Or, a tall tale of not so modern romance, high-adventure, and ever-so-slightly accurate historical factoids.

This is a story about a lonely boy who grows up to be a wildly successful businessman and influential civic figure. It’s got a sad part or two, some unfulfilled desire, love, hatred, anger, and joy. It doesn’t really fit well into one piece. Here is the first part- its short because I’ve babbled enough here already.

Dedicated too Suzanne because she was the one who sparked this crazy idea… it’s all your fault if this goes wrong!

Benji was a Berserker. He was also Finnish. That in itself is unusual because there aren’t all then many Berserkii who come from Finland, and even fewer that are named Benji. This is all easily explained: Benji was foreign. Although his father was a traditional Norwegian type of Viking, circumstances beyond the control of the average medieval sea-farer of north European decent prompted his relocation to a slightly more pacific locale, not so good for raising traditional viking children, but more conducive to his condition. His father, Ulfgark the Wett, was a degenerate drunk – even by viking standards.

Some village neighbors say the Nidhogg had come in the night and destroyed the homestead, others said it was the result of defaulting on a loan from a Jotunn lender. While the first story was simply over dramatic (told mostly by the good-wives who spun wool and racked fish), and the second story certainly plausible (told by the fish-mongers with short-debts of their own), the truth was that the men of the village had “persuaded” Ulfgark to suddenly move. Although a magnificent drinker, he lacked any other properly viking characteristic such as bravery, desire for wealth, or a taste for rape and pillage. This meant that he could never be trusted on a proper raid, and that the good-wives left back at home were not safe from receiving the comfort and affection of a man.

Ulfgark decided to try his luck in the lands to the east, which he believed to be easier for men of his temperament. He was not disappointed. The taverns were plentiful and the girls pleasing to the eye – more so than the good-wives of the Fjord. It was not terribly long before he met the maiden that would be his first Christian-wife. Her name was Bjork.

She wasn’t related to the modern day singer- her parents were of a Swedish culinary family that had fallen into disgrace by loosing the family meatball recipe during a bet at the Maypole festival. Ulfgark and Bjork happened to be drinking in the same village tavern one dark cold lonely winter evening, and soon enough an ax throwing contest ensued. In other cultures cards or darts were more acceptable, but when mead flows freely and hairy burley men are well armed; darts and cards just don’t cut it. Bjork, being the spoiled daughter of a well off but dispossessed family was slumming. Like the drunken alehouse wench she was, she volunteered her braids as the target. The men lined up waiting for their turn at the throwing line.

Ulfgark’s throw was first and mightiest, and unfortunately, true to the mark. While most of the men in the tavern would normally have been more than eager to see her ax wound, the nature of this injury in particular was not invigorating, but rather nauseating. Not having been born a naturally cleft-palleted mutant (there were no activist groups to protest this sort of discrimination), poor Bjork suddenly faced a future of mucking pig stalls and being roughed about as the lowest sort of bawdy wench.

Not wanting his daughter subjected too further disparagement of character her father Petir’s first thought was to contact a lawyer. Since the modern legal system and Tort legislation was hundreds of years off, this was not an option… so he did the next best thing and forced Ulfgark to marry his daughter.

Initially resistant to the arrangement, Ulfgark balked at marrying the now disfigured ex-débutante. Petir informed him that it would either be his great honor to wed the fruit of his loins, or it would be a horse-pike wedding (the medieval equivalent of the shotgun). Ulfgark got the point, before he got the point, and arrangements were quickly made.