The story
Frisian Sea
In the days when the churches were still young and kings still carried their own swords, there was a sea that brought silver.
From Dorestad to London, from the mudflats to Ribe, the ships of the Frisians sailed, heavy with cloth, salt and wine, and all who sailed there called her the Frisian Sea.
But what is rich is coveted. From the south came the Franks, with the cross carried before them and a king who wanted the whole world. From the forests of the east watched the Saxons, who bowed to no king and to no gods but their own. And in the north, behind a wall of earth, the Danes sharpened their axes and counted the ships that sailed past.
Four peoples. One sea. Whoever brings down another's great hall holds the coast, and whoever holds the coast holds the sea.
You are a leader on that coast: a chieftain on his terp, a count of the king, a nobleman of the forest, a jarl with his ships. What becomes of the Frisian Sea is yours to write.
The Frisians
The silver of the sea
Told by a Frisian chieftain.
Hear me, for I speak for the terps.
Twice a day the sea comes to take us, and twice a day she goes back with empty hands. Our fathers raised the terps, spade after spade, generation after generation, until the water could take us no more. On them stand our homes. From there we watch our ships go out.
Radbod was our king. He drove the Franks back to the very walls of Cologne, and his name is still our shield. But our sword is silver. Wherever a Frisian puts ashore, there is trade: cloth for wine, salt for iron, and always, always silver in return.
Let the Franks have their horsemen and the Danes their longships. We have the sea. And the sea has more patience than all the kings together.
“Leaver dea as slaaf.”
Better dead than a slave, the well-known watchword of Frisian freedom.
The Franks
The king's realm
Told by a monk who records the king's years.
Write it down, brothers, lest it be forgotten.
In the year of our Lord 772 Charles, king of the Franks, crossed the Rhine, and the earth thundered beneath the hooves of his scaras. Behind him came the counts with their men, the priests with their books, the envoys with his word. Wherever they came, the realm stayed.
For the realm builds. A count's court in the heart of the land, a palace of stone that no fire can take, roads for the king's horsemen. The Frisians call us greedy. The Saxons call us worse, and curse us in their forests.
But whoever accepts the king's peace gets his protection. And whoever refuses it gets his scaras.
“Where the king comes, he stays.”
The Saxons
The forest does not forget
Told by a nobleman at the Thing in Marklo.
We bow to no king.
Once a year we gather in Marklo, nobles, the free and the half-free, beneath the old trees. What is decided there is law, and no Frank can break it.
The forest is our home and our shield. Whoever seeks us finds trees. Whoever finds us is too late.
The Franks cut down the Irminsul, the pillar that held up the sky, and they called it a victory. Fools. A pillar can be broken. A forest cannot. Widukind did not bow, year after year after year, and as long as trees stand between the Ems and the Elbe, we stand behind them, seax in hand.
“The forest does not forget.”
The Danes
Over the whale-road
Told by a skald by the fire.
Listen, and fill the horns.
The land is narrow, the sea is wide. King Godfred raised a wall from water to water, the Danevirke, so that no Frank would ever reach our hearths. But a wall only keeps others out. Our hearts do not lie behind the wall. They lie on the whale-road.
When the wind comes from the north, the longships go. We land where no one expects us, take what the others have saved, and are back at sea before their horsemen hear the bells. They call it plunder. We call it the harvest of those who do not keep watch.
Dorestad is rich. Dorestad sleeps. Dorestad will come to know us.
“The sea is our road.”
This story mixes history and legend. It is set between about 650 and 1000, and people from different centuries stand side by side, as in a saga.