Flower of Scotland 2 Read Online Free PDF

swallow them, for he had heard many tales over his long years, and was wise enough to know that the teller was just as important as the tale itself.
    So he sent his son Loki to find out if the stories were true, for Loki was a teller of tall tales himself, and would know a lie if one faced him.
    "Bring me the truth of it," Odin said, and Loki smiled sweetly, though the truth was little more than a passing stranger to the Trickster.
    For long months he searched the circling sea, and many great and mighty things did he learn. And everywhere he went he heard tales of the great fishermen of the North, who had risen in greatness so far among the other seafaring folks that they might even be gods themselves.
    And Loki saw this, and was enraged that mere fisherfolk might usurp the place of the mighty in the hearts of common men.
    After long journeys he came to the land of the fishermen on a sunny day in summer and saw the nets bulging with the herring, the silver mounds filling the harbors and inlets for many leagues around.
    And the townsfolk saw him, and took him in, and there was a great feast. Ragna, the King of the Fisherfolk, took Loki to his side at the high table, and there was much talk of fish and fishermen. The ale flowed freely, and talk grew loose.
    "King Ragna," Loki said, rising from his seat at the table. "You are truly a great hunter. Surely Odin himself would not take so much in his nets."
    Now Ragna, who cared little for the ways of the gods, grew boastful,
    "No disrespect to your father lad, but he is a land hunter. No one is better on the water than I. I can catch anything that swims," he said.
    Now Ragna’s daughter, Myrna, was a great beauty and Loki had his eye on her throughout the feast. So when Ragna made his boast, Loki laid his trap, for he had seen a way to take the girl, yet still explain himself back in Valhalla.
    "I have a wager for you, King Ragna," the god said. "On the morrow we will take to the boats, and I will show you what I wish you to catch. If you succeed, I will promise to tell Odin himself that Ragna is the King of all Fisherfolk."
    "And if I fail?"
    "If you fail, I take the hand of your daughter Myrna, in marriage," the god said.
    Now Ragna saw this as a wager where he could not lose, and the King and the god shook hands on the deal.
    On the morrow they took to the water in the boats, and all the menfolk of the people went with them.
    Loki took them to the south, to land’s they had never before fished, in seas they had never before sailed. And great was the bounty in the waters, where the shoals of herring stretched for miles and the whales dived in their hundreds.
    "And what is it you wish us to catch, my lord," Ragna said to Loki. And Loki smiled, for he had a secret.
    "I have a special catch for you this day, King Ragna." And suddenly, all around their boats, the heads of seals bobbed in the water, their plaintive cries echoing across the water.
    "But these are no sport," the King said.
    "Nevertheless, these are your wager," Loki replied.
    So the fisherfolk went to it with gusto. They sang as they hauled the catches in, and soon their nets were full to the busting with the screaming seals. But their songs soon turned to wails, for as their catch left the water the seals began to change, into wives, and daughters, into mother and sister, the womenfolk of the fishermen, now all gasping for air.
    "Like fish out of water," Loki said and laughed.
    King Ragna ordered the catch put back, but he was too late, and the bodies of the dead floated around them. All save one, a single seal that sang a plaintive song of loss and sorrow as the men in the boats wept.
    "It seems you have lost the wager King Ragna. It seems I have to tell Odin I am a better fisherman than you, for look…I have got myself a sea wife, your daughter, Myrna."
    And Ragna, in his rage, lifted Loki from the deck, but the god merely laughed and changed his form to a huge black crow, whose cawing laugh echoed long after it