Tag: oral history

Who are the Langbards?

Very simply, they were a group of people who, over hundreds of years, moved from northern Europe down to what is now Hungary and thence into Italy. The only certain date we have for this migration is their arrival in Italy in 568 CE (though some of them had been there before, and some may have stayed there after earlier visit, so arriving slightly earlier than the main body of the Langbards). They were a composite people, built up over hundreds of years of fighting and winning battles with other peoples, which they absorbed into their own human mass by means of a form of serfdom and through subsequent emancipation into the wider community. They called themselves the Langbards, and their language was Germanic, and though not enough of it survives to be completely sure, it was most likely West Germanic. They represent a kind of human snowball rolling slowly but ever more powerfully through Europe over hundreds of years, until its mass and momentum were sufficient to invade a land as large and as sought after as Italy (though they never really held the entire peninsula, they did hold most of it.) Once there, they established a Kingdom that lasted until it fell to Charlemagne in the year 774, so roughly 200 years. During most of that time, the administrative capital was Pavia, just south of Milan in what is now appropriately called Lombardy (see the naming issue below), and the royal palace here was the habitual residence for most of the kings. I say “here”, because I live in Pavia.

Paul the Deacon Fanfiction – oral re-telling, from memory

Let’s be clear about this: all stories are, in some way or another, fanfiction, like it or not. Dante from Virgil, Virgil from Homer, and I don’t know Homer’s direct inspiration, but of course he had it. So, let me be completely honest and upfront about this: in creating these oral stories I’m drawing in a huge way upon an Early Medieval Latin history by a proud Langbard and devout Benedictine monk, Paul the Deacon. His work is called Historia Langobardorum (History of the Langbards).

Scholars have always hotly debated its origins and nature. Is it a condensed version, in Latin, of Germanic oral history, perhaps alliterative sagas? Is it simply a rehash of  diverse written sources, many of which have been lost? Is it a mix of history and Paul’s own imagination? Was it written with a personal, or perhaps political agenda shaping the stories?

Now, I don’t presume to know the answers, and believe no one ever will, short of inventing a time-machine. If you ask for my personal opinion, I would say it is a blend of all of these explanations, but with a preponderance of the first: in other words, much of it (and perhaps all of the really memorable narrative passages) are condensed versions, in Latin, of Germanic oral history, likely originally in the form of alliterative sagas. Why do I think that? For a totally un-historical, un-scientific, but nevertheless very good reason.

I have told a few fragments of Paul the Deacon’s stories orally several hundred times over a ten year period, as Master History Walker of The Original History Walks® of the Cultural Association Il Mondo di Tels, Pavia. Essentially, in the context of educational walking tours of Pavia, for school kids, I have verbally recounted some parts of Paul’s stories that relate to the city. During History Walks, I have also recounted some of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales several hundred times, too, and many other stories besides. I think all guides and storytellers know what I mean when I say that, after you tell a story many, many times, you settle into a way of telling it that suits the oral medium. It is very different to simply reading from a book (especially reading from a guidebook!) You subtly rearrange things so that someone who is listening, without any visual aid like a presentation or a poster, can follow and enjoy the story you are telling. As a professional oral storyteller, I’ve done this many times. With the narrative fragments of Paul the Deacon’s stories, it just isn’t necessary. They are already in the perfect form for oral storytelling. I don’t believe that’s a coincidence. They are, in my un-provable and unscientific opinion, a translation into Latin of an established oral tradition that was alive and well in his time.

Paul hints at the existence of a wider body of song and oral storytelling several times. Here is a telling example, from the end of Book I of his History, talking about the heroic king Alboin who first led his people into Italy:

But the name of Alboin was spread far and wide, so illustrious, that even up to this time his noble bearing and glory, the good fortune of his wars and his courage are celebrated, not only among the Bavarians and Saxons, but also among other men of the same tongue in their songs.[1]

However, and this is fundamental to my project, I am also pretty sure that Paul severely edited the stories, cutting out elements that in some way offended his Christian faith or simply his sense of what was appropriate to a history. There are two main reasons why I think this. The first is the character of Gambara. She appears to be a seeress, and a kind of legendary mother of the Langbard people, and her story is the first that Paul tells. She has two sons with alliterative names (a common element in many Germanic origin stories) and she interacts with the goddess Fream (Frigg/Freya) in a way that corresponds with what is generally understood about early Germanic seeresses. However, Paul tells her (pagan) story almost unwillingly, introducing it as ‘a ridiculous tale told by the ancients’, and tells it in a compressed and abridged form. How do we know it is compressed and abridged? Because the same tale is, fortunately, told in another key Langbard document, attached as a kind of prelude to Rothair’s Edict, a book containing the law code published in Pavia in 643 CE. Here it is in a more complete, detailed, and narratively satisfying form. This, to me, makes it plain that Paul abridged the stories where he found pagan elements he did not agree with. I also believe he cut out other important stories altogether, because they did not correspond to his idea of what constitutes history. For example, the Hildebrandslied is an alliterative heroic song that linguists believe originated in Langbard Italy in the 7^th century or before, and was then told in other Germanic lands in translations and variants. The Song of Hildebrand survives as a fragment, that appears to relate to the corpus of sagas and songs built around the court of Gothic King Theodoric/Theudereik/Dietrich von Bern. That would be appropriate, because Theodoric conquered and ruled Italy with his Goths before the Langbards arrived, and the Langbard kings resided in the palace Theodoric built in Pavia, where Paul the Deacon, incidentally, studied as a young man. Here’s the thing: Paul himself makes no mention of Hildebrand, and does not recount his tragic tale. I guess it didn’t fit in with his history. Therefore I believe he selected specific tales from a broader corpus of oral storytelling, and most likely abridged them until they could fit into a history written in good conscience by a devout Christian monk.

So, what I am doing is this: based on Paul the Deacon’s narrative, but integrated with related folk-tales from Lombardy/Italy, or with related folkloric and literary elements drawn from across the Germanic traditions, trying to recreate an oral history not as I think it was told in reality (that is forever lost to us), but at the very least with a spirit and atmosphere akin to the way it was told in reality. To attempt to achieve this, I am not writing the stories down until they are finished. So, the entire creative process happens orally and mnemonically, normally during walks I take in the countryside around Pavia, where I live, or while I iron or do similar menial tasks. I literally tell/sing the stories to myself, many times, until they settle into a form I am satisfied with, part alliterative, part prose, part song, and then I record them, and only then do I write down the result. My goal is to achieve something akin to the atmosphere and style of the oral storytellers upon whom Paul based the narrative portions of his History.

Why Langbards? (and not Lombards, Longobards, Longobardi, Langobardi, Longbeards, Heaðobards…)

Well, the name literally means Longbeards. You will find them in most encyclopedias as Lombards, sometimes qualified as the Ancient Lombards. The trouble with using the word Lombards is that the modern inhabitants of Lombardy, Italy, are also Lombards. And they have very little in common, except a geographical home, with the people in these stories. Paul the Deacon calls them in Latin Langobardi, specifically stating that in their own language Lang = Long and Bard = Beard. The ‘O’ in the middle of Langobardus is required by Latin phonetics, and probably wasn’t part of the original word. The declined endings after the ‘D’ are required by Latin grammar, so what we are left with is Langbard. Of course, we could call them Longbeards, and be done with. But that would, I feel, reduce the mystical, mythical feel surrounding a name which, as you will discover in Gambara’s Spell, has divine origins. Heaðobards is a probable Old English variant, found in Beowulf and the Widsith, but is too distant from what they called themselves, and from what most people call them today… so Langbards it is.

Why Spells?

I confess to being one of those people who actually read dictionaries for pleasure. I admit it here and now, I spend more time reading dictionaries than I do novels or stories. My favourite is called www.etymonline.com, an etymological dictionary of the English language.  I was looking for a word that could have had a similar meaning for those ancient people who were ancestors of both the Langbards and me (I am Australian of majority English descent). Tale was too connotated with certain historical literary models, particularly The Canterbury Tales, and also implied something spoken or written and not sung (at least to my ears). Story is of Latin origin… What about spell?

spell (n.1)

Old English spell “story, saying, tale, history, narrative, fable; discourse, command,” from Proto-Germanic *spellam (see spell (v.1)). Compare Old Saxon spel, Old Norse spjall, Old High German spel, Gothic spill “report, discourse, tale, fable, myth;” German Beispiel “example.” From c. 1200 as “an utterance, something said, a statement, remark;” meaning “set of words with supposed magical or occult powers, incantation, charm” first recorded 1570s; hence any means or cause of enchantment.

Yes! It has the right meaning to describe what I want to do, existed in Proto-Germanic, the language presumably spoken by those ancestors I mentioned, and today it also has associations with causing magic to occur through song, which was something very real for the Langbards, as you will discover listening to these tales.

The tales abound with wars, cruelty, bloodshed, shape-shifting, omens, prophecies, drugs and hallucinations, strong female characters, poison, gods, music, wonders, magic… There is even a dragon at one point. So, please listen on if you think this is your cup of tea.

Come, sit in the warm and listen well,
As I sing and speak a Langbard spell…

[1] Alboin vero ita praeclarum longe lateque nomen percrebuit, ut hactenus etiam tam apud Baioariorum gentem quamque et Saxonum, sed et alios eiusdem linguae homines eius liberalitas et gloria bellorumque felicitas et virtus in eorum carminibus celebretur.

Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum, Book I, Chapter XXVII. English translation by William Dudley Foulke (Ed. Edward Peters, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003

The second of the Langbard Spells, oral storytelling of the history of the Ancient Lombards, a Germanic people who occupied much of Italy for nearly two hundred years after the fall of the Roman Empire.

AD 783. Arichis is a prisoner of the Frankish King Karol (Charlemagne). While in prison, he is sitting by a crackling fire, telling his listeners the incredible stories of his people, from their mythical origins in Scandana, an island of the far north, to their ultimate downfall at the hands of King Karol of the Franks (Charlemagne).

This is Gambara’s Spell, the tale of the Seeress who, together with her sons Ibor and Aighio, first led her people on their epic journey.

Come, sit in the warm and listen well,
As I sing and speak a Langbard Spell.

Now that you have heard the story of my family, and you know my right to be a teller of these tales, I would go back, back to Gambara’s Spell, the oldest of all sung among my people. Gambara was a seeress, a wielder of the wand, and held to be the wisest of all among the Winnils, and the Winnils were the fore-fathers of the Langbards. But, as I told you last time, among us we always say that every tale must begin with either a mother or a father; and so it is with Gambara’s Spell: we must begin with the spell of King Sheave, shining Sheave, the Boat-Borne, the first father of all seven kindreds who dwelt in the island of Scandana, the hallowed of hallowed places in the faery Neverlands of the north. But why, I hear you ask, why do we call him ‘shining Sheave, the Boat-Borne’? Well, if you listen to my song, soon you will know.

To our Fathers of old, from the farthest ocean,   
a boat came sailing out of the burnished sun,
waning in the West.

With wings outspread on the winds of Spring,    
a hallowed eagle came hurrying from the East,
an omen overhead.

By the wind swiftly blown, over wild breakers,
on the strand it rose, till its stem rested
on shingled shores.

In fear and wonder to the fallow water
men hastened to marvel in the half-light
at the boat on the beach.

Gleaming-timbered in the golden twilight
It lay where the sand meets the lowering sky,
A burden in its bosom.

A slender boy lay asleep in the boat,
his limbs were rosy, his locks were raven,
his face was fair.

His sleeping head was softly held 
on a sheaf of cut and shimmering corn,
from far-off fields.

In golden ware, gleaming water
stood still beside him; strung with silver –
a harp of horn.

From boat to hall they bore him high,
and laid him sleeping, alone to slumber,
on blanketed bed.

And night wore away. New awakened
over Earth and Men the early morn;
and day came dimly.

They strode indoors, then stopped in daze;
fear and wonder filled the watchmen;
the guest was gone.

They sought him, un-resting, till the sun, rising,
over land came blazing, light blinding,
shadows shedding.

Then upon a swarded hill, they saw him:
he stood on high, still and hale,
at his feet the shining fallow sheaf,
his harp in hand.

A song began, both sweet and bold,
with words and music weaving marvels,
wonder wakening.

Then Maids and Wives, Men and Wise,
Greybeards, and youths in golden years,
all thronged enthralled.

They bowed and cried and blessed his coming
to their native shores. They named him Sheaf,
the Boat-Born.

His name is sung in the North ever since,
for king he was, crowned with wheat,
a great gift-giver.

He raised on that hill a royal hall,
of wood well-carven the walls were wrought,
golden gabled.

Words he taught them wise and true
long forsaken laws of fairness,
and runes for writing.

Midst music and song, mead and spells,
both boons and penance he bestowed and passed,
judging justly.

Where wastes had lingered on wild lands,
now burnished wheat in the breezes whispered,
fresh food for his folk.

And riches he lavished, reward of labor,
from sowing and ploughing, seeds of plenty,
hoarding harvests.

His warrior bands did well as he bade,
ever roaming fearless, reaving and fighting,
harvesting hoards.

Sheaf our forebear, Shield of his folk,
of princely sons was proud sire,
father of fathers.

The Franks and Gepids, the fierce Goths,
the Angles and Saxons, the able Swedes,
Seven his seed:

The last, the Winnils, lovers of war,
the wild Hounds, the Wolf-hamed
ever fear they struck where fearless they strode,
swords swinging.

When his years lay wearily, youth worn away,
silent came Sheaf to the sea’s shore,
and beheld the boat that hence had born him.
He sailed into the mist, and was seen no more.

The time of King Sheave was one of plenty, of new life and new riches. But where, I hear you ask, where  lies that Island of Scandana, the most hallowed of all hallowed places? Well, as the songs tell us, it lies among the cold seas of the far north. In the Elderman’s tongue, salt-water is called soul-water, for it is said that the ghosts of new-born babies spring from the ocean waves. So, too, sea-birds are called soul-birds. And so, of course, an island lying amid the seas is a place where new life abounds, perhaps too much new life! All the new-born babies were brighter and fairer than the fathers and mothers who made them. But all too soon they grew up, and came to long for new lands to till, and fresh timber for new halls and homes. But, on an island there is no new land, no fresh timber. And so the doom was cast that three of the seven kindreds who dwelt on Scandana must take ship, and leave those shores forever. Straws would be drawn, and those who drew the three short straws would have to leave.

When Gambara heard this news, she went out to the hidden places, and there she stewed the stem, and smoked the seed, and chewed the wort, and foresight came to her of all the days ahead of her people. Then she went back to the Winils, and told them: “I have seen it. Where now the way is thick with thorns, there roses will blossom, red as blood. Let us take ship of our own accord. Let us be the first to leap out over the waves towards new lands. I have seen our path, and proudly will I stand upon the prow and steer us over the silver seas.”

When the Winils heard this, their hearts were lifted, and they were glad, and willingly they took ship. And being the first to leave, they also took the finest and fastest of the three ships. Well, the Goths would not be outdone, and very soon they too took the second of the ships, and the second best. And so but one ship was left, and only one short straw needed to be drawn. The kindred who drew that straw were called the Gepids, and it was a fit name, for ‘Gepid’ in the Elderman’s tongue means ‘sluggish’.

Now, the tale is told that as the Winil ship, ahead of the others, plied the ocean waves, from the top of a wind-tossed wave there sprang a soul-bird, a dove. It flew above the heads of all, and off into the south. Gambara cried: “Let us follow beneath its wings, for that way our path lies.” And so it was that the ship, at last, following under the wings of the sea-bird, came to a land our forefathers called ‘Scoringa’. When they saw this new land, their hearts were glad, for it was a broad, gentle plain, rich in green, a good place.

Now why, I hear you ask, why did the Winils change their name to ‘Langbards’? Well, that tale is linked with Gambara and with the land of Scoringa, for the folk who dwelt in the neighbouring lands all about were under the yolk of one people, the Wandals. And just as the Winils were lead by two brothers, Ibor and Aighio, the sons of Gambara, so too the Wandals were lead by two brothers, Ambri and Assi. Their fathers had won them much land, and now they were too proud to work, too proud to till their own land. And so they lived of bread baked by the other peoples all around, they were not true warriors like their fathers before them, they were shameful spear shakers and rowdy shield rattlers. Thinking they could easily strike fear into the hearts of the Winils, they sent word to Ibor and Aighio, saying: “yield to us each year one tenth of your toil, and you will be spared the spear.”

Well, of course, Ibor and Aighio thought no longer upon this threat than an eagle thinks of being eaten by an ant. Straightway they sent word back: “fight we will.”

The Wandals had not looked for this answer, and they were unready. And so, that night, they sent their worship to Godan, the father of all good, begging him to let them win the day against the Winils. And thus spoke Godan unto them: “When Golden Eastara lifts her head above the world, by her light I will behold the worthy.” And to Ambri and Assi, what Godan had said seemed clear: they must merely be the first upon the field at dawn. ‘Eastara’ in the Elderman’s tongue, is ‘the dawn’, and she rules that time of year when darkness and hunger come to an end, and new life springs up all around. And that is the time of year when Harimenn set forth to find new wars to wage in far-off lands.

When word of Godan’s doom reached the Winils, Ibor and Aighio thought straightway to send their worship to Tiuz, the lord of war, the wolf-bitten warden of the Winils. But Gambara stayed their hand, saying: “This wants a woman’s teasing touch.”

So that night, Gambara stewed the stem and smoked the seed and chewed the wort, and sent her worship to Fream, Fream the goddess and wife of Godan. “Oh, Gladsome Fream,” said she, “please let us win the day tomorrow.”

Fream, by way of an answer, told Gambara a riddle. Yes, that’s right, a riddle! I guess here, in the halls of King Karol… maybe you don’t know it. But in our lands, every child can sing you this riddle as well as they sing you the days of the week. Here, this is how it goes, let’s see if you can fathom it:

Keys unfasten them, uncut they never fall,
Weave them and wind them, that’s the wherewithal,
Make what maidens pluck in their plight,
Let Hairmen and Harimen hail Lady Light!

There, what do you make of it? Well, in truth, I think the last two lines give the game away, but I’ve known the answer all my life: Gambara had only just heard it… All that day, and long into the night, she and her sons, Ibor and Aighio, weighed it over in their minds without coming any closer to fathoming its meaning. Already, dawn was drawing near, and an old warrior, whose name was my own, Arichis, came to Gambara and to her sons, saying: “My lady, my lords, what news? It is nearly day, and we must don our helms for war, and heft our weapons.” Gambara spoke to him, saying: “Reckon thou upon this riddle, and tell us the truth of it if you may, good man.” And then she sang the riddle to him.
Well, old Arichis scratched his bald head, and twisted his fingers in his woven beard, and said: “I am no Elderman, I am no seeress’ son, my mind is too lame to unlock this one.”
Now, as Gambara saw him scratch his bald head like that, and twist his fingers in his woven beard… and when he said the word ‘unlock’… suddenly, a flash of insight came to her, and she rushed from the tent, calling to her all the women of the Winils. When they had gathered together before her, she cried aloud in a great voice: “Women of the Winils, loosen the locks of hair on your heads, wind them and weave them about cheek and chin until you boast beards to make grown men green with envy!”
For that is the answer to the riddle: you see, keys unfasten locks, and the only locks that never fall are the ones on a woman’s head. Weave them and wind them to make what maidens pluck in their plight… well, when a pretty maiden finds a few hairs growing upon her chin, that’s a terrible plight for her, isn’t it? And so she plucks them out. So, the women of the Winils must weave their hair into beards like a man, and then these ‘Hairmen’, together with the Harimen, must hail Lady Light, Eastara, just as Godan had said.
Now, you truly understand just how highly the Winils thought of Gambara when you think that, as dawn finally broke, these women wearing woven beards joined hands with their husbands and greeted the day, and nobody laughed at the sight.
Now, the old tale goes that Fream, during the night, had turned around the bed where her husband lay asleep, so that he was facing the East, and then she shook him roughly awake. When poor Godan had thrown off the sleep in his eyes, and looked out, he said: “Who are those longbeards?”
Fream, as quick as a fox, said: “My husband, you have just given them your own Never-Name, will you let them bear it now for one day and no more? Let them win this fight, and bear that name for ever more, and for hundreds of years men will sing of the Longbeards!” Of course, Godan was not just a wise god, he was a wise man as well, and would not say no to his wife when she was in the right. And so, from that day on, the Winils became the Longbeards, and now with Godan’s blessing began the battle.
Leaping as quick as lions, the Langbards came, burning over the bowed helms of the Wandals, hot like a flaring flame, searing on a winter wind! Swords threshed limb from limb, their spears spared no one, like thunder their feet upon the Earth, the trees trembled in the ground’s grip, and their foes fell back in dire awe from the death-light in their eyes!
The day was won. The Langbards were free.
When the fighting was done, Gambara bade the Harimen left alive take the spears of their fallen fellows and set them upright in the ground above their graves. And then she sang a spell to hasten them on their way to the Ghastengarda. As the spell came to its close, a dove came sailing out of the northern sky and, swooping and diving, it went on its way to the south. Just as she had done that day on the ship, Gambara told them: “We must follow beneath her wings, for that way lies our path.” And indeed, soon afterwards, the Langbards, new-named, went on their way ever southwards.
Ever since the day of the fight against the Wandals, when we earned our name, we have always set spears in the ground upright, to show where our fallen Harimen lie. And we have always set upon the point of those spears a wooden dove, gazing away to the south. For this reason, we call the field of a battle an ‘ash-field’, for ash is the wood of our spears, the most hallowed wood in the eyes of Godan.
Now, you might be thinking that the Langbards were none to pleased to be on their way once more. Surely, having won their new land in Scoringa, they would be happiest to dwell there awhile. In truth they were not too dismayed, they had suffered greatly the pangs of hunger there, and were glad to be on their way once more. The trouble was that, to the south, there lay a great wood, and in the wood there lived another folk called the Assipites. When the Langbard scouts first went under the trees, they found that the Assipite scouts were ready and waiting. When the scouts came back, and told Ibor and Aighio what they had found, the two brothers would not wait to speak of it with their mother. It must be said that their pride was pained by what had passed, for they had seen time and again that their people followed their mother more than they followed the brothers, and now they were yearning for deeds to prove themselves in the eyes of the Harimen.
And so, that evening, they bade the tents be spread out far and wide over the plain, and fires be lit fit for a host a hundredfold their number. And then the donned the hallowed wolf-pelts of Tiuz. They told the men: “Now, make such a wailing and crying as a hundred wolves howling to the moon!” And then they tore among the trees, rending flesh with red fangs, reaving and wreaking havoc, freezing hearts with fear!
When they were done dishing out death, they stopped on the edge of the woods, and cried out in a great, fell voice: “Hinder not our host in its passing, lest we slake our thirst upon your slain in their throes of death in a dour glut of gut and gore!”
Now, when the two brothers came back to the camp, their mother met them, and her mood was foul: “Fie upon you, my children,” she said, “the ways of the wolf are no longer ours. Longbeards we are, we bear the Never-Name of Godan himself, Tiuz is no longer the lord of our ways. We must look to Godan, the ways of the wisdom.”
At first the two brothers were wrathful to hear such words, but as the night grew long, they understood what they had done, and swore never to wear the wolf-hame again. These were now things of the past. Well, the next day, out of the woods came the king of the Assipites, and by his side an Elderman bearing a mead-cup, to show they came not for a fight, but for a moot. Ibor and Aighio and Gambara came forth to meet them. The Assipite king said: “Great is the fear among my men after what happened last night, and none wish to wage war upon you. But there is one among us, a bear-skin bearer, stronger than the strongest of men, and he will fight for all. Thus I challenge you: let your bravest and best fight with him. Should your man win, you will pass unhindered through our woods. Should our man win, you will go back from whence you came.” And then the king took the mead-cup, and drank a deep draught from it, and offered it to Ibor and Aighio.
Now, of course, in front of all their men, how could the two brothers say no? They would pass for cowards. And yet their heart was heavy to drink form the mead-cup and seal the deal. No longer could they don the wolf-hame, as they had sworn, and even should they do so, a wolf pack might hope to bring down a bear, but a lone wolf will always flee from such a foe. And so, the Gairethinx gathered, and set to choosing a man to face the bear-skin warrior of the Assipites. And it was then that a mere Haldien stepped forward, a slave. He was a Wandal man, taken but weeks before in the great fight when the Langbards had won their name. He said: “I will fight this man on behalf of all of you, but I ask one boon: let it be known that I fight for my freedom, for among my people I was born a Hariman, and I would not die a Haldien among yours.” And then his eyes, wandering, met those of a fair maiden of the Langbards, a Hariman’s daughter, and her eyes met his, and to all it was plain: he would fight not only for his freedom from bondage, but for the right to marry a Hariman’s daughter, for he and she were in love. Gambara, seeing this, spoke to the Gairethinx, saying: “Did I not say once that where the way is thick with thorns, there roses will blossom, red as blood? Is the blood of a Wandal not red as the blood of a Langbard? Let this man fight for his freedom, and fight for our right to go onwards.”
And as Gambara bade, so it was done. The Wandal man was given his weapons once again, and when the bear-skin warrior came forth to meet him, and screaming, scramsax in hand, he leapt lunging and with a single strike, felled his foe to the ground! And once again the day was won, and the Wandal wed his Langbard love.
And ever since that day it has been our way to free the best and the bravest of the men we take in battle. They swell our ranks and make us stronger. And thus is the sign of their freedom: one morning, in the spring, they are taken to a crossroads where a hallowed Oaktree grows. An arrow is placed in their hand and a spell is sung, and then they are full-free.
Now the Langbards went through the woods of the Assipites, and onwards to new lands, but every time they stopped and dwelt for a short time, the soul-bird would fly out of the north and onwards to the south, and they knew the time had come to move on. And ever it was so until the great king Authari came to the southernmost tip of land, and then our wanderings stopped, in our homeland of Italy. But during those long years, those hundreds of years, moving from home to home, my forebears took heart in the song of our people: Gambara’s Spell.

O! The fields and forests and swarded fells,
Where the swaths of sweet-grain softly sway
At the setting sun, how the wind sings,
And whips the waves to shimmering white.
O! The sheltering shores where silvery shines
From sighing seas the light of souls.

From nameless Neverlands of the faery North
Fair and fearless, a Soul-bird fared,
And soaring sailing, a Dove all-seeing,
Over dark deeps it winged and dived.
“O! Whither now, wending, the Gairethinx wanders?
Will you guide us?” Cried Gambara, seeress of Godan.

Sailing southward from our heartland of Scandan,
Our homes and hearths now dim and hollow,
To dwell and die afar our doom;
From our fields, and forests, and swarded fells.
O! Swift as you swoop and sail I swear,
So shall we seek to follow you South.

“Yet shall we yield in our dreams to yearning,
For the deathless door, at the close of day,
Cleansed and clothed in Night’s good cloak.
O! The nameless Neverlands of the faery North.
O! Our fields and forests and swarded fells.”
O! The nameless Neverlands of the faery North.”