Page 5 of The Bewitched Viking

“No doubt the witch will take on a most beauteous countenance to draw us under her spell.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yea, that is what happened to me, I warrant. Why else would I have let my guard down in a strange country in the presence of a known witch?”

Tykir laughed. “Because the Scottish wench opened her lissome legs for you, that’s why. Because the man-lust is always upon you. Because you think with the rock betwixt your legs, instead of the rock betwixt your ears.”

Rurik lifted his chin with affront, calling attention to the blue-dyed line down the middle of his face—testament to his foolish entanglement with a witch.

“Since we are so close to Scotland, why do you not go in search of the witch? Mayhap you can rid yourself of her mark once and for all.”

“All of last year I spent searching for the wench, to no avail. I refuse to spend the winter months in the Highlands freezing my arse in search of her now. Next summer I will find her, or be damned.”

“I for one wouldst like to know if the old tales are true about witches having a tail they hide beneath their robes,” Bolthor interjected. “’Tis said that the only way they can lose the long appendage is by marrying a mortal man.”

“See,” Rurik argued to Tykir, “I was right about witches taking on a tempting form. It makes sense that they would need to be beautiful if they want to snare a man and thus lose their tails.”

“You two would believe anything,” Tykir hooted. “All I know is that I want to be the one to light the fire under this particular witch…once King Anlaf is finished with her, that is. Then, if I never see English soil, or an English wench, again, it will be too soon for me.”

“There she is,” Rurik said excitedly.

A long, telling silence followed. Finally, Tykir snorted with disgust and said aloud what they were all thinking: “So much for the theory of beautiful witches!”

“Methinks this calls for a saga.” Bolthor was already pulling his wax tablet from a saddlebag, muttering something about “Tykir and the Flame-Haired Witch.” Then he launched into his usual introduction, “Hear one and all, this is the saga of Tykir the Great.”

“How would you like a stylus up your arse?” Tykir responded.

Bolthor just ignored him and began spouting his verse.

“Flames there were

But not of fire.

Wild spume of

Satan’s breath

Spilled from

The witch’s head

To catch the wary warrior,

Though he be grandson of

The great King Harald Fairhair.”

“I saw a fruit that color once whilst a-Viking in the southern climes. ’Twas called an orange, I think.” Rurik spoke with awe on viewing the wench’s odd-colored hair.

Tykir had seen red hair before—they all had, of course. Even the great Odin had red hair. But never had Tykir witnessed hair quite like this. Rurik was wrong about its orange color, though; it was more like bright rust on a metal shield.

“Oh, for the love of Freyja! Is that the devil’s spittle that adorns her, too?” Bolthor shivered with distaste. “Hair like the fires of hell and the mark of Lucifer on her skin…Of a certainty, she is a witch.”

He was right. The woman was covered with freckles, every part of her exposed skin, and no doubt every other place beneath her drab robes. Her headrail and wimple, which would normally cover the hair of a lady of her high birth, hung ignominiously from a briar thatch just beyond where the Lady Alinor was chasing a ram, who was chasing a bleating sheep.

“Dost see her familiars anywhere about?” Bolthor asked in a hushed voice. “Ofttimes witches use cats as their familiars.”

They all scanned the horizon. Not a cat in sight.