Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan Quotes in The 13th Warrior (1999)

Buliwyf: Lo, there do I see my father. 'Lo, there do I see...

Herger the Joyous: My mother, and my sisters, and my brothers.

Buliwyf: Lo, there do I see...

Herger the Joyous: The line of my people...

Edgtho the Silent: Back to the beginning.

Weath the Musician: Lo, they do call to me.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: They bid me take my place among them.

Buliwyf: In the halls of Valhalla...

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Where the brave...

Herger the Joyous: May live...

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: ...Forever.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Merciful Father, I have squandered my days with plans of many things. This was not among them. But at this moment, I beg only to live the next few minutes well. For all we ought to have thought, and have not thought; all we ought to have said, and have not said; all we ought to have done, and have not done; I pray thee, God, for forgiveness.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: How can you sleep at a time like this?

Herger the Joyous: The All-Father wove the skein of your life a long time ago. Go and hide in a hole if you wish, but you won't live one instant longer. Your fate is fixed. Fear profits a man nothing.

Skeld the Superstitious: Blow-hards the both of you. She probably was some smoke-colored camp girl. Looked like that one's mother.

[laughter]

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: My mother was a pure woman from a noble family. And I, at least, know who my father is, you pig-eating son of a whore!

Herger the Joyous: Where did you learn our language?

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: I listened!

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [given a Viking sword] I cannot lift this.

Herger the Joyous: Grow stronger.

Herger the Joyous: We shall pray for your safe return!

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Pray to whom?

Herger the Joyous: In your land one God may be enough, but here we have need of many. I will pray to all of them for you. Do not be offended!

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: I'll be in your debt!

[they wave goodbye]

Herger the Joyous: Goodbye, Arab!

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Goodbye, Northman.

Skeld the Superstitious: [Ahmad Ibn Fahdlan shows off his new scimitar, whittled down from a Viking sword; Skeld shrugs] He insisted.

Weath the Musician: Give an Arab a sword, he makes a knife.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [cuts through a thick wooden pole in one chop] It works.

[He tosses it into the air, twirls it around, then holds the blade to Weath's neck]

Weath the Musician: When you die, can I give that to my daughter?

[laughter]

Buliwyf: I have only these hands. I will die a pauper.

King Hrothgar: You will be buried as a king.

Buliwyf: A man might be thought wealthy if someone were to draw the story of his deeds, that they may be remembered.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Such a man might be thought wealthy indeed.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [Herger speaks Greek] What did he say?

Melchisidek: Hurry to meet Death before your place is taken.

Melchisidek: [as Ahmed rides off] We will remember you. Go with God.

Melchisidek: [looks skyward] You listening?

Herger the Joyous: When they come, we form a circle in the center of the room, backs to one another.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: I am not a warrior.

Herger the Joyous: Very soon, you will be.

[Herger kills one of the Prince's henchmen in a sham duel]

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: You, you could have killed him at will.

Herger the Joyous: Yes?

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Well, why the deception?

Herger the Joyous: Deception is the point! Any fool can calculate strength. That one has been doing it since we arrived. Now he has to calculate what he can't see.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: And fear... what he doesn't know.

Buliwyf: As you say, foolish. And expensive. We will miss Angus tonight, we will miss his sword.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Have we anything resembling a plan?

Herger the Joyous: Mm-hm. Ride till we find them... and kill them all.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: They think they are bears... they want us to think they are bears... Hey, how do you hunt a bear?

Weath the Musician: Chase it down with dogs. What...?

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: How do you hunt a bear in winter?

Herger the Joyous: Go in its cave with spears.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Where is a cave?

Weath the Musician: [realizing] It's in the earth.

Edgtho the Silent: [Returns from scouting] The next glen, many fires.

Buliwyf: IS THERE A CAVE?

[after the battle is over, Ahmed sleeps with Olga]

Herger the Joyous: Did she finish you off or bring you back to life?

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: A gentleman doesn't discuss such things.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [as Herger offers a mead horn] I can taste neither the fermentation of grape, nor of wheat.

[Herger laughs]

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: What? Why do you laugh?

Herger the Joyous: [laughing and handing over the bottle] HONEY! It's made from honey!

Melchisidek: He wants to know your name.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: My name is Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan Ibn Al Abbas Ibn Rashid Ibn Hamad.

Herger the Joyous: Eben?

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: No, listen, My name is Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan. "Ibn" means "son of".

[to the others]

Herger the Joyous: Eben.

[Herger prepares for his duel with Angus]

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: What happened?

Herger the Joyous: An engineering dispute.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: You notice he's bigger than you?

Herger the Joyous: Yes.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: And younger.

Herger the Joyous: Yes.

[He bangs his shield and moves into the ring]

Herger the Joyous: Bet on him, if you like.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: I may!

Skeld the Superstitious: [Talking about Ahmed's horse] Only an Arab would bring...

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: A dog to war? I heard this the first time.

[after the Oracle cast the bones and picks out the thirteenth]

Melchisidek: She says the thirteenth warrior must be no North man.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: What the hell are you saying?

Melchisidek: The thirteenth warrior... is you.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [rides out to the watchtower, and finds it empty] EDGTHO? EDGTHO?

Edgtho the Silent: [from a nearby tree] Stifle your racket, I hear you.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Thought to find you in the tower.

Edgtho the Silent: Yeah. Why I'm not in it.

[Ahmed rushes out of the butchered farmhouse and vomits]

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: They have been... gnawed upon.

Herger the Joyous: It is said, they eat the dead.

Buliwyf: You can draw sounds?

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Draw sounds? Yes, I can draw sounds... and I can speak them back.

Buliwyf: Show me.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [Drawing in the sand] There is only one God, and Mohammad is his prophet.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: I do not enjoy heights.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [looking at piles and piles of skulls in the Wendol's cave] I was wrong. These are not men.

[Olga inspects Ibn's wound]

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Ow!

Olga: That's a woman's sound.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Do that again and you'll make it.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [narrating] I am Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, Ib Al Abbas, Ibn Rasid, Ibn Hammad. And things were not always thus. At one time, I was a poet in the greatest city in the world. Life was easy and I lived without care. Until one fateful day, I met a beautiful woman who belonged to another man. Her jealous husband complained to the Caliph who made me the ambassador to the land of the Tossuk Vlad - a country far to the north. I was banished from my home and from all that I knew. So, I journeyed by camelback many months into the lands of barbarian peoples - accompanied by Melchisidek, an old friend of my father - through the lands of the Ogus, the Khazars and the Bulgars, into the lands of murderous bandits, called "Tartars", who attack caravans, slaughtering everyone.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [as Olga is cleaning his wound] Ow!

Olga: You complain much.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [quietly] Ow.

[she applies a swab of ammonia]

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: What is that?

Olga: Cow urine.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Cow urine?

Olga: Boiled down.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: No, no. Don't put that filth on me. Water, clean water.

Olga: As you wish. Tomorrow the pus will run, and you'll have a fever.

[he lets her put it on]

[Buliwyf is dying slowly of poison]

Buliwyf: You're wearing that long face for me?

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [small smile] I cannot help it.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: What do you suppose the potentate of this camp calls himself?

Melchisidek: Oh, emperor, at the very least.