The Ice-Shirt
Page 45
page 287 The cave of LOKI - The Edda does not locate it anywhere in particular, so I felt myself at liberty to put it here.
page 291 The words of ODIN the High One - "Havamal" in Hollander, The Poetic Edda, p. 24 (stanza 77). I have modernized the language of this stanza a little.
page 292 Kenning for Eric Bloody-Axe - E. O. G. Turville-Petre, ed. and trans., Scaldic Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), p. 22. This is a wonderful anthology and is highly recommended. The introductory essay is of considerable interest to those who want to know more about kennings and such. In Seven Dreams I have used three or four kennings taken from this book. (Another excellent source of kennings is Part III of the Younger Edda of Snorri, which is cited below.)
page 293 Miscellaneous description of Hel's hall, howes, etc. - From photographs in Aslak Liestol, redigert, Oseber^umiet (Oslo: utgitt av Universitetets Oldsak-samling, n.d.); Snorri Sturlusson, The Prose Edda, trans, with intro. by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, PhD (New York: American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1916), especially part I, sec. XXXIV (p. 42). (NOTE: Also known as the Younger Edda, Snorra Edda, etc.); Lee M. Hollander, ed.. Old Norse Poems: The Most Important Non-Skaldic Verse Not Included in the Poetic Edda (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936). Cf. especially "The Lay of Eric," "The Song of the Valkyries," "The Curse of Busla," "The Sun Song."
page 297 The Queen's forehead that "glittered with rays of terror" - Here I have borrowed from Turville-Petre's splendid translation of Egill's Arinbjarnar Kvi6a on Eric Bloody-Axe (op. cit., p. 5): "That moonHght of/Eric's eyelashes/ was not safe/nor fearless to look on/when the forehead moon of the ruler, / glittering like a serpent, / gleamed with its rays of terror."
The First Axe-Tale
page 303 Footnote on Freydis's descendants - Grcenlendinga Saga, IX, p. 70.
page 306 The Skraelings' flints - "Flint doesn't occur here," says Whitehead (letter
to the author, 15 April 1988). "Chert does, which is a relative of flint . . . The
saga translations use 'flint,' because that's what they knew from European lithic
tools." page 309 Axe citation from the Flateyjarbok - Adapted from Grcenlendinga Saga, VII,
p. 67. page 309 Axe citation from Eirik's Saga - Adapted from XI, p. 100. page 312 "the foHage of words" - This phrase too was borrowed from the great
Egill Skallagrimsson.
Wearing the Wall-Shirt
page 315 Odin epigraph - "Havamal" in Bray, The Elder or Poetic Edda, p. 77.
page 315 Note on Freydis's return to Leif's houses - The sagas say nothing about her leaving Karlsefni. However, Eirik's Saga and Grcenlendinga Saga say contradictory things about who was with whom, as I have noted elsewhere. Leif's houses may well have been at the L'Anse-aux-Meadows site. And there is evidence of travel south of this place, and then of a return, for, as Whitehead says, referencing Birgitta Wallace: "This . . . Norse site has been found to contain fragments of butternut . . . , both wood and nuts. This tree does not grow and never did grow north of northern New Brunswick and the Gulf of St. Lawrence" (letter to the author, 9 March 1988).
page 316 The Uniped - Eirik's Saga, XII, pp. 101-2.
The Second Axe-Tale
page 319 Hakon to Gold Harald epigraph - Heimskringla, Part One: Olaf Sagas, vol. i,
l.VIII, p. 10. page 319 Olaf to Hakon epigraph - ibid., 3.XXVIII, p. 136. page 324 Younger Edda footnote - Snorri Sturlusson, The Prose Edda, l.LI (p. 77).
The End
page 328 Thoreau epigraph - The Illustrated Walden, with Photographs from the Gleason Collection, text edited by J. Lyndon Shanley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 13.
page 333 Report of the forensic examination team - "The Medieval Norsemen at Gardar: Anthropological Investigation by K. Broste and K. Fischer-Moller, with Dental Notes and a Chapter on the Dentition by P.O. Pedersen" (1944), in Meddeleser om Grenland, vol. 67, p. 5.
L'Anse-aux-Meadows, Newfoundland
page 339 Footnote on manned ice islands - Central Intelligence Agency, Polar Regions Atlas (1978), p. 13.
Further History of the Greenland Skr^clings
page 343 Self-serving epigraph - Bernadine Bailey, Greenland in Pictures (New York:
Sterling Publishing Company, 1973), p. 38. page 343 De la Peyriere - Bound with Zeno ms. page 345 Pamphlet of Edward Pellham - The full title was Gods Power and Providence;
Shewn, In The MIRACVLOVS Preservation and Deliverance of eight Englishmen,
left by mischance in Green-land, Anno 1636, nine moneths and twelve dayes (London:
R.Y./John Partridge, 1631).
Sea-Change of the Demon
page 346 Epigraph - Hinton, The Fourth Dimension, p. 61 or 62.
page 346 Findings which will seem irrelevant only to the vulgar appear in M. Maurette, C. Hammer, D. E. Brownlee, N. Reeh, H. H. Thomsen, "Placers of Cosmic Dust in the Blue Ice Lakes of Greenland," Scientific American, 22 August 1986: "A concentration process occurring in the melt zone of the Greenland ice cap has produced the richest known deposits of cosmic dust on the surface of the earth . . . With modest field efforts it seems possible to collect hundreds of grams of millimeter-sized cosmic particles. The bulk of such a collection of millions of particles would consist of material from comets and asteroids although presumably there would also be trace components from the moon, Mars, and possible other sources." It is with the other sources that we are concerned.
Acknowledgements
G
rateful acknowledgement is made of a 1987 grant from the Ludwig Vogel-stein Foundation of Brooklyn, New York. This award was of substantial assistance to me during my travels in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Iceland, Greenland and Baffm-Land.
Canada
I would especially like to thank Ruth Holmes Whitehead, Assistant Curator of the Nova Scotia Museum, for providing me with so much valuable information on the Micmac and Beothuk (which is sourced in the appropriate places of The Ice-Shirt). Mme. Whitehead challenged me to improve the Vinland Skraeling sections, and thanks to her guidance and suggestions they did improve; I appreciate it. (Of course any errors are my own.) - My appreciation also to the service personnel at Auyuittuq National Park (Baffin Island), Gros Morne National Park (Newfoundland), Kejimkujik National Park (Nova Scotia), L'Anse-aux-Meadows National Historic Park (Newfoundland), and Cape Breton Highlands National Park (Nova Scotia), for their courteous and knowledgeable assistance with plant identification, local history, etc., etc. I would like to thank Mr. Dennis Stossell of Atmospheric Environmental Services in Winnipeg for his kind advice and assistance. And I much appreciate Mr. Farley Mowat's words of encouragement. It would certainly be ungracious of me not to express my gratitude to Jean Claude Alavoine, Clovis Cornet, Heme Mequignon, Michel Amiotte, Jean-Luc Berenguer, Jose Trigueros and Jan Piskore, for their kindness to me on Baffin Island.
Island (Iceland)
In Iceland I would like to thank Mr. Eythor Benediktsson, the schoolmaster of Stykkisholmur, for pointing out to me several of Eirik the Red's haunts, and for answering my questions. I would like to thank the Arni Magnusson Institute in Reykjavik for allowing me to visit its collection of saga manuscripts during off-hours. (I must also credit the Institute with a shining honesty not to be met with in more average institutions, for when I asked if I could send a letter containing further questions, I was told, "You are welcome. Please go ahead. But don't expect
an answer. Icelanders are proverbially lazy." And I never did get an answer.) Mr. Scott Swanson gloried in the scenery with me and bought me some of the best dinners I ever had in my Hfe.
Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland)
In Nuuk, Greenland I want to thank Holger and Kristina Thomassen, Jorn Larsen and Najaaraaq, Bettina and Henrik Skifte, Jens Emil Binzer and Lisbeth for a debt of hospitality I can never repay. I would also Hke to thank the KalaalHt Nunaata Katersugaasiviat (Gronlands Landsmuseum) for permitting me to handle and study a seal skull and a polar bear skull. I am more grateful than I can say to Nuka M0ller for his correct
ions.
Norway
This was the one country significant to The Ice-Shirt that I was not able to visit. I am all the more grateful, therefore, to Helen Jakubowski, who lived there, for checking my mythic and hearsay topography for errors.
United States
My gratitude to Mr. Bradford Morrow, who caught a number of errors and fizzled phrases in the proofs. I would Hke to thank Professor Eric O. Johannesson, Professor at Berkeley's Scandinavian Department, for his encouragement and introductions. His colleague. Professor Carol Clover, author (with Professor John Lindlow) of Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), was very helpful in answering many textual questions. Mr. Tom Johnson, a graduate student in the Department, was very helpful in the matter of Old Norse orthography. (Any errors remaining in this respect are my own.) - Mr. Christopher A. Shaw, Assistant Curator at the George C. Page Museum in Los Angeles, very kindly allowed me to study and sketch some fossil predator skulls recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits (Dire Wolf and Sabertooth Cat). Particularly nice was the latter (Smilodon; cat. # 2001-2, Pit 67, delta-11, 14V2 feet). - In Fresno, California, my friend and former teacher Dr. John Mawby gave me some helpful suggestions that enabled me to better prepare for sketching Arctic plants. In Long Beach, California, Jacob and Janis Dickinson assisted my Greenland researches in many directions; their help and friendship is warmly appreciated. In Berkeley, California, Mr. Seth Pilsk drew the map of Baffin Island which appears in The Ice-Shirt. The illustrations on the map were done by Mr. Charles Browning, and the calligraphy by Ms. Cheela Smith. In San Francisco, Mr. Paul Foster very kindly read and commented upon several drafts of the manuscript. Mr. Jock Sturges, the ballet photographer, and Mr. Alan Scofield, the dance choreographer, permitted me to witness much beauty of form and movement, which I have noted in the appropriate parts of the Sources
section. Ms. Andrea Juno, co-editor of RE/search magazine, served as a model for the form of the young Thorgunna in The Ice-Shirt. A redheaded corpse at a hospital very obligingly rounded out the picture. Last, but far from least, I would like to thank the transvestites "Miss J." and "Miss Giddings" for a complete presentation on man-to-woman transformations, on which I based a scene in The Ice-Shirt.
William T Vollmann is the author of You Bright and Risen Angels (Penguin) and The Rainbow Stories. He has been the recipient of a Whiting Foundation award for his fiction and of the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Award in 1989 for a portion of The Ice-Shirt. He lives in New York City.
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