The Greenlanders Part 12

As for Gunnar, what he saw about Johanna was a desire to please those who would be pleased by her, and with this a naturally quiet temperament that shrank from loud words or anger such as Birgitta often showed toward her. Where Birgitta said she was sullen and stubborn, he said that she was daunted and afraid to speak or act. Husband and wife could not agree upon these things, and could not speak of the child without anger.

But such anger was nothing to what they brought to the subject of Kollgrim, who was certainly never daunted or afraid, but indeed seemed incapable of learning such things, for beatings and other punishments and indeed such ill rewards as he earned himself through his actions, as falling through the ice in the lake and nearly drowning, or being kicked by one of the horses so that his chest and cheek turned black and blue, all these went through the boy as if through a sieve, and soon enough he was back teasing the horses or trying his weight on the thinnest ice. The dogs would not go near him, so often had he blown in their nostrils or tied their back legs together or blindfolded them or induced them to eat something foul. But it was the case that he was always deeply remorseful, weeping and cajoling and vowing to avoid mischief, and when Birgitta looked at him, she saw his handsome face and his sincere remorse, and when Gunnar looked at him, he saw a deceitful surface that masked the corrupt depths. So it was that even when Kollgrim sat calmly before his trencher, relating with pleasure and charm his exploits with Finn or simpler events of the day, it seemed to Gunnar that his purpose was to gull everyone into such complacence as would leave the field for mischief wide open. In this way Gunnar saw he was truly repaid for the disappointment he had brought to Asgeir, and for the misjudgment he had shown in not sending the boy out as a foster son, for it was certain that he would have learned better manners at a steading where folk were unmoved by his looks and unafraid to beat him as much as he needed to be beaten. Instead, through laziness, Gunnar had entrusted the boy to Finn Thormodsson, and the outcome of this was still in the making, but it could not be good, for although Finn was a loyal and skillful servant, he was full of tricks and deceits, and was more likely to laugh at the boy than restrain him.

But every day, Birgitta saw signs of improvement in the boy, and the real beginnings of adulthood. And it soon came to be that Birgitta and Gunnar could not talk about the simplest thing without talking of these two children, even if neither name was actually spoken. Of Helga there is little to say; Helga was a good and virtuous child, attentive to her duties, courteous toward everyone, and devoted to Kollgrim.

Now they rowed swiftly along in the quiet water, and from time to time Birgitta looked at Kollgrim, and from time to time she looked at Gunnar, and after they had been rowing for a while, Birgitta spoke. She said, "It seems to me that the best course for Johanna will be to go out next spring, when she is of the proper age, to the steading of your cousin Thorkel Gellison, for he is a wealthy man and Jona Vigmundsdottir is a skilled housewife."

Gunnar replied, "The bird has not sung such a tune about her other nestlings."

"Folk say that it is better for a girl not to become too attached to her parents' steading, as Helga has. It will be with her as with Margret Asgeirsdottir."

And now Gunnar let go his oar and struck his wife a blow upon the cheek, and Birgitta fell against the gunwale of the boat, and seeing this, Kollgrim turned toward his father with a cry, and was only restrained from returning the blow by the actions of one of the menservants. These things set the boat to rocking so that much water came into it and drenched the packs lying on the bottom, and so all of the folk became quiet for a time, and the servant and Kollgrim exchanged places, and they rowed on in this way. And no more blows were exchanged, but when the party returned to Lavrans Stead, Birgitta moved her things to her father's bedcloset, and Gunnar and Birgitta had little to do with each other from this time forward for many years.

The winter that followed this great Thing was notable for bad weather-ice storms, followed by rainstorms followed by freezing weather, and the result was another serious hunger during Lent, and this time all over the settlement, not in isolated districts, as had been the case with the last hunger. And now folk remembered with disbelief the good luck of Bjorn Einarsson, that had been so great that it had radiated out from him, and from Kambstead Fjord to Hvalsey Fjord to Dyrnes and Brattahlid, so that the nearer folk were to him, the better their hay crop, the healthier their sheep and cattle, the more plentiful their stock of seaweed and bilberries. So, too, had the seal hunts and reindeer hunts been especially good in those years, and folk recalled how the seals had swarmed into Kambstead Fjord and even up onto the sands there, and the reindeer had come down from the north in herds and gathered near to Kambstead Fjord so that folk from those districts had not had to drag them far to get them home. Such was the talk that went back and forth during this famine, along with talk of the Northsetur, and the weather of earlier times, and the size of sheep in the days of Erik the Red and the quant.i.ty of seed that Thorleif had brought in his s.h.i.+p, and the good hay this seed had produced. And another thing folk remarked upon was the way in which, in these present days, especially good luck seemed to produce just enough to get through the winter on, while the usual run of luck produced less hunger or more at the end of the spring. Their fathers, folk recalled, had sometimes ended the winter with a small stack of hay left, a little mound outside the byre for the cows to chew over. At the end of recent winters it was the case that steadings that once had ten cows and five horses now had three of the one and one or two of the other. Steadings that had once had five cows had none. Folk had many more goats, and this was always considered a sign of bad times in Greenland.

Not so many folk had died, and it was said that those who died, died of fear, for when they saw their stores dwindling and their sheep starving, they were possessed to eat up everything they had, even if it made them sick, and then when they crept around to their neighbors, who had husbanded their provisions more carefully, there was little or none to share with them, and they were driven off, and some died and some did not, and at any rate these events caused bad blood in every district. And it caused also the abandonment of more farms, for indeed, this was the last thing that folk had to offer their neighbors in exchange for food and life, and though Sira Pall Hallvardsson and Sira Audun and Sira Isleif spoke against this practice, folk who had any surplus of food at all were not slow to accept such a trade. In this way, Vigdis of Gunnars Stead came into possession of two more large farms, and now, with Ketils Stead and Gunnars Stead, she was the most powerful farmer in Vatna Hverfi district, and Jon Andres, her son, was a man of many friends.

After this famine three years pa.s.sed that were neither good nor bad, and during this time, the grandson of Ragnvald Einarsson, named Olaf Vebjarnarson, who had been pitched into the fjord when Ragnvald was running from the skraelings, was declared to be a saint on the evidence of three cures and a vision which was attested by Bjorn Bollason and his wife, who had lived at Solar Fell for five years now, and also on the strength of his martyrdom. A small shrine was built on the strand beside the spot where the child went into the water, and folk got into the habit of going there for cures and other intercessions, especially as it was not far from any district, and Bjorn Bollason and his folk were considered to be quite hospitable. The child was called St. Olaf the Greenlander and the water where he was drowned often gave off a holy glow. Many folk saw it. Folk discovered that he was most effective in problems of childbirth, and sufficient prayers to him could make a breech baby turn of itself and present its head, or slow gus.h.i.+ng blood to a trickle. Some folk about Solar Fell who had lived there in the days of Ragnvald remembered that the baby's crying could be stilled by the sight of a crucifix, at which he would smile and gurgle with pleasure.

Sira Pall Hallvardsson did not know the rule about saints, and had little to say when he heard the news of the cures, and of the fact that folk had begun calling the child St. Olaf the Greenlander. When the new bishop arrived, Sira Pall remarked, he would look into the miracles and make a decision. Meanwhile, folk considered that if the lawspeaker himself referred to the child as St. Olaf, then others might do so.

It was the case, however, that St. Olaf the Greenlander had no effect on the weather, which was chill and damp and sunless every year, so that the hay crop was always poor. Cattle became fewer and fewer. Even at Gardar, only thirty cows stood through the winter in stalls built for eighty. And those cows that survived seemed not so st.u.r.dy nor so healthy as most cattle had once been. Now folk began paying attention to their sheep and goats, and taking the sort of pride in them that they had taken in their cows, and the news got about that the rams at Lavrans Stead in Hvalsey Fjord were especially large and potent, so that a ewe bred to one of these rams would almost always produce twins, and almost always both would survive. And so for a year or two folk got into the practice of bringing their ewes to Hvalsey Fjord just after Yule, when Birgitta preferred to breed her sheep, so that they would be born in the good weather, and Lavrans Stead prospered. When Johanna Gunnarsdottir went off to Hestur Stead in Vatna Hverfi to live with Thorkel Gellison and Jona Vigmundsdottir, at ten winters of age, she took with her fine things in her chests, and when she went through these things, Jona Vigmundsdottir saw that her husband's cousin Gunnar was not such a man of ill luck as he was reputed to be.

Jona Vigmundsdottir had become a red-faced and loud woman with a hot temper but a kindly manner, and folk said that she was well matched with Thorkel Gellison, who was cooler and more calculating most of the time, but not unlike his wife in the way he welcomed folk to his steading and took pleasure in the roar of many voices about the place. If there were no visitors, Jona and Thorkel would gossip with servants. If the servants were working, the two would walk back and forth in front of the steading, looking out for travelers or itinerant servingfolk who might be going from steading to steading. Horse breeding and large fertile fields and access to both Vatna Hverfi district and Einars Fjord had made Thorkel a wealthy man. Thorkel prospered through these hard years, for indeed, in all times some folk prosper, even when most do not. These folk had grown sons living at home with their wives, and one of these wives had two infants, one of one winter in age, the other newly born. It was the duty of Johanna Gunnarsdottir to help care for these children, to follow the one about and carry the other, and to chew meat for the older one, as he did not yet have his teeth, and to look after their comfort in all ways.

It was the case that Johanna was not to go to Hvalsey Fjord even at Yuletide. Such visits, Birgitta said, had been confusing to Gunnhild when she made them. But the trip from Lavrans Stead to Hestur Stead was a short one, a hike through the valley that connected Hvalsey Fjord and Einars Fjord, then a crossing of Einars Fjord at its narrowest point, and it was easy both winter and summer, and so it happened that Gunnar found a great deal of business to do with Thorkel Gellison. One day when Gunnar had spent the night with Thorkel and was just getting up and preparing to return to Hvalsey Fjord, he went outside to wash in the was.h.i.+ng vat and to see what the weather might be, and when he came out of the house he saw a group of men on horseback pa.s.sing not far from the steading; indeed, they had just stopped to have a look at the horses in Thorkel's round horse paddock, and were setting off again. Gunnar recognized none of them. But then, as he was turning away, he saw that there was another rider a bit farther away. And then he saw that this rider was his own son Kollgrim.

Kollgrim was little practiced at riding and he sat the horse awkwardly. He rode up to Gunnar without hesitation and greeted him.

"Who are these men?" said Gunnar.

"There is Ofeig Thorkelsson," replied Kollgrim. "And another who I believe is named Mar. The others are strangers to me." He spoke as if he had thought little of these men before speaking to Gunnar about them. Gunnar was much perplexed. He said, "Where is Finn, then?"

Kollgrim smiled and shrugged, saying, "After reindeer, I suppose. That was his intention."

"Who owns this horse, then?"

"A man to the north. But, indeed, it is a poor horse, not like Thorkel Gellison's horses at all." And before Gunnar could ask how the animal had come into Kollgrim's possession, the boy gave it a great kick and turned and galloped away. Now Gunnar went to the paddock himself, in search of a horse to borrow, but the paddock was full of mares with unweaned foals, and so he had to look farther afield, and the result was that when he had finally mounted, all of the riders, including Kollgrim, were nowhere to be seen. Gunnar rode a ways to the north and then to the south, for the fjord was behind him and a large lake before him. He went back to Hestur Stead, where Thorkel and Jona were sitting outside the steading, partaking of their morning meat. Gunnar went and sat beside them. He said, "What news do you have of your son Ofeig?"

"Little," said Thorkel, "and even that is unwelcome."

"Where does he stay, then?"

"He is fostered with Magnus Arnason, but it seems to me that he spends little time there. A group of Vatna Hverfi boys goes about with a certain someone. They do a little mischief, mostly among the servingmaids. In other times they would be taking s.h.i.+ps to Norway and learning manners from strangers." Thorkel shrugged.

"In these times, from whom do they learn manners?"

Now Jona spoke up. "From Jon Andres Erlendsson, for he is the leader of the band. When one of their number is killed or outlawed through their mischief, that is when they will stop, and not before. Skeggi and Ingolf and Ogmund were not such as these are." These were her other sons. Gunnar got up and walked off before she could enter into a discussion of the childhoods of these three boys. Shortly he began his journey homeward, and of every person he met on the way, he inquired about Finn and Kollgrim, but the two had not been seen in many days. It had seemed to Gunnar that Finn's favorite hunting spots were to the north, past Dyrnes and almost to the now abandoned part of the settlement that had once been known as the middle settlement. In Einars Fjord and even in the wastelands just to the north of Vatna Hverfi there was little game to be had.

Some days pa.s.sed until the return of Finn Thormodsson and Kollgrim Gunnarsson. They brought a great quant.i.ty of game with them, and Kollgrim described without the least urging or hesitation the days of their trip, including a day when Finn rested at the steading of a friend and Kollgrim took one of the horses belonging to the steading and rode about Vatna Hverfi district, admiring the wealth of the grazing lands. Gunnar looked to Finn for confirmation of this tale. Finn smiled and nodded, and told of how fatigued he had been after chasing a whale that he had thought was going to strand itself among the inlets at the head of Einars Fjord, and then he had seen some reindeer, and so had been three days sleepless, and so on. Gunnar knew these things were not to be believed, but saw no way into these falsehoods, and so remained silent. Nor did he mention to anyone what he had seen at Hestur Stead.

On another visit, he asked Jona and Thorkel whether they had ever heard Ofeig speak of Kollgrim Gunnarsson, but they had not, and anyway were more interested in relating to Gunnar tales of the fondness that the infants showed for Johanna, for indeed, the older child preferred the girl to her own mother, and always called out for her when Johanna went out of the child's sight.

It must also be said that in these years after the lesser famine, Gunnar spent a great deal of time at his writing, summer and winter, and became more fluent, and one of the things he wrote about was Sira Jon, the mad priest who haunted Gardar. He set down the tales that folk told concerning the priest, but the truth of the case was difficult to discern, for Sira Pall Hallvardsson had drawn off from his old friends and a.s.sociates, and now spoke to everyone only in the most formal and benign manner and disclosed nothing.

Now what is known as the great famine came on, and it did not come on unexpectedly, for most folk understood that life in Greenland had become more dangerous as the weather worsened and the numbers of folk on the farms dwindled, but it had always been the case that bad weather for cows was good weather for seals and reindeer. It happened, however, some eight summers after the departure of Bjorn Einarsson, that when the Greenlanders went out in the spring to herd the seals onto the beaches and kill them for the summer's and winter's food and oil there were no seals to be found, or only one or two where there had been scores and hundreds.

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 s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+p 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 ma.s.s," 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 a.s.sembly 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 st.u.r.dy, 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s bent in the wind and as the wind got stronger, it lay flat, and the man lay down on the gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s had been covered over by gray sand and tiny sharp pebbles, so that it was nowhere to be seen, and the only bit of gra.s.s 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 sh.o.r.e 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, inst.i.tuted 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 sh.o.r.e the reindeer were if anything rather spa.r.s.e, and men began remembering how on Hreiney the deer tended to cl.u.s.ter 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 quant.i.ties 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed, 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 s.h.i.+fted, 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 sh.o.r.e, 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.

The men in the boats rowed quickly into the herd and began laying about themselves with their spears. The trick was to thrust a spear into the chest of a deer, killing it with a single stroke, then to pull the deer close to the boat, using the spear, and grab the antlers, so that the beast could be lashed to the gunwale of the boat, but it happened that the sea was so rough from the rain of the previous two days that many beasts were lost. In addition to this, many spears were lost, and two boats, and two men were drowned, and when the day was over, it was seen that each farmstead represented would receive but three of the animals, and indeed, they were poor enough animals, for they had been grazing on skimpy forage for most of the summer.

On the fourth day, some men, led by Finn Thormodsson, set out from the main group of Greenlanders, and found a small group of reindeer, not more than two score, grazing in a blind culvert, and they ran them into a pocket made by three cliff walls, and took them all, even spindly, half-grown fawns. And this was the result of the reindeer hunt on Hreiney, great expense of effort for little reward, and folk began to talk about the deer that had run across the Gardar field on the last day of the Thing. It was also the case that not a few men sickened from the wet conditions of the hunt, and lay ill through part of the autumn work.

And this was the trick that Jon Andres Erlendsson and Ofeig Thorkelsson played on Kollgrim Gunnarsson on the last day of the hunt, when Finn was off with his band. They came upon him where he was sitting with the Lavrans Stead dogs, and seized him and carried him off away from the others to a spot overlooking the water, and there they took his hood and twisted it around so that his face was hidden, and they tied the shoulder pieces together so that it stayed this way. Then they ripped around the bottom of his robe and used this piece to tie his hands together behind him, and then they ripped around his robe again, so that his undergarments showed, and they used this piece to tie together his feet, and they tied it as well to the piece that bound his hands. And now they took him out in a boat that they found, for Jon Andres' boat was pulled up on the strand with the others, and they tipped him out of the boat and into the water, with the remark that perhaps this treatment would persuade him to leave them alone. After doing this, the men rowed back to where the others were, and declared that a certain man, of Hvalsey Fjord, had fallen into the water and needed help, and other men, good rowers in fast boats, went after Kollgrim, for it is the case that no man can survive for very long in the cold waters of Greenland. And Kollgrim was out of his senses, and was carried home in this fas.h.i.+on, and he remained insensible for many days, and only gradually returned to his old self in the course of the autumn. And in this way, Gunnar saw that the enmity between himself and the Ketils Stead folk was renewed, and he was wildly torn between anger at Jon Andres and Ofeig and anger at Kollgrim for provoking them, and he sat quietly at Lavrans Stead afterward and considered what sort of case he could make for the Thing.

In this year there was little festivity at Yule time, for folk were intent upon eking out what stores they had. It was a saying among the Greenlanders that folk who ate meat until the second Sunday of Lent would have cheese at Easter, but cheese on the second Sunday in Lent meant an Easter fast, and so the bits of meat were cut finer and finer to make them last. Finn Thormodsson and Gunnar, and Kollgrim, too, as the winter wore on, spent not a little time setting snares for ptarmigan, but this was the recourse for every farm, and the ptarmigan were not so plentiful as they might have been, or had been, in the days when Gunnar would get up in the morning to find a dozen birds hanging from the house eaves. And now folk talked of Petur the steward's dream and said that after such a sign, nothing would be enough, there could not be enough until G.o.d showed another sign that His curse was lifted.

It happened that after the fjords froze up and snow fell over the land, some folk got into the habit of making pilgrimages to the shrine of St. Olaf the Greenlander at Solar Fell, more than had been making these pilgrimages, and at the shrine, they would leave tiny trinkets in the form of whales carved from soapstone, for everyone longed for a stranded whale or two to take folk through the winter. Other folk began to go, sometimes, to Gardar for their pilgrimage and pray over the finger bone of St. Olaf, who was now called the Norwegian. Sira Pall Hallvardsson gave orders that a vat of broth with meat and fat in it should always be hot in the kitchen, and that each of these pilgrims should get a bowl of this food, and he also said ma.s.s if there were enough of them. At Solar Fell, folk were given bits of dried meat with their broth, but there was no ma.s.s to go to, as Sira Isleif had gone back to his brother's farm the previous winter. In addition to these pilgrimages, Sira Pall Hallvardsson said an extra ma.s.s at Gardar every day, solely to acc.u.mulate prayers for the relief of the Greenlanders, but each day pa.s.sed as the days before it had, and there was no relief.

It was Sira Pall Hallvardsson's custom to go every day to the cell where Sira Jon spent his time and converse with the other priest. And he did this every day, no matter what else there was to be done, for it was not a duty to him, but a kind of fearful pleasure. Many times he would find Sira Jon sitting or squatting, with his eyes closed, and they would go on thus, in silence, for the whole period of the visit. Other times he would find the priest praying in wild loud tones, with greater vigor than Sira Pall Hallvardsson had ever brought to his prayers, and with great scowls or with tears coursing down his cheeks. Still other times, Sira Jon would be in a conversational humor and relate to him tales that he had been thinking on, and ask him for news of the outdoors, for it was the case that the mad priest never left his cell, out of dread, for he said that the low ceiling and tight walls contained him, and that in the open air he would surely burst. Once each year, toward the end of the summer, Sira Jon was obliged to bathe by force, and to be sewn into a new set of clothes, with the seams in the back where he could not reach them, and finely sewn of st.u.r.dy wadmal so that they could not be torn off, and sometimes in the course of this operation, he had to be knocked insensible so that it could proceed, for he longed with a madman's longing to be unclothed, and was always scheming to rid himself of his garments. Of his food he ate little, and in this autumn Sira Pall Hallvardsson began watching his trencher, and every day that he ate nothing, Sira Pall Hallvardsson was pleased, for he saw that a man could live on very little. And so the autumn pa.s.sed at Gardar, and the Yule came on, and pa.s.sed, as well, and the stream of pilgrims swelled a bit, to both Solar Fell and Gardar, and the broth at each place got a little thinner, and the dried meat at Solar Fell became a taste, no more, of cheese, and Signy went to her husband and declared that soon the pilgrims would be taking food out of the mouths of the servants and the family, there was so little, and at this news, Bjorn Bollason made his own pilgrimage to Gardar, and was sequestered with Pall Hallvardsson for an evening. And Bjorn Bollason said to Pall Hallvardsson, "It seems to me that such stores have acc.u.mulated at this bishopric as would carry us through the rest of the winter, and into the time of the seal hunt, for it is no secret that the Gardar storehouses are full, or nearly so."

"Folk think there is more than there is, or could be. And in addition to that, these t.i.thes belong to the archbishop of Nidaros."

"And surely it would be the wish of the archbishop that the people be given alms in their time of need."

"Or perhaps it would be his wish that their alms be saved for later times, when conditions are even worse than they are now. At any rate, the archbishop has but a single known policy, and that is that his belongings be sent him as soon as possible, and saved for him until then."

"It seems to me cruel to sit upon all of these stores while folk are dying."

"Indeed, I have not heard that folk are dying now. It seems to me foolish to speak of our straits as desperate before they become so. A whale may strand in the south, or the reindeer may pa.s.s through, indeed, there are many ways the Lord might aid us, if He would, before we are reduced to stealing His belongings. Now is the time to pray, not to plunder His storehouses."

"The will of the Lord is a mystery even to you."

"But the will of the archbishop is not." And so Bjorn Bollason was balked, and returned to Solar Fell for a time.

It happened just before Lent that Sira Audun began one of his journeys to the south. He intended to go by stages to Herjolfsnes and then to return, saying Easter ma.s.s at Undir Hofdi church. He also intended to bring back with him his nephew, Eindridi, who had lost his wife and wished to be made a priest. Sira Audun had persuaded Pall Hallvardsson that Eindridi's knowledge of reading and writing outweighed his age (some twenty-six winters) and his knowledge of the wedded state. In addition to this, Eindridi had a son, Andres, a boy of some eight winters in age, and the boy, too, would be trained for the priesthood, Eindridi promised. Sira Audun went on skis with the servant Ingvald and they made quick time to Undir Hofdi church, where they settled themselves in and began receiving folk for prayers and absolution, and folk came in a stream far into the night, and some of these folk declared to the priest that they little expected to live out the winter. Sira Audun was told that some folk had died on two of the poorer farms, a man and his wife and their infant son on one and two young men and their mother on the other, and these were the first deaths in Vatna Hverfi district that were owing to this hunger.

Now Sira Audun and the servingman made themselves beds in the priest's house and went to sleep, and it happened in the night that thieves came into the steading and stole much of Sira Audun's food that he had brought with him from Gardar, and in the morning the priest and the servingman had naught but two cheeses left over.

This morning was Sunday morning, and Sira Audun prepared to say a ma.s.s, and the servingman Ingvald was to act as his a.s.sistant during the ma.s.s. Many people now came to this ma.s.s, since after the death of Sira Nikolaus, the services offered by Sira Audun were the only ones in the district. And when the folk were a.s.sembled and sitting on the benches that had been brought in, Sira Audun came before them and said nothing, and sat himself down beside his servingman, and only stared ahead of himself for a long while. Soon those gathered became restive and began talking loudly among themselves, and finally one man named Axel, who was known as a clownish fellow, shouted, "This priest must be dumb! Ho, priest! Speak up! We can't hear you!" and Sira Audun stood up and turned to face the a.s.sembly.

"Now!" he said in a great roar. "The Lord Jesus came among them, and they stole His sustenance from Him, and took His shoes and left Him without a coat, and then they turned upon Him and demanded, Why dost Thou not bless us? And the Lord said to them, Why have ye taken My things from me? And they said, Thou art G.o.d, Thou needst not the food and clothing of men, but can conjure these things at will. But Jesus said, Nay, ye are saved in Me only as I am a man, and when ye steal My shoes, I cut My feet on the stones of the road, and when ye take My coat I s.h.i.+ver in the cold and when ye eat up My food, I go hungry, and so My Father appears to me in a dream, and He says, where are these things that Thou must have to live? And I say that men have taken them from Me out of their own greed, and have fought over them, so that the coat is torn and the shoes are lost and the food is dropped in the dust, and My Father is filled with wrath, and He says, what are these men, that they choose such evil, why should they not be destroyed?" Sira Audun's voice rose. "Why should they not he destroyed!" And then he spoke more quietly. "Ye are saved when I am a brother to ye, and destroyed when ye deal with Me as an enemy." And he sat down again and waited. Those present were much taken aback by this speech, and made quiet, even though many suspected that it was a parable that Sira Audun himself had concocted. But even though Sira Audun glared out over the folk, no man stood up and admitted to the food stealing. After a while, Sira Audun got up and removed his vestments and left the church, and to Magnus Arnason of Nes, who was standing by the door, he declared that he would hold the service when the provisions for his trip were returned to him, and then he and the servingman went into the priest's house and closed the door. And then he spoke more quietly. "Ye are saved when I am a brother to ye, and destroyed when ye deal with Me as an enemy." And he sat down again and waited. Those present were much taken aback by this speech, and made quiet, even though many suspected that it was a parable that Sira Audun himself had concocted. But even though Sira Audun glared out over the folk, no man stood up and admitted to the food stealing. After a while, Sira Audun got up and removed his vestments and left the church, and to Magnus Arnason of Nes, who was standing by the door, he declared that he would hold the service when the provisions for his trip were returned to him, and then he and the servingman went into the priest's house and closed the door.

Now the people among the district searched among themselves for the perpetrators of the crime, and they found out one fellow named Vilhjalm, a poor man from the southern part of the district, and he admitted to having taken the things after his confession of the previous night, but the things had been shared out among the members of his family, and were now entirely eaten. At this, Vilhjalm was taken away by some of Magnus Arnason's servants and given a beating, and the folk of the district began to ask among themselves how they were going to make up the lost food, for everyone saw that Sira Audun was just beginning a long journey, and could hardly be expected to complete it on two cheeses. Even so, Magnus Arnason didn't have food to spare, and neither did Thorkel Gellison, and neither did any of the other big farmers of the district, for though they had more stores, they also had more mouths to feed. But now there came Vigdis, the mother of Jon Andres, walking in great state up the path from Gunnars Stead, and behind her were two servants, and each carried a large pack. Vigdis sailed past the a.s.sembled farmers and up to the door of the priest's steading, which opened before her, and a short while later, Sira Audun appeared, and he went into the church, donned his vestments, and conducted the ma.s.s, and Vigdis, who had not been at the earlier service, sat in the place of honor just in front of the priest. And so Vigdis was much praised by her neighbors for enabling the service to go on and the many confessions and prayers to be uttered and heard. Two days later, Sira Audun and his servingman set off for the south, and came to a nunnery, where they had no misadventures.

Even so, food was even scarcer in the south, and Sira Audun made presents of the food in one of his packs to all the nuns at the nunnery, who numbered seven, and when folk nearby learned that the nuns had some food, they came begging for a portion of it, and so the nuns gave it all away. Sira Audun said three ma.s.ses there on Sunday, and two more on the days after, and at every ma.s.s, all prayed fervently for relief. The next day, Sira Audun made the short trip to Vagar Church, and there met his nephew Eindridi and the boy Andres.

And now it was the evening before the second Sunday in Lent, and Sira Audun prepared himself to receive the confessions of the folk around Vagar Church, but few came, and those who came seemed to drag themselves through the snow and they spoke in the faintest of voices, both women and men. Now Sira Audun turned to Eindridi, and asked if conditions were indeed so bad as this, that men could not bring themselves to church without risking death, and Eindridi said that conditions were actually worse, since many could not get out of their bedclosets to look into the bedclosets of their children or their parents, so weak were they. And so Sira Audun spoke a hurried ma.s.s in the morning, and then went around to the farms in the Vagar Church district, visiting folk, saying prayers, and doling out bits of food from the second pack Vigdis had given him. There would be plenty at Herjolfsnes, Sira Audun felt certain, and he gave with a liberal hand. Even so, some folk of the district had already died, and more were so far gone that bits of cheese or dried meat could do nothing for them but please the tongue. And so Sira Audun stayed for a longer time than he had expected in the district around Vagar Church, and on the last day there he went without food entirely, though he gave some to Ingvald. At last he set out for Herjolfsnes, and on the way there, he and his servingman spoke at length and without ceasing of meals they had eaten, and Sira Audun made up the following verse: A stew of seal and hare, and a cup of milk And a morsel of cheese, some b.u.t.ter and dried sealmeat, My heart remembers every bite since my mother First chewed my meat for me.

And so they came to Herjolfsnes, and as it happened, conditions were little better there than they had been elsewhere, but the wife there had put by a welcoming feast for the priest, for when he should get there, and Sira Audun and his servingman ate this with relish and thanks.

At Gardar, just after the departure of Sira Audun, Sira Pall Hallvardsson got up one morning and went outside to wash, as he always did, and there before him in the dark was an array of men, and at once he saw that they were armed. Bjorn Bollason, who carried a crossbow, stepped up to him, and said in a mild tone of voice, "We have come to help you a.s.sure the orderly distribution of the bishop's stores, for indeed, the Greenlanders are desperate for sustenance and neither G.o.d nor the bishop can continue to turn his face away."

Now it began to lighten, and Pall Hallvardsson saw about two score men standing about in a semicircle, and all of these men were friends of Bjorn Bollason, and powerful men, both of Brattahlid district and Dyrnes. Pall Hallvardsson said, "Even so, the southern districts are not represented, and the bishop must look equally upon everyone."

Bjorn Bollason smiled at the easy success of his plan, and then spoke to certain of his men, who ran to the Gardar boats that were moored at the Einars Fjord jetty. The next day, powerful men began appearing in boats from every district, even Herjolfsnes district, and on that day, Pall Hallvardsson had the stones that sealed up the storehouses taken down, and the stores broken open, and it was the case that men trampled over the wadmal and sheepskins to get at the stores of deer meat and seal meat, and rendered blubber and dried mutton and dried beef and the many cheeses, goat and sheep as well as cow cheeses. After the first storehouse was emptied, the walls of the second were taken down on two sides, and that one was emptied, as well, and in spite of Bjorn Bollason's promise, the plundering of the storehouses was disorderly in the extreme, and indeed, Bjorn Bollason himself was in the forefront of the raid, for this is what Pall Hallvardsson considered it, although he made no attempt at defense, and only stood aside as the stocks of ten years were taken out.

Bjorn Bollason and his men were much impressed with the abundance of food at Gardar, and when it was all given out and taken away, Bjorn Bollason came to Sira Pall Hallvardsson and said, "I expected to find a mouthful for everyone and found instead a week of feasts. All your extra prayers have done naught for the Greenlanders compared to these actions of ours. Men go away thanking the benevolence of the bishop, for which the bishop should be grateful."

Pall Hallvardsson replied only, "Time will show where grat.i.tude should lodge," and he turned away from Bjorn Bollason and went to his chamber. The case was that he, too, had been much surprised by the quant.i.ty of reserves, but indeed, after all these years of Sira Jon's madness, he still hadn't solved the puzzle of the bookkeeping, and each winter the time he spent huddled over those pages, either reading Sira Jon's hand or making his own confusing and incomplete entries grew less and less. He did not know as much about these things as he had at Hvalsey Fjord, when at least he had looked daily into the two cupboards, and Sira Jon had looked twice a year at his offerings. At Gardar he could not even frighten himself with the thought of the coming bishop, or of a s.h.i.+p removing all of the obligated stores to Nidaros, for indeed, after so many years, who would know what was to be expected, or how much the t.i.thes would amount to? And so, perhaps, he had spent even less time over the books in the previous winter than before. Perhaps he had spent no time at all, but only said to Olof and Petur and everyone else who came to him to do as they thought best, and use what they had to, and perhaps he had taken all of the t.i.thes from all of the farms without looking at them very closely, or asking after the sheep and the seal hunt-those probing questions that Sira Jon had been so good at and that had made him detest the Greenlanders, who always seemed to be reserving something, even the smallest part of their due. Perhaps they were, perhaps they only appeared to be, as he himself had always told the other priest. But what man, who had not the eye of G.o.d, could see how much there was and how much was really owed? In the abbey where he had grown up, a score of monks had spent their days traveling about the abbey lands and reporting the activities of every peasant, every cow, every pig, so that when a peasant brought in his rent or his t.i.the, the abbot could say, "There is nothing here from that field of barley you planted at the edge of the forest," or, less often, "The illness of your wife brought hards.h.i.+p during the harvest, and you have paid too much here." Such was not the case in Greenland, where the priest knew nothing about a farmer's success except what the farmer himself told him. But indeed, all of this carelessness little mattered, as there had been so much of everything. Perhaps, Sira Pall Hallvardsson thought, it was not only uncounted, but also uncountable.

Sira Pall Hallvardsson sat in the high seat in the great hall and looked out into the dimly lit room, and saw this, that the Greenlanders would remember the prayers and ma.s.ses he had said, and the broth he had given out and the meals he had given to the servants and such pilgrims as came by, and they would take them as deceptions, meant to hide a mountain of provisions and greed for h.o.a.rding them, and he wished, only for a moment, that there had been less abundance, or that it had been stored differently, or that men's eyes hadn't widened in disbelief at the sight.

He got up and went to the door of Sira Jon's room, and put his ear to it and listened. From inside he heard a scratching and swis.h.i.+ng sound that he could not recognize, but when he pushed open the door, he saw the lunatic priest sitting quietly, as he always did, and awaiting him. Sira Jon, although just of an age with Sira Pall Hallvardsson, seemed to everyone to be older, for his beard and his hair were nearly all gray and his eyebrows grew in great gray tufts, like those of old men. He was squatting by the wall, with his hands in his sleeves, but now he presented his finger to be kissed, and Sira Pall Hallvardsson kissed it. Sira Jon peered at him, and then said, "I see that you will have to be bound today, for your mood is gloomy and inward. Such days are your worst."

"And your mood?"

"No mood has come to him today. He has eaten nothing in three days. He is especially good." Sira Jon always referred to his earthly corpus as if it were another man, unruly and capricious. Sira Pall Hallvardsson had seen him denounce this corpus in the roundest tones, vividly depicting the h.e.l.lfire it was bent upon achieving.

"Surely he has had a drink of water?"

"The merest mouthful. And then he p.i.s.sed it away at once."

"May I feel his arm?"

"His arm is indeed thin, but not too thin." Sira Jon's eyes widened, and he began to breathe heavily. "You may not feel it. It is not too thin. I am watching him closely." They fell silent. Sira Jon regained his composure, and after a bit said, "I see you have let these Greenlanders get by you. They are a devilish lot, indeed."

Sira Pall Hallvardsson smiled and said, "How have they gotten by me, then?"

"How should I know? There's no telling. You are a simple fellow. They play upon your sensibilities though they have none themselves."

"They are starving." This was the first Pall Hallvardsson had spoken of the famine to the other priest.

"If that were true, it would be good for them. But if they tell you of it, it can't be true."

"They creep into church and their arms and hands are like birch twigs lashed together, and also their faces are without flesh."

"These Greenlanders can do as they please with their flesh. It is not so long since I myself have seen them turn into devils and fetches. They may come to you all honey soft and full of prayers, but when they round the corner of the cathedral, those who crept along stand up straight and those who sucked in their cheeks let them out again. I have seen it enough. I don't have to be there to know it is happening. I am reminded of something that Bishop Alf saw when he was a boy in Stavanger district."

Pall Hallvardsson settled himself for the tale, as the fantastic adventures of Bishop Alf often formed a theme of Sira Jon's talk, even though Pall Hallvardsson happened to know that the former bishop had lived a life that was dry and bureaucratic in the extreme before coming to Greenland. But the mad priest kept silent, perhaps meditating upon his tale, but not telling it. He said no more, and Sira Pall Hallvardsson went off a while later.

The bishop's stores of food spread like a balm through the eastern settlement, from Isafjord to Herjolfsnes. Some folk spoke of the largess of the bishopric, but more folk talked of how Bjorn Bollason had looked on as the men brought out the stores, and how he had made certain that men from every district got a share equal to the numbers of folk they estimated still to be alive in that district, and when some men from his own district of Dyrnes had attempted to steal more for themselves, Bjorn Bollason himself had taken it from them and given it to the party from Hvalsey Fjord. At the last, when the food was loaded into the sledges and the skiers were about to set off, Bjorn Bollason had gone around to each sledge and greeted everyone by name, for he had a prodigious memory for names, and he had reminded everyone of the thanks that were due to G.o.d and the bishopric, for these provisions were the belongings of G.o.d Himself, and therefore especially wholesome, and this was generally considered a fine sentiment.

While Eyvind and the men from Isafjord were away at Gardar, Brenna Eyvindsdottir died in her bed of the coughing ill, and Freydis and Margret carried her corpus out of the steading and put it into a s...o...b..nk. Freydis was much cast down by this death, for it seemed to her that if Eyvind had gone away sooner, or returned more quickly, Brenna would have been saved, and it was in vain that Margret told her that Brenna had died of the sickness and not of the hunger. So it was that Freydis was very bitter toward Eyvind when he returned, and as bitter toward the provisions he brought with him, so that when they were put out upon the table and the family was ready to eat them, she swept them to the floor with her arm and began to scream.

It was the case that Eyvind had been on skis for three days since leaving Gardar, a trip which customarily went quickly in the winter. The parties from the north, weak from the famine, had encountered snow and bad weather, so that they had gotten lost between Brattahlid and Isafjord. Now, when Freydis began screeching, Eyvind grabbed her shoulders and shook her, and when she fell to the floor, he carried her out to the cowbyre, where the sheep were huddling in the warm dung, and he left her there, for he was much vexed at her. Afterward, he came in and sat down at his place and began to eat, and he made the others, Margret, Finna, and the two servingmen, eat as well, and as they were very hungry, they needed little encouragement. He said, "Freydis will soon come to herself and come scratching at the door." But the mealtime pa.s.sed, and the folk went to their bedclosets, and Freydis did not come scratching at the door, so that Finna went to her father, and asked him to go out after the girl, but he would not, so much did he abominate the child's pride and willfulness. And so everyone, even Margret, who greatly feared the outcome of this fight, fell into a doze, as folk do when they have just eaten well for the first time in many days, and in the morning Freydis still had not come in, although the door to the steading was not barred in any way.

Now Margret got up and she saw that Eyvind was putting on his sheepskin, and he smiled at her, and said, "She would not be an Eyvindsdottir if her pride did not match mine, but I suspect that her remorse will match mine, as well," and he went out carrying some dried whalemeat and some bits of cheese, and he did not come in for a long while. Margret went about her tasks, and the others began to stir, and still Eyvind did not come in, and so Margret donned her cloak and went out into the yard. Eyvind and Freydis were not to be seen, although there was much crying of sheep from the cowbyre. Margret approached slowly. The door was ajar. She opened it a little more, and it seemed to her that some sights could not be prepared for and that this would be one of them. Inside the door, Eyvind squatted in the warm sheep dung. Above him, in the half light of the warm, turfed-up byre, Freydis hung by her neck from a beam, and she was dead. Now Eyvind began to cry out and weep with such violence as she had never seen before. He rent his clothing, and hammered his head against the stones of the byre, and the sheep ran about his legs and raised a great riot. He cried out that she was his favorite, his snow bunting, his darling, his baby, and Margret saw that he was afraid to touch the maiden's corpus. And at this sight, tears started from Margret's eyes for what she thought might be the first time in her life. Then the servingmen came out to begin their work, and Finna followed them, but none could get near Eyvind or Freydis, so wild was the father at the daughter's death.

Folk in Isafjord were not inclined to blame Eyvind for this mishap, but blamed Freydis herself for her melancholy and her high temper, both of which she was well known for. Some blamed the hunger, which maddened folk, or made fools of them. There was an old servingman at another Isafjord farm who had