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King Edgar’s Elephant
By
Ronald Smith
Copyright 2011 Ronald Smith
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KING EDGAR'S ELEPHANT
You may wonder how it was that Edgar, King of Scotia in the far north of Britain, came to have an Elephant in the first place.
It was his uncle Sigurd who was to blame. Sigurd was a viking who lived in the Orkney islands, even further north. He decided to go to the Holy land on a pilgrimage, and he set off with some other vikings in his longship, sailing to the warm Mediterranean Sea .
When they reached Africa, they sailed along the coast until they came to Egypt.
The long voyage had made all the men feel restless, in need of adventure. For vikings, this meant plunder and perhaps even a battle or two. There seemed to be a good many rich looking people about, merchants who lived in large houses, so Sigurd and his men picked a likely looking house made of clay bricks with a big wooden gate, and they banged loudly on the door, until it opened.
"We want your most precious thing, " demanded Sigurd, " or I will take Ear-biter out of his scabbard!" He put his hand on the hilt of his sword so it was clear to the man who stood there what he meant.
The man, who was very brown and fat, looked up to the heavens and threw up his hands and cried "Allah have mercy!" Then he hurried back inside, leaving the vikings smiling at one another at how easy it was to plunder here...but then they all
stepped back in alarm, all eyes on the darkness within the gate and all hands grasping for their weapons.
An enormous shape filled the space, a huge bald head and - was it possible? - a big snake for a nose? Never had they seen or even heard of such a beast, and they studied it very keenly, as it stood there blinking in the bright sunlight and pointing the snake-like thing at them. They realized it was sniffing the air, and this must be its nose!
"My most precious one," said the fat man, who had appeared in a window above the gate. Tears rolled down his cheeks. "But you may have her. She is yours." From within, the gate shut behind her, and wooden bars could be heard dropping into place, firmly locking the doors. Then the window shut, too.
Sigurd and the other Northmen gathered round the creature, and some of the bolder ones reached out and touched her sides, her tree-like legs, even her long, ever- bending and twisting eel-like nose. She seemed to like their attention, and they soon realized she was friendly, as she snuffled and sniffed at their clothes. "What is this?" asked Sigurd.
No one spoke, until Barefoot Thorgils said " I have heard there be Kamals here. Perhaps a kamal."
"A kamal! And what, then, do Kamals eat, O wise one?" exclaimed Sigurd, for he had begun to suspect that it was looking for food as it sniffed his men. He hoped it did not eat people.
"Let us watch," suggested Thorgils, " and it will find what it wants."
There was nearby a market with lots of stalls selling dates and other fruit .The vikings watched as the creature looked over to the fruit and took a couple of steps towards the stalls. Her long nose stretched out towards the fruit, and the stallkeeper rushed out from behind, waving his hands, trying to shoo her away from his stock.
"He is very brave," observed Sigurd to his men.
"Or perhaps he knows it will not harm him," commented Thorgils.
"GET BACK, ELEPHANT!" shouted the stallkeeper. And to Sigurd's surprise, that is just what she did; she stopped and withdrew her trunk from the pile of figs on the stall.
"It obeys," said Sigurd.
"And it has a name," added Thorgils, "It is called Olifant."
"Well, Olifant," said Sigurd, "let us see if you will eat what horses eat. Is there a stall here selling fodder?"
And that was how the vikings discovered what an enormous appetite their new companion had, for she ate ALL the hay that was on sale. This worried Sigurd as he could foresee that keeping Olifant in hay would take some effort. Also he could see that she would never fit into their boat. But all the same, she was certainly very precious. A gift fit for a king...fit for a KING! Yes, thought Sigurd, King Edgar my nephew would be greatly impressed by such a rare and strange creature. And it would take his mind off that bit of plundering we did last summer in his kingdom. But how can I deliver it to him? So pondered Sigurd as he wandered away on his own.
The sound of laughter made him turn, and he saw Barefoot Thorgils had climbed up on the back of Olifant, and now he was sitting astride her neck, to everyone's amusement. He kicked with one foot and Olifant turned in that direction; then with the other and she turned back - Thorgils was riding her like a horse, she was quite tame, it seemed. And that was when Sigurd had his great idea.
"THORGILS!" he cried, "You are going on a journey!"
"Not far," said Thorgils.
"Further than you think," replied Sigurd.
Thorgils did not think much of the idea, but he said nothing because Sigurd was an Earl, and an Earl could say or do whatever he pleased. Thorgils decided a question might be the best way to test Sigurd's mind. "And what road leads to Scotia from here?"
"Use your head, Barefoot; we sailed east and south to get here, so you must go to the north and west. Just keep the sun behind you and your shadow before you. Keep going and you should get there before we do. Better the Kamal road than the whale road - eh, boys?"
All the vikings laughted - except Thorgils. He who laughs last, laughs best, Thorgils thought to himself . And with that, he kicked Olifant with both feet and off she trotted, her shadow stretching out before her.
Before many days and nights had passed, Thorgils had discovered two things: the first was that whenever he stopped in a village or town, EVERYONE had to see Olifant, and they would pay him to let them climb up. Especially children. Soon, Thorgils had to get another leather bag just to hold the money he was collecting.
He began to worry about robbers - after all, wasn't Sigurd himself a robber? There must be a great many like Sigurd between here and Scotia, he thought.
The other thing he had discovered was that men who looked as if they might be robbers were wary of coming close to Olifant, as if she might sense what they were thinking, and become annoyed. Thorgils was thankful she was good-natured; he had never seen her become angry and hoped she never would, because Olifant was far and away the strongest, most powerful being he had ever met. Sometimes with her long nose she would twist and break a branch from a tree, to eat the leaves. Thorgils noted that the branches were often as thick as his arm or his leg, and he knew how hard it was for him to break just a small branch.
Travelling with Olifant was becoming an adventure much to Thorgil's liking. It was true he was a sailor at heart, that he loved the salt sea and its waves, and the open water around the Orkney islands, but when he rode on Olifant's back, it rolled like a boat, and the view from so high up was like looking out from the mast of a ship, much better even than from the back of a horse. As he sat up there, on Olifant's shoulders, and felt her great muscles ripple beneath the thick, leathery hide as she glided along, surprisingly light on her feet for such a huge animal, he imagined it was like riding a whale, and that he, not Sigurd and the others, was really on the whale-road. "A land-whale, that's what you are!" cried Thorgils happily,
It might be boring to describe all the days of their journe
y across Europe, along the neglected and overgrown roads built by the Romans long ago, over the high mountain passes of the Alps, along the rivers of France, across the channel to England (Thorgils had to hire a large boat to carry himself and Olifant, but by now he was a wealthy man and could have bought the boat if he had wanted it).
The final part of their trip was drawing near; they had travelled the length of England and that part of Edgar's Kingdom south of the Scottwater, across which Thorgils recalled there was a ferry started by King Edgar's mother, the late Queen Margaret. That would save him a long detour around by Stirling on the road to St. John's toun, where the King was presently staying.
But getting the ferry was not so simple as it had been at the Channel; the boats were too small. And the boatmen were afraid of Olifant, until Thorgils fed her some apples, then gave them each an apple to hold out for her. When she took the apple from the outstretched hand of the first boatman, he laughed with delight as she grasped it with the end of her trunk and put it into her mouth.
"We'll lash the boats thegither, " he declared, and the two boats were brought side by side, ropes were strung back and forth, binding them fast. Then Thorgils waded out to the first boat and climbed in, leading Olifant by a cord around her neck. She stepped in, and the boat