Years go by, and there is no stopping them. They are the wheels on a wagon, always turning while there is an ox to draw them. Trees grow towards the sky, then fall, their roots rotten. They mix with the earth and new trees rise from them. That is how it goes.
Now Nim was so old that he scarcely ever left the steading, and the youngest lamb could outrun him. Now his eyes were dim, and he had to live by his nose and his ears. But they were still sound enough. So keen, they were, that Nim often knew when a man was coming, long before old Starkad could see him on the hill path, long before Katla could hear him, even, and her ears were as sharp as they had ever been, though she was bent and wrinkled now.
So it was that, one bright summer morning, when the larks were rising above the steading as though they adored the place, Nim began to whimper, then to growl, then to bark. He rose from his corner and tottered on stiff legs to the doorway, sniffing mightily.
Katla with a ladle in her hand, said, ‘What ails the dog?’
Starkad, greasing a pair of new leather leggings by the hearth, said, ‘It must be the season that has got into his blood. I’ve not heard him make a whimper for weeks!’
And suddenly, as they watched, old Nim ran across the stack-yard like a young puppy, and then began to bark and bark as though he had been visited by Freya and given the secret of endless youth. Starkad was about to go out and quieten the dog, because he had got so that sudden noises upset him; but as he rose from his chair, the yardgate flew open as though a giant had pushed it, and there stood a man whose hair flamed out in the sunshine like red gold.
He had no sword in his hand, no helmet on his head, but only a great blackthorn staff that thumped on the ground with every step he took, as though he was Thor come again and wanted to tread everything flat, to show his strength.
To tell the truth, Starkad was a little afraid at this man. The baresark years had faded like a dream, had gone like last October’s ale, and were but a dim memory. Now Starkad saw only a strong young giant carrying a staff that would have laid Skallagrim himself flat on the ground, even in his prime. So Starkad and Katla put their arms round one another and waited for the worst this tall stranger might bring.
They did not dare even look into his bearded face as he came towards them. Then they saw his black shadow kneeling, and felt his oak-firm arms about them. And they looked down a little way into a face they knew, but strong now, hard like a god’s face, and like a great man’s face.
And Beorn smiled up at them, out of his thick golden beard, and said, ‘I have come back, mother. I have come to serve you, father. Is that good?’
Starkad’s skin crawled with the old baresark feeling, and he said quietly, ‘Yes, it is not bad. I have known worse.’
But in the deep of his stone heart, he could have cried and cried with joy. He felt a child now, he felt like blind old Nim in the stack-yard; Nim who was telling the lambs that now Beorn was back they had best mind their manners and treat a dog with respect.
Then Beorn lifted them both off their feet and set them down in their chairs by the hearth-fire. With a strange look, he said to them, ‘I have a bag of Miklagard gold for you in the cart that follows; and a king’s crown for my father. But there is a confession to make.’
Starkad put on his worst face, the tears running into his grey old beard though. ‘Well,’ he barked, ‘out with it, my lad!’
Beorn said, ‘I threw the short sword and the horned helmet into the sea off Jomsburg as we came by. I thought that made a good end to it all. The viking days are done.’
Starkad thought a while, then said, ‘Aye, boy, that’s good enough. They served their turn. And even they must finish when their time comes.’
Beorn said, his face turned away, ‘Reindeer is out on the Portage, and the Patzinaks have her for their palace. All the others are in a howe at Hedeby. I came back in a Frankish trader, The Maid of Aachen. Not the way I like to travel, but beggars cannot be choosers, father.’
Starkad thought a while, then smiled and said, ‘Nay, that they cannot. You’ve done fairly well for a silly young lad. Mayhap, when the new year comes, I’ll try to knock a bit of husbandry into your thick head. This farming is real man’s work, not like that fly-by-night roving, and that baresark foolery men set such store by. Are you willing to learn, lad?’
Beorn’s arms were round Katla, and he was trying to mop up her tears on his silken sleeve. He spared a glance for Starkad, and said, ‘Aye, I’m willing, father. But go easy with me, my hands are soft. I’m only a viking, you must remember, not one of you hard-fisted farmers.’