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the high, angular script of the north; the pictographs seemed primitive.
"These are old runes," said Ivar.
"Can you read them?" I asked.
"No," said Ivar.
My hair rose on the back of my neck. I looked at one of the pictographs. It
was a man astride a
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arauders%20of%20Gor.txt quadruped.
"Look," said I to the Forkbeard.
"Interesting," said the Forkbeard. "It is a representation of a man riding a
mythological beast, doubtless an illustration based upon some saga with which
I am unfamiliar."
He continued on.
I lingered by the pictograph. I had seen nothing like it on Gor.
"Follow me," said the Forkbeard.
I left the pictograph to follow him. I wondered on the man who had carved it.
It was indeed old, perhaps ancient. It was drawn by one who had been familiar
with a world unknown to Ivar Forkbeard.
There was no mistaking the quadruped on which the rider was mounted. It was a
horse.
The passage now enlarged. We felt lost in it. It was still squarish, some
twenty feet in height and width. It was now much more decorated and carved
than it had been, and, in the light of the torches, we could see that much
color had been used in its decoration. Pictographs were much more numerous
now, and, instead of being linearly bordered the walls were now decorated in
columns of runes and designs, and pictographs. Torches, unlit, in wall rings,
were still illuminated as we passed near them. Many of the columns carved,
with painted surfaces, on the walls, reminded me of rune stones. These stones,
incidentally, are normally quite colorful, and can often be seen at great
distances. Each year their paint is freshened, commonly on the vigil of the
vernal equinox, which, in the north, as commonly in the south marks the new
year. Religious rune stones are repainted by rune-priests on the vigil of the
fest-season of Odin, which on Gor, takes place in the fall. If the stones were
not tended either by farmers on whose lands they lie, or by villagers in whose
locales they lie, or by rune-priests, in a few years, the paint would be gone,
leaving only the plain stone. The most famous rune stone in the north is that
on Einar's Skerry, which marks the northland's southern border.
"Can you not read these runes?" I asked Ivar, again
"I am not a rune-priest," he said.
Ivar's reply was not a little belligerent. I knew him able to read some rune
markings. I gathered that these, perhaps because of antiquity or dialect, were
beyond him. Ivar's attitude toward reading was not unlike that of many of the
north. He had been taught some rune signs as a boy, that he could understand
important stones, for in these stones were the names of mighty men and songs
of their deeds, but it had not been expected of him that he would be in any
sense a fluent reader. Ivar, like many of those in the north, was a passable
reader, but took care to conceal this fact. He belonged to the class of men
who could hire their reading done for them, much as he could buy thralls to do
his farming. It was not regarded as dignified for a warrior to be too expert
with letters, such being a task beneath warriors. To have a scribe's skills
would tend to embarrass a man of arms, and tend to lower his prestige among
his peers. Many of the north, then, were rather proud of their illiteracy, or
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seml-illiteracy. It was expected ofthem. It honored them. His tools were not
the pen and parchment, but the sword, the bow, the ax and spear. Besides
simple runes, the boy in the north is also taught tallying, counting, addition
and subtraction, for such may be of use in trading or on the farm. He is also
taught weighing. Much of his education, of course, consists in being taken
into a house, and taught arms, hunting and the sea.
He profits, too, from the sagas, which the skalds sing, journeying from hall
to hall. In the fest-
season of Odin a fine skald is difficult to bring to one's hall. One rnust bid
high. Sometimes they are kidnapped, and, after the season's singing, given
much gold and freed. I had not, of course, intended to insult the Forkbeard.
"There is one sign here, of course," said the Forkbeard, "which any fool might
read."
He pointed to the sign.
I had seen it frequently in the writings. Naturally, I could not read it.
"What does it say?" I asked.
"Do you truly not know?" he asked.
"No," I said, "I do not know."
He turned away, and, again, I followed him.
We lit new torches from the wall rings and discarded our old ones. We then
continued on our journey.
Now, to one side and the other, we passed opened chests, in which we could see
treasures, the spillings and tangles of coins and jewelries, rings, bracelets.
We came then to a great arch, which marked the entrance to a vast room, lost
in darkness beyond the flickering spheres of our uplifted torches.
We stopped.
Over the arch, deeply incised in the stone was the single, mighty sign, that
which the Forkbeard had not explained to me.
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