Third Wheel Coming / The Miracle - Finish the Story Contest

Third Wheel Coming

Some years had passed since the Priest of Durham married The Lady of Berwickshire to her Scottish Prince.

The time drifted along peacefully as he’d settled back in his role with the people.

And so, as he had way back when, he rode his horse to the Durham seashore to watch the waves and pray.

Only far off upon the horizon, he could see a ship rowing toward him. As it got closer he could see the danger and rode away back to the village.

Ulfric Red Beard and his Viking army landed on the shore then moved inland.

The Priest of Durham made it back to the village in time to warn the constable. The constable alerted the local militia. The nobles were notified and scrambled knights on horseback.

When Ulfric Red Beard reached the village he met the English forces defending the town. The Vikings outnumbered them 3 to 1 because of the element of surprise.

Ulfric Red Beard stood seven feet tall, a giant in the 1490s, he walked onto the battlefield, raised his battle axe above his head, and yelled foaming at the mouth:

“I’m going to behead the first Englishman that steps within reach!”

Just then the skies opened and an alien spaceship appeared from nowhere, hovering above them.

The epilogue of these events got lost within the folds of history, due to memories being purposely erased. However, there remains the following one last account of what took place that day.

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The Miracle

The English garrison barricaded in Durham Castle was very seriously considering the threatening words of the giant Viking, in fact no one dared to come forward.

The fear of the inhabitants and the men of arms, however, soon turned into wonder at the appearance of that object in the sky, shimmering like a polite steel targe.

Under the astonished looks of the knights and the Priest, a ray of greenish light spread out from the lower face of that bizarre flying shield and precisely illuminated the Herculean body of Ulfric Red Beard.

A murmur of surprise and fear rose from the hosts of the Scandinavian marauders, while Ulfric lifted from the ground and floated, swearing, higher and higher, towards the celestial shield.

To the Durham Priest, this scene seemed a blasphemous parody of the Ascension, and his thoughts ran immediately to the remains of St. Cuthbert and St. Bede the Venerable, kept in the cathedral. The remains that had always protected the devout inhabitants and the pilgrims. With trembling lips and a faint voice, he murmured: "Miracle..."

As Ulfric disappeared, struggling, swallowed up by the apparition, and his men looked rather shaken and distracted, the Priest grabbed the garrison commander's iron clad arm and exclaimed, in a loud voice, so that as much knight as possible could hear him:

"A sign has been sent to us from Heaven in this difficult moment! And, as already the emperor Constantine on the eve of the battle of Pons Milvius, it is an act of Faith for us to believe in hoc signo vinces! "

The English knights, heartened by these words, swarmed out of the fortress and swept away the disoriented Vikings, sending them back to the beach after an unconvincing resistance.

Whilst, routed by then, they were throwing themselves into the waves of the sea to regain the safety of their ship, a beastly and prolonged cry furrowed the sky, and Ulfric Red Beard splashed down with a great spray a little further off the coast.

The fugitive Vikings fished their commander, almost hopeful that he would give them a lash and command to turn the keel back to the British coast, but the eyes of who was once a fearless and ferocious marauder were now totally hallucinated and prey to the panic.

The great shield disappeared from the sky above Durham at some point during the battle, and it was as if it had never been there, but in the memory of the devotees to St. Cuthbert and St. Bede, that miraculous event remained alive for a long time.

Back in Norway, Ulfric sank into drunkenness and delirium, refusing to sail the seas again. Now prematurely aged, he dictated to a monk these memories of the episode:

"I saw a large room full of light, and in this light I could not move, because I was imprisoned in a huge bottle of pure crystal. Around me, other similar bottles contained other prisoners: a monkey-like, hairy man, like a troll, who hit his glass in vain with his fists; a woman with dark skin and a proud look, dressed in a golden dress; four thin and ugly young men, with strange colored hair, high on their heads like cocks crests, two of them played bizarre instruments similar to the lutes of the Moors, but I could not hear any music.

After some time, I felt some presence beside me in the bottle, but I saw nothing. I felt a great pain that took my sight away, and when I recovered it, I saw myself as a reflection in the still waters of a fjord. A force separated me from this reflection, pushing me away from the bottle, while this ghost of myself looked at me with despair from inside the bottle, and I found myself suspended above the sea, falling from a great height. There was no trace of the great shield that appeared in the heavens."

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This is my entry for the week #17 of the awesome contest held by @f3nix: Finish the Story, and earn Steem Basic Income Shares.
More informations about the contest may be found here: https://steemit.com/contest/@f3nix/finish-the-story-contest-week-17

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This week, the first part of the story is written by @cyemela

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Images by myself

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Thank you for reading!

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