The Greenlanders Part 13

"I would wish that such enmity as exists between our families did not exist, but it does, and it is not my mother who made me know of it, but Kollgrim himself, who has for the past six summers and winters presented himself before me as an apparition might, saying nothing, offering nothing, doing little mischief, but some, nevertheless, such as tying together the tails of the cows or emptying the cistern that catches eave runoff at Gunnars Stead, or perhaps only lingering nearby, casting his gaze upon me as I went about my work, or following me and my friends as we rode out for visits among our neighbors. When this began, Kollgrim Gunnarsson was but a child. Even so, his attentions were a little tedious, and got more so as he grew older. And so we did these things-we asked him to go off, and he didn't hear us. We threatened him, but he paid no attention. We drove him off, but he came back. We ignored him, but he came closer, and teased us more. No place was free of him. As a good hunter, he was always away from Hvalsey Fjord, though what game there is in Vatna Hverfi I have yet to know. And so it happened that one day when we saw him, a devilish impulse really to drive him off, for good, came over us, and it was not just the three of us who are called in this case, but six of us, another small flaw in Gunnar Asgeirsson's case, that he has summoned only half of the perpetrators. Now they shall all stand forth, not only Ofeig Thorkelsson and Mar Marsson, but Einar Marsson and Andres Bjartsson and Halldor Bessason, and we all admit that each of us had a hand in this deed, and I may say for all of us, but especially for Ofeig and myself, that we had great regret of this, and of others of our deeds that we have done in our youth." Now the five young men, with Ofeig first, stepped into the circle and looked about, but furtively, as if truly ashamed. Even Ofeig had been pacified, and he stood as meekly as the others. Thorkel, standing not far off from Gunnar, colored and clenched his fists, and Gunnar saw this, and saw that Jon Andres saw it, too. And Jon Andres went on, "Now I will not say that our remorse was easily arrived at, for some of us were more angry than others, and are of a more naturally difficult nature. But, indeed, I speak for all, and I offer Gunnar Asgeirsson full self-judgment in this case, and also my apologies and those of my friends."

This statement was received with approval by the a.s.sembled farmers, and also by the judges, who saw with relief that they would not have to make a judgment in the difficult case. Now Gunnar walked off quickly with Thorkel, and returned to his booth, for it is the law in Greenland that pleaders who are given self-judgment have until the next meal to consider their demands, and the judges are not allowed to take their meat until the terms of the judgment have been proposed and accepted. At first, Gunnar was much pleased with the outcome, and declared that many goods as well as lesser outlawry could be exacted from the six of them, or they could be put to work as hunters for the Lavrans Stead folk, or he could demand some head of cattle. Thorkel said nothing, but only sat quietly in the booth for a while. At last he said to Gunnar, "Do you not see the trick he has played on us, and the eloquence with which he has gulled the judges? And even of those who know him and his band, only we were not taken in by his remorse and his charm." Gunnar saw at once that such was the case. He said, "Yes, my friend, the fact is that folk will speak harshly against us if we punish these men as they deserve. We will seem like fathers who return blows for their children's loving words. And indeed, talking of children, who should know better than I do that Kollgrim was not entirely guiltless in this affair? Hasn't that urge to send him off once and for all, that urge not to be teased, but to have some peace, come over me as well as it has over these young men? What allies do we have from Vatna Hverfi and Hvalsey Fjord who don't know Kollgrim and his ways, who haven't themselves untied the tails of their cows or found their cheese vats on the roof of the byre? No, we will get some hay of these boys, or a sheep or two, but Jon Andres will feel no sting of punishment or dishonor. Even those who dragged Kollgrim out of the water and carried him senseless to Lavrans Stead are more dazzled by what they see before them than by what they remember from half a year ago. But this is not the last of my relations with Ketils Stead, and it seems to me that it won't go even this well in the future." And so, just before the time for evening meat, Gunnar went before the judges and demanded half the game caught by the six men during the summer, until the time of the autumn seal hunt, to be brought to Lavrans Stead in Hvalsey Fjord in good condition, for the use of the family there. And then the judges went to their meat. The next day there were three more cases, and then the Thing broke up, and the tale that went back to every district was that Gunnar Asgeirsson had gotten little honor from his case, and folk who had not gone to the Thing were surprised by this, for they remembered the malice of Jon Andres and his friends, and the grievous injuries done to the boy.

During the summer, Jon Andres himself came to Lavrans Stead from time to time, bringing game, and it cannot be said that he brought very much, for these Vatna Hverfi men were not especially skilled with bow or spear or snare, nor did they know where the good hunting grounds were. In the middle of the summer, Jon Andres brought some ewes with lambs. These ewes were fat and big compared to Hvalsey Fjord sheep, but even so, when Jon Andres herded them among the rest of Birgitta's flock, he was full of praise for her sheep. The Lavrans Stead sheep, he said, were lovely sheep, perfectly formed, with thick, long, oily wool, and so forth. His own sheep were so obviously superior that his praise disconcerted Gunnar and made him suspicious. After that, Gunnar told Olaf to watch for the coming of the Vatna Hverfi man, as he himself didn't want to meet him again.

In this summer, no sign foretold the end of the famine. The sheep scattered far and wide into the mountains, looking for forage, but there was little to be found. The gra.s.s in the homefields greened late and grew slowly, for there was little sun. Folk began talking about how to catch hares and foxes and the little fish that swarmed in the fjords around the feast of St. Petur and St. Pall. Birgitta made her milk into cheese, and gave the family water to drink, but other wives made the other choice, to bring their families through the summer on milk and let the winter take care of itself. Men marveled at how ten cows could no longer get by on the land that had once supported nearly a hundred.

Now one day shortly after Jon Andres had brought the sheep to Hvalsey Fjord, Birgitta was sitting over her weaving and looking out the door of the steading at the water in the fjord, and she saw this sign: a boat rowed up to the jetty and two seals flopped out of it and began to climb the hillside, and as they neared the steading, they turned into men. Just then, Gunnar came from the direction of the dairy, and greeted them and talked to them. Soon they returned to their boat and rowed off to another steading, and Gunnar came with a smile into the steading. It was not the custom of Birgitta and Gunnar to speak much to one another, for they had been estranged many years, but now he told her that a whale had stranded at Herjolfsnes, a huge whale like a mountain of flesh, and that he and Kollgrim and Olaf would go off that day and get some meat. Recalling the sign she had seen, Birgitta cast her eyes down, and said, "It seems to me that this is not the boon that it appears to be." But Gunnar scowled at having his news greeted in such an ill-tempered manner and said nothing. Sometime later the men went off.

Toward evening, the rain stopped and the clouds rolled out to sea. The next day was the first bright clear day of the summer, and by noon the gra.s.s on the hillside was so dry that Birgitta and Helga brought the bedclothes out of the steading and spread them out, for they were damp and musty from the wet weather. After that they began emptying the clothing chests, and Helga went about her work happily, chatting of this and that, but Birgitta stepped heavily, and her spirits were not lifted, for it seemed to her that this heat boded no good. Nevertheless, all of the goods were dry and sweet-smelling by dusk, and Helga and Birgitta began to remake the beds. When she was just finis.h.i.+ng, spreading the white bearskin over Gunnar's bedcloset, Birgitta was suddenly seized by a fit of weeping so that she could not stand, but fell on the floor beside the bedcloset. Helga, coming into the steading with an armload of clothes and unst.i.tched wadmal, put down her bundle at the door and ran and lifted up her mother's head. Now Birgitta wept for a long while, and when she had subsided, she said to Helga, "It seemed to me when I put my hands into Gunnar's bearskin that I saw myself as a child in this very bedcloset, and my mother had not died yet, nor did I expect her to, but only expected that my infant pleasures should go on and on, and I remembered this one that I have not thought of in thirty-five or forty years, the feel of plaiting her hair, of lifting the heavy strands and twisting them into each other, not as I do now, without a thought, but as I did then, painstaking and diligent, because I wanted greatly to learn the patterns. And the weave of her dress and the brownish color of the wadmal, and also the slope of her shoulder and the look of her neck seemed to press upon me, and I seemed to hear the sound of her voice, for it was the case that she spoke in a round, low tone that is not as I speak, or as you speak, and so is lost. And it seemed to me that I was a dupe and a ninny as all children are, as I still am, going from day to day with schemes and prospects. It seems to me that we have come to the ending of the world, for in Greenland the world must end as it goes on, that is with hunger and storms and freezing, though elsewhere it may end in other ways." Now she looked into Helga's face, and she saw there fondness, but not understanding.

The next day shone clear and sunny, and the day after that and the day after that, and on the fifth day, Kollgrim, Olaf, and Gunnar returned from Herjolfsnes with the whalemeat in a net in the cold water beside the boat, and Birgitta hurried to dry it and to seethe it, for it is the case that whalemeat goes off more quickly than other kinds of meat, and then cannot be eaten without certainty of illness. Birgitta kept to herself; her spirits did not lift, and Gunnar blamed her greatly for this throughout the summer.

One day Finn and Kollgrim returned from a hunting trip with a pair of beautiful big seals, although the time of the seal hunt was over, and Finn admitted that he had received them from some skraelings at the mouth of Isafjord, in exchange for a set of cunningly made arrows of Finn's own design. Gunnar was pleased with the meat and hides, but indeed, the price was high, for a set of such arrows, made in pieces and fitted together so that they could break apart inside a bird and come out without tearing the flesh, took almost a whole winter to make. The skraelings, Finn said, had had many seals with them, and had been fat and well clothed besides, but of all Finn's gear, these arrows were the only things the demons cared to trade for, so it was these or nothing.

Now the autumn seal hunt came around, and after the men went off, Birgitta and Helga went to the storehouse to count up provisions for the winter so that Birgitta could estimate how many sheep would have to be slaughtered. The whalemeat had given them just enough relief, so that with the two seals traded from the skraelings, and a reasonable result from the autumn seal hunt, the folk at Lavrans Stead would come to Easter with cheese in their mouths and sheep in their byre, but Birgitta knew that this would not be the case with some of her neighbors. Now she went out and began to count the ewes and half-grown lambs, although in fact she counted these over and over as the year went by and always knew just how many she had and where they were. Even so, she went among them, and saw at once the larger Vatna Hverfi sheep, for these stood out among the others like large bits of meat in a stew. In addition to that, these sheep always nosed out the best swatches of gra.s.s and chased the others off. Now Birgitta called the shepherd to her and told him to cut out the larger sheep and take them to the farm of Hakon Haraldsson, which was not far off, and to present them to the young farmwife, whose name was Ragnhild, for she had two babies at home and expected a third before Yule, and would surely not get through the winter with her family and her flock together. Osvif went off, and Birgitta walked back and forth, watching the sheep and spinning. Helga came out to her and she said, "Now we have placed our trust in Heaven, and we must pray that the Lord will give back to us what we have freely given to others. It seems to me that sometimes in the past, Sira Pall Hallvardsson and Gunnar have spoken in the evenings of how Jehovah used to try the faith of the Jews through sundry hards.h.i.+ps. Now we will try the mercy of the Lord."

"Sira Pall Hallvardsson would say that the Lord little likes to be tested."

"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 companions.h.i.+p?"

"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 sh.o.r.e. 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 exact.i.tude, 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 pa.s.s. 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 hards.h.i.+ps 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 fellows.h.i.+p. 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 sc.r.a.pe at the mortar around the red stones, and she sc.r.a.ped for a morning, and then the servingmaid sc.r.a.ped for the afternoon, and then the princess sc.r.a.ped 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.

They went north and then east and then south, and nowhere could they find anyone who would take them in, for the land was in the grips of a great hunger. They ate all manner of poor food, such as gra.s.s and birch leaves by the side of the road, but at last they found a castle where the cook looked them up and down and said that they would do for scullery maids, since the king there was about to celebrate a wedding, and there would be many guests and many dishes to wash.

Now Margret could not remember what was supposed to happen next, and she thought of giving up the tale, but she saw that the four children were listening closely, and so she stood up and got herself a drink of water. Indeed, it was the tale of the tower that had always attracted her as a child, and she remembered now that her attention had always wandered during the rest. She took some sips of water, and the children looked at her expectantly. "Well," she said, and then from her bedcloset the voice of Freya said, "The bride. The bride was so ugly that she could not bear to look at herself in the mirror." And so Margret was reminded, and went on.

This was the very castle of the prince who had once loved the Princess Thorunn, but he thought she would be dead by now, and so he had let his father betroth him to another princess, from Germany, who was so ugly that she could not bear to look at herself in the mirror. She was very rich, but her father never let anyone see her, and so she came to Hardanger Fjord thickly veiled in silk veils. Now the wedding day arrived, and Thorunn, who was but a servingmaid, took the bride's morning meat up to her. The bride saw her and said, "Thorunn, you are a pretty maid indeed. This is my fear, that when we go in our procession to the church, the folk will laugh and throw things at me, for indeed, I am very ugly. I wish you to wear the bridal clothing and walk in my stead." But Thorunn said that this would be a sin, and she could not. Now the ugly princess grew very wrathful and swore that she would have Thorunn's head cut off if she did not obey her, and so Thorunn donned the wedding clothes and went down and took her place in the procession.

When the prince saw her, he was pleasantly surprised, and thought maybe his marriage wouldn't be so bad after all, because this German princess looked so very like his dear Thorunn. And so the procession began, and it was not simple as processions in Greenland are, for the church was very big, and the way was between two groups of folk who were all interested in the looks of the future queen, and everyone was dressed in colorful garments, and everything was very beautiful, but still the maid Thorunn's heart was heavy, and she said some verses. When she pa.s.sed a birch tree, she said, "Little birch tree, little birch tree, what dost thou here alone? Once I ate thy leaves, unboiled and unroasted." And the prince looked at her, and said, "What?" and she said, "Nothing. I was only thinking of Princess Thorunn." And he was a little amazed, because no one had ever spoken of that princess in his hearing in seven years.

Now they came to a footbridge, and the maid was greatly afraid, and she said, "Footbridge, footbridge, break not beneath my step, I am the false bride, and I am heartily sorry for it." But when the prince asked her what she was saying, she only said, "Nothing. I was thinking of Princess Thorunn." Now they came to the church door, and the princess was nearly swooning in dread because of her falsity, and so she said, "Church door, church roof, break not asunder. I am the false bride, but I am heartily sorry for it." The prince said nothing, and they were married by the archbishop of Nidaros.

Now night came around, and the real princess came veiled into the prince's chamber, and when she took off her veils, he was much horrified, and he said, "You are not she whom I am married to."

"Indeed, I am your betrothed bride," said the princess.

"Then what was it that you said to the birch tree as we pa.s.sed it this morning?"

"It is not for me to speak to a birch tree," said the princess. "I may be ugly, but I am a princess after all."

"Then how did you speak to the footbridge?"

"It seems to me that you are mad. I spoke to no footbridge."

"Then, indeed, what did you say to the church door and the church roof? If you cannot tell me, then you are not my wife."

Now the princess bethought herself, and said, "I must go and talk to my maid, for she keeps my thoughts for me." And she ran to the kitchen and found Thorunn and asked what she had said to the church door, and Thorunn told her, and she ran back to the prince and she said in a loud voice, "Church door, church roof, break not asunder. I am the false bride, but I am heartily sorry for it."

Now the prince leapt up and said, "Why did you say this? Indeed, you must tell me all, or I will have your head cut off." And the princess told about her fears, and said that she had sent the scullery maid in her stead. Now the prince insisted that she go get the scullery maid and bring her to him, and she ran down to the kitchen, but instead of taking the maid Thorunn up to the prince as she had been ordered, she began to denounce her, and shout for men to come and cut her head off. Thorunn ran into the courtyard and began to shout and yell, for she was not one to go meekly to such a death. The prince heard this yelling, and came out of his chamber, and saved the Princess Thorunn, and when things were quiet again, he said, "When we were going to the church, you spoke of Princess Thorunn. Have you news of her?" And she said, "Indeed, I am Princess Thorunn, though ill events have sent me penniless into the world." And the prince took her to his heart, and they lived happily at the castle, and the ugly princess went back to Germany, and married an ugly prince, who liked her very much, and they had seven ugly children, who were nevertheless very rich, and for the rest of their lives they were quite satisfied with themselves.

Now the children were smiling, and Freya sat up and said, "This was not the ending I had heard."

"But such an ending was typical of my nurse, named Ingrid, for she had much to say about the ways of folk who were not just like ourselves."

The children were pleased with this tale, but they did not ask for another, for they were not in the habit of asking for anything. However, the next day, the child Thorunn was sitting not far from Margret, and she said to her, "What is a king, then?" And Margret replied that a king was a great personage, so great that there were no kings in Greenland, but that if you thought of a body, then the king was like the head of the body. The child nodded and fell silent, but after this it happened not infrequently that Thorunn or Oddny, the oldest child, would come to Margret with a question: What color was the Princess Thorunn's hair, or what was the prince's name, or what was Germany, and Margret was careful to answer these questions in as serious a manner as that with which they were asked. Sometimes, they would talk of what the princess and the maid had done in the dark tower for seven years, how they had celebrated Yule and how they had lighted their work and what they had done when the fire went out, and what they had talked of. Other times, they tried to say just how ugly the ugly princess was, and Margret found a little pleasure in these conversations, although she saw that Freya was not pleased by them, but rather jealous. Gudleif knew nothing of these things. After Yule, Margret had to divide her meat and give half of it to the children, and conditions grew rather bad.

Now it was the case after Yule that Bjorn Bollason got on his skis and went to Gardar and asked Sira Pall Hallvardsson what was left in the storehouses, and Sira Pall Hallvardsson took him and showed him every storehouse and also the kitchen of the bishop's house, and Bjorn Bollason saw that there was nothing at all left, for he and his men had given everything away the year before, so confident had they been that another year of this sort could not happen. But this year the Greenlanders were in such straits that they remembered the previous year with envy.

Shortly after Yule, Finn Thormodsson left Lavrans Stead with his arrows, and went in search of skraelings. After some four days on skis, he found a large band of these demons, fat and warm and well fed, and offered them a set of arrows. They were much pleased with the arrows, and laughed heartily in amus.e.m.e.nt, the way they often do, and after a few moments, they brought out their own sets of the same sort of arrows, and Finn saw that the skraelings he had traded his arrows to in the summer had learned how to make their own, and taught everyone else the same trick, and so, although this band of skraelings was willing to take his arrows, they would only give him one small seal for them.

Indeed, those seals that the skraelings get in the winter, which can only be gotten by skraelings and never by men, are hard enough even for skraelings to get. Finn stayed with the skraelings for two days, for they are hospitable beings, and he watched two men hunting, and this is what they do. A man stands with a spear poised above his head, looking down at a seal hole in the ice, and he waits without moving or breathing for as much as a day or even two. The highest winds and the most blinding storms do not move him, for he is enchanted with a spell that turns him to stone. Now a seal comes to the hole to take air, and the spear flies downward, as if by magic, into the mouth and head of the seal, and then the same spear is used to pull the seal up through the ice, for somehow it catches in the seal's flesh. Finn greatly admired such skills, but it is like admiring the work of the Devil, for as soon as a man declares his faith in G.o.d, and puts himself in the hands of the Lord, then he loses the power to hunt in this skraeling way, for men must choose between this world and the next and not do as Esau the son of Isaac did when he sold his birthright for a bowl of broth.

It was the case in this year of the hunger, that the skraelings seemed everywhere fat and happy, and most folk considered that they were put before the Greenlanders as a test of their faith, and some folk were tested and did not endure, for there was a man in Kambstead Fjord who took his wife and child and went with the skraelings and afterwards was not seen for many years. His name was Osvif and his wife was named Marta and their son was named Jon, but sometime later it was heard that they had changed their names to skraeling names and that Osvif had taken a second wife, a skraeling woman with almost no hair on her head.

Now the time came for Sira Audun to set off on his yearly journey to the south, and some days before the journey, Sira Pall Hallvardsson came to him and asked him not to go, for there were not the provisions to support two men on such a journey, both Sira Audun and a servant. "Indeed," said Sira Pall Hallvardsson, "we have not enough for you to take with you by yourself to the southern part of Vatna Hverfi district. If you go among them with a little, it will not be enough to save anyone, and yet will look like a great deal to them, and if you go among them with nothing, they will feel obliged to support you out of their own stores."

"This may be so," replied Sira Audun, "but indeed, some of these folk haven't seen a priest or made confession or had the sacraments in a year, those whom I did not see in the autumn. It will be a great sin for them to be denied."

"It has always seemed to me that the Lord sees our condition better than the Church Fathers do, and that He is merciful to us in our transgressions, at least those such as this one."

"But folk will be looking for me, and will be cast down if I do not come."

Now Sira Pall Hallvardsson smiled and said, "These are the same folk whom you complain of and who complain of you. They do little enough to deserve you, that is what you have said to me privily in the past. A dispute in every parish between here and Herjolfsnes, and two disputes there, that is how Sira Audun makes his journey. This is what they say of you."

"Are you saying that men don't look for a little disputing to refresh a long winter? Greenlanders consider Christ to be a fighting man, and are disappointed if his representatives do not castigate them and quarrel with them a bit."

"Even so-" But Sira Pall Hallvardsson did not go on, for it seemed to him an impossibility that Sira Audun should make his journey, and he felt no need to say more. Nevertheless, some days hence, Sira Audun was not present for his daily meal. It was the case the folk at Gardar, as at all other steadings in Greenland, now ate one meal each day instead of two. After eating, Sira Pall Hallvardsson went to the other priest's chamber, and saw that, though as neat as possible, and even cozier and more well appointed than ever, the chamber was empty. He stepped back, and was about to close the door, but then was moved to go in and sit down upon Sira Audun's stool. There was no writing upon the table, and yet there might have been, so certain was Sira Pall Hallvardsson upon looking at the desk that Sira Audun had gone off to the south.

Even as Sira Pall Hallvardsson was sitting in Sira Audun's room, Sira Audun was out upon the frozen surface of Einars Fjord on his skis, and he was making excellent time, for he was burdened only with his vestments, and carried no packs of food. The weather was fine and clear and the ice of the fjord covered with a thick, smooth powdering of snow, so that his skis sank and slid with great swishes that carried him three or four steps at a time. His face was shrouded in a mask made of two thicknesses of wadmal, with only the tiniest slits for sight, to protect against s...o...b..indness. It seemed to Sira Audun that the past twenty years of his life collapsed into this one feeling, the feeling of setting out for the south in the middle of winter, on the Lord's work. Except that never before had he truly trusted the Lord, and gone forth alone, without the insurance of plenty of food and extra goods. Never before had he cast off his lower self in just this way, although he might have done it, it was so simple to do, any one of these twenty years. This time he felt such confidence in what was to come that if he could have skied faster, or cast off his skis and run toward it, or, perhaps, cast off his humanity and flown toward it as a bird does, he would have. At evening he made out the sand flats and the valley of the river that runs into the fjord near Undir Hofdi church, and soon he was standing in the church itself, lighting a little lamp.

The light flickered and spread around the small room, and shone upon the wooden countenance of the Lord hanging above the altar, and the Lord's face seemed to change expression as the light fell upon it, and to welcome Sira Audun to this cold and deserted church, and at that moment, Sira Audun knew that he had done the proper thing, no matter what the outcome of it might be, for it seemed to him that the Lord would have missed him, had he not come to Him. Sira Audun knelt on the cold floor and prayed a great prayer of love and pleasure, and after a little while the light in the church attracted the local folk, who had been looking for their priest, and waiting to confess to him. Sira Audun stood up and went to the confessional, and it seemed to him that he could have swooned from hunger as he stood, but that the Lord lifted him up and helped him to the booth. Now the folk began coming to him, and they were a sorry lot this year, even sorrier than the year before, and rather than confessing their sins, their talk wandered off to tales of the hunger and enumerations of who had died, and who would die soon, and pleas with Sira Audun, or with the Lord, to have some mercy on the Greenlanders. Sira Audun did not turn these digressions back to the proper channels, but only absolved these folk, and rea.s.sured them of Christ's mercy in such eloquent tones that they went off believing that he knew of something, some cache of food or some stranded whale that they did not know of.

These confessions went on most of the night. Last to come was Vigdis of Gunnars Stead. She made her confession in the usual way, and welcomed the priest, and when she was gone, Sira Audun came out of the booth and found a large cheese waiting for him, a thoroughly salty and savory goat's cheese, white and melting, the most delicious goat's cheese he had ever tasted. He cut it up and served bits of it for communion instead of the hard wafer made from dulse that the Greenlanders were accustomed to having. After the ma.s.s, he cut up the cheese into large pieces and pa.s.sed them out to the poorest families, and when he went into the church, he saw that the Lord looked down on him with a flickering, secret glance of pleasure.

Just then there was a disturbance outside that rapidly spilled into the church through the open door. Sira Audun turned to acquaint himself with the source of some shouting, and saw a poor man, Thorstein Steinthorsson, who had already buried two of his children in the snow this winter, stumble backward through the door of the church, clutching his parcel of cheese to himself. He was followed by Ofeig Thorkelsson, who was shouting curses and grabbing for the cheese. Now Thorstein came against the stone wall of the church, where there was a soapstone carving of St. Jon the Baptist attached to the wall, and with his free hand, Thorstein grabbed this carving and pulled it off the wall and attempted to bring it down on Ofeig, but he was so weakened by hunger, and the carving was so heavy, that it fell from his hand and Ofeig bent to pick it up. But Sira Audun was there before him, and some of Ofeig's friends were on him just then, and pulling him back.

Sira Audun stepped up to Ofeig, with whom he was of a height, and slapped him hard across the face, saying, "Ofeig Thorkelsson, are you so sunk in sin that you would steal a man's sustenance, and kill him, too? What are you doing here? It cannot be that you have come to pray, as you have not taken confession in five or six winters, and your soul is even now in mortal danger." Ofeig showed no sign of having heard the priest, and his friends were about to drag him off when Sira Audun stopped them, for it seemed to him that if Ofeig could be brought before the sad and inspiring wooden countenance above the altar, he would be melted. He gestured to them to drop Ofeig's arms, and they did so reluctantly, for they were more used to his ways than the priest was. Now Sira Audun began to lead Ofeig toward the altar, and Ofeig followed with apparent docility. They came to the altar, and Sira Audun told Ofeig to get to his knees, and Ofeig did so. Then Sira Audun began to pray as follows, "Lord, fill this sinner not with fear but with joy, as You have filled me of late, for I was no better than he is, except through Your grace. Lord, it may be that his heart is so hard that he knows not that it exists, but You can find it and warm it. Lord, it may be that the demons who are as plentiful on the ground as mosquitoes in the summer have made a happy home in this man, but You can drive them out, and whiten his soul again. No man who breathes is lost to You, Lord. He has done evil, but if You come into him, he will repent, and sin no more."

Now Ofeig looked up and around. Those at the back of the church whispered expectantly. Sira Audun went on, "Lord, it has pleased You in Your mystery to make us look closely upon death, and yet some of us do not know what we see. Open our eyes, we pray to You." Just then Ofeig lifted his fist, and a sly smile flitted across his face. Suddenly, however, Ofeig was on his back on the ground, and Sira Audun was sitting on his chest. Ofeig was screaming in pain, for Sira Audun had b.u.t.ted his head into Ofeig's belly. Now Sira Audun's voice rose. "Lord, hear the demons screaming. How they hate to be driven off!" And he continued praying in a loud voice until Ofeig was silent, and then he stood up, and helped Ofeig to his feet. As Ofeig staggered off, Sira Audun said, "Go, then, and sin no more," but no one could say whether Ofeig heard him or not.

When the church was empty, Sira Audun knelt and thanked the Lord for filling him with such power against Ofeig's demons, and he prayed there for a while before coming out of the church and going about his business of visiting the farmsteads of the district.

This was a distressing business indeed, for at every farmstead he had to p.r.o.nounce burial rites over one or two folk who had died, and give last rites to one or two others who seemed doomed. And it was also true that at every steading he was offered refreshment, even if it was only a few dried berries. At first he only said that he was not hungry, but he saw that folk were disappointed that he spurned what they had, and so he began telling them the truth, that the Lord had filled him with miraculous strength, and was feeding him some sort of invisible food that made him strong and able. And then he could induce the folk at the steadings to eat their own refreshments themselves.

Finally at the end of the second day, he came to Gunnars Stead, and he looked forward to seeing Vigdis after seeing her neighbors, for indeed, such sights as he had witnessed in Vatna Hverfi were wearing and fearsome, even to someone in such an exalted state as he was in. But Vigdis' mood had changed, or so the servants said who greeted him as he neared the steading. She was abusive and angry toward everyone, and rained curses down continually upon the heads of such absent folk as Erlend Ketilsson and Ketil the Unlucky and Gunnar Asgeirsson, as if the injuries that had been done to her had just taken place. It was best, the servants said, to wait her out, for her mood would change again in an evening, or a day. But Sira Audun was filled with the power of the Lord, and he went forth boldly toward the steading, and pushed open the door.

Inside, Vigdis stood with her clothing in disarray and her dark hair falling out of her headdress, arrested by the opening of the door in the midst of cutting some dried meat at the table. The room, in fact, as Sira Audun looked about, was full of food. Vats of sourmilk and whey-pickled pieces of sealmeat and blubber, rounds of cheese, hanging birds. And Vigdis was hugely fat, fatter than she had ever been, so that her b.r.e.a.s.t.s hung down to her waist and her chins hid her neck completely. Sira Audun saw at once that she had responded to the hunger of the settlement by consuming and consuming without cease. Even as he watched, she jammed some of the meat into her mouth and began to cut some more. But now she stopped doing this, and put down the knife and began yelling at him so that the food fell out of her mouth. "So even the priest is come to steal from me, eh! You had your cheese, and a fine cheese it was, the best on the place. But I see you are not satisfied and crave to eat me out of house and home! But indeed, I'll drive you off, I will. I'll have my servants chase you off with the dogs. They're hungry enough, I tell you, the dogs are!" She flourished the knife, which had been sharpened so many times that its blade was honed into a crescent moon shape. Sira Audun stepped forward, feeling the power of the Lord in his breast.

"The Lord steals nothing, but only gives grace and eternal life. Woman, your soul is in peril! You cut your path to h.e.l.l with your own knife, for indeed, gluttony is a mortal sin in good times, but in times such as these, such gluttony amounts to murder! Your neighbors are failing all about you for the want of a bit of meat or a dish of broth. Today I have spoken the burial service over seven children who died for lack of food, such a little food as would fill the mouth of a small child, such as fell out of your own mouth just now, it makes me weep to tell it, their little faces were so thin, all forehead, and their mothers wept over their graves in the snow so that they could not lift themselves up to go into the warmth of the steading."

Vigdis listened to this in silence, but indeed, when she was not talking, she seemed not to be attending at all, and when Sira Audun fell silent, she said, "I cannot sit up every night as hard as I try. Folk must sleep, and that's the truth, but some folk are not folk, and sleep nary a moment, but wait till you're gone and then take all the best bits. They think I can't see it, the devils, but a bite here and a bite there, all the best bites, and then the next best bites, the sweetest, tenderest morsels. They think I don't see, but I do. Sometimes I am only pretending to be asleep, and that's the truth. I see them go about, biting this and biting that even as it hangs!"

"Woman!" Sira Audun was shouting, as if Vigdis were hard of hearing. "You must attend me! Satan awaits you, and the door is wide open, and your feet are steady on the path! You are old, and time is short. Satan himself is beginning to smile his knowing smile. But the Lord can cheat him at this late moment! Give up these demons!" He knelt down beside the door.

Vigdis went on, "Isn't that loathsome? It astonishes me what folk are brought to these days, but I know what I'm doing, and I see it all, indeed I do, and these folk shall be driven off by the dogs, and that's a fact, and for every bite they have taken, they shall be bitten about the flanks and nipped about the calves and they shall feel it, and that's the truth!"

"The Lord beseeches you, put off this burden of gluttony, give your food as alms to your neighbors. What rots in you shall nourish them! What turns to vermin in your hand becomes wholesome when your neighbors feed it to their starving children. Indeed, this may be the curse that brings the Lord's anger down upon us. What you give away shall be returned to you a thousandfold, when the reindeer run across your fields, and the seals teem in the waters of the fjord. It seems to me that you can do this for us all, if you turn away from sin as the Lord wishes you to!"

But Vigdis paid no attention, and fell to muttering and pulling at the meat on the table with her fingers. Sira Audun was panting, and he felt himself go limp, as if the power of the Lord had left him, and so he called out, "Lord, be with me, for I am in the presence of sin, and we sinners cry out to You to show us Your mercy!" But he was not strengthened, but instead, began to sway with dizziness and hunger, and also sickness at the odor of the food hanging about. He stood up with what felt like his last strength and went out of the steading, and sat down in the snow.

After a while, one of the servingmen approached him and sat down. He was a grizzled fellow named Gizur, and his hands were much bent with the joint ill. He sat down with a groan. He said, "So, priest, she was too much for you, eh? Well, you are not the first. She has been too much for every man, and that is a fact, I'm telling you. She is my second cousin, and that's a fact, and she is a rich woman and the mistress of the steading, and I spent my life sleeping in the cowbyre. Well, such a rise tells on a person, and it tells on her. She has her bad days."

"The steading is all hung about with food!"

"Oh, yes, that's her way. She has a magic touch with food, yes she does, like Jesus with his loaves and fishes, maybe. Never been a day without two meals at Ketils Stead, or at Gunnars Stead, since she's been here. Makes up for a lot of things, always has, though she doesn't lay the strap on us anymore, she's too old for that."

"Everyone in the district is dying of hunger!"

"Are they now? Well, I wouldn't know about that, and they don't know much about Gunnars Stead, and that's a fact. We keep to ourselves, and that's the way we always have done, and I expect that that's the best way for everyone." The old man put a crooked hand upon Sira Audun's arm. "That's the best way. Don't you think? But indeed, you are the priest, and you do look a little weak, and so let me go into the storeroom over here." Gizur crept back with a pair of cheeses and slipped them into Sira Audun's bag, and then he and another servant accompanied him to the boundary of the steading and pointed him toward Undir Hofdi church. He hadn't skied but a short ways, though, before he stopped and pulled the cheeses out of his bag, and indeed they were beautiful, and he could not resist pulling one of them apart and eating about a quarter of it.

Now Sira Audun had a poor night, for he could not forget how the Lord had left him just at the critical moment, and he spent much of the night in prayer and in examination of his soul for the sin that might have caused the Lord to give up on him or turn away. He could find nothing, everything. He took refuge in his usual prayers, and in the morning, felt somewhat better. In fact, it seemed to him that he was himself again, Sira Audun, the same man he had been all his life, self-satisfied, easily annoyed, content with his own schemes, and far from the Lord, farther than he had ever known himself to be. He divided the cheeses in a large number of segments, ate one with some water, and began to carry the others about the district, and when folk asked in wonder where he had gotten them, he told them simply and with humility, that he had called upon the Lord to bend the heart of Vigdis of Gunnars Stead, but the Lord had abandoned him. The next day he left for the south, and his trip was slow and difficult. He saw that his arms were visibly thinner, and his knees seemed to tremble with every stroke of the skis.

Folk in Vatna Hverfi district now began to talk about Sira Audun's three cheeses, the one he had given out at the church, and the two he had taken about to the farmsteads, and their talk first concerned how miraculously good these cheeses had been-soft, salty, free of mold, obviously made the previous summer, but then Vigdis had huge flocks of sheep and goats and some cows, for as spa.r.s.e as the hay crop had been, Vigdis had more farms than just Gunnars Stead and Ketils Stead, and the men to care for them, didn't she? When this talk had been going on for a few days, for hungry folk chew over and over the news of food as if it were the choicest morsels, some men went to Gunnars Stead one night and looked about, in spite of the dogs, for one of the men knew spells, and cast a spell over the dogs so that they would not harry, or even bark. And these men saw that Vigdis had plenty of hay hidden at the end of the cowbyre, and also that the storehouse had food in it, although it was hard to tell how much. The cows in the dark byre felt warm and sleek to the touch. And the priest had said to Magnus Arnason himself that the steading was crammed with food. After a while Vigdis' dogs began to grow restive, and the men crept away.

Now it is the case that folk who have set themselves to look upon their deaths with resignation, and to antic.i.p.ate the mercy of Heaven for themselves and their children are easily distracted by the knowledge of a store of food in the neighborhood, and their lot seems less bearable to them as they think upon these stores. So it was with Vigdis' neighbors. Folk recalled how fat she was, how proud, though only the daughter of a cowman, and how n.i.g.g.ardly. Serving boys had been beaten for taking a bit of honey, and neighbors had been summoned before the Thing on suspicion of hay stealing or sheep stealing, when anyone could see that the hay had only been used up, and the sheep had only been lost in the hills above the steading. In addition to this, everyone in the district had received one of Vigdis' tongue-las.h.i.+ngs, and in the time of Ketil the Unlucky, more than a few had had verses made against them, and been held up for ridicule. As folk talked about Vigdis' h.o.a.rd of food, they began remembering these things, too, and, as it often happens, these injuries came upon them the more freshly for not having been thought of in many years.

Among those who talked about these things, Ofeig Thorkelsson and Mar Marsson were not the most backward, even in the presence of Jon Andres Erlendsson. Indeed, of late no one had suffered injuries from Vigdis as her son had, for the sight of him seemed to concentrate in her mind all the ills that had ever been done against her, and she was often moved to attack him and box his ears. Even so, Jon Andres never joined in the talk among his friends about his mother, and when Ofeig opened his mouth, Jon Andres would get up and go outside.

It was the case that the hunger was not so bad at Ketils Stead as it was at other steadings. For one thing, servingfolk at Gunnars Stead would send food to their relatives at Ketils Stead from time to time. For another, the Ketils Stead shepherd was a talented fellow, and had acc.u.mulated a large flock, so that in the autumn many sheep had been killed, and their meat dried for the winter and their heads singed into svid and their brains made into sausage and their feet boiled into broth. Even so, Jon Andres and his friends had little notion of household economy, and by Yule much of this food was eaten, or wasted, and Ofeig and Mar and the others were impatient at the prospect of shorter meals and eking things out as their neighbors did. Mar, in particular, could not stop talking of what there was to eat at Gunnars Stead, and urging Jon Andres to get some of it from his mother. But Jon Andres paid him no attention. After the argument at the church, Jon Andres had been avoiding his friends, and one evening he told Ofeig that it was tiresome to have these boys around him. "Indeed," he said, "they are not boys anymore, but men with no occupations and no inclination to return to the steadings of their fathers, where they might be made to do some work," and this was true. For some years, Jon Andres had fancied his band to be something on the order of a band of Vikings, Harald Finehair and his hirdmen was what they were called in the neighborhood, and Jon Andres did not mind this nickname, but after the conflict at the church he grew impatient, and spoke to his friends sharply if at all.

One day he came among them where they were lounging on the benches of the steading, and he said that it was his desire to send them away, back to their fathers, for the life he had been leading oppressed him, and he wished to change it. As a going away gift, he would give them each a suit of clothes, the horse that each had been riding, and some dried meat to take away with them to their fathers' steadings.

Ofeig Thorkelsson was not the only one of these men to be on bad terms with his father. Mar and Einar, who were brothers, had neither spoken to nor heard news of their father, who lived in the southern part of the district, since the summer, and they feared that he with much of his household had died in the hunger, for the steading was not a prosperous one. Even so, Jon Andres told them, they must find another place to live, for his intention was fixed, and he intended to be free of them by the evening, or at the latest, the next morning. Andres Bjartsson and Halldor Bessason now got up and began to gather their belongings together, and it seemed to Jon Andres that Halldor was actually relieved and pleased to go, while Andres was resigned, as he had had news of his father at Yule, and all had been well at his father's steading at that time.

Mar and Einar began to grumble. Jon Andres said, "After these years of friends.h.i.+p, it would not please me to throw you out, or for us to part with ill feelings. But it is the case that times are different now than they have been, and such bands as ours do not repay in good fellows.h.i.+p what they cost in wasted provisions and trouble with neighbors, for I will not hide from you the fact that folk in this district are angry at me for the mischief we all have done, and they speak against me, and declare that I have incited you. Arnkel Thorbergsson is especially angry at the seduction of his daughter and threatens action against me if he and she do not chance to starve before the Thing. But I knew nothing of this seduction until he told me of it." And Jon Andres glared at Einar Marsson, for he was to blame in this.

Ofeig settled back against the wall, and Jon Andres turned to him. "Do not think, Ofeig, that I exclude you from these arrangements. Although we have been companions since boyhood, your pranks no longer amuse me. I think it would be well for you to reform your charact