Stephanie Mitchell

How to Be a Viking​

(After Jamaica Kincaid and Cressida Cowell)

Put out the west fires on Monday and move the rubble; put out the east fires on Thorsday and rebuild the rest; always wear your helmet; wash your hands before milking a yak; organize the weapons; change your clothes often, hang them up quick, because they will always be wet; lock up the food where nothing can get it; can you really speak to dragons?; always eat your food quickly you never know when it will be your last; when at work try to be more like a Viking than the useless twig you are becoming; don’t speak to dragons; you mustn’t leave the village alone, not even to explore; don’t eat the green berries- death will follow you; but I don’t speak to dragons unless they’re trying to eat me; this is how you make a blade; this is how to make a handle for the blade you have just made; this is how you use an axe when you see a dragon attacking and so to prevent yourself from looking like the useless twig I know you are so bent on becoming; this is how you mend your father’s shirt so it doesn’t have a hole; this is how you mend your fathers pants so they don’t have a hole; this is how you catch mackerel- in a net or on the end of a spear; when you are growing a tree, make sure it gets lots of water to be able to build ships with it; this is how you fight; this is how you fight more than one; this is how you fight an army; this is how you yell at someone you don’t like too well; this is how you yell at someone you don’t like at all; this is how you yell at someone you like completely; this is how you prepare a meal for yourself; this is how you prepare a meal for family; this is how you prepare a meal for friends; this is how you prepare a meal for the tribe; this is how you prepare a meal for war; this is how you behave in the presence of the rest of the tribe, and this way they won’t recognize immediately the useless twig I have warned you that you are becoming; be sure to clean your clothes every day, even if they never dry; don’t invoke the wrath of Odin- we cannot survive his wrath, you know; don’t read books- they are dangerous; don’t annoy the Terrible Terrors, because it might not be a Terrible Terror at all; this is how to make a shield; this is how to make a spear; this is how to make a catapult; this is how to cure a cut; this is how to cure an infection before it becomes an infection; this is how to catch a dragon; this is how to kill a dragon that doesn’t like you, and that way it doesn’t eat you; this is how to train a dragon; this is how a dragon will react to you; this is how to yell at your dragon, and if this doesn’t work there are no other ways in our book, so if that doesn’t work you might as well banish yourself; this is how to be a pirate if you so choose, and this is how you deal with other pirates that want to kill you; this is how to be a Viking; always go for the axe; but what if Gobber won’t let me have the axe?; you mean to say that after all you are going to be the useless kind of Viking that Gobber won’t let have an axe?