Once upon a time there was a Viking by the name of Langsax. He was renowned for his prowess with a long-sword. He served King Skabb of the kingdom of Kronin for many years, protecting him in times of trouble and advising him well in times of prosperity and expansion.

One day, however, Langsax rose from his pallet and he was too old to raise his long-sword above his head in order to deliver the man-killing blow he was so used to deliver of old.

King Skabb got to hear of it and summoned him into his mead-hall, surrounded by his earls and warriors. “What's this about you not being strong enough any more to deliver the death-blow? Is there any truth to this rumour?”

Langsax said, “Bring me my name-sword and you may judge for yourself.”

So a house-carl was sent to fetch his sword and it was brought before him. Langsax stared at the great hilt before him and a sweat of agony broke out on his brow. Summoning up all his strength, he reached out, tore the sword from its scabbard and raised it above his head. Just as he reached the top of his swing, however, his strength failed him and the sword clattered from his fingers.

There was a great silence in the mead-hall, with all the warriors and earls assembled to witness Langsax's humiliation.

King Skabb sniffed and nodded to the house-carl to retrieve the long-sword. Addressing, Langsax, King Skabb said: “ You may return to your home. I need you no longer. You will not receive any more gifts from me, for only he who serves me well receives my bounty.”

Assembled with all the king's household was his proud-eyed daughter, Princess Saga. She had always been interested in Langsax, and was fond of asking him to tell her tales of his deeds and battle exploits.

She looked now to her father and said: “Langsax has served you well these many years, father. His strength has been stripped from him by the wounds he has suffered in your kingdom-building.”

King Skabb glared at her. “And now the mighty warrior requires help from a white-skinned maiden!”

At this, the whole assembly burst out in laughter, and Langsax hobbled off, humiliated, their scorn ringing in his ears.

The kingdom of Kronin in those days lay to the north-east of Jàrnwood, the Iron Forest of Necessity. Langsax was so down-hearted that he did not realise he had walked all the way from the king's mead-hall to the edge of the forest by noon.

Greatly troubled, he continued for the rest of the day, until in the evening he entered the forest. Darkness came down on sloping bat-wings, and as the shadows surrounded him, Langsax saw a light ahead. With no other goal in mind and feeling his strength about to give out, he made for the light, and came to a house with firelight glimmering in the single window.

He peered in at the window and saw an old woman hunched by the side of the fire. She was very old and bent and wrinkled. Langsax guessed she might well be a witch. In his wide experience witches were not to be trusted, but it was either seek shelter here or spend the night out under the cold eaves of the forest.

Langsax rapped on her door and heard her halting approach. The door creaked open, and the old woman peered out, her eyes catching stray gleams from the firelight.

Langsax's heart misgave him, but he boldly said, “I am outcast in the woods this night. Give me one night's lodging, and a little to eat and drink, or I shall starve.”

The old woman looked him up and down, her sharp eyes taking in his road-soiled garments. “Hmph, who gives anything to an old, worn-out Viking? Yet I will take you in, if you will do what I wish.”

“What do you wish?” said Langsax.

“That you should hoe my herb-garden for me, tomorrow.”

Langsax consented, and the old woman stepped back and let him in to her humble house. As Langsax entered, he heard a thrashing of feathers as a black-eyed raven preened itself on the tall back of an old carved chair. In the rush litter of the floor, a hare lay dozing. He ignored these creatures, even though they were wights of ill-omen. He was glad of the meagre food set before him, the thin cup of ale and the hard pallet that the woman gave him to sleep on.

As he lay down to sleep and closed his eyes, the last sight he saw were the three pairs of eyes staring at him in the darkness, flecked red with reflections of the sinking flames. He wondered if he would waken in the morning, but he felt so wretched that he didn't care one way or the other.

Next morning, however, he woke to the smell of porridge bubbling in the pot.

“What's your name?” demanded the old woman.

“Once I was named Langsax, but now I no longer have a sword. You can call me Kimber.”

“Well, Kimber, those who know me call me Skaif. Old Mother Skaif. Once you've had your porridge, remember our bargain.”

So Langsax went out to the old woman's stony herb-garden and laboured with all his strength, but could not finish the hoeing by the evening.

“I see well enough,” said Skaif, “that you can do no more today, but I will keep you yet another night, in payment for which you must tomorrow chop me a load of wood – and chop it small, mind.”

Langsax spent the whole day in doing it, and in the evening Skaif proposed that he should stay one more night.

“Tomorrow, you shall only do me a very trifling piece of work. Behind my house, there is an old dry well, into which my lamp has fallen. It burns with a blue flame that never goes out, and you shall bring it up again.”

Next day Skaif took him to the well, and let him down in a basket. Langsax sat in the basket, the walls of the well whirling slowly around him as he descended into darkness. Then, just as he thought the darkness would never end, he saw a blue gleam ahead, like a jewel in a mine. As he approached it, the radiance grew until he saw that it was a blue lamp, shaped like a little ship. At the prow was a figurehead in the form of a dragon's muzzle and from between its jaws issued the blue flicker of a supernatural flame.

Wonderingly, Langsax took the lamp into his hands. It felt like ice. He shook it, expecting to hear the oil slosh about inside it, but there was only silence – only the soft sizzle of the flame burning between the dragon's stilly fangs.

Langsax knew there was more to this object than a mere lamp, but he was at the bottom of the well, unable to do anything about it. He could only play along with old Skaif's scheme and see where it led.

He shouted for her to draw him up again. Skaif drew him up, but when Langsax came near the edge, she stretched down her hand and wanted to take the blue lamp away from him.

“No,” said Langsax, guessing her wicked will, “I will not give you the lamp until I am standing with both feet upon the ground.”

Skaif screamed in anger. “If I can't have what is mine, then you'll not see yours or thine!”

With those wicked words, she released the rope and let him fall into the well, and stumped away.

Poor Langsax fell to the bottom of the well. Luckily he landed without injury for the ground was moist, and the blue lamp was jarred out of his hands, but yet it went on burning – but of what use was that to him? He soon saw that he could not escape death.

He sat for a while, feeling very miserable, then suddenly he felt a shiver. Down here at the bottom of the sunless well, it was cold and clammy. Some oak branches had fallen in, so he decided to make himself a fire and warm himself while he thought over what he should do.

“I shall be cold enough when I am dead,” he thought, as he lit the wood with the blue lamp and huddled over it for the warmth.

The oak wood was damp and smoky and made him cough. When the smoke had circled about the bottom of the well, suddenly a little black dwarf stood before him, and said:

“Lord, what are your commands?”

“What are my commands?” replied Langsax, quite astonished.

“I must do everything you order me to do,” said the little smoke-wreathed figure.

“Good,” said Langsax, “then in the first place help me out of this well.”

The dwarf took him by the hand, and led Langsax through an underground passage, but he did not forget to take the blue lamp with him.

On the way the dwarf revealed that his name was Mennskr, and he showed him the treasures which Skaif had collected and hidden there, and Langsax took as much gold as he could carry.

When he was back up in the open air and sunshine once more, Langsax said to Mennskr:

“Now go and bind the old witch, and carry her before the judge.”

In a short time Skaif came by like the wind, riding on her wild tom-hare and screaming frightfully. Nor was it long before Mennskr re-appeared.

“It is all done,” he said, “and Skaif, the witch, is already hanging on the gallows. What further commands has my lord?”

“At this moment, none,” answered Langsax. “You can return home. Just be at hand immediately, if I summon you.”

“Nothing more is needed than that you should light a branch of mistletoe at the blue lamp, and I will appear before you at once.”

Thereupon Mennskr vanished from his sight.

Langsax recalled the oak branches at the bottom of the well and realised that some of them must have borne mistletoe. He looked around and gathered up a few sprigs of mistletoe that had been blown down from overhead and wrapped them up with the lamp in a rough cloth sack.

Langsax returned to Kronin, where he went to the best inn, ordered himself handsome clothes, and then ordered the landlord to provide him with the best room. When it was ready and Langsax had taken possession of it, he summoned Mennskr and said:

“I have served King Skabb most faithfully, but he has dismissed me, and left me to hunger, and now I want to take my revenge.”

“What am I to do?” asked Mennskr.

“Late at night, when Princess Saga, the king's daughter, is in bed, bring her here in her sleep. She made the assembly of earls laugh at my plight. I shall ensure that she shall do servant's work for me.”

Mennskr looked doubtful. He fingered his thick black beard and said: “That is an easy thing for me to do, but a very dangerous thing for you. If it is discovered, things will go badly.”

“I am an old Viking, Mennskr. I have done dangerous things my entire life. I'll stop doing dangerous things when I am dead.

When midnight came, the door sprang open, and Mennskr carried in Princess Saga.

“Aha, there you are!” cried Langsax. “Get to your work at once. Fetch the broom and sweep the chamber.”

When Princess Saga had done this, Langsax ordered her to come to his chair, and then he stretched out his feet and said:

“Pull off my boots!”

Once they were off, he threw them in her face, and made her pick them up again, and clean and polish them.

Princess Saga, however, did everything he ordered, without opposition, silently and with half-closed eyes.

When the first cock crowed to herald the coming of dawn, Mennskr carried her back to the royal halls, and laid her in her bed.

Next morning when Princess Saga arose she went to her father, and told him that she had had a very strange dream.

“I was carried through the streets with the swiftness of lightning,” she said, “and taken into a Viking's room, and I had to wait upon him like a servant, sweep his room, clean his boots, and do all kinds of menial work. It was only a dream, and yet I am just as tired as if I really had done everything.”

“The dream may have been true,” said the king. “I will give you a piece of advice. Fill your pocket full of peas, and make a small hole in the lining. That way, if you are carried away again, the peas will fall out and leave a track in the streets.”

But – unseen by the king and the princess – Mennskr was standing beside them when he said that, and heard everything.

At night when the sleeping princess was again carried through the streets, some peas certainly did fall out of her pocket, but they made no track, for the crafty dwarf had taken the precaution of scattering peas in every street of the town. Once again Princess Saga was compelled to do servant's work until the cock crowed for dawn.

Next morning King Skabb sent his people out to seek the track, but it was all in vain, for in every street poor children were sitting, picking up peas, and saying:

“It must have rained peas last night!”

“We must think of something else,” said the king. “Keep your shoes on when you go to bed, and before you come back from the place where you are taken, hide one of them there, I will soon search it out.”

Mennskr also heard this plot. That night when Langsax again ordered him to bring the princess, Mennskr revealed it to him, and told him that he knew of no way to counteract this stratagem.

“If the shoe is found in your house, master, it will go badly with you.”

“Do as I say,” replied Langsax. “I can still hear that scornful laughter ringing in my ears!”

Mennskr sighed, shook his head, and fetched the princess once more. For a third night poor Princess Saga was obliged to work like a servant, but before she went away, she hid her shoe under the bed.

Next morning the king had the entire town searched for his daughter's shoe.

Mennskr, meanwhile, had tried to repair the damage. He knew the plan beforehand and as he delivered the princess back to her bedroom, he made sure that the shoe was hidden under her own bed.

Relieved that no trouble would accrue to his master, the dwarf returned to his blue lamp.

As it happened, although the shoe was never found, the uproar of house-carls turning out every house in the town and every room in every inn, made it clear that something was amiss. The town gossips wagged their tongues and speculated as to what the uproar was all about.

Then the inn-keeper got to hear that the king was searching for the whereabouts of his daughter's abductor. The head of the household guard was called in and the inn-keeper had a quiet word with him.

The result was that Langsax found himself arrested and thrown into prison. With it all happening so suddenly and unexpectedly, he was separated from the most valuable things he had: the blue lamp and Skaif's gold, and he found he only had one gold coin in his pocket.

Loaded with chains, he was stood at the window of his dungeon, where he happened to see one of his old comrades passing by.

Langsax tapped at the pane of horn, and when this acquaintance came up, said to him:

“Be so kind as to fetch me my small bundle I have lying in the inn, and I will give you a gold coin for doing it.”

His comrade ran to the inn and brought him what he wanted. As soon as Langsax was alone again, he lit the mistletoe sprig and summoned Mennskr.

“Have no fear,” said the dwarf to his master. “When they come to take you, let them do what they will, only take the blue lamp with you.”

Next day Langsax was tried, and though he had done nothing wicked, the judge condemned him to death.

When he was led forth to die, he begged a last favour of the king.

“What is it?” asked King Skabb.

“You know that I am a brave warrior. Never have I looked at danger and been afraid. I have never shown fear or quaked in my shoes. All the same, the flesh is a thing of nature: it is a cold day with a brisk wind. If I go to my execution and the people see me shiver, they will think I am a coward – and I would not have that. All I ask, my king, is that I have a bonfire lighted near the gallows that I will not shiver from the cold.”

“You will be cold enough after death,” sneered the king. “You may have your bonfire, but make it quick!”

Then Langsax pulled out his sprig of mistletoe and lit it at the blue lamp, and as soon as a few wreaths of smoke had ascended, Mennskr was there with a small cudgel in his hand, and said:

“What does my lord command?”

“Strike down to earth that false judge there, and his man-at-arms, and spare not the king who has treated me so ill.”

Then Mennskr fell on them like lightning, darting this way and that, and whoever was so much as touched by his cudgel fell to earth, and did not venture to stir again.

King Skabb was terrified. He threw himself on Langsax's mercy.

Mennskr paused, his cudgel raised. 'Well, Master Langsax, what is your will?'

Langsax glanced around at the assembled crowd of earls and house-carls, who were all terrified by the supernatural presence of Mennskr.

Langsax cried aloud: “Do you wish to be ruled by a coward and an ingrate?”

With one voice, the assembly roared: “No!”

“Let me live, let me live,” grovelled the king. “I renounce my kingdom – it is yours, only let me live!”

“And what of your beautiful and proud-eyed daughter?” demanded Langsax.

“You can have her for all the good she is to me now! Who will pay a dowry to take to wife the daughter of an ex-king!”

Langsax turned to Princess Saga. “You have heard the words of your father. You may go with him to be a prop to him in his old age, or you may choose to stay and be my queen.”

Princess Saga lifted her chin proudly and said: “If you will have me, I will not hesitate to be married to Langsax Kingdom-Maker. For I have known of your deeds and exploits all of my short life, and though you are old and grey, still you are the worthiest man in this kingdom and it would be an honour to bring forth your heirs.”

Langsax laughed and looked to Mennskr . “Do you hear that, Mennskr? My new young bride thinks I am as old as the hills, as old as the tales of my war-deeds when I made firm the foundations of this kingdom of Kronin! What do you say to that?”

For an answer, Mennskr picked a dandelion clock and blew the grey seeds across Langsax and with it the lines of age and the weight of years was lifted from his frame and he stood tall and upright, just as he had done in his prime. His old war-wounds were gone, but he still carried the battle-wisdom he had learned over the years.

Princess Saga looked on with eyes that were still as proud, but that were now lit with the kindling light of love.

And so Old King Skabb was sent into exile and young King Kimber came to the royal seat of Kronin, and took Saga to be his queen, and she bore him many strong sons and wise daughters, and they ruled Kronin in wisdom and weal to the end of their days and the founding of their dynasty.