drink! To the memory of Sigrid and all our ancestors," he proposed to his friend.
"Drekka Minni!" they toasted in unison, emptying the horn in one gulp. Olaf ran the back of his hand over his mustache. "Now you have to think about getting over this moment; you could leave for a long journey," he suggested.
"I’ve thought about it. If Thorald had been older, I would have taken him with me."
"We can do this instead; you’ll travel and do some trading for me too, while I’ll take care of raising him to be educated, healthy and strong," Olaf proposed.
"My friend, you have never let me down!" declared Harald, as the two men exchanged glances full of deep affection and mutual respect.
"I'm sure you'd do the same for me!" Olaf asserted, without the slightest doubt, putting the palm of his right hand towards him in a gesture that his friend reciprocated.
Harald traveled for many years, and spent many of them wintering away from home.
For the two children, education and training began immediately. They were taught about laws, history, woodworking and ironworking, and learned all the secrets of metallurgy. They learned to familiarize themselves with weapons, and practised several disciplines on a daily basis.
In the long evenings of the freezing Norwegian winter, the whole family gathered together in the warmth of the domestic hearth. While the women weaved and the men carved wood, the family and clan history was handed down to the children though the tales of the elders, along with the principles, values and code of honor that a good Viking should never break.
Ulfr and Thorald grew up healthy and strong, they studied and trained together, and a strong bond of affection was created between the two. Like their fathers before them, they became sworn brothers, according to an ancient magical rite.
Winter was over, the Viking ships sailed the Scandinavian waters, and the Vikings who had wintered away from home finally returned to their families. To everyone's surprise, Harald returned that spring too.
It was the ninth summer for the two little Vikings, around the middle of April, when they consecrated their fraternity. That day, it was their first training with the bow and everything had been set up outside, at the back of the house from where the panorama of the whole property could be seen.
"Put your left leg forward, it will help you take a better aim and get more power," suggested Bjorn, the best archer of the clan. The two children positioned themselves as suggested, holding the bow with the arrow ready, and pulled the string as hard as they could, squinting their eyes to focus on the target they had to hit. Two straw-filled sacks were used as puppets, with the target painted at heart height.
"Now!" Bjorn ordered.
The two small archers shot their first dart and a disappointed expression was painted on their faces as they followed the flight, a long way off the target.
"For Odin's good eye!" a man’s voice swore. All eyes turned in that direction as Leif, a big red-haired man, came out of the bushes with a dead goat, pierced by the arrows.
Bjorn looked at Olaf and Harald astonished. "They killed it dead at the first shot!" he said in disbelief. The children’s proud and satisfied expression aroused a feeling of fondness and amusement in the men. "What was this goat doing outside the stable?" asked Olaf as he pulled the arrows from the poor beast.
"She had run away and I was trying to get her back to the others," the man explained.
"You were lucky, it could have been you instead of the goat," Harald remarked.
"You’re right!" exclaimed Leif, opening his gray eyes wide. "The arrows hit her as I was grabbing her," he added, looking at the two children, who gave him a half-smile of apology.
"I survived a thousand battles in my youth and I certainly don’t want to go to Valhalla at the hands of two children!" he exclaimed in an ironic tone, "And I'm not sure the Valkyries would let me in... Dead chasing a goat!" he concluded joking, making everyone laugh.
"My good friend, when you make your entrance into Valhalla it will surely be worthy of the great Viking you have been! Now take her to the cook, and tell her to prepare it for dinner," Olaf said with a laugh. Leif agreed, bowing his head in a sign of respect before setting off towards the kitchen.
"Now focus on the target... " the archer called the children to attention, "because when you fight an enemy you will not win it by slaughtering the cattle."
"You have to admit that the first arrow of their life is a good omen for the future," Harald declared, in a tone between smug and amused.
"So it seems,” replied Bjorn. "Now they have to work hard, to prove that they deserve this omen," he added, addressing the two small archers, ready and waiting for a command.
A noise behind them caught the attention of Olaf and Harald. The doors of the stables opened and, after six months, a multitude of animals poured outside. Among mooing, grunting and bellowing, some men of the clan were trying to maintain order so they could lead the more than 500 head of cattle into the lands where they would leave them free to graze.
"Get the cattle out of here, or these two will kill them!" exclaimed Olaf, teasing them. Amid all that hustle and bustle Leif appeared, heading in their direction at a quick pace. He seemed eager to tell them something.
"Old Sigrùn saw the goat and said to tell you that she’s waiting for all four of you in the sacred glade,” the man informed them, as soon as he reached them.
“Good!" Olaf commented, exchanging a knowing look with Harald.
"You will resume training when we return," he told Bjorn.
"I’ll be here waiting for you," replied the archer.
The four set off, leaving the village behind them. The earth had freed itself from the frost and, with the first warmth of the sun, everything had started to come to life again in the village of Gokstad. Olaf's property was beautiful, and very vast, stretching along the coast and towards the hinterland for miles and miles and he was proud of it.
The fields were divided by a low stone wall which surrounded them. There were some peasants busy plowing the fields, while others were sowing the many different crops: rye, the precious barley, all the vegetables and oats, the latter destined to become fodder to feed the large number of livestock during the coming winter.
The first flowers dotted the vast meadows of clover, which were strewn with berry plants, blackberries and raspberries, and extended to the point where the terrain rose up to become rock walls and hills that bordered Harald's lands. With the thaw, the waterfall had once again begun to slide down the rocks, covered with lichens, swelling the stream that crossed the forest and the sacred glade.
The road they were following was lined with rows of apple trees and hawthorns which were in bud, and the first white flowers were already beginning to appear. They continued in silence, amid the sounds of nature that had awakened with the sun's rays filtering through the trees. The first birds’ nests could be seen and hanging from some of the branches were spiral-shaped straw baskets in which the bees had begun to build their hives. By the end of summer they would full of honey, with which the Vikings would produce an excellent mead.
They arrived at the sacred glade, where old Sigrùn awaited them. She was standing near an oak tree, wrapped from head to toe in her black cloak. Two
