Vinland the Good

by Henry Treece

  Eirik was lacing his shoes when he heard the news. One of the thong-laces snapped in his hands. He said nothing, but quietly went to the chest under the bed and got his axe out. Then, wrapping a blue cloak round his left arm, he went out of the house. When he came back at sunset his wife said starkly, ‘Well?’

  He wiped the axe and put it away, then he went to play with Leif in the cradle. After a while he said, ‘Eyjolf will kill no more slaves.’ Thjodhild bit her lip and said, ‘Did you meet him in the presence of witnesses?’

  Eirik nodded. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘he had Hrafn the Baresark with him.’

  His wife said, ‘Thor be praised, husband! At least the law-speakers will know that this was a fair fight and not an ambush.’

  Eirik shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I had to kill Hrafn too; he came at me from behind, with that long sword of his. I never cared for those long swords.’

  Then Thjodhild began to weep, as well she might. At the next meeting of the Thing-assembly, so many Icelanders took up the case against Eirik, he had to leave his new farm and go with his family to Oxen Island. At least he thought no one would bother him there.

  But he was wrong. He had a farmer-neighbour called Thorgest who was always borrowing from other men. Now Eirik had some very beautifully carved and painted wooden panels Which he used to set up in the hall over the benches at feast-times, to decorate the place. It was not long before Thorgest noticed these and his eyes sparkled. ‘I’d like to borrow those boards.’ he said. ‘I am holding a feast this winter and those boards would set off my own benches. They would make my hall look like a king’s.’

  Eirik was anxious to lead a quiet life. ‘Certainly,’ he said, ‘but let me have them back in time for my own Yuletide feast.’

  Three times he went down to the farm and asked Thorgest for the boards, but each time Thorgest shook his head and said, ‘I have taken quite a liking to those boards, Eirik. I think I can put them to better use than you can. Yes, I like those pretty hoards.’

  When this was said, Thorgest had all his sons behind him, besides a number of fighting-men who fed from his store. Eirik went home biting his knuckles. He could not sleep for thinking about his feast-boards. Thjodhild said, ‘Husband, you must forget the boards. They are only wood and paint after all, and we cannot afford to get into any more trouble.’

  Eirik punched at the wall panels and said, ‘Fair’s fair, wife. They are my boards, wood or not. As for trouble it is Thorgest who is starting this, not me.’

  He got up silently in the night, collected some of his men from the byre, and went off to Thorgest’s house. At first all went well, but as they were carrying the feast-boards away down a little steep valley, Thorgest and his men jumped out on them. Thorgest shouted out, ‘Now we’ll see whose boards they are! I hate a mean lender and you are one.’

  Eirik called back, ‘I think you have borrowed from me for the last time, neighbour.’ Then he set to with his axe. It was a running fight in the wet darkness, and many hard blows were

  struck on both sides. But Eirik got his boards back home. As for Thorgest, two of his sons and several of his fighting-men fell in that dark valley and lay with their faces in the water.

  When he reached home, Eirik found Thjodhild waiting for him with little Leif in her arms. She was weeping and said, ‘It was an unlucky day when I met you at my father’s feasting. When I married you, I married trouble.’

  Eirik nodded grimly. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘that’s true enough - but right’s right, wife. And you cannot go beyond it. Now pack up a few things while I hold Leif. By dawn Thorgest will come looking for me with all the men he can call out, and I have had enough axe-work for one day.’

  They went down to the shore in the darkness and off to Swine Island in the ship, where Eirik knew a friendly farmer. And there they stayed in hiding while Thorgest scoured the islands in search of him.

  When the next Thing-assembly met at Thorsness, all the blame was put on Eirik. As he was a newcomer in Iceland, he had few to stand up for him, so he was declared outlaw for three years.

  That night Eirik sat by the fire with his friend and said, ‘I cannot go back to Norway and I am thrown out of Iceland. If I stay here, any man has the right to kill me. Where can I go?’

  His friend said, ‘About eight years ago there was an old seafarer called Gunnbjorn who got blown by storms westward from here and found a number of islands. Why don’t you go and look for them? The weather there can’t be any worse than it is here. Besides, if you stay here someone will kill you. I’d rather live among the ice-floes than die beside the warmest fire in Iceland. You have your family to think about, as well.’

  There and then Eirik made up his mind. He stocked his longship with bread, meat and voyage-ale. He saw that the sail and awning were sound and the ropes strong. He had the planks

  tarred, and took aboard all the furs and sheepskins he could lay hands on. Word went round secretly, and it was not long before he had a crew of hard-handed stark young men who wanted to find out what the world was like away to the west.

  3. Greenland

  They sailed off with a good tail wind past the glacier of Snaefells. One of the young men stood by the gunwale and said, ‘Ah, there she goes, that old ice rock, and good riddance.’

  Eirik glanced back and said, ‘Before we set foot on land we might remember her white robes with love and wish we could see her again.’

  At first they saw many ships about them, some fishing, some carrying timber for house-building, and some just lolling on the tide wondering where to go for pickings. But when they were a day out and the green sea rocked round them broad and empty, they saw no ships; though from time to time the waves carried driftwood past them, and once they even saw the carved prow of a longship bobbing up and down, its gold all tarnished and its pretty chisel-work full of green sea-moss.

  Eirik gave a shudder and looked back towards Iceland. He could still see the tip of Snaefellsness, very low on the sea, and half-hidden by grey cloud. He went to Thjodhild where she sat

  nursing Leif under the awning and said, ‘Wife, if we go on we may all die.’

  She nodded and smiled. ‘And if we go back you will certainly die, Red Hand,’ she said. ‘Hold the prow to the west and do not bother me. I am busy, as you can see.’

  Late the next day while Eirik was at the steerboard, he gazed ahead and then began to rub his eyes as though they had got mist in them. To one of the keen-sighted youths he called, ‘Hey, look where I am pointing and tell me what you can see.’

  The youth gazed and said at last, ‘I think I can see a very tall mountain, much like old Snaefellsness, only blue.’

  Eirik nodded. ‘I am glad you can see it too,’ he said. ‘I thought I was dreaming at first. And it is blue. That must be the ice on it. We will call it Blueshirt and head towards it.’

  The Icelanders all stared, then pointed, and began to cheer. But though many white birds came out to fly round the longship, it was another two days before they got close enough to see what sort of land they had come to. There was grass, to be sure, but there was even more grey rock. It was a stark land, with mountains rising out of the cold green sea into a cold grey sky.

  Eirik said, ‘Well, what can’t be cured must be endured. At least we know the way back home if we don’t like it here.’ Thjodhild said, ‘Whether we like it or not, this must be our home for the next three years. Your outlawry will be over then and you can go back as a free man, if you choose to. But I have the feeling that once we can find a sheltered fjord and a ship haven where we can set up house, we may get to like this place well enough.’

  So, while the weather was still good, they headed southwards round the coast. When the winter came they put into a fjord, drew the ship ashore, and then worked at making themselves a house. First they dug a shallow pit in the ground, with steps down to it; then they collected all the loose rock they could and made walls. They anchored the ship’s sail over driftwood for a roof, and then
covered the whole with turf, to keep out the bitter winds. There they all lived together, feeding on what they had brought, on berries from the bushes, and on fish from the fjord. When the ice came, it closed round them like a cold hand. The ground was harder than iron. They thought that the end of the world had come and that this was the end of the world.

  Thjodhild marked off the months with a knife on a stick. At last she said, ‘Spring should be here soon, and then we can sail on round the coast, husband.’

  No one believed her, but she was right. And that spring Eirik discovered a green fjord that looked as pleasant as anything he had seen, even in Norway. He said, ‘This shall be called Eiriksfjord, and one day I shall build a farm here and call it Brattahlid. How does that seem to you?’

  His wife smiled and said, ‘I am content. Leif is growing well, and soon we shall have another child to keep him company. You have chosen the name of our farm, I shall choose the name of our child. If it is a boy, he shall be named Thorstein.’

  And that was how it turned out.

  The Icelanders sailed southwards round the land and found many inlets and islands, and to each of them Eirik gave a name. Then they went up along the western coast of the land, but here they found too much wilderness and turned back.

  Eirik said to one of the men, ‘It’s a hard land, this, but a man could wrench a living out of it if he tried. There seem to be no other men here, and no wild beasts. All we have to fight is the winter.’

  The man said slyly, ‘If we ever want other northfolk to come here and help to tame this land, we must keep our mouths shut about the winter. That would frighten them off.’

  Eirik leaned on the ship’s rail and thought a while. He said at

  last, ‘When my time of outlawry is over, we will go back to Iceland and collect a few hard-headed families and bring them out here. I will follow your advice, and we will tell them that the land is green and fertile. We will tell them that it is called Greenland. They will think that sounds better than Iceland!’ After this voyage round the fjords, he got back to his own inlet and the stone house to find that Thorstein was a fine boy and in all ways the right brother for Leif. But Thjodhild said, ‘Eirik, a terrible thing almost happened while you were away. Leif was playing about outside in the sunshine, when a big dog came down the hill and began to play with him.’

  Eirik said, ‘We brought no dogs with us. I am always glad to hear that there are friendly beasts in a strange land.’

  His wife looked down at her loom, then said, ‘This one tried to carry the boy off in its arms. Eirik. One of the men you left behind went out and chopped off its head to save our son.’

  Eirik said, ‘Did you keep the head, wife?’

  Thjodhild nodded. ‘It is on the shelf in the outhouse,’ she said. ‘It was a big white dog and stood on its hind legs.’

  Eirik went to look. When he came back he said, ‘I can only see a bear’s head, wife. I cannot see a dog’s head.’

  Then Thjodhild jumped up and said, ‘This is a frightful land. I cannot stay here with my children. Thor knows what might come down to us over the black hill, if we stay here. This is such a place as could breed trolls.’

  Eirik gazed at her calmly and said, ‘It is a woman’s place to tend the fire, weave the wool, and raise the children. It is the man’s to keep his sword sharp and to attend to the trolls. See to your trade and I will see to mine. In the meantime, I am grieved that our silly thrall killed that good white bear. I have never been in favour of bear-slaying. They are good brave beasts and do no harm unless they are provoked. Wolves are a different beast. I should not have said a word if I had found a wolf’s head in the outhouse.’

  Thjodhild began to laugh strangely. ‘Why you are a wolf-head yourself,’ she said. ‘I should never have married such a man.’

  Eirik did not behave badly towards her. He only nodded and said, ‘Each one to his opinion. I have never denied that. Now look after little Thorstein. I shall take Leif out on to the hill and tell him what I have seen, voyaging.’

  He did this, but the boy could not take in much of what his father said. And when Eirik said, ‘And next year, or the one after, I shall go back to Iceland and fetch perhaps twenty shiploads of folk out here,’ little Leif only laughed in the sunshine.

  Eirik put him on to his back and galloped back down the rocky hill to the stone house. Leif laughed all the way home, and then was sick when they got indoors.

  Thjodhild said sternly, ‘You are a better hand at dealing with trolls than children, it seems. Get about your business.’

  So Eirik went down to the fjord and started to fit out the black longship for the trip to Iceland when his time was up.

  4. The Colonists

  By the time Eirik’s outlawry was over, his two sons, Leif and Thorstein, were old enough to keep their footing in the bucking longship. With a west wind in the full sail they made a good crossing and cheered to sight tall Snaefellsness ahead of them. Leif tried to climb the mast; Thorstein ran between the rowers’ benches, rattling the hung shields with a walrus tusk.

  There was a grim-faced man with shaggy black hair and great shoulders. His name was Thorhall the Hunter and only Eirik could get on well with him because of his bad temper. All the same, Thorhall loved the boys and said, ‘If I had two such young hawks for my sons, I would not thank you for the throne of Norway. Mark my words, Eirik, they will grow up to see many things that men have not seen before. Their names will be remembered when ours are forgotten.’

  Thjodhild, sitting under the prow, said, ‘You talk like a wild man, Thorhall. As long as they grow to be sound farmers that is all I want for them. The sea has swallowed too many good

  northmen already. I want my sons to keep their feet on dry land.’

  Thorhall laughed and pointed across the green water with his right hand. ‘Woman,’ he said, ‘away to where I point lies Ireland. A man can get good pickings there. Their kings are fools; they hide their gold as squirrels hide their nuts - and forget where it is. And their horses - you have never seen such horses, all fed on the sweet grass of the place. When the boys are of an age, I will take them there and they shall see what the red gold is like, and what riding a real horse is like.’

  Thjodhild snorted and said, ‘I hope they will have more sense than to follow you, when the time comes.’

  Thorhall the Hunter put up his beard into the sky and laughed. ‘They’ll follow me, woman,’ he said. ‘I can make any dog or any brisk young fellow come with me, just by whistling. I can even make the deer come within arrow-range by whistling. You shall see, one day I will whistle to these boys, then off we’ll go. Perhaps we’ll push on beyond Ireland down to Spain where the Caliphs live. They have gold enough, too, and horses. And I’ll find them a princess apiece to wed down there.’

  Eirik said, ‘That’s enough, now, Thorhall. I know the signs. You will get us both into trouble with your jesting. Come aft and take the steerboard and guide us well into Breidafjord haven. See, there are folk waiting to watch us come in. We must make a good showing after all this time.’

  So Thorhall took the longship in, and the first man they met at the wharfside was Thorgest with his sword out and fifty stark-faced fellows standing behind him glowering.

  He came to meet Eirik and said, ‘I see you have brought your two sons with you, Red Hand. Do you remember that you once killed two of mine?’

  Eirik smiled and said, ‘I come in peace now, Thorgest. I have paid the price for what I did.’

  Thorgest said, ‘Three years’ outlawry does not bring back my two sons. I still miss them in my house. But your two sons would ease my pain a little.’

  Eirik shrugged sadly. ‘Then you will have to fight for them, Thorgest,’ he said, dragging out his axe.

  He was weary from the voyage and had not yet got his land-legs back. It was all he could do to skip and sway from Thorgest’s long sword. At last the sharp blade sheared through the ash-shaft and Eirik stood weaponless. Thjodhild screamed and then hid her face
under her black cloak, ashamed. Thorhall the Hunter sprang up, his black beard bristling, and said, ‘I will take on the quarrel, Thorgest. Leave Eirik alone now and face me instead.’

  But Thorgest shook his head and said, ‘I have waited for three years to prove that I am a better fighter than Red Hand here. Now I have done that, I am content. And my dead sons will be content also. He can keep his life, and his sons, as a gift from me.’

  Then he and his men turned and strode away through the watchers. Thorhall felt ashamed at it all, but Eirik slapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘I am not ashamed, so why should you be? I have got a good bargain out of this meeting, after all. Now I can go about the land and collect some brave voyagers without wondering if old Thorgest is going to ambush me in every river valley and from behind every heap of stones. I am a family man now, Hunter, not the sort of baresark I used to be.’

  But Thorhall still chewed at his beard in rage.

  As for Eirik, he went about Iceland, telling the folk what a prosperous place Greenland could be, if only a few shiploads of cunning farmers would follow him out there and build their steadings; and the upshot was that, by the summer, twenty-five longships set off with him from Breidafjord and Borgafjord, carrying with them all supplies, and sheep and cattle.

  Only fourteen of the ships sighted tall Blueshirt Glacier; the others went into the sea’s jaws, or turned back to Iceland. But those who made landfall elected Eirik as their leader in most things. He set up his farmstead at Brattahlid, towards the top of Eiriksfjord, and most of the families clustered about him, though others went around the Greenland coast and set up their own places, to be independent, as Icelanders are.

  After a while a daughter was born to Eirik. Her name was Freydis. She was a real Viking’s daughter, being comely and brave and afraid of nothing from the time she could walk. But as time went on she became very proud and stubborn. If she was offended, she flew into a rage and bore malice afterward’ She spoiled her good looks by frowning too much. Her brothers put up with this as best they could, but Leif, who was a carefree boy, never really liked her all his life.