The Greenlanders (58 page)

“And I would say that the Greenlanders little like to be starved to death. What have we done to repent of, except give up all our goods, then all our lands, then all our children, then all our companionship?”

“Even so,” said Helga, “Sira Pall Hallvardsson would say that we are steeped in sin, and can’t repent enough or give up enough to whiten our souls.”

“Nay, Helga.” Birgitta smiled. “Sira Pall Hallvardsson would say no such thing, but Sira Jon would say it. Nevertheless, my intention is fixed, and soon Ragnhild will be thanking the mercy of the Lord, who moved my heart to send her these sheep. And so praise will rise up to Him who is fond of praise, but gives little as a return for it.” At this Helga began to be uneasy, and Birgitta’s smile grew broader, and after a moment, Birgitta said, “So that you may not fall into hearing such things, I think you might take a basket and gather seaweed by the shore. I will stay beside the sheep until Osvif returns.” Helga went off, and Birgitta watched her, and it seemed to her that the girl’s fate was not to die in the hunger, as she had been afraid of in the past year, but to live a longer and more peculiar life, for even just walking down to the strand, she seemed to be rushing toward something unseen, and it also seemed to Birgitta that soon it would be revealed to her what this was.

Some days later, the men returned from the seal hunt, and Birgitta saw that they had taken little. Gunnar declared that there were so few boats now, and so few experienced men, that the seals evaded them easily. In addition, some men who had gone to look over Hreiney had found nothing, no deer, little forage. That night, Finn fell to making another set of his bird arrows, for he was confident of encountering groups of skraelings later in the autumn. And so the days drew on and shortened, and at the end of the summer half year, most farmers slaughtered more than half of their sheep and some of their cows and goats, and folk from every farm went to Gardar and Solar Fell on pilgrimages and prayed for the souls of the Greenlanders, and for a big whale to strand at the mouth of every fjord.

Also in this autumn, Eyvind and Finna his daughter abandoned their farm in Isafjord, as did two other Isafjord farmers. Eyvind went to Dyrnes, to the steading of his daughter Anna, and Finna with him. It must be said that Eyvind’s son-in-law was little pleased to see him, for his steading was a small one, and not much better off than Eyvind’s had been, for that matter. In addition to this, Eyvind still suffered spells of wild melancholy, with much weeping that he could not restrain. Even so, Eyvind went to live there, and Finna as well, but Margret and the two servingmen had to find themselves other places, and it was also the case that things had been so bad at Eyvind’s steading that all of the sheep had been eaten during the summer, and so Margret had only some pieces of weaving to offer to anyone who would take her in. In her years in Isafjord, she had never seen Sigurd Kolsson or Quimiak the father, although once she thought she saw one of his wives with another skraeling. For this reason, she did not mind going off to Dyrnes, for the skraelings were rather plentiful there, as well. Now that she was an old woman, the only longing that ever seized her was for the sight of this little boy. It seized her rarely but always with a breathless, smothering pinch, like the embrace of a polar bear, as she used to imagine it when she was a child and her uncle Hauk would tell her tales of the Northsetur. The loss of Sigurd was something she had not gotten over, and for this reason she had little hope for Eyvind, of whom she had grown so fond.

In Dyrnes, only one farmstead had room for her, and this was a medium-sized steading where the wife had four small children to care for and no servingmaid, and this woman, whose name was Freya, made Margret agree to give up half of her portion of meat to the children if the hunger should demand it, and to leave any time she was asked to, with no meat and no guarantee of another place, but only the pieces of weaving she had brought, or pieces like them, should they be used for clothing in the interim. Since the winter was drawing on, and Margret no longer cared to travel in the cold, she agreed to these terms, and did not blame Freya for them, for she saw that Freya was senseless with dread at the approach of death. The children sat about their mother and watched her closely, for they had caught her fear, and when she closed her eyes, or looked up, or changed her expresssion in any way, the oldest child would cry out, “What is it, mama!” and the next oldest would shudder and tremble, and the youngest would begin to cry, and so Freya would try to sit ever more still, or to send the children to the bedcloset, but they refused to be away from her. They awaited the coming of their father with dread, not because he was an unkindly man, but because he too was of a gloomy temperament, and came into the steading every time, from working or from hunting, with predictions of disaster on his lips.

In fact, Margret saw, they had done a good job of filling the storehouse over the summer, and had more stores than Eyvind had ever had, even in his better years. But Eyvind had been a sanguine fellow, and this was not the case with Freya and Gudleif, the husband. Each night they prayed fervently to be brought safely to morning, and each morning, they prayed fervently to be brought safely to evening. Margret found the steading oppressive. Gudleif’s herdsman, his boy, and the other two servingmen stayed, by choice, in the byre with the sheep. Margret sometimes went to meet Finna and Eyvind for a little talk, but as the winter drew on, these meetings ended, for Finna suffered greatly from the joint ill, and could not walk in the least depth of snow, and Eyvind wished to stay with her.

Such games and pastimes as Margret was accustomed to in the winter, as she thought all Greenlanders were accustomed to, were wholly lacking at this gloomy steading. Gudleif carved no tops nor game counters for the children, nor did he tell tales to entertain them. No one gossiped about the neighbors or speculated about the ways of southern folk or folk in Jerusalem or life in Heaven, as Eyvind and his daughters had done. Freya sighed over her weaving and her spinning and her cooking equally, and both she and Gudleif measured out the children’s portions of food with dour exactitude, telling them to be grateful for what they had, as if it were thin and ill-tasting, even when it was hearty and delicious, so that the children took no pleasure in their meals, but were careful to eat it all up. Sometimes visitors came, most often Gudleif’s father and mother, who were both living, and not very old, and at these times, they, too, stared at the children’s trenchers and spoke grimly of the coming winter, and Margret saw that such habits as these folk had fallen into had preceded the hungry times, and had been theirs always. Gudleif’s father, whose name was Finnleif, spoke as if all of his direst predictions had now come to pass. In addition to this, he knew exactly what year it was, for he had always kept an accurate and detailed calendar. It would be 1399 at the new year. Did Margret think that this hunger came by chance in 1399? Nothing was by chance. Not many would make it to the new century, said Finnleif.

Dyrnes church was in a pleasant wide valley that went a good ways back into the mountains, and most of the farms were on an island across the sound from the church. The best land was around the church, and the Dyrnes priest had always been a rich man in the past, but now there was only Sira Audun who came four or five times a year, and so the Dyrnes farmers pastured their sheep on the church lands in the valley, and went back and forth to them across the sound, which was sometimes not without danger. Even so, the district had not the icy aspect of Isafjord, and the folk were somewhat more prosperous. They were all good oarsmen and boatbuilders, and cared little for horses. Margret saw that they talked often among themselves of Bjorn Bollason the lawspeaker and his foster father Hoskuld, who were Dyrnes folk, and how important they had made themselves, in spite of the Brattahlid folk, and the Gardar folk, and the Vatna Hverfi folk; the conclusion of these discussions was often that Dyrnes folk might not be so prosperous as folk from certain other districts, but that the relative hardships of their lives made them more clever and observant. Concerning Margret, they were rather curious, unlike the Isafjorders, who often gave their opinions of things, but never asked questions. Gudleif’s mother, whose name was Bryndis, was especially inquisitive, and wanted to know why Margret had been with Eyvind, and whether she had lived with him as a wife, and why she had not gone with him to his daughter’s steading, was the daughter jealous? Here she looked briefly at Freya. And why had she offered herself to Freya with so few belongings? And where had she lived before she went to Isafjord, and where before that? And why had she never married and why did she not speak as a servingmaid, and how old was she, and if she was not so old in years, why was her hair so white and her skin so wrinkled, and most important, who were her family and where did they live? Asgeir had died many years before, Margret replied, seeking sheep in a January blizzard after losing part of his farm in a dispute with a neighbor, and then she got up and went to find the children. After the first or second visit, Margret made sure to be away in the dairy or the storehouse or at some intricate work when Bryndis came to visit.

Freya’s mother and brother also came to visit, but they were very meek, and when the two sides of the family came at the same time, which happened often enough, Freya’s mother and brother fell into the habit of handing around the refreshments as if they were servants, and also of receiving the opinions of Finnleif and Bryndis in silent agreement. Freya’s mother never spoke to Margret at all, and didn’t seem to know her name. Margret felt herself pleased enough with her position most of the time, though sometimes she envied the servingmen who slept among the sheep but at least had a little good fellowship. Now Yule came on, and Margret noticed that Freya would go to the storehouse every day with a little groan.

One day Margret was sitting and sewing sheepskins into sleeping sacks for the two younger children, for it was the case that these two, who slept with her, were restless and often kicked off their coverlets. Freya was at the loom, weaving wadmal, and Margret saw that her shuttle was going more and more slowly with each throw. The oldest child had stopped her spinning, and was looking on in speechless fear, but the others, who were under one of the coverlets in the bedcloset, had not noticed this. Now Freya dropped the shuttle and put her hand to her head, and at the sudden small noise, three heads poked out of the bedcloset, and in short order, every child was crying. Now Margret got up and found a bit of wadmal and she dipped it in a vat of rendered seal blubber. Then she helped Freya to her bedcloset, and spread the cloth over her forehead. There was a great clamor. Now Margret opened the door and looked out for Gudleif, but he was nowhere to be seen. After that she sat down with her sewing and told the following tale:

Many years ago, in Norway, before the time of Harald Finehair, when there were many kings in every district, there was a princess there, whose name was—now Margret looked at the second child and said “Thorunn,” for the child’s name was Thorunn and Margret could not remember the real name of the princess, it had been so many years since she had heard the tale. Little Thorunn smiled shyly. And she was a princess in Hordaland. She fell in love with a prince whose father lived in Hardanger, and they loved each other very much, and indeed, it was proper for them to marry, for their families were already related in small degree, but the father of this princess, who was a great Viking named Orm, had his heart set upon Princess Thorunn’s marrying one of the men who was in his service, and he told her so. But Princess Thorunn was a true Viking princess, and she lifted her chin and said that she would not. Now Orm said to her that he would confine her in a dark tower, and he only meant to threaten her, for he loved her very much, but she only said, “You may do that if you must,” in a cool voice, and so he grew angry and had a tower built of large red blocks, and turfed all around so that not a speck of light could get through, and inside he put Princess Thorunn and her servingmaid, and he gave the servingmaid a staff and he told her that when Princess Thorunn should change her mind, the servingmaid should hit the staff three times on the wooden floor of the tower, and then he would let them out, otherwise they would have to stay there for seven years, through Yule and Easter and the beautiful summer. But the servingmaid never rapped those three times, for indeed, it was nothing to Princess Thorunn to be true for seven years to her love.

Now the food began to run out, and so the princess knew that seven years was coming to an end, and she was glad enough of that in spite of her pride. But still no one came to get them, and Princess Thorunn turned to her maid and said, “Indeed, we shall die an unhappy death here if we do not help ourselves,” and she took her spindle and began to scrape at the mortar around the red stones, and she scraped for a morning, and then the servingmaid scraped for the afternoon, and then the princess scraped during the evening, and after a while they got one stone out, and then two, and then three, and then the princess took her small knife, which had silver chasing all about the handle, and she began to cut away the turf, and this went on all the next day, until the light came in, and such was the effect of the light that although they were very tired and discouraged, their hearts rose and they redoubled their efforts, and the fresh air came in, and then a view of the blue sky with birds flying about, and the sight of the mountains, with dazzling snow on their peaks and glistening streams running down their flanks, and they worked harder, and soon they saw the green pastures, and they were very glad, but when the hole was big enough for the two girls to step out of, they were not so glad, for they saw no sheep or cattle or dairymaids about, and the castle was in ruins, and the horses had run off, and everything was waste, for one of Orm’s enemies from Stavanger district had come and made war upon him. And so the two women had only the clothes that they stood up in, and they set out to find someone to take them in.