Chapter 1 — Torbjorn and Storfjell

Almost every historian you ever meet will tell you that there is nothing Vikings love more than blueberry muffins. Blueberry muffins with blueberries shining like gems atop the muffin’s golden crown. Blueberry muffins with little bubbles of succulent blue juice that burst in your mouth when you sever their skin with your teeth. Blueberry muffins for breakfast, blueberry muffins for lunch, blueberry muffins for supper next to your clan’s roaring fire in the longhouse.

Most historians would tell you that’s what Vikings love most. Most historians would be wrong.

“You boys sure seem to love muffins more than anything!” said Braxton. The old pilot had seen it all in his day – kangaroo rodeos, bees on bicycles, and even a fish who could shoot – but never ever in his whole life did he expect to be stranded on board a wooden ship in the middle of the sea with a pair of humongous Vikings.

And now that pair had laid aside their horned helmets and were shoveling blueberry muffins into their mouths by the fistful.

“Oh yah! ha ha!” laughed the larger of the two Vikings – his name was Storfjell – with a deep, rumbly laugh that shook his mountainous belly. Golden-brown muffin crumbs fell from Storfjell’s mouth into his silvery beard. He was at least eleven feet tall, with a pair of silver braids that must have been woven from moonbeams. “What you are saying is a common mistake! We are loving blueberry muffins very much! But you know what we are loving even more?” Storfjell said between mouthfuls.

Braxton’s watery eyes twinkled. The cows mooed. “I could venture a guess,” he said. If it weren’t for these two Vikings, alive and thriving in the modern era, unknown to the rest of the world, Braxton might still be stuck on a remote island in the Norwegian Sea. Still, as strange as it all was, he had a feeling he knew what they were going to say.

“Blueberry muffins are delicious to eat of course, but it is this, the Golden Fortune of our Herds – that is the best thing to taste in all of Midgard!” said the Viking named Torbjorn. Torbjorn was the smaller of the two – he was still ten feet tall and broad as an ox. He heaved a heavy wooden barrel upright and slid it across the deck of the ship to the mast where they sat. He pried off the lid with his battle axe and dipped the edge of the blade into the soft, golden butter inside. “It is butter that we Vikings love all the best!”

Butter – creamy, rich and smooth. I wonder what the encyclopedias would say about that, thought Braxton. The way these boys drank down their butter, you’d think their butter was the treasure that launched the Viking Age itself. He watched their herd of cows pushing at the oars. A question began to form in Braxton’s mind. There was something he had to know. “I know you love your cows and treat them right. I know you feed them on fresh clover,” said Braxton. “But what is it that makes your butter so special?”

Storfjell smiled, his long silver mustache turning upward with the corners of his mouth. He looked quite pleased that Braxton would ask. “This is a good thing you have wondered, but it is not my story to tell.” He pointed to his brother Torbjorn. “You must ask him, and he will tell you that and many things.”

Torbjorn scooped out another mound of butter and smeared it all over the heap of muffins still left on the table, then pounded the lid back onto the barrel with the butt of his axe. He was usually the jollier of the two Buttersmiths, but now, all of a sudden, he grew quiet. “It is an ancient tale,” he said. “One that begins with our fathers and their fathers’ fathers, so many times ago, before the ships could cross the great sea, when there were fewer people on the land, and when kings were rare indeed.”

Braxton took another bite of his muffin. The butter washed down his throat. He settled back against a barrel. It was a long way to land, and this was the tale he’d hoped would get told.

“In those days, our clan churned the butter in wooden churns by hand. It was a very tiring work.

“In those days, our clansmen did not live past 40 winters old. If he did not get a knife in his back, or a battle axe to his teeth, old age would surely find him.

“My father’s father’s father, very many fathers ago, was also like me named Torbjorn. Also his brother, like mine, was called Storfjell,” said Torbjorn. His words went up and down in his sing-songy voice as he spoke. With the fresh muffin warming Braxton’s belly from the inside, and the creamy butter melting through him and coating all his nooks and crannies, Braxton began to hear Torbjorn’s words as if they were a dream. This is the story that Torbjorn told.