The Guests of Odin by Gavin Chappell Page B

Secondly, she picks up her gown when she walks. Thirdly, I saw her pick a piece of food from her teeth and then eat it.” He went on to say that the king’s mother had been enthralld after captivity, in case she might seem servile only in her habits, rather than her birth.
    The king praised Amlodi’s wisdom as if it was inspired, and in accordance with the message from Feng, gave him his daughter as wife. On the next day, to fulfil the rest of the message, he had Amlodi’s companions hanged. Amlodi feigned anger at this, and the king gave him gold in wergild, which he melted in the fire, and poured into two hollowed-out sticks.
    After spending a year with the king, he asked leave to make a journey, and sailed back to his own land, taking with him only the sticks containing the gold. When he reached Jutland, he dressed again in his old rags, and entered the banquet hall covered in filth. Here he found the people holding his wake, and he struck them aghast, since all believed him to be dead. But in the end, their terror turned to laughter. The guests jeered and taunted each other.
    “That Amlodi should turn up at his own funeral!”
    “Where are the men who went with you?” someone asked.
    Amlodi pointed to the sticks he bore. “Here they are,” he replied, to the laughter of all. Then he jollied the cupbearers, asking them to ply more drink. Next he girdled his sword on his side, then drew it several times, and cut himself with it. To protect him from himself, the king’s thanes had sword and scabbard riveted with iron nails. Then Amlodi plied the thanes with horn after horn of mead, until all were drunk. They fell asleep one by one in the hall itself.
    Now Amlodi took from his rags the wooden crooks he had fashioned so long ago, then cut down the hanging his mother had made, which covered both the inner and the outer walls of the hall. Flinging this over the sleeping thanes, the then applied the crooked stakes, knotting and binding them so none could rise. Then he set fire to the hall.
    As the fire spread, he went to Feng’s chamber, where he took his uncle’s sword from where it hung over the bed, and replaced it with his own. Then he woke Feng.
    “Your men are dying in flames,” he said. “And here am I, Amlodi, armed with my crooks to help me, athirst for long overdue vengeance, for my father’s murder.”
    On hearing this, Feng leapt from his couch and tried to draw the sword that hung over his bed. But Amlodi cut him down as he struggled to unsheathe the weapon.
    Uncertain of how the Jutish nation would react to his deeds, Amlodi lay in hiding until he could learn the people’s thoughts. Everyone living nearby had watched the hall burn through the night, and in the morning they came to see what had occurred. Searching the ruins they found nothing but a few burnt corpses, and the body of Feng stabbed with his own sword. Some were angry, others saddened, others happy that the tyrant had been slain.
    At this, Amlodi abandoned his hiding place, and called an assembly. Here he told the Jutes of the circumstances that had brought this about, where upon the people proclaimed him king, seeing him as a man of wisdom and cunning.
    With this done, Amlodi equipped three ships, and sailed back to England to see his wife and his father-in-law. With him went the best of his thanes, well equipped and richly clad. He had had a shield made for him, upon which was painted the story of his exploits.
    The King of England received them well, treating them as befits a king and his retinue. During the feast he asked: “Is my old friend Feng alive and well?”
    Amlodi shook his head. “He died by the sword,” he replied.
    “Who slew him?” asked the king sharply.
    “It was I,” replied Amlodi.
    At this the king said nothing, but secretly he was horrified, for in their youth he and Feng had sworn that each should avenge the other’s death if one of them were to be slain. But the slayer was his son-in-law. Which should he