So Balder the Beautiful might have come among the Jotuns.
So the brawny sweating hard-breathing giants might have jostled and crowded
toward him, expectant, adoring.
As he came, he was calling out terrible reminders: words that were to the ears
of his champing host what the smell of blood is to the nostrils of wolves.
"Free men, true men, remember that ye face oath-breakers! Remember how they
have spoken fine words to us of plighted faith...and when we have believed
them and laid down our arms...they have stolen upon us in our sleep..and
murdered our comrades! And our kinswomen whom they had taken to be their
wives! Remember Saint Brice's day! Remember our murdered kin!"
On he went down the line; and like a trail in his wake, rose an answering
chorus of growls and clashing steel. Down some of the battered old faces tears
of excitement began to flow, like the water out of the riven rock; while the
delirium of others took the form of mirth, so that they sent forth wild
terrible laughter to swell the uproar.
Above the tumult his voice rang like a bell: "Heroes and sons of heroes,
remember you fight cowards! Remember that, since the days of our fathers, they
have made gold do the work of steel. To get gold to buy peace, they will sell
their children into slavery. Sooner than look our swords in the face, they
will yield us their daughters to be our thralls! Oath-breakers, nithings! Will
you be beaten by such? Vikings, Odinmen, forward!"
His answer was the bursting roar of the Danish battle-cry.
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