The Greenlanders (53 page)

Of such an event as this there were a few tales from early times. In those times the result had been that most of the men of the settlement had spent most of the summer and part of the autumn in the north, and had brought back many walruses, and in the spring men had set out in ships for Iceland and brought back sheep and cows to replenish the flocks that had been eaten up during the winter. Such were the measures that those Greenlanders had taken. But now the Northsetur was in the hands of the skraelings, even if the Greenlanders had had the boats to get there or a place to stop in the western settlement. And no ship had come to Greenland since the departure of Bjorn Einarsson. And some folk said that this would be a good time for Bjorn to return, or the bishop to come. Others planned for the autumn seal hunt and for a reindeer hunt on Hreiney, such as had not happened for many years. But there was little food for the summer, and Birgitta would say, as she served up the sourmilk, “Here is your cheese for St. Joseph’s mass,” or “Our Lenten fast will carry us straight to Heaven this year.”

At the time for the Thing this year, which was the year of our Lord 1397, by the reckoning of Sira Audun at Gardar, Gunnar said to Helga that it was time for her to accompany him to the new assembly fields at Brattahlid, and Helga understood that the purpose of this was to find her a husband among the men of other districts, so she put together her best finery and braided her hair in an intricate manner, so that part of it spread golden and thick down her back and part covered the top of her head as a cap might. And on the day that Helga was to depart, Birgitta came to her and said, “It seems to me that you make your preparations with a cool hand, and are little eager for this journey.”

“It is true that I have few desires one way or the other. It is many years since I have been taken to the Thing fields.”

“Do you not think with pleasure on such a life as this is to open for you, of the wifely tasks you will have, among your own belongings? of your children?”

“No. I don’t think upon it at all.”

“Then such thoughts will take you unawares and lead you into danger, especially as you have an impulsive nature.” But Helga turned away from these admonishments, and went off to the boat, where her father was awaiting her. Gunnar saw only that she looked very handsome and sturdy, and would attract a number of offers. He occupied his thoughts on the trip with questions of where he would like Helga to settle, and with what sort of folk. At Brattahlid he set up his booth in a prominent spot, so that folk would see Helga at her business many times each day. But the result was that Helga returned unbetrothed, for each time a man came to Gunnar and made an offer, Helga said only, “Let it be as you wish, Father,” in a mild tone, with her eyes upon her shoes, and so it did not turn out as Gunnar wished at all.

At this Thing there was much talk of the failed seal hunt, and more talk of how successful the autumn hunt would be, and how many reindeer there must now be on Hreiney, after so many years—it would be five or six, since farmers of the settlement had received permission to hunt on the island. On the last day of the Thing a very peculiar event was witnessed by those few who lingered. One of the farmers who had land at Brattahlid was herding his sheep on the hillside above the Thing field, and a reindeer doe and her fawn ran among the sheep, scattering them. This was unusual, for reindeer were not so often seen among the farms of the Greenlanders, and were accustomed to stay in the wild districts. Now it happened that this farmer was not too far from his steading, and he sent his son into the steading for his bow and arrows, and before the deer could get out of range, he shot it with one of his bird arrows, but the arrow went into the doe’s flank, and in great fear the beast ran down the hillside to the Thing field, where folk were taking down their booths. And when it ran among folk, others took out their weapons and tried to bring it down, so that soon it had three or four arrows sticking out of it, and one of these had gone deep into the chest, and blood poured forth from a heart wound. But the doe continued to run, as if its blood were being replenished by a magic spell, and it ran about the field, then up the hillside again, and then it disappeared, and the fawn with it, and no one had ever seen a deer show such strength before. Now the local farmers ran to get their dogs and track the beast, but it was never found, and the trail of blood ended in a thicket of willow scrub. And later folk remembered this deer, and saw that it was a sign of the future although at the time it seemed but a peculiar incident and was only remembered by the way.

A while after the Thing, around the feast of St. Christopher, there was another sign, and this came in the form of a dream to Petur the steward at Gardar. Petur had just eaten his morning meat with the others, and was walking across Gardar field toward the byre when he was overtaken by sleepiness and insisted upon lying down just where he stood, although men expostulated with him about such an odd course of action. He said, “No, I must sleep,” and he lay down and slept. And this was his dream: A man was walking in a green field, and the grass of the field was thick and green and as high as the man’s waist, and he was marveling at it in delight when a great wind blew up, a warm wind, as comes off the icecap in the spring, and the tall grass bent in the wind and as the wind got stronger, it lay flat, and the man lay down on the grass and covered his face. After a while the wind stopped, and the man sat up again, and the first thing he saw was that his clothing had been ripped to shreds by the wind, and the next thing he saw was that the field of grass had been covered over by gray sand and tiny sharp pebbles, so that it was nowhere to be seen, and the only bit of grass left in the whole field was the spot that he had covered with his body. All was desolation, and the man wept, and Petur the steward woke up weeping and at once told his dream. And then the men went on and did their work, but news of this dream went from farmstead to farmstead and was all over the settlement by the feast of St. Njot, and there was much discussion of what it meant, and whether it meant anything or not, for on the one hand there was no reason why a prophetic dream would come to Petur, who was not known to have second sight, but on the other hand, the way that sleep had overtaken him suddenly was known to be the way for such a thing. And soon it was time for the autumn seal hunt.

Now men from every farm came together at Herjolfsnes, and they had equipped themselves with every spear and every boat in the entire settlement, and, as always, the seals appeared to the south and the ocean was teeming with uncountable numbers of the animals, so that the boats could hardly be gotten among them. Now it happened that every boat exerted itself to the utmost, and many seals were driven upon shore and killed with clubs and spears, and this went on for six days, so that the seals were chased farther north than ever they had been before, well past the middle settlement, and men felt they had done well with the hunt. But when the carcases were counted up and distributed among the hunters, there were fewer than folk had expected as a return for their great efforts. Now there were some accusations of stealing and some fighting, but powerful men from Herjolfsnes and Brattahlid, such as Bjorn Bollason, instituted punishments for this. It seemed apparent to these men that for all the effort expended there had in fact been fewer boats and fewer hunters than ever before, and so fewer seals taken, and these seemed even fewer because when they were taken home and dried and put into the storehouses, the walls and floors there were bare, and not already partly filled with sealmeat and blubber from the spring hunt. And so men prepared for the reindeer hunt on Hreiney, and they were very hopeful, and all the churches and homesteads rang with prayers.

One of the boats that went to Hreiney was rowed by Jon Andres Erlendsson, Ofeig Thorkelsson, and their group of friends, and it happened that when they got to the island, they discovered Kollgrim Gunnarsson on the strand there. Now it was the case that Kollgrim had been following and teasing these men off and on for a number of years. Neither threats nor cajolery would keep him away from them for long. Once they had played a small trick upon him, stealing his clothing and setting him adrift in Einars Fjord in a tiny two-man boat, but this had only seemed to make him more anxious to be after them. From time to time Jon Andres was friendly toward him, and offered him food or spoke to him in a jocular fashion, hoping that he could then induce Kollgrim to leave him alone out of good feeling, but this method worked as little as any other. Twice Vigdis had had servants and dogs chase someone off the farmstead, and Jon Andres knew that this intruder was Kollgrim. Now the five men came upon the strand of Hreiney and saw Kollgrim there, standing alone and unarmed, and they decided to play another trick upon him, one that they had spoken about off and on since the previous summer. They pretended that they did not see him, and he pretended that he did not see them, but was instead awaiting friends. It was the case, however, that Kollgrim Gunnarsson had few friends other than Finn Thormodsson.

Presently, more boats arrived and were drawn up onto the strand, and the little bay filled up with armed men. Finn Thormodsson, wherever he had been, returned, and Kollgrim went over to him. He stayed with him all the rest of that morning. Now the Greenlanders split up into a number of bands and these set out to reconnoiter, with one band going off to inspect the old reindeer pits and the others going off in separate directions to find the largest groups of reindeer, and expecting not to have to go far. But such was not the case, for near the shore the reindeer were if anything rather sparse, and men began remembering how on Hreiney the deer tended to cluster here or there, anywhere but where they were then standing. It was a fact that forage on the island was poor, as poor as it was on any of the poorest farms in the eastern settlement. Now it was discovered that the pits were full of windblown sand, fuller than they had ever been, and unusable, and there was some grumbling about how Sira Jon and Sira Pall Hallvardsson had failed in their duty of maintaining the pits, but indeed, said folk from Gardar, how were they expected to do that and everything else too, for it was there as it was everywhere, too much land and too few hands. The great hopes of the Greenlanders began to be dashed, then, and some men sat down in discouragement and began to worry their food sacks.

But it happened that two groups, who had gone the farthest and ended up at the cliffs overlooking the wide western ocean, did find reindeer. Not teeming swarms, but plenty, if the hunters were canny and skilled, to feed the Greenlanders for the winter. And now the men, who had resigned themselves to finding nothing, jumped with a general shout and trekked to where the reindeer were, and the leaders of the hunt conferred as to the best method of killing quantities of the animals. Their considerations were these, that the deer had been hunted rather recently, and so would be wary of men, that the pits were no longer serviceable in any way, that the deer were on the other side of the island from the spot where in the past they had been herded into the water, that the cliffs were high and the water beneath them turbulent with underwater rocks, so that even if boats could get among them, were they herded off the cliff, the deer themselves would probably be much broken and damaged through the pounding of the surf. Now a party, which included Finn and Kollgrim, walked along the cliffs searching for another spot that was not too far from where the herds were which would offer at least some advantages.

It was the case that Finn knew this island of Hreiney rather well, in spite of the fact that hunters were prohibited from it without permission from the bishopric, and it was also the case that the taste of Hreiney meat was quite familiar to the mouths of the Lavrans Stead folk, although they did not perhaps know it, for the fact was that Gunnar never inquired too deeply into the sources of Finn’s prizes. From his knowledge Finn saw two things, which he told in a low voice to Kollgrim, and one of these was that the best place on the north side of the island for herding the animals into the water was farther from the main herd than the Greenlanders would be able to take them, for reindeer are not like sheep, and can be held together only for a little ways, even with many dogs, especially if the herd is small. The other of these was that the herd itself would wander toward the spot during the night, perhaps, and the next day, for the grass there was better than it was elsewhere. But Finn was a servant and Kollgrim was a boy, and so they kept their mouths shut. Sometime later, after much arguing, the others came to the same conclusions, and all turned back to the main group of Greenlanders. And after this all the men and all the dogs retreated, so that the deer would not catch wind of them, and also so that the dogs would not catch wind of the deer and set up a clamor. All settled in to wait. Just after dusk, it began to rain, and it was a cold, wet, ocean rain, such as pierced the most tightly woven woolen clothing and left sheepskins soaking. Toward morning the deer began moving off as Finn had predicted, but in the rain they moved at a slow pace. Another night and another day passed, and all the men had eaten up their provisions, and the dogs were whining with hunger.

Now on the third morning, the sun rose upon the deer, and they were almost but not quite far enough toward the herding spot, and so those men who had boats took other men and went off to get the boats and bring them around to where the deer would go into the water. Those men who had dogs sat themselves down and resolved to wait, but soon the intelligence came that rather than moving toward the herding spot, the deer were moving away from it, to the south and inland, toward the hunters. And now the wind shifted, blowing the scent of the deer toward the dogs, and these beasts, which were numerous and hungry, set up a deafening howl. The deer began splitting up and running, and so the hunt began, although the lookout posted to watch for the boats coming around the island had given no signal yet. Men and dogs spread out in a wide semicircle that tightened as it moved toward the shore, scooping the deer before it, and, a piece of luck, panicking only a few of the deer into running straight ahead and escaping around the closing edge of the flank. Soon, too soon, the two flanks were at the strand, and it was time for the semicircle to flatten and push the deer into the water. But no boats were to be seen, so some men with spears, fearing to lose all of the effort, went among the deer with spears, killing a few and frightening the others, so that some of them broke past the rim of men and dogs and escaped. Now a great deal of shouting broke out among the Greenlanders, and men began to turn toward each other with their weapons raised, but then the lookout gave his signal, and the first boats appeared in the turbulent sea. The semicircle flattened quickly, and the deer began running into the ocean, the dogs at their heels.