A "...scop..." (p. 562) is a skald or poet.
From 37 AD until at least 49 AD, Time Patrol ethnographer Jens Ulstrup resides among the Langobardi, a Germanic tribe west of the Elbe and south of the future Hamburg who trade as far as the Rhine, the Vistula, the Danube and Jutland and whose descendants will found the Lombard kingdom in northern Italy.
Ulstrup's cover identity is that of the Scandinavian Domar driven into exile by a family feud, rewarded for flattering verses by the king with gold which, invested in trade, enabled Domar to acquire a Langobardian wife and homestead. Trade and poetic curiosity make him frequently absent and he can travel by timecycle. He dreams of drinking coffee.
Ulstrup, diverted from investigating civil strife among the neighboring Cherusci by a request from Unattached Everard and Specialist Floris that he concentrate instead on the wandering sibyl, Veleda, becomes alarmed that her new myth might inspire a Germanic civilization. Ulstrup has no experience or expertise with variable reality but Veleda is unique with a frightening potential.
We do not know how long Ulstrup remains among the Langobardi.
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