Excerpt from Ragnarssona þáttr (Tale of the sons of Ragnar)
"…and on the second night of his voyage into unknown, Odin the-Allfather granted Ragnar Lodbrok a vision from a distant future, as soon as the Jarl fell asleep onboard his drekkar.
At first, he saw a great island engulfed in flames so high that they reached the heavens, turning the pitch black night into day; thousands of longships were enclosing this beleaguered patch of land, while pouring endless hordes of warriors onto its shores. But soon, a thick mist gradually began to obscure Ragnar’s vision, and the island was now gone from his sight. Everything was so completely enshrouded in that mist, that it was impossible to distinguish any kind of object or being which could have been standing there. A shadowy figure of an old man clutching a spear emerged from the hazy background. Using the spear, he pointed towards his right side, a gesture which slowly dispelled the magical mist.
Moments later, a large, gloomy stone hall was revealed before Ragnar’s eyes, perhaps the main room of a foreign castle. This imposing place was illuminated only by the hellish light coming from the flames which ravaged through the courtyard and its surroundings, flickering wildly on the walls as it pierced through the arched windows. Wails of men and women alike begging for mercy could be heard outside mingling with savage shouts and commands uttered in Norse dialects. The crackling noise of the fire lurching entire buildings was so ominous, as if signalled the onset of the age of Ragnarok.
Seated on a gilded throne near the centre of hall, a grey-headed man1 with his chin resting on the left hand was staring at a circular snake pit which lain right in front of him, where dozens of cold-blooded reptiles coiled themselves around a bleached skeleton. The golden coronet resting on his temples as well as the richly embroided garments alluded to royal status. A profound feeling of resignation emanated from his sullen countenance. Not even the desperate screams of the people getting butchered outside, or the murmurs of the remaining guards, who were visibly apprehended by fear, could have broken his state of absent-mindedness.
The four soldiers still protecting the throne promptly turned their full attention to the massive wooden door, frightened by the great commotion which could be heard throughout the hallway. All of a sudden, the sound of a massive battle axe pounding on the barricaded entrance echoed violently around the main hall. The door resisted only for a brief amount of time before the flurry of blows literally slammed it open...
Three Norsemen appeared on the doorstep, grasping their weapons while scrutinizing the room with some precaution.
“ÆLLAAA!!!”, an inhuman growl errupted from the throat of the warrior standing in the middle2, succeeding in bringing the elder king to his senses. His frenzied eyes were burning with the power of a hundred fire giants, while the wolf pelts he wore amplified his beast-like appearance. Judging from the multitude of runic tattoos covering the torso and the massive axe he wielded as the weapon of choice, this progeny of Surtr was undoubtedly a berserker, despite the slightly skewed legs which could have hampered the overall mobility during the heat of battle.
The imposing berserker raised the axe in defiance, preparing himself to hack through the enemies. As he was about to rush forward, the companion on his left3 grabbed his arm, seeing that the guardsmen had already begun advancing towards them. Together with the other Norseman4, he threw himself at the opponents, while the berserker remained behind.
For a short while, the dark hall reverberated with the noise of fighting grunts, and of weapons furiously clanking or smashing through the wooden shields. One of the guardsmen managed to inflict a light wound upon one of the Norsemen, but he immediately got disposed of with a forceful sword blow, uttering a terrifying groan before dying. Another defender got impaled through the chainmail with a spear, being lifted high in the air before violently hitting the ground, a feat which forced the remaining soldiers to withdraw a couple of steps back. Worn out and completely outmatched by their adversaries, the two soldiers left to defend the realm succumbed quickly.
With the path to the throne now open, the Norsemen brutally seized the shaky king by the arms and forced him to kneel before the approaching berserker. After removing the old man’s coronet, the wolf-skinned warrior ripped it into four equal pieces. The king watched him with emotional breaths as he pulled out a sharp blade. While his two companions continued to keep a tight grip on the old man’s arms, the berserker cut his back open and removed his ribs from the spine, pulling the lungs out through the wounds, to resemble the bloody wings of an eagle. The unbearable agony was too much for the feeble-bodied king to endure. His executioners however seemed to take great pleasure from watching him grasping for air and spitting blood before giving his last breath.
“Our father is avenged!” the berserker bellowed after casting the corpse into the snake pit.
A deafening thunderclap in the clouds above abruptly interrupted Ragnar’s dream, while forked bolts of lightning blazed across the blackened sky, a sign from the mighty Thor himself. Heavy rain began to pour down, bouncing off the Norse longships. For days, the howling winds propelled the fleet westwards until it reached the shores of a mysterious island…"
1 King Ælla of Northumbria
2 Ivar "the Boneless" Ragnarsson
3 Halfdan Ragnarsson
4 Ubbe Ragnarsson
Campidoctor
Maximinus vs m_1512 Outcome!!!
Originally Posted by f0ma
Ah I missed my chance to vote. Congratulations max all the same
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