Two Truths and a Lie: Flower Pot

In this mini-series, I am offering up three short stories, two of them based on true stories (ie: true in spirit, not necessarily to the letter), the other a total fabrication. You decide.


3. Flower Pot

My great great great grandfather was a Viking. He was a huge man with a red beard and a glass eye, and his name was Svori Svenvy. He came with a party of merchants from Norway to the tiny isle of Man where married a local girl, and settled down to farm and raise a brood of red haired children. Everyone wondered what had prompted him to do this – the Isle of Man was not known for its wealth or resources, and he seemed to have no inclination to return to his homeland. The mystery was solved a few years later. By then, Svori was a man of some renown, known for his smile, and his kindness, and most of all for his love of his garden. For at a time when the land was merely a living, Svori tended his garden meticulously so that even in the poor climate he was living, there were clusters of colourful flowers in bowls around the front door. No-one thought much of it – if Svori wanted flowers, what harm in that. But a few years after his arrival, another party of Norwegian merchants arrived, and they turned out to be from Svori’s village.

They slapped Svori on the back, drank tankards of ale with him, and made merry for three days. And when they left, they promised Svori they would tell no one where he lived. And finally Svori’s secret came out. He came from a fierce family of raiders – the youngest of six sons. Growing up, he had hated raiding and killing, and preferred to spend his time in the fields and messing about with flowers – activities unsuited to a warrior - until his brothers mockingly began to call him Flower Pot. He grew more and more miserable, and finally in desperation, signed up with a crew of merchants and so came to the Isle of Man. His brothers were all dead – killed in raids and battles and presumably bourn to the halls of Valhalla. As for Svori, he lived to a ripe old age surrounded by his family and friends and gentle to the end, and when he died, he was buried at the edge of a green space that has been known ever since as Svoridale Park.