The Girl with the Golden Hair

1033 AD Near Vinland

The tiny village was a poor little village that sat along the edge of the great forest, they had broken away from the main Viking community that had traveled across the sea around 10 years back when the Vikings first made their initial settlement. Until five years ago the village was self-sustaining, and the crops they planted along with the deer and other animals to hunt gave them enough to survive. They got meat and made their clothing from the deer, rabbits, and other animals they hunted.

Far on the other side of the great woods sat the mountain that stood high over the trees, but it was a baren looking mountain with pitfalls and traps and no trees or animals would go near it, at least not the kind that the villagers would hunt. There were even rumors of a fire breathing dragon that had a taste for human flesh that resided in the central cave of the mountain, but to this date that was neither proven nor disproven, for massive footprints, again rumored, were seen around the cave.

However, the village began to fall into decline and the animals suitable for hunting had begun to disappear, and their crops dried up because of the fact that the creek had been diverted towards the mountain, despite there being no new foliage on the dried-up mountain. Why was anybody’s guess.

Into the village a child was born; a girl with golden hair, of Norse origin in a new land that they had recently discovered with prophecies concerning the child.

“Did not the old witch say that this child would bring about a new age of prosperity when she was born?” The hag with the thinnest strands of pure grey hair anyone had ever seen squawked out as she glare at the girl with the thick golden hair that stood next to her father, the man she was putting her face into. There was a look of evil that was forever on her face that looked like an old dried-up piece of fruit. “That was four years ago!”

“If I remember correctly,” the girl’s father looked the old hag in her beady little eyes, “the old witch never said when this prosperity was going to come or even how. Besides, nobody heard this prophecy but you.”

“True,” the old hag sighed, “true. But the old witch did promise me that the prosperity would come in my lifetime.”

“Did she now?”

“Yes,” the old hag squawked, “and by most people’s reckoning, I only have a few weeks to live.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the father squeezed at his young daughter’s hand, as if he sensed an air of danger from the old hag.

“So, when the hell is the prophecy going to be fulfilled?”

“I. Don’t. Know.”

“I’ll make sure that prophecy is fulfilled today,” the old hag presented a rusty old knife and waved it at Carmela, the four-year-old golden-haired girl that was with the man, “even if I have to cut it out of her!”

Troels, the girl’s father, yelled out something indistinguishable, he pushed Carmela in the direction of their little house. “Run home and hide until I get there.”

“Okay daddy,” Carmela ran off, but not towards the familiarity of her house, for she has found a lone rabbit to chase, as the rabbits and squirrels were the only game animals that stayed.

“GIVE ME THE CHILD!” The old hag roared furiously; she waved the rusty old knife at Troels.

“I don’t think so,” Troels blocked the swing of the large rusty knife with his arm as a small stone passed across his line of vision and hit the knife with a distinct sound, sending it flying out of the old hag’s hand. He looked to where the stone came from, to see a 10-year-old boy standing there with a slingshot. “Nice shot!”

“Thanks,”

Troels noticed that several of the town-people were dealing with the old hag, and he looked around for Carmela, but the girl ran away fast, and he wasn’t exactly in the position to see which direction she had gone.

“Carmela, where’d you go?”

“I saw her go that way,” a voice called out, as a finger pointed towards the woods, beyond which there was the great mountain.

Carmela found herself running through the woods, the tiny village had disappeared behind her, and now she was walking around aimlessly, looking for someone or something that was familiar.

“Daddy where are you?” Carmela called out, not realizing she was moving farther and farther away from the village and not towards it. “Daddy?!”

Carmela pressed on, only to go deeper into the woods. It was some time, maybe hours, if she knew how to tell time like the others, that’s what it seemed to be before she came out on the other side, by then it was getting dark, and she was hungry and had already begun crying long ago. She looked up at the great mountain there was something at the base of the mountain, she had no idea what it was, but it certainly didn’t look like it was friendly.

Carmela had heard the men of the village toss around the word dragon but was never given an idea of what it looked like, was this large black thing that looked like a giant bird with a long neck and looked like it was bigger than the entire village with a larger wingspan than even the largest bird in the sky, the ones that flew graciously for long periods of time. She let out a gulp as it came towards her, the entire ground shook as it walked. She threw out a word she only heard her father speak when he had drunk too much.

The black dragon watched the infant girl come out of the woods towards the great mountain, his large tongue slid across his lips, it was small, not much to it, but the smell of the girl wisped across his nostrils teasing him of a small snack that was coming his way.

Back at the village, Troels gathered all the men he could muster up, providing them with some of the weapons they used from their fighting days; swords spears and arrows.

“I don’t know what all of the fuss is about,” Knud sat lazily on the ground, “the girl will come back.”

“Do you know how big this area is?” Troels barked. “We are only on a small speck of could be a great land. “Besides, there is a dragon just beyond those woods.”

Knud let out a laugh, as he smoked on a roll of weeds that he found had a good effect on him when he let the leaves dry out for a few days, the effect of smoking the weed made him feel calm and relaxed. He blew the smoke out as a smile came to his face. “There is no dragon. It’s just something we made up to scare the kids from venturing through the woods.”

“Ragr,” Troels barked out, “you are nothing but a ragr!”

Knud flipped the remains of the weed that he was smoking into Troels’ face. “What did you just call me?”

“Ragr,” Troels said.

“You better prove that;” despite his words, Knud made no move to fight Troels, despite by this time he was on his feet, “besides, you know I’m more of a lover, not a fighter.”

“Oh,” another man said, “leave him out of this. Besides, you know by now that he is more of a woman than he is a man.”

“That’s right,” Knud smiled at Troels flirtatiously.

“Even though there are some women on the search party you can man the fort.”

“Thank you,” Knud smiled, “I’ll stay behind just in case that little brat finds her way back.”

Troels wanted to call Knud a few other choice words, but the fact that nobody else was challenging his stance, made him realize that they already knew. Oh, they knew without a shadow of a doubt what he was, which was quite evident when the only other man who refused to go settled lovingly into his arms.

Carmela ran back the way she came, or at least tried to, but the dragon gave a single leap, flapped his massive wings just twice, and he was blocking her way. He was close enough to grab her to eat her in one gulp, but it began toying with her like she was his plaything; like a cat would play with a mouse before killing it. She ran in the only direction the dragon would allow her to go; towards the cave

Knud sat there for around ten minutes before he decided to meander along and join the hunting party, still trying to convince himself that the girl was in no real danger. However, he had no experience with children, and his love life wasn’t as spectacular as he liked to pretend, and his sense of adventure was…well almost non-existent. He was just a boy when they landed on this great land back in 1021 and had followed the people who had split away from the main group, this small group of Vikings had become pacifistic farmers and game hunters, thus he was never truly shown the ways of the Vikings. Their group had become something less Viking.

If he had no sense of adventure, then why was he racing through the woods to catch up with the search party rescuing a little girl he knew little about from a dragon he firmly believed didn’t exist?

Carmela looked up at the cave, it was like the dragon was corralling her to go there, but why? It wanted to eat her, she knew it, and it could have eaten her several times over. The idea of a cat playing with a mouse had again entered her head. She entered the cave and found a large pile of bones, bones of all kinds and the most horrible smell lingered in the cave.

Knud had caught up with the search party that were going through the woods with their torches and swords, it had taken him some time, but he finally caught up with them, but he didn’t know why. He had no real feelings for the girl, why would he? He was never allowed to be around her, or more to the point, he never allowed himself to be around her for reasons that weren’t even clear to him.

Troels heard the motions behind him and waved his torch into the darkness. “Whose there?”

“It’s me,” Knud responded, as the light of the torch illuminated his face.

“I thought you and your “friend” were going to man the fort?” Troels said with a hint of sarcasm.

“We were,” a third voice responded, it was Knud’s male lover, “but we decided that it wasn’t right letting the rest of the village have all of the fun.”

Troels let out a gentle hum.

“The girl may really be lost,” Knud said, “but I still say that there is no dragon.”

“I’ve seen enough evidence of there being a dragon to indicate otherwise,” Troels said.

“Have you now?” Knud squawked. “You’re no better than that old hag, telling tales of evidence that only you know about.”

“Oh,” Knud’s lover said, “I have seen things in the sky that I can’t explain.”

“Just a large bird,” Knud explained.

“A bird that is as big as one of our houses?”

“We’ll know the truth in a few minutes,” Troels saw the great mountain begin to peek through the trees, as well as a dragon meandering back and forth in front of it.

The dragon meandered his way towards the cave, almost as if he lost interest in obtaining his little snack, besides the little girl he was chasing around would merely be just that; a snack. But he hadn’t eaten anything in days, all of the animals he had taken to eating had learned to stay clear of his home. But then again, if there were a whole lot of these two-legged creatures, then his belly would be full once again.

He knew of a small settlement of these two-legged creatures and had seen them as he flew through the skies, but for some reason he was never inclined to investigate the town as a whole, but had picked off one or two of those who dare venture towards his cave. He had however learned how to be a thorn in their side by diverting the creek so that only he could use the waters from it. But they still survived, and maybe the creek wasn’t their only source of water.

All at once, he smelled the air, he looked at the edge of the great woods, there were a whole lot of these two-legged creatures coming at him, with strange lights in their hands.

Knud and Troels peered out of the woods at the great mountain, between them and a large cave stood a large black dragon, it was as big as a house and looked very mean, and very angry.

“Will you look at that!” Knud’s lover said as he pointed out in the general direction of the black dragon. “A dragon!”

“I do believe in dragons! I do believe in dragons!” Knud prayed out, as even his bones shook in fear, “I do I do I do believe in dragons!”

“I thought you said there were no dragons!” Knud’s lover looked at Knud.

“Well--.” Knud motioned towards the dragon that was coming at them. “I was wrong!”

“Well let’s attack it!” Knud’s lover was the only one to charge at the dragon.

“WAIT! We need to formulate a gameplan!” Troels protested. But the dragon had taken interest in…what’s his name.

The dragon spotted the lone two-legged creature running out of the woods, and this one was bigger, much bigger in size than the one he had taken to playing with, much, much more meat, he scooped down with his great mouth and picked the man up with his teeth flipped him in the air and chomped down. There was a loud crunching sound, as the dragon began to chew on his little snack.

“NN-OOOO!” Knud cried out as he watched his lover being eaten alive by a very large dragon. “N-OOO!”

“That’s why we need to formulate a plan.” Troels frowned, as the dragon spit the bones of Knuds’ lover on the ground, sending his skull rolling to Knud’s feet.

Knud picked up the skull and looked into the eye socket. “Is this all that’s left of you?”

Carmela had found a place to hide in the cave as she heard the commotion outside, she went to the mouth of the cave and began to wave her little arms, as the dragon studied the men and women at the edge of the woods. The full moon above illuminated her presence just enough to reveal her presence to everybody who was there, including that of the dragon.

“Daddy! Over here.” Carmela waved her arms in the air to bring attention to her presence.

“No,” Troels cried out, he flung his arms out, for she had gotten not only his attention, but that of the dragons, “stay there!”

“OK,” Carmela trusted her father’s judgement and ducked back into the cave.

The dragon, still very hungry, looked back at the little girl and he plodded his way back towards her, this time he wasn’t going to play around with her. While the two-legged creature was filling, it wasn’t enough to curb his appetite, and the other two-legged creatures were wise enough to stay behind the tree line.

The time to act was upon them, and Troels barked out a few orders. “Go after him with the spears first, aim for the tender area on his chest.”

Those with the spears were now the first line of offense, and attacked the dragon, while a few spears hit their target, they seemed to have no effect on the wellbeing of the dragon, however they were able to divert the dragon’s attention from the girl, but for how long was anybody’s guess.

Carmela watched as her father and the other people of her tiny village fought the dragon with their spears, and it was backing its way into the cave. She decided to get out of harm’s way and backed herself up the tiny, almost hidden trail that went up the one side of the cave. She watched as one spear after another entered into the dragon’s chest, there was a place of safety up that little path, she knew there had to be.

The dragon noticed the girl trying to escape, and she was just in reach of his great teeth, but as he went to grab her, the girl backed up one more step and disappeared. The dragon let out a bellowing roar.

Troels had taken notice of what happened. “CARMELA!”

There was no answer, had the dragon snatched her up in that brief second, or had she disappeared by some other means? Now was not the time to investigate, he needed to slay the dragon once and for all.

Knud had seen where Carmela had disappeared to and hoped that it was a much safer situation than being eaten by the dragon. He noticed that the dragon too had seen where Carmela had gone as well, into some pit that was dug by some people who occupied this land. Oh, he knew other people lived on this land, strange people with strange ways and customs and talked in some language unknown to them, and maybe it was them who dug this pit that Carmela had fallen into. He wanted to check on her, but the dragon was breathing down his neck.

As the dragon scooped his head down to grab at him, he came up with his sword, driving it through the dragon’s chin until it came out through its mouth, and the dragon let out the most horrendous scream. But the action with the sword only seemed to make the dragon that much angrier.

Troels leaped into action and gave Knud a hand, maybe he wasn’t as much of a Ragr (coward) as he first assumed, in fact in the eyes of the main Viking community that settled in Vinland, the whole tiny village would be considered as cowards, not just one mildly effeminate man, especially one that stood up and proved that he wasn’t a coward.

“Let’s finish this!” Troels made a few random cuts with his sword, as he did Knud pulled his sword out of the dragon’s chin and reinserted it again and again. Troels decided to end this, he grabbed one of the spears that dangled from the dragon’s side and thrust it deep into the dragon’s chest.

The dragon was furious, not only were these two two-legged creatures jabbing at him with their swords and spears, but the others were joining in as well, each taking their pop-shots at him. He was in agony, and finally fell to the ground and took his last breath, he tried to make a final swipe with his tail, but somewhere along the line, someone had cut it off. The last thing it saw was its tail being hauled away as his eyes closed in the sleep of death.

With the dragon dealt with, Troels turned to Knud with a frown. “Where’s Carmela?”

“She fell into a pit,”

“She what?” Troels turned to the pit and peered in. “Carmela?”

He got no answer, he looked down and saw a body on the spikes, but it was too big to be her, and the skin had decayed from the bones long ago.

“Not that pit,” Knud said, not realizing that there had been two pits, “the other one.”

“Oh,” Troels peered into the second pit, “Carmela?”

Carmela looked up from the bottom of the pit, this one was filled to her ankles with mud, and when she landed in the deep pit, the mud had created a soft enough landing for her not to be too injured. In fact, she had taken to playing in the mud while she was waiting to be rescued from the pit. “Yes daddy!”

Troels let out a laugh at seeing Carmela all covered in mud but otherwise no worse for wear, it took them only a minute to work a rope down to her so they could pull her up.

Once she was back up, Carmela ran towards the entrance of the cave where the dragon briefly had her trapped.

“Come on,” Troels said, “we’ve got to get home.”

“No daddy, look at something in the cave,”

“I don’t think we’d better.”

“Just for a minute,”

“Fine,” Troels muttered out with hesitation, he peered in to see the great river that once fed their tiny village water was dammed up inside the cave with about 10 tons of rock. A smile came to his face as he began to formulate a plan, he called every person present. “OK people, we have a little work cut out for us.”

“A little?” Knud squawked. “You mean a lot.”

“Then we’d better start working on it.”

“It’s going to take us all day!”

“Not that long,” Troels said, “I think once we break up some of the bigger rocks in the middle of the dam, we can let nature take its course.”

One of the people who came along on the search was a giant of a man with massive muscles and carried a heavy long handled sledgehammer. “Rocks are no bother to me.”

“OK,” Troels looked at the hulking mass, “Hurok smash!”

While Hurok had his fun smashing the rocks, and a few of the stronger men carried the broken pieces to the side so the water could begin to flow, Troels looked at one of the fallen trees, it was large enough to do what he wanted to do with it.

“Some of you other guys drag this tree over to the path where the river is going to start flowing, when that’s done, I want you to tie the carcass of the dragon onto it.”

Knud gave Troels a bit of a look.

“Unless you don’t want to eat heartily tonight.”

“That thing must weigh a ton.”

“Would you rather help Hurok with the rocks?”

“Of course not.”

There were only a few people who didn’t join the search party, one was Troels’ woman, the other the old hag, both stood at the edge of the village peering into the woods.

“It’s been almost all day,” Frida (Troels’ woman) said quietly as she watched the sun set in the west, “I do hope he’s found her.”

“Oh,” the hag said, “he has.”

“Another one of your crazy prophecies?”

“No, not this time,” the old hag looked at the ground, there was a trickle of water. “Just putting two and two together.”

“What do you mean?” Frida looked at the trickle of water that got progressively heavier, until the riverbed was fully flowing. Within a very short time later, she looked up to see a mass of people coming down the side of the riverbed, and right down the middle of the river was the largest animal she has ever seen tied to it.

The group were singing songs of Knud’s victory, as one of the verses came to and end, Troels, who was riding on the tree that was carrying the dragon, climbed off so Hurok could pull the tree ashore.

“Are the songs I hear true?” Frida asked.

Troels pressed his finger to his lips. “Let him have his day of glory. Besides, we all could do with more of these days.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Troels said, “we’ve all been away from the main group in Vinland for long enough, maybe it’s time we found our way back.”

“Fighting that creature has re-sparked the true Viking nature within you, hasn’t it?”

“In a word,” Troels said, “yes.”

“How soon?”

Troels shrugged. “Within a month, maybe not even that.”

The old hag let out a little laugh, for that part of the prophecy had been fulfilled too, for she was told that she would lay eyes on their great leader Lief Erickson one last time before death would overtake her.