The Marsh King [antikvár]

The Witnesses Athelstan Redbeard the Dane, King of East AngHa, died suddenly, sitting upright upon his horse, when I was two years old. He was my godfather, so my mother told me; but I have heard that he considered it his right to be godfather to all the children born at his court, so this was a distinction I shared with many. Once every year, on the anniversary of his own baptism, he held a great christening feast in his hall. There my grandfather, Olaf the Skald, would sing the long story of the King's deeds and battles, as he himself had known them, having stood beside him both as pagan and Christian through most of them. I remember my grandfather well, his wiry hands upon the harp, his thin strong voice singing through the nose. My father, Skafti Olafsson, when little more than a boy had been with my grandfather in the harrying of Wessex, and though he was not himself a skald he knew all the old man's