Gerart vander Borch, Award of Arms, 2015

Excerpt from Gamlaðr Vatn Saga:

There was a man called Gerart, still quite young but very handsome and fully grown to manhood. King Quilliam and Queen Domhnail left him with the task of giving help to their lands of the High Cliffs. Gerart thus left his homeland of Germania and put out to sea towards a place called the Marchmount, beyond the Rouge Port and along the normal sea-routes. Settling among the Norse who lived there, Gerart became well known for his giving nature and sense of right. He took to the trade of the smith, and became renowned for his talent at forging tools and for his willingness to work no matter how hard the labour. As the Marchmount in the High Cliffs was found along the trade-routes, it was a good place to hear news. And so a skald came, with word from the King and Queen, for Gerart:

Brokkr-kin, long the road

The gold-crowned asked you to walk,

Builder of towns, iron-shaper,

You are known for your good works.

Skilled and proficient

Your character beyond reproof,

Rulers reward you Gerart,

And call you Herr.

This awarding of arms to Gerart is recorded in the saga as happening in the Barony of Septentria, at the Althing, on the twenty-sixth day of Witu-mānod, in the fiftieth year of the settlement.

Wording by THLaird Colyne Stewart, based on chapter 57 (Egil kills Berg-mund) of Egil’s Saga (Penguin Classics, 1976).