Because of the stove, the interior of the large wooden house was very warm.
An old man with white hair, wearing a thick deerskin coat, sat around the stove, waiting for the kettle to boil. At this moment, the smell of boiling onions and herbs filled the entire house.
This old man is none other than Vilia, an old woman who incredibly lived to be seventy years old.
Beside her, some young women from the tribe were her subordinate priests. They were doing their work quietly. After serving Vilia and drinking the herbal medicine, the day's work was explained.
Vilia was indeed very old, and she had been asking her subordinate priests to prepare herbal medicines and make medicinal soup for herself.
It seems that both priests and witch doctors have the same origin. Vilia learned some knowledge about herbal medicine from the ancestors of the tribe. Today she felt that she had caught a cold. After drinking the herbal soup for a few days, she felt that her condition was getting better day by day.
But she is still too old and needs help from others in many aspects of her daily life.
She is so long-lived! Therefore, the person who holds the position of tribal priest is highly respected, and in many cases, her opinions are as important as those of the leader Otto.
Kanuf's mother told her everything she knew. Vilia was very convinced that young Rurik had talent. She never expected that Rurik, who was only seven years old, was already in school. Focus on training the children of the tribe.
"So, do you support him?" Kanuf's mother asked respectfully.
"He is the son of the leader, and he is blessed by Odin." Vilia squinted his eyes and sat cross-legged like a rock. "I completely understand what you mean. Rurik will become our leader in many years. But this path is not smooth. He has some unique ideas, are they correct? I need to hear Odin's opinion."
All Viking tribes have very similar beliefs.
The vast majority of tribes believe in Odin, followed by the stooges, and some tribes have niche beliefs in Loki.
Therefore, the priests of the tribe always hope to get in touch with Valhalla through certain methods.
Villa slowly opened his eyes and signaled a low-level priest to bring over a divination pottery pot engraved with rune inscriptions and inlaid with some gold patterns.
Then, she slowly stood up with her aging body and put on thicker clothes with the help of her attendants. In particular, she seriously put on a helmet inlaid with huge antlers. Even though the antlered helmet was heavy, she had to wear it.
The priests of the Scandinavian Viking tribes all had their own antler helmets. In the temperate Gaul region, the former indigenous Celtic druids also had their own antlered helmets.
This aspect seems to be a reflection of their shared ancient memories.
Then, surrounded by all the priests, Villa embraced the clay pot and slowly walked out of the warm wooden house.
One thing that is very similar between the Ross tribe and other Viking tribes is that they all have altars with similar shapes.
On a perfectly clean, flat surface, more than fifty stones were embedded into the earth and assembled into a giant streamlined shape to imitate a boat.
This is the altar of the Rus tribe. There must be one similar altar in every human settlement in Scandinavia in this era, and there are even more in Gotland.
There is also a stone platform piled in the middle of the altar. The platform has existed for more than a hundred years, and the granite has been polished very smooth.
Some frozen fish were used as tribute to Odin, and the low-level priests carried a large number of empty bronze oil lamps and placed them on each stone of the boat-shaped altar. A little warm seal oil was poured into each empty oil lamp, and the wick burned.
Undoubtedly, the Ross tribe was very superstitious. There were sacrifices and four oil lamps placed on the stone platform. After entering the altar, Villa slowly knelt down alone, and everyone else also knelt down, including those who participated. Among them Kanuf's mother.
Tonight's sacrifice is purely a temporary measure of Welia. If it were a normal activity, a considerable number of people in the tribe would participate.
They all knelt on the ground to express their respect to Odin, whom they believed in.
Vilia muttered a spell into the dancing flames, thereby establishing contact with Valhalla. At least that's what Vilia's ancestors did when they were priests, and it's what her generation and subsequent priests will do.
They were convinced of this.
After reciting some incantations, Villa finally held the key clay pot in her arms.
She continued to speak plausibly and shook the clay pot with her hands. Finally, she closed her eyes and took out a stone from the clay pot.
She slowly opened her eyes, and under the light of the oil lamp, she saw clearly that it was a ruby, and she couldn't help but smile with satisfaction.
"Valhalla has given us enlightenment." Villa stood up and looked at Kanuf's mother enthusiastically: "Rurik's decision is allowed. So we cannot question his decision, nor should we criticize him. There are too many emotions and praises for this decision. Because everything is fate." After saying that, Vilia deliberately showed the ruby in his hand.
The priests of the Ross tribe are in charge of a clay pot. There are six gems in the pot, two each of red, green and blue.
Red represents "Odin's affirmation", blue represents "Odin's denial", and green represents "Odin does not want to answer".
All gems are polished into spheres as much as possible, and because they have been used frequently by priests throughout the ages, the appearance of all gems is extremely smooth.
These six gems hold great weight in the hearts of the tribesmen. They are considered to have mysterious powers, so people only want to believe that only the divination performed by priests using these gems can truly reflect Odin's wishes.
They simply believe this because they think it is worth believing.
It seems that the so-called divination is purely a manifestation of probability, and the situation is not that simple.
The gemstones have been specially treated. For example, the red gemstones have been deliberately polished with a small groove, and the sapphires that represent negation have been polished with two.
Ordinary people have no chance to come into contact with these divination gemstones. This is a secret kept by the priests among themselves.
Of course, Villa had an alternative. As time passed, she would show these gems to the people of the tribe on special occasions, but what she actually showed were replicas without any scratches on their surfaces.
So does such "divination" still make sense? Of course there is. As for mortals hoping to use this method to get Odin's answer, it's not that simple. More than this, Vilia believed in dreams and the revelations from the sky - the Northern Lights.
Therefore, Vilia used this method, and since she had been the highest priest of the tribe for thirty years, she was the second person to control the tribe behind the previous leaders.
Even Rurik's father Otto, who was able to serve as the leader of the tribe for a long time, had the power support of Vilia behind him.
Obviously, what the mortals of the tribe don't know is that the old Vilia has made up her mind. She loves her Ross tribe and the thousands of tribesmen, so she must train Otto's son to stay in the family during her lifetime. Rick.
When she felt the time was right, she called Rurik to her side, making him truly the most recognized wise man in the tribe.
She has been weak all her life and always believes that as a leader, knowledge is more useful than brute force. Obviously, the young Rurik naturally realized the value of wisdom. Thirty people formed a fighting group, and thirty people just filled a boat. Four boats can form four human walls and form a hollow formation.
Wei Liya recalled his life and found that no one in the tribe had ever thought of fighting like this before.
She had no idea what such a tactic would bring. After all, she heard Kanuf's mother dictate that Rurik came up with it himself. Moreover, Rurik was actually training those children according to his own ideas. The children roared astonishingly every day on the hill, and the visiting lower priests reported back: "They were like a stone wall, moving forward very neatly."
Recalling these reports, as well as the surprise report from Kanuf's mother, the elderly Vilia had more emotions.
She only lamented that her life was not long. It took seventy years for the Ross tribe to have such a promising and ambitious child. If she could not teach him the knowledge of the tribe's ancestors during her lifetime, it would be her eternal regret!
