https://soundcloud.com/artwhimsically-yours/landkjenning-finisLandkjenning.32 days on a Longship on a journey
that was meant to be a short
in 1052 during just another year of
Odin’s conquests by our blades
but we float Mast less, in this leaking vessel,
our massive sail in tatters with holes
too numerous, burned through its massive surface
from flaming arrows launched
Thus we endure a much smaller sail
pieced and knotted together
from our clothes to what rigging
and lines we have left
but it barely catches the wind
With only three men left to
man the oars of twenty-four
and 12 men left far too badly injured
from the battle we fought
our navigation is tenuous at best.
We fought bravely and boldly
but we were outnumbered and
overwhelmed as they lay
siege to our craft
but many of them also float face
down in the icy sea. and thus
they fled from our fervor.
10 of our dead lie at peace
in the depths of the Baltic Sea
with no flaming pyres to send them off
and no boats to cradle
our most noble warriors
I am but one of the three who
remain starving and extremely thirsty
with all our supplies exhausted,
for the journey planned had not
required stocking much.
but that choice has left us down to
consuming our own urine and soon
our bodies will be depleted of even that.
Only fish blood and rainwater caught
have kept us strong this long
but the fish have gone scarce
and the sun has burned for days now
a furnace till we have become
the roasted flesh that we each crave for.
Even the bodies of our enemies
stored and then dragged aboard
fresh from the frigid sea
and dried in the blazing sun,
has been sliced free of all
useable flesh and meat
and devoured by all who were
still breathing days ago when
all of our stock of any food was gone
The taste of one’s enemy is sweetened
by victory but this was no triumph.
We are a floundering vessel
holding three who are not hearty
and 12 who are dying slowly….but inevitably.
On this longboat I long for a view of the shore,
any shore but the endless waves mock
such possibilities for us all.
This boat will become perhaps
our own coffins, a mausoleum for 15 corpses
sinking slowly into oblivion forever.
I lay down my weary bones
my tongue cleaving to the roof of my mouth
two useless, bone dry, appendages
and my gut is wrenched with the pain
of my body consuming what little
fat and muscle I have left.
Night eventually falls once more
and the silence aboard is only broken by
the sighs of men dying from their wounds
dying...dying from their wounds
Sleep brings me a temporal release,
but Morgenstund comes hard
One has no desire to rise to
the absence of all creature comforts
but to give up is to perish.
I lift my 1000 lb head over the side
of the longboat to vomit nothing
and then suddenly I see in the distance
a grey and green blur
and I note that the current is moving us
slowly in that direction
Landkjenning which has cruelly
eluded us is now drawing near
I do not care whose land or what shore
it might belong to before because it is a paradise
awaiting those of us that can still savor it..
Only two of the twelve injured
are roused by my shouts
and my fellow sufferers of this
perilous voyage are feebly dancing
across the deck with joy
Njord has blessed us at long last
and if enemies await us on the shoreline
we will make sacrifices to his glory
even with our last, dying breath.
But the beach is empty and
we will live to see another day.
Then as the prow of our longship
scrapes like dead men’s teeth
against the sand, my eyes moisten
and shed salty liquid much like
what I could not drink throughout
our voyage of the damned.
My eyes bleed saltwater for
my comrades who I have lost
and I kiss the ground for them.
There is much work to do
to become seaworthy again.
We will need more men,
perhaps captured slaves
and then we can be on our way.
So now I must close this mental log
that has sustained me and rejoin the living
Ha det oh, cruel death….you did not claim me…….
and I fear you less now.
Landkjenning!!-©-2019
by Ingvar Tautra & Matthew F. Blowers III
A Norwegian tale of long ago struggles