Chapter I: The Brothers in Midfirth

Into Midfirth runs the Mell river through mudflats and marl to mix green water with the salt waves. On either side the land is rich and wet, giving fine pasture, and you can hardly see the snow peaks beyond the fells from which Mell comes down cold and green and clear. There on the brae stood Melstead, and there it stands yet. Once it was the house of Ogmund and his wife Dalla; but he died before the tale begins, which begins with Dalla, a widow and blind, and her two grown sons--Thorgils and Cormac.

Dalla had been a fine girl when she married Ogmund, as he himself was a fine man, who had been a fighter and a Viking in his day. Between them they had this couple of fine sons, of whom Thorgils, the elder, favoured his father, but had little of his quality. A broad-shouldered, fair-haired, sleepy young man he was now, steady at his work, and in his ways mild and quiet. He thought twice before he spoke, and therefore seldom spoke at all. If everybody did that, the world would be a peaceful place and much work done in it; but it would be very dull. Cormac took after his mother in looks, being vivid black and white. His hair was jet-black and curled freely, his face was very high in colour, that ran off to white in his forehead and neck. His eyes were light grey and rather fierce. He was a wild young man, but very friendly after the bout. He had no idea how strong he was; but his brother knew, though they were very good friends for all that. He had a keen eye for the flight of a bird or the play of a fish, knew the weather by the smell of it, and could sing and make verses. Sometimes he made verses because he had been moved; sometimes he was moved because he had made verses; and often he did not know which way it had been with him. Although he had no notion of setting up for a poet, he thought about himself and his sensations a good deal, and had found out already that he did not greatly care to do anything unless he could watch himself doing it, and watch the thing done as it suffered the doing. That’s a poet all over; but he didn’t know it. It gave him the conclusion, however, that he was very unlike his father, the Viking, to whom the killing of a man was not at all the same as the killing of a pig. But Cormac, who had never killed a man yet, fancied that, to him at least, there would be no essential difference. His father again (he had heard) had loved many women, while he had loved never a one. But his father had been very jealous in his loves, and had killed almost as many men because they had intermeddled in his love-affairs. Now Cormac, thinking that over, felt very sure that he should never be jealous if he were a lover. He theorised at large about it; he gave the subject a great deal of attention. Love-making must enhance a woman, he thought, even in the minds of her lovers. If she was beautiful, it was surely her due. If she was plain, it would provoke desire. What more lovely sight could the world offer a man than to see the woman he longed for the burning-point of the world’s longing? He kept these ideas to himself because he had nobody but his mother to whom he could have imparted them. She would have laughed at him and made him angry.

When this tale begins, Cormac was a full-grown man, strong for his age.