winters old,” said the King. “Till then, be quiet. For stubborn-set as thou art, I am as stubborn; and I, not thou, will rule in this matter, as is but just and right.”

“When thou shalt be sixteen winters old,” said the King. “Till then, be quiet. For stubborn-set as thou art, I am as stubborn; and I, not thou, will rule in this matter, as is but just and right.”

“Seldom recovers Kings their dominions,” said Styrbiorn fiercely, “but with hewing of swords.”

But when he had spoken those words he looked up at the King his uncle and met his gaze;

“As thou wilt,” answered he.

Sigrid sat down beside him with the grace of a seabird alighting on the wave.

His shoulder was turned towards her. He went on with his work. Herself unobserved, she sat there quiet, looking on what he did, but most on him.

When they that were by the ships saw this they were put in a mighty stew and ran out a rowboat, but both King and Earl swam strongly and were come ashore before those others were well started out to rescue them.

The King shook himself like a dog and fell a-laughing with great shouts of laughter.

He clapped Earl Wolf on the shoulder, who stood there as a man not well knowing whether to laugh or be cross, wringing the water out of his breeches and kirtle. “Let me alone to rule Sweden,” said the King;

Thorgnyr looked at the King from the inscrutable dark of his deep-thatched eye-sockets.

“Ay, Lord,” he said. “But the end tries all.”

Palnatoki let fall his sword with a clatter among the stretchers and came to Styrbiorn with open hand:

“Better side by side shall the swords of us two bite, than one against the other.”

Styrbiorn, all fordone with weariness and bloodletting, had scarce might to grip hands with him.

Heming can steer a ship and can make good play with sword and spear, but methinks he will ever have that nature to follow still where another leadeth. Thorkell is a man of war, but he hath little wit.

Sigvaldi is a fox. He will get him lordship and wealth and fame and a long life: many men will follow and obey him, but the best men will not praise him.

And, true it is, unto few men is it fated to be great, and of fair fame, and long-lived. I think, Styrbiorn, that the first two of these will be thine. But I think thy life will be short.”

The Earl’s eyes were very blue and keen-glancing. It seemed to Styrbiorn that they rested not on himself when they looked at him, but on some matter afar off, unseen by other men. Styrbiorn said,

“I reck not the number of my days, so they be good.”

“Fare thee well,” said the Earl. “I wish thou wert my son.”

“Am not I thy brother?” said Biorn.

Styrbiorn said, “I dallied with a whore, and I lost a kingdom.”

Biorn, who knew when silence is best, said nothing.

… thing of him, that, for all the awe and fear folk had of him, yet there was a scarce a man that once spake with him and knew him face to face but was glad ever after to do his will and be his man.

For he drew men to him as the lodestone draws iron.

After that, he bare war into Wendland, holding it time that the Wends should stand no longer in doubt whether Jomsburg, that was planted on their land’s edge, were theirs or its own.

His wrath was gone by like a squall in March, and that good and merry look that his friends knew in him crept like spring sunlight from his eyes and brow down to his mouth. He reached out his hand.

The King’s hand in Styrbiorn’s grip was like a dead fish.

Styrbiorn said, “True it is, there is no witness of our bargain. Yet I think thou’lt keep troth with me. But I will have thine oath too, King.”

“Then is the bargain made,” said Styrbiorn.

His wrath was gone by like a squall in March, and that good and merry look that his friends knew in him crept like spring sunlight from his eyes and brow down to his mouth.

He reached out his hand. The King’s hand in Styrbiorn’s grip was like a dead fish. Styrbiorn said, “True it is, there is no witness of our bargain. Yet I think thou’lt keep troth with me. But I will have thine oath too, King.”

Styrbiorn laughed.

“A doomed man’s ice-hole,” he said, “is never frozen. Have done with thy womanish fears.”

But now befell this misfortune, that Palnatoki going aboard of his ship slipped foot and fell and brake his leg there. Men thought this a strange ill hap. Spite of this, and his sickness yet heavy upon him, Palnatoki would not be left behind;

“I came to you, King,” he said, “to make peace while there is yet time.”

“He hath come aland,” said the King. “Time is gone by, then. I said that if ever he should come again into the Swede-realm, that should be his death.”

“Say not so, King,” said Earl Wolf, and his face was ashen-hued. “Is all your old memories worn so out of mind? Because you are like and like, do not for that sake break one another.

The same hour Thorgnyr laid this before the King. The King listened without changing countenance and was silent awhile, as if weighing the matter. Then his look darkened and he said, “Many will blame me for this and say ’tis a poor game to play.

But is it not all a poor game, Thorgnyr, that I have set mine hand to: to bear war against myself?

Yet will I play it out, and leave naught untried: no, not this nor a worse thing, if thou canst find it. Let set about it straight.”

Styrbiorn fared all day through the battle where the work was briskest, and the raven’s wings that he bare aloft on his helm became a lodestar unto his own men and unto his enemies a sign of dule and undoing.

Men thought he fared that day like one shielded by some God, or like a wizard whom iron will bite not: so little he warded himself from blow or thrust, yet took never a wound.

But of many men he took the life there, and these of greatest note: Earl Aunund, namely, and Kalf of Kalmar and Karl Heriolfson that was sister’s son to old Thorgnyr and held for a great champion.

and now she saw ever and again, riding the battle as an eagle rides upon the storm, the black wings of Styrbiorn’s helm.

And always where those wings flew, there swung back the battle-tide before them, ebbing terribly backward towards Upsala.

And the south wind carried the roar of it north over those water-meadows like the roar of a sea.

and now she saw ever and again, riding the battle as an eagle rides upon the storm, the black wings of Styrbiorn’s helm. And always where those wings flew, there swung back the battle-tide before them, ebbing terribly backward towards Upsala.

And the south wind carried the roar of it north over those water-meadows like the roar of a sea.

The Queen watched from the howe there till dusk. Her women were crouched about her like frightened sheep, speechless, clinging one to another, sobbing for fear and their teeth chattering.

Her women that had followed her out from the King’s house huddled about her on the howe, all aflutter with the uncertain dread of that day and the great issues of it.

But Sigrid stood above them stately as a birch tree of the hills.

She was muffled to the chin in a cloak of green silk broidered with gold and collared and purfled with minivere. That red cloak which she had a year ago put off for Styrbiorn she had burnt next morning.

The Queen watched from the howe there till dusk.

Her women were crouched about her like frightened sheep, speechless, clinging one to another, sobbing for fear and their teeth chattering.

She, heedless of their presence this hour gone by, turned now and with a sharp and imperious word bade them gather their wits and follow her home.

“I will do that, foster-father,” answered he. “Yet is it in our own might and main that I would have us put our trust.

I had liever thank the Gods when we shall have won the day than go a-praying to them beforehand.

”

She had taken a sword from the bottom of a chest she had by her, and she sat with the sword unsheathed and across her knees. Her women asked her what she meant to do with that sword. She drew back her lips and smiled.

“That question showeth little wit. Do you think I will be taken living by Styrbiorn?”

At sundown came that old man Thorgnyr riding into the King’s garth. They brought him in to the Queen where she sat waiting. “Speak quickly,” she said. “There is not a man come hither since that befell, and I know nothing.