The Greenlanders (29 page)

Now Gunnar set about arranging his case for the Thing. He named witnesses to attest that he was summoning Erlend Ketilsson of Ketils Stead to lesser outlawry for the destruction of property in the form of the hay crop of his homefield, and for greater outlawry for the destruction of property in the form of two serviceable boats and one excellent breeding and riding mare. Then Gunnar and Olaf went about the district, looking for supporters in the case. At first these suits looked promising, for Axel Njalsson agreed to support the Gunnars Stead folk, and he was a rich and powerful man. In addition, Thorkel Gellison and a neighbor of his said they would aid Gunnar, for they were from a part of the district where Erlend owned no property. But the other men of the district, especially those who lived on the steadings around the shores of the great lakes, Antler Lake and Broad Lake, had little wish to offend Erlend, to whom they went every winter for hay when their own provisions ran short. In addition, a few recalled the mutilation of a certain Ketils Stead cow. So it was that Gunnar rode from farm to farm dressed in his best, most pleasing clothing, and he was received cordially in all places, but he ended as he had begun, with the support of three men and the knowledge that all of the others in the district could not fail to support Erlend and destroy his case.

Now Gunnar took his new boat and went to Hvalsey Fjord and stayed with Lavrans for a few days. On the first day they spoke only of the Gunnars Stead folk and especially Birgitta, for Lavrans could never speak enough of Birgitta and her health and her neat ways and her many talents. She expected her confinement, Gunnar remarked, around St. Bartholomew’s Day.

On the second day they spoke of the events at Gunnars Stead, the killing of the mare, the destruction of the boats, and the trampling of the homefield, and Lavrans declared that of all of these, the last was the most serious, and he said to Gunnar, “How have you declared this case?”

“I have asked for greater outlawry for the smashing of the boats and the killing of the mare, who was excellent both for breeding and riding, and I have asked for lesser outlawry for the trampling of the homefield.”

Lavrans shook his head, and said, “My son, you have asked the lesser penalty for the greater offense, and it may be that Erlend will catch this procedural flaw, because he has a great reputation for knowledge of the law. We will see what comes of this.” Then Lavrans went to his bedcloset for the night.

There were six farmsteads in Hvalsey Fjord near Lavrans Stead, and the next day Lavrans went out and gained the support of these six farmers, poor though they were, but the difficulty was that Gunnar had to go after him and give presents. “These two rolls of wadmal, for your wife who is pregnant,” or “This ivory-handled knife with silver chasing in thanks for your services to my wife’s father in the instance of his illness,” for it was the case in these times that it was an offense against the court to offer payment for support. Lavrans’ counsel, however, was that gifts need have nothing to do with cases, when all men were agreeable. On the fourth day, Gunnar returned to Gunnars Stead and waited for the Thing.

Although there were some killings from Brattahlid to be brought before the Thing court in addition to Gunnar’s case, the men involved were neither powerful nor rich, and folk were far more taken with the case against Erlend, especially as Erlend came to the Thing field in great state, and set up four large booths for his many supporters. Erlend was seen to be a fine man now, for his hair was nearly white, and he had lost the lowering dark looks of his younger days. He spoke to everyone at the Thing, even to Gunnar, in good-humored, loud tones, and was everywhere in evidence. He had a long conference with Sira Jon in the middle of one day, escorting him with great ceremony from the hall to his booth, and seating him inside on the high seat with the flap of the booth open to passersby. The result of all of this was that when Gunnar made his suit, the thirteen judges did not even hesitate to decide against him, on the grounds that his procedures were flawed, and none could gainsay this, for such was the law of Greenland. After this the Thing broke up and everyone returned home.

It happened that one evening, just after midsummer, Gunnar and Birgitta were outside the farmstead with Gunnhild and Helga at the end of a fine day. The two little girls were busy trying to entice one of Olaf’s sheep dogs, an ancient bitch named Nalli, to come to them. Nalli sat on her haunches looking past them toward where Olaf had disappeared into the byre. When they came near her, she stood up and moved away, then sat down again. Birgitta walked to and fro. As she walked one way, her spindle twirled downward, drawing the thread out of the wool she carried. As she walked the other way, she wound the new thread onto the shaft of the spindle. Since growing so great with this child she spun a quantity of wool, for she only felt at ease when she was walking about. Gunnar sat near her with a large pile of shearings, carding bits of grass and twigs out of them. Now he looked up at her and remarked that if her scissors were at hand, he would like to have her cut his hair. Gunnar’s hair was thick and very fair, for he wore no hat in the sun, only a thin band about his forehead.

Birgitta put down her spinning and went for the case that held the scissors, as well as a piece of cloth for his shoulders and a stool for him to sit on. She possessed a fine ivory comb, made in Bergen and neatly carved, which was also kept in a case. This comb had come to her through her mother and was missing only two teeth. Now Gunnar sat down on the stool and Birgitta began to comb his hair upon his shoulders. Nalli stood up and trotted down the hillside before the farmstead and Gunnhild began to run after her, and little Helga after her. Many times the smaller child tumbled and rolled, and each time her sister came back and set her on her feet again. The dog came to the shore of the lake and began toward the byre, far outdistancing the girls, who stopped and sat down among the wild flowers on the hillside. Now Gunnar said, “Some would say that we have fallen on evil days.”

“No doubt some do say it,” replied Birgitta.

“Some say that there is little hope now of Gunnars Stead regaining the place it once had among the farms of Vatna Hverfi. It is true that Hafgrim himself, who came with Erik to Greenland, gave this farmstead to Gunnar Asgeirsson, and there was always one great field to feed folk and one great field to grow prosperous on.”

Birgitta took out the scissors and began to snip along the bottom fringe of Gunnar’s hair. She said, “Some would say that in these days, one field feeds you in the summer and the other feeds you in the winter. The richest farms eat some of their breeding stock before the winter is over, not only middling farms such as ours.”

Now Birgitta went to put away the scissors, but Gunnar stopped her, and asked her to cut more off. Then he said, “Even so, the evilest days have not come when one can look upon one’s children tumbling about and laughing, and see one’s wife as you are, and sit upon one’s own stool for the pleasure of a haircut.”

Birgitta smiled.

“Gunnhild is much like you. She looks about her, and sees what her eyes fall upon. She laughs little but smiles often, and she takes great pains over her dress and her hair. When I am with her, it seems to me that she is my favored child.”

Birgitta caught her comb in the hair and lifted it up, then snipped off what the comb held.

“Then Helga comes to me and climbs upon my lap and speaks nonsense exactly as if it were gossip, and looks into my face for a reply, and it seems to me that she is my favored child, although she is as unlike Gunnhild as she could be.”

Now Gunnar’s hair fell evenly to the middle of his neck, and Birgitta once again went to put away her scissors, but he stopped her and asked her to cut it shorter. Then he went on. “Soon,” he said, “another child will be brought to me, a boy, as you have told me from your dreams, and this child will be as different from the others as can be, and as appealing. And yet, I find lately that I do not look for this with pleasure, but only with fear, for the evilest days are yet to come, and not far off.”

Now Birgitta had cut the hair very short, so that it looked like a priest’s fringe, and she put away the scissors. Gunnar ran his hands over the bristles. She said, “These things may come to pass as you say, for only you know your intentions.”

“Sira Pall Hallvardsson is right in this, that there is such pleasure in enmity that after a while it cannot be left off even if one would will it. Another thing is also true, that when a quarrel is new, one’s friends hold one back, and give cool advice, but when it is long-standing, folk put off its end and goad the rivals.”

“If by this you mean that there is talk of what goes on about the district, and everyone must add a bit and let nothing go unremarked upon, that is indeed true.”

Gunnar turned and looked at her, but her eye was always partly on the two little girls, who were now plodding slowly up the hill. “It may come to pass that Lavrans will regret giving you to me, as folk said he would at the time.”

“It may, but if so, then he should come to me and find out what I think, as he did at the time. This is my thought, that for every soul, something must come to pass, and for everything that does come to pass, every soul can imagine many things that might have come to pass, all of them less evil than what actually fell out. Folk must have something to think on, or they would be unable to hope for Heaven or remember Paradise.”

And to this Gunnar made no reply, but carried the stool and the cloth inside. Soon after this, Birgitta and Gunnhild and Helga went to the bedcloset and made ready for sleep. Birgitta did not ask, as she always did, when Gunnar would be coming to bed. A while later, as dusk was falling, he went out.

Beside the cowbyre Gunnar encountered seven men, and besides Olaf and Finn Thormodsson, these were Axel Njalsson and his two sons Bessi and Arni and in addition to them Thorkel Gellison and his son Skeggi. Each of these men carried no weapons, but each carried a spade and Finn carried a bundle of something tied together and wrapped in a reindeer hide. Now they went to Asgeir’s second field, as it was still called around Gunnars Stead, and began to dig a long, deep ditch across the edge of the field, like a reindeer pit, but wider. The men were strong and the work went quickly. After it was deep enough, Finn went along the length of the ditch, and distributed the contents of his bundle, which turned out to be the antlers of reindeer and also the ribs, sharpened at one end to a keen point. After he had finished, the men laid willow brush thinly across the opening, and, on top of that, mats of grass woven by Finn to look like turf.

Now it was not long before sunrise, and the men went to Ketils Stead, where they loosed all of the cows, and one of these Gunnar killed, and slit open its belly, and inside he placed a little figure of a man carved of soapstone. Now the band of men stood off a little ways while Gunnar and Olaf went to the doors of the farmhouse, for it was a large building with two doors, and they pounded on them, shouting, “Rise, sleepers, rise! The cows have gotten into the homefield!” The first one out was Kollbein Erlendsson, in his nightshirt and to him Gunnar sang out the following verse:

In the farmyard lies a pregnant beast
Within, there sits the son of a whore
.
How black is the cooking pot?
How leaky is the kettle?

Now Hallvard Erlendsson came forth, followed by two servingmen, and Gunnar and Olaf backed away, for they could see that the servingmen were armed with axes. Soon enough Ketil Ragnarsson himself came out, and he too carried an ax, and he was the first to see the effigy of himself in the cow’s belly. Now everyone was up and attempting to herd the cows out of the homefield, but the Ketils Stead herd was large and the cows lively and independent. The band of folk from Gunnars Stead were barely within sight by the time that Erlend’s sons and Ketil had armed themselves and their men and begun to chase them.

Gunnar’s men moved slowly, staying well within sight, and calling out to the others from time to time, so that Ketil was soon beside himself with rage. Now Gunnar and the others came to the second field and began to walk across it. Gunnar looked about himself and remarked to Olaf that it was still a beautiful piece of ground, and Olaf nodded. After this, Gunnar began to run, and Ketil’s folk to run after him, and the pursuers appeared to be gaining. The Gunnars Stead folk ran between the ditches, on the narrow paths they had left, but in the blue light of early sunrise, these were not so visible to the others, and, much like reindeer, they fell through the brush and into the pits, Ketil, Kollbein, and Hallvard first, for they were in the lead, and one of their servants after, for he was just behind Ketil, and fell upon him, but the others had been a step slower, and were able to stop themselves.

And it happened that the three brothers were impaled upon the stakes in the pits, and Gunnar and his men ran back to the pits, and prevented the Ketils Stead servants from aiding the dying men. There was great groaning until the men died. When this had happened, Gunnar and his men went to a nearby farm, where the folk were just rising for the day, and they announced the killings of Ketil Ragnarsson, Kollbein Erlendsson, and Hallvard Erlendsson.

At Gunnars Stead, the servingfolk came out of their sleeping places and Birgitta saw that Olaf and Finn were not among them, and she bade the women to begin putting all of the housewares into chests, and the children’s clothing and toys. And after they had done this, she went to Svava Vigmundsdottir and bade her to return to Kristin in Siglufjord, and then she went around to each of the other maids, and sent them on their ways to other farmsteads. Then she bade the men to begin carrying the chests to the new Gunnars Stead boat where it sat in Austfjord. And by the time Gunnar returned with the news of the deaths, the farmstead was empty of furnishings.

Gunnar gave his four horses to the men who had helped him—two to Axel and his sons, and two to Thorolf and Skeggi. Olaf called his five sheep dogs to him, and he killed the three old ones, including Nalli. After this Gunnar, Olaf, Birgitta, Finn, Gunnhild, and Helga went to the boat and embarked, and they rowed to Hvalsey Fjord and announced the killings. And after this they lived at Lavrans Stead in Hvalsey Fjord, and Gunnars Stead was the following year confiscated by the Thing and awarded to Erlend. This farm Erlend gave to Vigdis, so that it would, he said, remind her of the consequences of her schemes. Erlend had asked in his case for greater outlawry and death for Gunnar, but certain powerful men, led by Thorkel Gellison, said of Gunnar that he had been greatly provoked by damages done to him through the agency of Ketil Ragnarsson, and so he was only sentenced to lesser outlawry, which meant the payment of compensation, for there was no going abroad.