The Greenlanders wandered through the ruins laughing. Their trousers were stained with sheep blood. The woman with the wide golden face threw herself down in the soft grass and began to sharpen her knife on a foundation-stone. The men wandered surely along the wall-tops; the boy found a feather and played with it before he gave it to the wind.
But why was the vegetation so lush here? I found the answer underneath the overhanging grass, which could be parted with the same degree of difficulty as a mop of human hair. There was a long rectangular cavity above the wall of stones which was full of something black and wet and moldy. It
was what remained of charred wood after seven hundred years. It seemed most probable that some time after Ivar Bardarsson had made his joumey to the West Bygd and found it as deserted as Roanoke, die Skrselings had come to this farm and set it ablaze.
The Talking Corpse
... so long, so darksome, and so bitter a winter ...
Pellham
That winter Thorstein and Gudrid were guests of Thorstein the Black. "You will be well provided for with food and lodging," said Thorstein the Black, "but you will find it dull here, because there are only my wife and myself, and I am quite unsociable. I am also of a different faith than yours." A disease soon came among them. The first to catch the sickness was Thorstein the Black's wife, Grimhild. She was a big woman, with almost as much strength as an ice-bear, but there was nothing for her to fight, unless she were to tear herself open with her hands, and so she declined, day by day. Then Thorstein Eiriksson fell ill. They lay down, and soon Grimhild died. Thorstein the Black went outside for a board to lay her corpse on. - "Don't be too long, dear fiiend," said Gudrid. (She was already calling him dear fiiend, just in case.)
- Then Thorstein Eiriksson said weakly fi*om his bed, "Look at Grimhild. I see her raising herself on her elbows." - Gudrid looked, and saw dead Grimhild slowly pushing her feet out of the bed and wriggling her grey toes like worms and feeling blindly on the floor for her shoes. She screamed, and Thorstein the Black came rushing in, and Grimhild's corpse fell back on the bed again, so heavily that the whole house creaked. The husband stood still for a moment, then said: "You will have to be content with your lot, Grimhild. It is too late for you to change yourself But I will make a fine coffm for you."
- No one else said anything. - At dusk Thorstein the Black went down to the landing-place to help his men put away the fish they had caught that day, and suddenly a house-carle came running down from the farm to tell him that Grimhild's corpse was trying to clamber into bed with Thorstein Eiriksson. When Thorstein the Black came into the house, that huge grey woman was at the edge of his namesake's bed. Thorstein the Black threw her dovm on the floor and drove an axe into her breast.
At nightfall, Gudrid's husband died. In the window was what in those times
was called a Weird Moon, whose silver-yellow face foretold a death; and it seemed to Thorstein Eiriksson as he died that the moon was coming closer and closer to the window until he could see nothing but a coldly shining ball looming over him; what he actually saw was the grieving face of Gudrid bending down to take his death-kiss; and he felt her breath on his lips and suddenly remembered her on their wedding-day when she took a silver hairpin, whose head was a golden dome crowned with gold, and smiled at her husband and put up her loose maiden-hair; she covered her head like a married woman, and Thorstein, seeing the change in her, was grieved because he loved her hair and felt that it was his fault she must put it away, for she looked more than ever like a nun in her head-cloth; so now this passionless nun-head approached him like the moon, refreshing his eyes with light; and Thorstein could not tell whether he was falling into the moon or whether the moon was falling down upon him but he felt lost and lonely in the white light and jerked his body trying to swim out of it, so that Gudrid thought that he was pushing her away and stepped back, cut to the heart, and all at once the white light became silvery, and then black, and he was dead. Thorstein the Black took her on his lap and rocked her in his arms and tried to comfort her and promised her that in the spring he would take her to Eiriksfjord with her husband's body. Gudrid thanked him warmly.
Then the corpse of Thorstein Eiriksson sat up very slowly, and said, "Where is Gudrid?"
Gudrid prayed to GOD and asked Thorstein the Black if she should answer, and he said that she should not.
"Where is Gudrid?" said the corpse again.
Once again Gudrid said nothing.
"Where is Gudrid?" said the corpse, and Thorstein the Black walked over to the death-bench and sat down with Gudrid on his knee and asked his namesake what he wanted.
"I want to tell Gudrid her destiny," said the corpse. "Gudrid, you must not marry any Greenlander, because an Icelander will be your husband. Your descendants will be bright and excellent; the sacred dew will sweeten their blood. After your husband's death you will be ordained as a nun." Then the corpse fell back and was still forever. To keep his spirit from wandering again, they laid heavy stones on his grave. (I hope he is in it still, slumbering upon some sweet snow-breast.)
After this, Gudrid stopped calling Thorstein the Black her dear friend and began waiting for the Icelander who would increase her fortunes. In the spring Thorstein the Black sailed her to Eiriks^ord, and there he lived for the rest
of his life. He was considered a man of great spirit. Gudrid went to stay at Brattahlid with her brother-in-law Leif Soon afterward her father died, and she inherited everything.
Gudrid and Tfiorfvtm KorCse/ni
A trader named Thorfinn Karlsefiii sailed from Norway. He was an Icelander the son of Thord Horse-head, the son of Snorri, the son of Thord of Hofdi, whose wife Fridgerd was the granddaughter of King Kjarval of Ireland. It was known that he was a wealthy man; his sword-hilt was made of gold. He quickly fell in love with Gudrid and she married him. Until he died in Iceland many years later, they ate from the same bag and drank from the same cup. Between them was the silence of a stilled need. As is written in the Flateyjarbok, "Gudrid was a woman of striking appearance; she was very intelligent and knew well how to conduct herself among strangers."
These things came about as follows: - When he hove into Eiriks^ord, Karlsefiii was welcomed, as he had much news of Norway and of the change of Kings there (for Olaf Trygvesson had been waylaid by the kin-fiiends of his former fiancee. Queen Sigrid the Haughty, whom he had slapped in the face so long ago, and her men cut his men down one by one and strove to overcome him as he stood on the prow of his Long Serpent, hurling spears, until at last matters were such that he was beneath the sea and they were above it and Queen Sigrid clapped her hands for joy); to which relation Eirik the Red Hstened several times over, glorying in the fall of any Norwegian King - for he hated them all; and Karlsefiii bore a cargo of fine goods as well as fine tidings: silks, and woolens, and gilt-inlaid axes, and many similar things, which he invited Eirik to choose from as he desired; in consequence, Eirik's reputation obliged him to ask these Icelanders to stay with him through the winter and receive his best hospitality; and so self-esteem entertained self-esteem until Frost-Month, when Eirik began to get low in spirits; for though he was chieftain of all Greenland he did not have the resources to celebrate the Yule-days properly, it being impossible to grow any grain in Greenland, by reason of certain boreal winds that chilled the seed in the ground. Karlsefiii, however, was dehghted to continue playing the game of giving, and so he told Eirik to take as much malt and meal and com from his ship as the feast required. It is not improbable that Karlsefiii had already decided by then to ask Eirik for Gudrid's hand; certainly Eirik was content, for by giving Gudrid he repaid
Karlsefni for the ale-malt, and simultaneously assured Gudrid a successful future. So his honor-banners continued to brightly wave.
At Christmas the men sat in their brownish-blackish robes, laughing and shouting and staring into the fire while the women filled their cups. Karlsefni stroked his sleeve-buttons, which marched in a close-set army up to his elbows. - The women's robe
s tightened a little at the waist, whereas the men's fell straight. I know the robes better than the people, for I have seen photographs of the clothing excavated from the frozen graves at Herjolfsness.
So they made the red ale, in which bubbles rose to become bitter, cream-white foam, and they drank it and it tasted sweet, and soon they were happy by the hearth-fire and Leif walked up and down telling of blue-eyed Ingebjorg, King Olaf's sister, whom he had been quite unable to get out of his mind since he had returned to Greenland (and Karlsefni nodded blandly, not caring to tell Leif that Ingebjorg was now married to Sigrid the Haughty's nephew. Earl Rognvald); and Leif's sister Freydis was there with Thorvard, her husband; Freydis hoping that everyone would admire her new scarlet feast-cloak which was ornamented with lace (she had bought it privily from Karlsefni), but because the Christmas feast had become Gudrid's wedding-feast people did not pay as much attention to Freydis as she considered that she deserved, so she became drunk and abused Thorvard and even pelted him with bones, which all thought great sport to see, and Thorvard pulled his skin-hood over his face, which had colored, and took her hand as if to lead her home, but she did not want to go away from this warmth and noise and brightness back to Gardar, which was nothing but a black island in a black sweep of §ords, grinning wdth the white glare of snow-trails on blackness, grinning with long narrow §ords whose blackness vanished into blackness, and she wrenched her hand out of her husband's and said, "Many things will come to pass differently than you imagine." - "She holds his honor of little worth, it seems," said Karlsefrii to Gudrid, but in reply, she only grimaced. Old Eirik the Red, who became drunk on a single draught now, stood by Leif telling over all the wrongs that he had suffered in his feuds, while his wife Thjodhild filled men's cups as Freydis scolded Thorvard more shrilly, and Eirik raised his voice, saying, "King Harald Fairhair's race has decayed, and I am glad of it, but when will the blight strike all those proud fools in Iceland?"; and when Leif strove to put in a good w^ord for King Olaf Trygvesson, whom he liked better and better now that he was dead, the father leaped up to strike with his fists at the guests' bright shields that hung above the benches, so that there was a great din and clashing (at which Karlsefni's men grinned and whispered, "How the old dog barks!"); but soon the hearth-fire softened Eirik's anger, and he let
his head fall on his breast and slept, his breath catching sometimes as if he were sobbing. So it was a very merry Yule. - Karlsefhi and Gudrid played at chess. Both were expert players. ("The Icelanders," says Olaus Wormius, "are accustomed, during the long nights of winter, to cut out various articles from walrus teeth. This is more particularly the case in regard to chess-men.") In my mind's eye I can see Gudrid and Karlsefhi at the game, like two facing visages of the temples of Angkor, whose stone noses are higher than ten men (now their faces are long since covered with jungle creepers); and in the background I see a herd of dark caribou running along the narrow white strip of an Esquimau carving. For all of this happened so long ago! - The ale was sweet in their heads; their skulls were honey-hives, like the lion's head undone by Samson, and so Karlsefni, his cup empty, drank Gudrid's face in his long low glances from the chessboard, and thought to himself: What a sweet brave girl! - for his head was muddled. Finally Gudrid saw that his soapstone cup was empty save for the foam-rings, and, smiling at him so gently, she filled it.
All that wdnter Gudrid kept talking to her husband about Vinland. Finally he agreed to sail there with her in the following spring. He purchased several ships, and took on a crew of sixty men, with five women accompanying them to serve their needs. These arrangements suited Gudrid very well - as they did her former sister-in-law, Freydis Eiriksdaughter, who saw in Gudrid's plans a chance to enrich herself
Freydis Eiriksdaughter
Shee cast her greedy eyes upon us, and within fiill hopes of devouring us shee made the more haste onto us, but with our hearty lances we gave her such a welcome that shee fell down, and biting the very snow for anger.
Edward Pellham, describing a white bear in Greenland (1631)
A^ re'
reydis was an excellent-looking woman, but her disposition was evil. We already know the tale from the Heimskringla of King Onund's son, Ingjald, who was fed a roasted wolf's heart to make him stronger and braver, and after that he became wicked. So, too, Freydis's selfish cruelties were not originally hers by nature, but came about simply because her stepmother Thjodhild would not own her in her heart - or so it is incumbent upon a historian to believe in this age of compassionate first causes, for how could we hope, if people could be bom wicked? - As a green stalk may bend in two without breaking, so Freydis suffered many things when young which would have killed her later. Once she was playing with Thjodhild's coarse-wool comb, with its tine-spaces each as wide as a finger, and she lost it and Thjodhild whipped her, saying, "I don't know who your mother was, but she must have been a thief if she was your mother," and Freydis turned pale, but said nothing. Later Eirik gave her a silver peimy to smooth her grief In the evenings, when the farming work was done and they were sitting by the long-fire, he taught her the names of Kings by letting her play with coins from his store: - here were silver pennies from the mint of Eric Bloody-Axe, of Canute, King Olaf, King Svein Forkbeard ... and Freydis loved the pennies and craved them. In her dreams she saw a hoard of silver: silver spiral arm-rings, and finger-rings with dragons' heads, and Byzantine reHquaries engraved with the faces of saints, and silver filigree brooches, whose raised pattems wandered like gleaming berry-embroideries
in moonlight; and silver pendants for her to wear, and silver beakers that no one but she w^ould be allow^ed to drink from; because, as with her father, her quickness longed for assurance. The mazy designs of these imagined treasures were for her as the bench-boards had been for Eirik, as the uncanny ^ords had been for the Ice-Dreamers: the future was in them. So her love of gain was hard-bound to her, overpressing on her love of others until that was all gone. If Eirik had known what she dreamed about, he would have pitied her even through his anger at her greed; for never could she hope to have such riches in Greenland, where even iron was scarce, and ships were held together with tree-nails and baleen lashings. (Once, we read, some hunters burned a stranded vessel just to carefully pick the nails from the ashes.) -But Eirik did not know his daughter's dreams, because she concealed what was on her mind. From a great height, the roiling ocean seems as fine as a girl's skin; and Freydis's mood-twists were similarly imperceptible even to those who knew her well. When she dreamed, she was happy, because her foster-mother's insults passed entirely out of her mind. - Of course, the next day, and every day, she had to live beside her doing her wool-work. - When it rained, those two women sat by the long-fire weaving and carding wool and hating each other, and the rain ran down the translucent bladder-skin windows.
TfijodfiM's Dream
This aged, lonely person went to bed early, cold and aching in her joints. She dreamed that CHRIST was in her. In those days the building of churches went on apace. In Iceland, the priests promised men as many places in heaven for their people as there were sitting-places in the churches that they built, so a great number of churches were erected. Through the loving kindness of the White Christ she had been herself permitted to build a place of worship, in despite of her husband, and whenever she could she knelt down on the cold stones. Now in her dream she found herself gloving with the Hght of Christ; she was a lantern for His light because she had given herself to Him; she dreamed that this light penetrated dirough even to her stepdaughter Freydis until the girl was heart-scored with it and knelt at Thjodhild's knees begging for forgiveness; then Thjodhild blessed her and forgave her freely; but when she awoke, her heart and odier hearts were as they had been before. So in die end Thjodhild had of diat dream nothing but bitterness.
Queerij Casttcj Rock
Sometimes when Freydis was little her father took her down to the mossy river where it was so bright at night, and daily it was bright; or he bought her a dress from Herjolfsness;
or he let her sail with him all the way to the West Bygd in the spring, when litde blue icebergs rested like clouds in the sky-blue calm of the §ords, and the farmers all gave her milk to drink and her father took her hunting in that vast stretch of low brown ridges threaded with snow and green water (puddles, lakes, rivers), and he pointed and she saw birds rising from the mountains to go to the inland ice; and once her father sailed west to kill whales and Greenland shrank and shrank until it was only a long blue ridge, white-topped, and Freydis was afraid that everything would go away but Eirik laughed shordy and said that everything was a big nothingness anyway, and she clung to him amidst the rocking of the boat, the soaring birds, the waves, as in a wind a fly clings to a tree-trunk, and everything was so joyous but presendy he put her oflf from him, for weariness at Thjodhild's scenes. - "I never should have married that cow," he said often to himself "Her horns are too sharp." - So Freydis tormented herself with her various griefs; and in time everything that she and Thjodhild did to each other was mutually checked and countered, as if their actions had been the ivory chessmen, then white, now glowing yellow and translucent brown, some carved like stacks of coins, others with serene blank faces, some like salt-shakers and the rest like whales'-teeth, army and army of them confronting each other now and forever in the National Museum in Reykjavik, and never a move to be made. Freydis grew up to be a pretty but rather sullen girl. People said she would not turn out to be very even-tempered.
The Haitandthe Littfe Mitkmaid
In those years of her father's middle age, Brattahlid stood proudly above its green plain, with the sheep grazing all around, and mountains rising across the water by Gardar and Hvalsey - for the hall was on a hill, fronting the water, so that all the Eirikssons had timely waming of anyone's approach. Behind it stood the home-mead, the bams, sheds and trading-booths. It too was wrapped round with turf The floor was made of stamped earth and flagstones. A spring burst out between the pebbles of the floor, and Eirik had made a stone-edged gutter to lead the water into a well-basin in the middle
The Ice-Shirt Page 18