The Draugr

There is a Draugr under Grima’s Howe.

I, Wulfgar son of Wulfred, did boast before my ring-giving lord and his thanes, that I would go forth and slay the deathless thing. 

Not frugally had my lord dispensed the wit-ensnaring mead and when I stood before the tumbled stones on the high howe above the grey sea, great were my misgivings. Odin’s Wind blew from the far lip of the world and smote at my cloak. Distant were the stars and sullen their silence.

A shaft there was beneath the stones and a tunnel beyond. My pine torch spluttered but I clasped my father’s sword, Skelfing. 

A hall there was below, wherein the Draugr waited. Hoary were his locks and withered his skin, but bright his eyes that gazed upon me.

“Be thou hale, Son of Wulfred,” he whispered with the tones of a serpent writhing on cold stone. “Put away thy sword.”

And lo! Set before me was a board for hneftafl, with my King and eight Thanes at the centre, and the Draugr’s bone-white playing pieces around the edges.

“If my King escapes,” I questioned the Draugr, “what is my reward?”

“Why,” said the Draugr, “thou mayst slay me and claim my treasure.”

Around us lay dead lords in gleaming mail with bright gold at their throats.

“And if you seize my King?”

“Why,” said the Draugr, “then shalt thou gain only my treasure.”

Fair was the Draugr’s gold, so I took up the cup of lacquered horn and cast the dice and lo! There fell the unchancy numbers, whereby my thanes moved in disarray. Each time the Draugr cast the dice, lo! The chancy numbers, whereby the Draugr’s pieces advanced until my King was ringed by foes.

“You have prevailed,” I told the creature, “but I claim your gold at least.”

“I wish thee joy in it,” said the Draugr, and he was no long foul but a young warrior who seized his torch and claimed his father’s sword Skelfing. “For now it is thy Doom to guard it.”

I looked upon my withered hands. The gold glistered as the torchlight receded and in the darkness I wept dry tears, I who had once been Wulfred’s son.

There is still a Draugr under Grima’s Howe.

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I love writing in this Heroic Register, with flipped sentence construction and "Lo!" and all that stuff. I think I got it from Marvel Comics! Anyway, it's more bearable to read when it doesn't go on for too long.

The Draugr is an undead monster from Norse mythology, perhaps a ghost, perhaps some sort of vampire. If they're not haunting crypts, they are pestering sailors.  A Draugr (the seagoing sort) is the mystical foe in 'Elias and the Draug' (1870) from Jonas Lie's 'The Visionary.'