Chapter XLVIII

MORRAR NA SHEAN, OR THE LORD OF THE VENISON.

Far away in the north of Caithness stands the castle of Braal, on an eminence above the river Thurso. It is a vast square tower, with walls of great thickness, having the narrow stairs which lead to its various stories formed in the heart of them. A deep fosse lies on its north side, and the remains of various other ditches and outworks are traceable around it.

In the days of William I. of Scotland, surnamed the Lion, because he first put that emblem on his banners and seals, this castle was one of the many residences of Harold Earl of Caithness and Count of Orkney, Lord of Kirkwall, Braal, and Lochmore, who was otherwise named Morrar na Shean, or Lord of the Venison, from his passionate love of hunting and all rural sports.

Yet his character was cruel, fierce, morose, and savage; and he loved hunting chiefly because it was a means of indulging in bloodshed, slaughter, and destruction.

He brained with his axe every hound which proved faulty; and on more than one occasion, huntsmen who had erred, violated the rules of the chase, or otherwise incurred his displeasure, were tied to trees and left to be devoured by wolves. One, named Magnus of Staneland, he chained to a low rock in the sea, and left there to perish miserably by drowning as the tide rose.

Harold was a handsome and stately man, of great stature and strength. His fair hair and beard were curly and flowing; but his eyes were keen and wicked in expression, and his brows were ever knitted as if in perpetual defiance or wrath, unless at times when, gorged with food or flushed with wine, he joined in the chorus of the harpers who sang his praises at his banquets and festivals.

He could bend a stronger bow than three men could bend together. He was wont to twirl three sharp swords at once, catching each by its hilt in turn; and he could walk lightly and agilely along the oars of his great birlinn, or galley, when it was being propelled by the rowers, most of whom were Finns or Wends, whom he had captured in the Baltic and chained to its benches as slaves.

Though he gave vast sums towards the completion of the cathedral church of St. Magnus, which had been founded at Kirkwall by his predecessor, Count Rognwald of Orkney, in 1138, he was averred to be at heart an infidel; and Adam Bishop of Caithness, an amiable and gentle prelate, who frequently reproved his excesses, once said to him,--

"Earl Harold, are you a heathen or a believer? Do you hope for the Valhalla of Odin or the Heaven of the Christians?"

"I believe in my strong arm and sharp sword," said he, haughtily. "Am I a woman or a boy, that thou, a mitred monk, shouldst question me thus? Moreover, remember that I would rather be addressed as Morrar na Shean--Lord of the Venison--than as lord of all our uncounted isles."

And from that time he hated the old bishop in his heart; so much so, that John of Harpidale, one of his chief followers, proposed to have the prelate boiled alive in the great hunting cauldron, and given in broth to their hounds.

The earl's galley had thirty benches of rowers; its prow was adorned by the head of a horse, richly gilded, and its sides and stern shone with gilding and plates of burnished brass; its sails were purple, and along its sides hung the shields of John of Harpidale, Thorolf Starkadder, and others, who were his vassals. In its prow sat twenty bearded harpers, with their harps, and to their songs the long sweeps of the rowers kept time.

Wolves are said to have followed this great war-galley along the shore, and screaming eagles, carrion crows, and other birds ventured out to sea in expectation of the banquet that awaited them; for in his quarrels and feuds with his island neighbours, Morrar na Shean carried havoc and dismay wherever he went, and frequently appropriated, without inquiry, the ships that sailed between the Baltic coasts, the Elbe, and Flanders.

Then when his galley, with its purple sails shining in the sun, and its long red streamers floating on the wind, was seen cleaving with gilded prow the stormy seas that roll round the Orcades and Thule, it spread terror, for the simple people of the isles believed it had been built by the gnomes who abode in the sea-riven caves of Cape Wrath, and that they had constructed it with such powerful spells, that whenever the sails were spread, they directed its course wherever the earl wished, without an order being issued.

On the 16th of April, 1150, the festival of St. Magnus the Martyr, John of Harpidale and Thorolf Starkadder, on feeling some unpleasant twinges of temporary compunction for their misdeeds, urged the earl to visit either Rome or Kirkwall; for so great was the sanctity of the Patron of the Isles, that the Orcadians were long wont to decide by a throw of the dice whether they should pay their devotions at the shrine of St. Peter or the Martyr of Orkney.

But Morrar na Shean laughed at them, and swore with a great oath that he would visit neither, as he had merrier work to do. Then, collecting a great train of followers, he sailed away north, up the Cattegat, to the assistance of the King of Denmark, Waldemar the Great, who had recently repaired the wall of Gotrick, subdued the pagans of Rugen, and called himself lord of all the countries northward of the Elbe.

Earl Harold was long gone, and silence and emptiness reigned in the hall and chambers of Braal; but there were peace and repose in Caithness and the Isles. The red deer roamed on the hills, unscared by the bay of hound or the blast of horn; without fear, the fishers put forth to cast their nets in Scapa Flow and the Sound of Yell, to hunt the huge whale in the sandy bays, or the tusky walrus on the seaweedy rocks; and the white-haired Bishop of Caithness began to hope that they had all seen the last of the terrible Morrar na Shean.

But lo! one day, when the dark scud was driving fast across the northern sky, when the boiling foam rose high on every storm-beat cape and bluff, when the wild sea-fowl were flying far inland, and the hissing waves rolled white as snow over the Skerries of the Pentland Firth and the black Boars of Dungisbay Head, the well-known purple sails of the great birlinn were seen, as she came flying through the mist and spray, with her long sweeps flashing and the sheen of helmets and bucklers glittering above her bulwarks in the partial gleams of a stormy setting sun.

Then fast went the news over continent and isle that Morrar na Shean had come again, and that he had brought with him, out of the distant north, the Princess Gunhilda as his wife--the only daughter of Waldemar, the Danish king; so many who feared more than they loved him, crowded to see the dame who was now to be the lady of Braal and mother of the future Earls of Caithness and Counts of Orkney.

With the wiry tinkle of harps, the blare of brass trumpets and of hunting-horns, the voices of the rowers mingling with the regular plash of the long sweeps to which they were chained, the great galley came into the Bay of Inver-thorsa (or the mouth of the great river of Thor), whence Thurso takes its name; and all the people of Caithness were crowding on the shore, as thickly as the gulls and cormorants that cluster on the rocky Clett, which guards the entrance of the haven.

As she stepped ashore, the grace and beauty of the Danish princess charmed all; but she seemed pale and sad, for she had espoused the warlike Harold in obedience only to her father's will. Yet they seemed a stately pair.

She wore a blue silk tunic, a long flowing mantle of fine white cloth, adorned by ribands and tassels of gold; a veil of rich lace flowed from under the half-diadem which she wore above her golden tresses in virtue of her rank as a king's daughter and an earl's wife; and she had massive bracelets and armlets of gold.

The fierce Harold wore his lurich, or shirt of mail, that reached to his knees, which were bare. It was formed of fine rings of the brightest steel. He had long sandal-like boots of thick leather, studded with gilt knobs; and a golden serpent surmounted his helmet, which was of polished steel. His mantle was of purple silk, and hung from his shoulders by two sparkling brooches.

Massive bracelets of gold and silver were on his wrists. He carried a sword, a spear, a round shield of steel burnished like a mirror, and wore at his right side a mattacuslash, or long Scottish arm-pit dagger.

John of Harpidale, Thorolf Starkadder, and others, all similarly armed, leaped noisily ashore, with helmets and hauberks ringing, and brandished their swords in token of greeting to the people, and to express joy on treading their native soil again.

And now the gathered multitude divided like the waves of the sea to make way for an aged man who approached with a gilded pastoral staff in his hand, but whose garments were humble as those of a cowled friar. He was Adam, Bishop of Caithness, and lately Abbot of Melrose, who, preceded by his crossbearer, and followed by many ecclesiastics of his diocese, came to bless the newly-married pair.

The countess, though the daughter of a powerful king, knelt reverently and humbly to receive the old man's benison; but not so the haughty earl, who had sworn never to bow his head to mortal man, so he passed proudly on, and repaired to his castle of Braal.

On the very day after his arrival, he quitted the countess, and, accompanied by John of Harpidale, by Thorolf Starkadder, and other favourite companions, departed on one of his great hunting expeditions.

There were with him more than five hundred huntsmen, armed with bows, arrows, knives, and spears; and they had with them at least two hundred of the strong, wiry, rough-haired Scottish hounds, to scour the hills for game.

For many days the sport was carried over hill and through valley; and every night the hunters formed a camp. A fire was lighted of fuel piled up as high a house, and often the houses of the poor were unroofed for the purpose.

The glare of this great fire was visible at midnight from the mountains of Pomona and the Pentland Skerries far away out in the lonely ocean. Around it were scores of pots and kettles boiling salmon and chickens; and thereat were heathcocks, capercailzie, ptarmigan, venison, boars' hams, and partridges, being baked, broiled, roasted, or stewed; while ale, usquebaugh, and wines from Burgundy and the Flemings of Ostende were drunk by the roystering huntsmen, who often danced hand in hand round the vast roaring pyramid of flame, as their pagan sires were wont to do at the Baal-tein feasts of old, and if one by chance fell in, the fun was all the greater.

At times they would fill their cups to the brim. and standing in a circle round Morrar na Shean, whose goblet was full of wine, of ale, and of usquebaugh mixed together, they shouted,--

"Oh! Lord, let the world be turned upside down, that brave men may make bread out of it!"

And then the cups were drained and, amid wild hurrahs, flung high into the air.

Morrar na Shean, though he lived in so early an age of Scottish history, was not without some skill in mechanics, for we are informed that "there was a chest or some kind of machine fixed in the mouth of the stream below the castle (of Lochmore), for catching salmon in their ingress into the loch, or their egress out of it, and that immediately on the fish being entangled in the machine, the capture was announced to the family by the ringing of a bell, which the struggles of the fish set in motion, by means of a fine cord, one end of which was attached to a bell in the middle of an upper room, and the other end to the machine in the stream below."

This was an ingenious fish-trap; but while the Lord of the Venison pursued his more furious sports and drunken orgies, the poor Princess Gunhilda was left in utter loneliness at the castle of Braal; and the long nights which her husband spent in roystering among his wild followers, were passed by her, often in tears, and at the deeply arched windows of the lofty hall or of her bower chamber, watching the merry dancers, the streamers of the northern lights, which made her think of her Danish home, of her mother's farewell kiss, of the castle of Axel-huis, and the green, waving woods of Zealand.

Harold was soon weary of his wife, for her extreme gentleness tired him, and he loved her not, though he longed for a son--a little Count of Orkney--to heir his vast possessions, and in whose baby face he might see his own ferocious visage reflected.

He prayed at holy wells, and, candle in hand, he went bare-foot in sackcloth garments, with ashes on his head, to every shrine of sanctity in the Northern Isles; he sent gifts to Adam the bishop, and offerings to the altar of St. Magnus at Kirkwall, with silver lamps, rich garments, candles of perfumed wax, and jars of oil and wine; seeking in return of the prebendaries only their prayers that he might have a son; but on the Yule-day of 1153, the countess had a daughter, whom she named after her mother the queen, Algiva.

Morrar na Shean was furious with disappointment; he reviled Bishop Adam, and threatened to burn his cathedral, where prayers had proved of so little avail. Then for days and nights he sat drinking with John of Harpidale and Thorolf Starkadder; and thereafter ordering his great galley to be got in readiness, they put to sea, and were driven by a storm so far as Rona, a lonely isle which lies far amid the Atlantic sea, thirty leagues westward of the Orcades. In Rona was a little chapel, dedicated by a chief of the isles to St. Ronan, and it was said to be guarded by an unseen spirit; for if any person in the island died and a shovel was placed near the altar overnight, a grave was found ready dug in the morning.

The place was lonely and solemn, for no sound was ever heard there but the sough of the gusty sea-breeze, and the mournful moan of the white waves as they clomb the echoing rocks.

Sad and soothing as was the scene, yet in sheer despite at being driven so far away, Morrar and his followers ravaged this poor place, destroyed the chapel, and slew some of the people on the adjacent island of Suliska. But the vengeance of Heaven pursued them; for when returning, the great galley struck upon the Clett, a rock four hundred feet in height, near the entrance of Thurso Bay, and many of her crew were drowned.

Prior to this, Morrar na Shean had ceased to address Heaven, and now appealed to the idols of his forefathers. He visited the Temple of the Moon in Innistore, and at midnight, with strange barbaric rites, on his bare knees, spilt some of his blood by the self-inflicted stab of a dagger, on the central stone of Power.

This was a great obelisk carved with serpents, and the jormagundror great sea-snake, the emblem of eternity; and with many mystic emblems and Runic inscriptions; and there between midnight and morn, he prayed for the assistance of the Moon, of Odin, and Thor. But all this mummery was vain; for on his return he found that the countess had given birth to _a second daughter_, whom she had named Erica; and in the blindness of his wrath the earl struck her with his hand clenched in his steel glove, and threatened to toss the child from the windows of Braal into the Thurso.

Again with John of Harpidale, with the long-bearded Thorolf, and other roysterers, he put to sea in the great galley, and sailed into the Baltic, where they aided King Waldemar in the destruction of the famous city of Iomsberg, the stronghold of the northern pirates, whom on his return the earl imitated, for he destroyed several towns on the shores of the Baltic, and robbed the churches of their holy vessels. Then the earl sought the aid of enchanters and wizards, and passed whole nights in dark caverns and pine forests, where Druid circles stood, hoping to see elves, demons, gnomes, or fairies, but sought in vain.

He next sailed to the Isle of Rugen, where the Wends were still, in the twelfth century, unbaptized pagans, who worshipped Svantavit, the God of Light, in their capital, Arcona, which is situated on a high rock above the waves of the Baltic.

Svantavit was a monstrous idol having four heads; but he was consulted as an oracle, and the captain of every merchant ship which made a good voyage was compelled to pay tribute to the priests of his temple.

In the hands of this idol was a cornucopia, which in the first month of every year was filled with precious wine; by looking into what remained of it at Yule-tide, the chief-priest could predict peace or war, dearth or plenty for the ensuing year; and this absurd paganism existed in Rugen until the middle of the thirteenth century. Ratzo, King of the Isle, was a famous but aged warrior, who had destroyed the flourishing city of Lubeck in 1134; so to him, and to the chief-priest, the earl appealed, and laid at the foot of their hideous idol in Arcona all the plunder of the Christian churches--chalices of gold, lamps of silver, croziers studded with precious stones, and altar-cloths covered with embroidery.

The priest accepted the plunder, ascended a ladder, and peeped into the horn in the hands of the idol, where, as he averred, he could see amid the wine the figure of a little boy, with an earl's coronet on his head, and a sword in each hand. So Morrar na Shean with joy spread his purple sails upon the northern sea, and came home to find that the countess had brought into the world _a third daughter_, whom she named Thora. The earl was ready to expire with passion.

"Let us return to Arcona!" said Thorolf Starkadder.

"For what purpose, fool?" asked the earl, gruffly.

"To destroy the temple of Svantavit, hang the false priest, and burn his idol."

"Nay," said Morrar na Shean, grinding his teeth. "I shall take other vengeance upon fate, for fate has conspired against me."

"How--how?" asked his followers.

"Anon, ye shall hear!"

"Shall we not see?" asked Thorolf, grimly, for he was a lover of mischief and cruelty.

"No," replied Morrar, briefly, as he gnawed his yellow moustaches in wrath.