The Viking Journal

Amy's Book

A/N this is a chapter from the book that Amy has been working on for her class.

Yggdrasil towered above me. I had never been so close to the Tree of Life. In the metaphorical sense, us Vikings lived on the tree but in reality, we lived around the tree. Yes, it's branches were huge and reached to the heavens, but they were to thin and flimsy to hold an civilisation. The 9 worlds were spread out in the directions of the biggest branches. Our mythical worlds were probably the most unstable things of all time. Raging wars with things you couldn't see occurred on a nearly daily basis. Some call us Norsemen, because we're from the the North. Others call us Vikings, as Viking means to raid and that's what we do. We are known for our violence and brutality. We steal what we need and kill anyone who tries to stop us. Our women are just as strong, if not more so, as the men. Our form of equality is that everyone can kill. We have a chief to follow and a code of conduct to obey. We raid and plunder. But where we may look overly aggressive and be as tough as dragon hide, knowledge is our foundation. Knowledge is what gets us through and around everything. We need to know things in order to do things. From the age of three we are taught many skills, but the one with the most pride is being able to read. As soon as your child can read, you know you've done it right. And if your child doesn't read, you don't mention it.

Today, my 20 years of study was going to prove itself. My mother and father had raised me to be a scholar. Today I had to prove that I had what it takes to be second in command to our village. This was the highest honour, next to being named the chief's successor. I had to prove that I was wise enough and strong enough. I have to be able to communicate with the entire village, even the people I hate. I have to be able to show what others don't understand. I have to show the other realms, in a written form. I have to be able to show that I know the place in which I live well enough to teach others what they don't know. Most people here ignored what they didn't understand. And if I was able to prove myself, it would be my job to show the ignorant people what they don't know. But personally, I didn't think it was such a good idea to know everything or have everyone know everything. Knowledge could damage the stupid mind. Not enough people would ever be ready to know everything. I knew that but I don't think many others did. Certainly not the chief. He wanted me to unlock all the secrets of the world. He believed that in order for our race to survive against the elves and dwarves, we must know everything. I couldn't even tell him that I thought that was a bad idea.; it wasn't my place. No one would listen to me anyway if I told them our chief was an idiot. I don't think they even know the word idiot. See, if I was able to prove myself as worthy of second in command, maybe then I could monitor the things I would have to teach. I can't watch my world be ripped apart from everyone going insane from the knowledge they have suddenly acquired. Thor knows what would happen if people started to find out about the other dimensions.