Text written by WikiBrother Gabriel Brandino , from @moshinhell
Today
we're going to explain the meaning of a classic Viking metal song, "One Rode To Asa Bay" by Bathory . The Swedish band, led by the iconic multi-instrumentalist Quorthon , was one of the forerunners of black and Viking styles within metal.
Their
music was extremely detailed and intelligent, and the band has several compositions that spoke about the "pre-Christian Swedish Viking Age".
"
One Rode To Asa Bay" is one of the greatest metal classics, in my opinion, and the lyrics tell the story of the arrival of Christians in Scandinavia.
The
song doesn't just talk about the arrival of Christians, but about the entire conversion of the Vikings to Christianity, which began in the 8th century.
For the Scandinavian people to convert, it took considerably longer than Christians were "accustomed" to, mainly because they were already developed peoples with a very strong tradition; the Scandinavian countries took between 150 and 200 years to become lands dominated by the Christian religion .
“Rumors spoke of a man who came from across the seas,
carrying a golden cross around his neck, and speaking in a strange language of peace.
He had arrived with strange armored men […]
smelling of flowers, not beer, and without any hair on their faces.”
This is when the Scandinavian people became aware of the arrival of the Christians, who to them were just a few strangers who didn't speak their languages and whose clothing and styles were completely different from their own.
"And the audacious man declared to all of Asa Bay
that the God of every man, woman, and child had come to save them
, and that to thank the Lord of Heaven, they should build him a house,
and so that their souls might be saved from hell, they should be baptized and make vows."
This man, who was a priest, arrived uttering his words to begin his catechization, waiting to see which men would heed his words, and which would require other measures so that his idea could be preached.
“
All those who did not pay one of the four men of the new God
were whipped twenty times and chained by the neck to a tree trunk.
And then all in the bay of Asa built the house of the cross.
Every hour of the day they toiled, their limbs aching, for faith has a price.”
This passage makes it clear how Christianity imposed its will through oppression.
The House of the Cross is clearly a church, and the Norsemen were forced to work as slaves simply for being considered “impure” according to the Christians of the time.
“
Once the house of the God of the Cross is erected, they will leave us in peace […]
People of the land of Asa, all this has only just begun!”
Here it suggests that, after the Scandinavian people built the church, they believed they would be free from all of that; however, Christianity was an iconoclastic religion, and the last line of the song, "it's all just begun," gives us a synopsis of what would happen later.
The song is a critique, not of the Christian religion, but of the way it was imposed on the northern lands, and all the suffering it caused to the Nordic people.
“Asa Bay” is the fictional name of a village invented by Quorthon , who was inspired by the pseudonym “Asa Drake,” used by the writer C. Dean Andersson (who was a friend of the musician) in some of his fiction and fantasy books.