A History of Humans in Equestria, Part 1 · 8:34am Nov 25th, 2014
Those who sailed with Garðar Svavarsson thought they did so with a simple purpose: to help him claim his inheritance from his father-in-law in the Hebrides islands just west of the land of the Picts, with whom the Norsemen were in bloody conflict at the time. Yet when they sailed through Petlandsfjörð, the fjord of the Picts, a great storm overtook them and blew them off-course. Let it never be said a Norseman was afraid of the waves, but such was the viciousness of this storm that Garðar and his men were swept away from the shores of all they knew and cast into the northernmost reaches of the world, where the summer sun never sets and the ice never melts. None of them expected to be lost for three full years and declared dead.
Yet when Garðar finally made landfall back at Norway none could doubt that it was he. His survival was never in question. The doubts and the lies began when he and his crew spread the story of the great and green land they found beyond the edge of the world, encouraging others to follow them back and settle it. Five men and their thralls (with three wives) had not returned with Garðar, and despite claims they had bravely stayed behind to man the outpost in this new country until the Norsemen's return, others passed it off as a fabrication to explain their deaths at the hands of Rán, goddess of the sea.
They told of trees so tall they rivaled Yggdrasil and great beasts that spoke a strange tongue, of plants they had never seen and animals unlike any in all the world. In spite of ridicule, curiosity soon won over the minds of many chieftains, and a þing, an assembly, was called at the court of Haraldr Hárfagri, the first king of Nóregr, Norway, who at the time was still embroiled in vicious battle to secure his throne. Here Haraldr and his court, with many great jarls, decided to hear of this new land to see if it was worthy to explore and pillage in the name of the gods.
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The tale of Garðar Svavarsson recorded by Ulfar Snorrison, chief scribe of Haraldr Hárfagri, of the house Yngling
Two weeks the storm raged that pushed us away from the land of the Picts. Though we battled hard and long against the winds we were guided by the storm north and west, past the shores of what we call Ísland, which we saw but could not reach for the storm's intensity. Battered and storm-lashed we came to a place where the only land was ice that drifted atop a silent sea, and monsters many times the size of our boat drifted silently beneath the waves. Here the storm spat us out, and I tell you truthfully, it seemed to move on with a mind of its own, leaving us in those strange waters.
My men begged me to turn back and find shelter. Our provisions were not great enough to last us long at sea, and many of us were stricken with misery after so long in the storm. Yet I felt a compulsion, perhaps a nudge from the Norns themselves, to press on, for I knew our fates were leading us somewhere. I came to an agreement with my crew to sail on for two full days, after which if no true land was sighted we would turn back. Much grumbling came of it, but it proved to be the decision that saved us. Those two days were harsh and grim. No wind helped us along, and by the strength of our arms we rowed and drifted between great ice floes the size of this hall and larger while the silent beasts of the sea looked at us from the black waters. A whale trailed our ship for some time, and it seemed to me that it wondered why men would come so far beyond the horizon. The cold was awful, and two of our dogs died while frost covered our beards.
It was still early summer, and stars had barely begun to shine when the northrljós, the Northern Lights, showed themselves on the eve of the second day. One of my men called Einarr declared it was a sign from the gods, and Freja herself was guiding us. This calmed the arguments to turn home, and following the lights of the sky, we sailed on.
Like a dream that night passed. I still don’t know if we fell under an enchantment, or were merely spellbound the gleaming lights, but we came to a place where there was no ice, and no waves. The stars and the Northern Lights were reflected perfectly upon the waters, and all movement seemed to cease. We did not row, nor was there any wind, yet our ship moved. The Northern Lights seemed to draw closer and closer to us, either coming down from the sky or us rising up to meet it, and then at the Edge of the World, it enveloped us. Still we sailed on as if the Lights had become the sea, and the stars were all around our ship. Many of my men cried out and claimed to see the faces of relatives who had died, or the spirits of great warriors walking upon the glittering waters. I don’t know how long we remained in that strange place.
Dawn came swiftly, and when the Sun’s light reached us it was as if we woke from a dream. We found ourselves on strange seas where we saw not a single iceberg, and the water was unearthly warm, and some of the men claimed we had reached the very place the sun rose and set. With the ice no longer confining us my greatest lookouts spotted land not far off, and we sailed for it as if in a daze. None of us could explain what had happened, yet we all had experienced it at once. Some said it was truly the work of the gods, and others said we had chanced upon some new feature of the Northern Lights. Debate continued until we saw our first new creature of this strange world.
It was a whale, yet not a whale at all, possessing six fins along a snakelike body and a tail shaped like an oar. The body was sleek and silver; including the tail it was the length of three longships, and its maw could fit a lying man inside. It breached not far from us and spun towards our ship at alarming speed, and we cried out to Rán and Ægir to call off their beast, certain it would dash us to pieces. Yet it circled our vessel with great curiosity, occasionally nudging our hull and sometimes coming alongside to peer at us out of an eye the size of a great shield. Gunjarr the Yeller shouted at the great beast and made to throw a spear at it, but I stopped him. It soon swam away, leaving us unmolested and greatly confused. The land before us was also unnaturally green and verdant, and stretched for many miles in either direction so we could not see if it was an island or part of some greater continent. We could not for the life of us determine how a single night’s travel had brought us to completely unknown places that were green and warm, and busied ourselves with finding a place to go ashore.
The place where we landed we called Fyrstrstrǫnd, and was a great bay where frolicked seals and other strange creatures. There were many crabs and turtles like I had seen from southern traders, and I knew them to be a warm water animal. The seals were very curious and came right up to our boat, showing no fear of man. We restocked our supplies and hunted the seals for fur and flesh, and began to sail north. The position of the Sun was strange to us, and from that and the warm climate we judged that we had somehow come many leagues south, perhaps even further south than Frankia. For a full week we traveled along that strange coast, which was rich with food and freshwater streams, and there beheld many wonders: trees unlike any we had seen before that twisted gnarled branches high to the sky, hares with horns upon their heads, and great beasts that were like our own and yet not. There were birds with feathers that were all the colors of the rainbow that hunted flying bugs that seemed like motes of color come to life, which could stretch their bodies and consume a meal much larger than themselves. For all these things and the good land we gave thanks to the gods. At our second landing site we built a shrine called Dagrsvé, and sacrificed a horned white hare. To lift our spirits we had a feast of bird eggs, seal meat, and much ale.
It was on the seventh morning our landing party was raided by a creature with the heads of a goat and a tiger and the tail of a serpent. It came upon us swiftly while we laid out meat and sealskin to dry, and immediately went for the seal meat we had harvested. We scarcely believed our eyes as it came from the wood, spitting and roaring. It was many times stronger than a man and clove in two the shield of Sigurd the Crow with a single blow of its paw. Yet Thor gave us the power to frighten the devil away.
Withdrawing, we formed a shieldwall and smote sword on shield to make a great commotion, so that even though it was much stronger it was seized by confusion. Step by step we advanced and cursed the beast until it turned tail and escaped with half a seal in its twin jaws. Two of us, Hedvar Gurlisson and Sigurd the Crow, were wounded in the battle by claw and venom. After this encounter we decided we must be in some other realm of the Nine Worlds, but which it was we could not say. Einarr insisted we had come to Asgard, the home of the gods themselves, but he was shouted down by those who believed we had come too far and offended the gods in some manner. Yet we beheld a divine work: Sigurd and Hedvar had been struck by the tiger-goat and yet found themselves whole and hearty within a day, and Sigurd declared that though the creature was strong enough to cleave his shield, he was only buffeted by the blow. It seemed this place had made men even greater than we were, and blessed us with godly vigor.
We marveled at these things and made another sacrifice to the gods at a site we named Miskunnvé.
On the thirteenth day the woods grew thicker, and there on a rocky shore under the light of a strange moon we beheld our first sight of the griðungrfirar—the bull-men.
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A simple exercise to get the creative juices flowing, this is my attempt to do human in Equestria as human in Equestria might actually happen, instead of a standard brony self-insert. I could not develop it into a "proper" story since I haven't the time, and typed this up on a whim. I went with the best thing ever: what if Vikings somehow sailed to the world of ponies? What if it allowed humans to tap into the magic of the land? There's a dash of alternate history here too: Garðar Svavarsson is considered the first Norseman to place a settlement on Iceland, but here he has been blown considerably off course.
I will continue this as my inspiration for it grows. I also apologize for the horrific mishmash of old Norse and modern English. I am not an historian by any means.
Fascinating. Definitely looking forward to however much more of this you choose to write, especially what else the Vikings can do with magic and the reactions of the ponies.
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Very much seconded.
That was a most pleasant read! I hope you continue, and we get to see how the Norsemen deal with the dreaded horned Loki and his hoard of tricks meant to confuse the mind of even the most stalwart of warriors!