Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893.
Tales of a Wayside InnPart First. The Musicians Tale: The Saga of King Olaf. VII. Iron-Beard
O
Blew a blast on his bugle-horn,
Sending his signal through the land of Drontheim.
Gathered the farmers far and near,
With their war weapons ready to confront him.
Old Iron-Beard in Yriar
Heard the summons, chuckling with a low laugh.
Unharnessed his horses from the plough,
And clattering came on horseback to King Olaf.
Little he cared for king or earls;
Bitter as home-brewed ale were his foaming passions.
And by the Hammer of Thor he swore;
He hated the narrow town, and all its fashions.
His ale at night, by the fireside warm,
Gudrun his daughter, with her flaxen tresses.
The smell of the earth, and the song of birds,
His well-filled barns, his brook with its watercresses.
His beard, from which he took his name,
Frosty and fierce, like that of Hymer the Giant.
The farmer of Yriar, Iron-Beard,
On horseback, in an attitude defiant.
Out of the middle of the crowd,
That tossed about him like a stormy ocean:
To Odin and to Thor, O King,
As other kings have done in their devotion!”
This land to be a Christian land;
Here is my Bishop who the folk baptizes!
Your sacrifices, stained with gore,
Then will I offer human sacrifices!
But men of note and high degree,
Such men as Orm of Lyra and Kar of Gryting!”
And loud behind him heard the din
Of his men-at-arms and the peasants fiercely fighting.
The image of great Odin stood,
And other gods, with Thor supreme among them.
Of his huge war-axe, gold inlaid,
And downward shattered to the pavement flung them.
From the contending crowd, a shout,
A mingled sound of triumph and of wailing.
The farmer Iron-Beard lay slain,
Midway between the assailed and the assailing.
“Choose ye between two things, my folk,
To be baptized or given up to slaughter!”
The people with a murmur said,
“O King, baptize us with thy holy water.”
A Christian land in name and fame,
In the old gods no more believing and trusting.
King Olaf wed the fair Gudrun;
And thus in peace ended the Drontheim Hus-Ting!