Undr by Jorge Luis Borges — Read

The reader should be forewarned that the following pages will not be found in the Libellus (1615) of Adam of Bremen, who, as everyone knows, was born and died in the eleventh century. They were unearthed by Lappenberg in a manuscript in the Bodleian, at Oxford, and, given the wealth of circumstantial details, he judged them a late interpolation, but he published them as a curiosity in his Analecta Germanica (Leipzig, 1894). The opinion of a mere Argentine amateur is of little account; let the reader judge these pages for himself. My translation is faithful, but it is not literal. Adam of Bremen wrote: . Of the peoples who live on the edge of the wilderness that stretches away on the other shore of the Barbarian Gulf, beyond the lands where the wild horse breeds, the worthiest of mention are the Urns. The uncertain or invented information of traders, the dangers of the route, and the plundering of nomads prevented me from reaching their territory. It is clear, however, that their rudimentary, unfrequented villages are located in the lowlands of the Vistula. Unlike the Swedes, the Urns profess the true faith of Christ, untainted by Arianism or by the bloodthirsty worship of devils, from which the royal houses of England and other northern nations trace their lineages. The Urns are herdsmen, ferrymen, shamans, forgers of swords, and harness makers. Owing to the rigours of war, they barely till the soil. One invariably comes to resemble one's enemies, and the steppe and the tribes that roam it have made the Urns very skilled in the handling of horse and bow. Their spears, since they are used by horsemen and not foot soldiers, are longer than ours.

As may be imagined, the Urns are unfamiliar with pen, inkhorn, and parchment. They carve their characters as our ancestors carved the runes which Odin revealed to them after having hung from the ash tree Odin given to Odin through nine days and nights.