Aeleva; The Viking Saxon

Chapter 17.5

The work in Brevell was hard. But it was glorious. It was work I was used to. I had spent many days in Marden, baking under the summer sun, bringing in the Harvest.

Ove grew Rye, which was not dissimilar to Wheat. It smelt dry and musky, a smell that brought me back to Marden. The days were long and the work was back breaking, but every time I fell asleep, I would rise with the will to do it all over again.

Ove had allowed me to sleep on a few old furs in his hut. I was glad for a roof over my head and I did not have to pay as he said I paid for it in the work. He showed me how to pickle the fish that he had traded from the market, and how to salt it properly. But salting was very expensive and only used for the larger meatier fish.

He showed me around the town and introduced me to the people, who all just thought I was a Dane from the North. Not a single Saxon was in the town. I'm not sure any of them would know what one was.

Brevell was not primarily a farming village, its main trade was fish. Almost everyone smelt of the stinking fishing nets and fresh water. The town was perched on the river bank, one sole pier jutted out into the water. The pier was always busy with small fishing boats from further down the river, or returning from long fishing voyages.

Brevell was ruled by a woman. She was a speaker of the gods. She called herself the seeker, claiming she could seek the truth from the Gods. The seeker would be called upon by the Earl of the village almost every day. She would inhale a special steam and she would enter a trance. The woman would speak nonsense half the time, but her follower would write down everything she said. Only after hours of deliberation would the woman tell the Earl what her words meant.

Nothing would be done in this town without her consent. No harvest would be collected, no trade to be made, no seeds would be sown, no fish to be captured. She had the whole town in her wrinkled spotted hand.

The seeker had ordered a celebration to please the gods. She believed it would allow more fish to be caught as the last trip was less than expected.

Brevell was not a big village, it had less than 300 people. Almost all of them traded fish and so that was very important to them. They had to constantly appease , the fishing and farming god. His symbols were carved in most of the boats and the fishing rods. It was carved into the walls on the hall and even woven into people's clothes.

I had become used to the ceremonies of the Danes, and all the new Gods they had. I had become fascinated by the stories. And even favoured the Goddess Freya, as my axe had been engraved with her name.

The seeker had called for the best three fish, from the last catch, to be sacrificed and eaten as a tribute to Njörðr.

Ove said that we would only work the morning and take the afternoon to calm ourselves for the ceremony.

The village was called at sunset. It was a beautiful sky, rich with deep purples and oranges. The seeker had set up a table in the middle of the sacred ground. The sacred ground was just out of the village, in a clearing by the river bank. Carved stones lay in a circle in the middle. The seeker had set a fire around the biggest, and her table next to that.

The Earl brought the three meatiest fish from the last trip and placed them on the table. Most of the village was sitting cross legged in the field watching her. We formed a sort of circle with the seeker at the centre.

The seeker offered up the fish to Njörðr, rising it above her head and muttering in the old language. She placed the creature on the table and skilfully gutted them, in two swipes of the blade. She tossed it onto the rock in the fire and it hissed the moment it landed.