The Greenlanders

by Jane Smiley

  Of the other two priests Sira Jon was about the age of Margret and was the bishop’s nephew. Folk said of him that he made a special point of deferring to the bishop “even about the taste of his broth.” Petur was the plague priest, nearly as old as Asgeir, although newly ordained. He did not push himself forward, and many in the settlement said this was proper, for there was grumbling that after so many years the archbishop should send an old man to a place where there were already plenty of old men.

  At the end of summer, when the flocks were brought down from the mountains, a messenger went to all the farmsteads in Vatna Hverfi and Einars Fjord up to Gardar and invited the farmers and their folk to a great feast to be held at Ketils Stead. Asgeir was no friend of Erlend, nor were many who had had dealings with Ketils Stead since the death of Ketil in Markland, for Erlend was a hard man, and his wife Vigdis was no gentler. They were always ready to dispute over little things like stray sheep and vats of milk. Nonetheless, the messenger promised a great feast, for Erlend had many sheep to kill before winter. The bishop and the new priests also intended to come, after saying a celebratory mass at Undir Hofdi church, which the bishop had not yet done.

  And indeed, the bishop seemed well pleased with Erlend’s feast, for Erlend and Vigdis made much of him and his party, seating the bishop in the high seat, and giving him the choicest bits of meat. Every time the bishop spoke, Erlend looked out over the company, and they fell silent, even though many were too far from the bishop to hear what he said. The two children, Vigdis’ Thordis and Ketil, and a third, Geir, were dressed up in white gowns with their hair tied back in red and white woven bands, and they had been instructed to serve the bishop his meat. Every time he took something, they knelt and thanked him for taking it. The bishop seemed well pleased by this obeisance, and the other Greenlanders tried to suppress their smiles. Erlend sat to one side of the bishop and Vigdis sat to the other, and beside each of them sat people Asgeir didn’t recognize, but Osmund whispered to him that they were friends of Erlend’s from Petursvik, far to the south, and had taken to spending a great deal of time at Ketils Stead. Osmund said that Asgeir should certainly know them, for the woman was Hjordis, the niece of Thorunn, the old witch, the girl was her daughter, Oddny, and the man was Hjordis’ husband, Sigmund. Asgeir laughed through his teeth and declared that this was a bad sign indeed, and afterward said nothing more about it.

  In the winter, for the first time in years, a Yuletide mass was held at the Cathedral of St. Nikolaus, and the Greenlanders could see that it had been newly and beautifully fitted out, with new tapestries and a new altar cloth and chalice. The bishop had brought magnificent robes with him, and he had taught some of the Gardar boys beautiful melodies for the mass. People said that this had gone on with the old bishop as well, but the notes for the songs had been lost in the time of Ivar Bardarson. Other masses were held at the New Year and the feast of the Circumcision, and the bishop wore still other robes and preached a great loud sermon on heresy and sin and lapses from proper practice. Now, he shouted, had the souls of the Greenlanders fallen into sin? Indeed they had, and for this the Church was greatly to blame, but that Holy Mother had at last heard the loud crying out of these souls, and now in the person of himself, she cried back to them to turn away from old ways, and to return to obedience and vigilance against evil. This was considered a good topic for a New Year sermon.

  In subsequent services, during Lent, the bishop spoke eloquently of the visitations of the plague in Norway and Germany, and the terrible sinfulness of the people that offended God so that He punished them, and how this could befall any sinful people at any time, through the will of God. God was so merciful, the bishop said, that He had seen the plight of His people in Greenland, and the way that they were bereft of guidance, and He had held His hand, but now their shepherd, the bishop himself, had come, and God would hold them to the true path with rod and scourge, just as He did the rest of the world. As a result of these sermons, a number of men and women went to the monastery at Arosvik and the nunnery near Vagar Church, and the buildings had to be put in order to house them. It was this half year that Sigmund Sigmundsson of Petursvik with the help of Erlend Ketilsson brought suit in front of the bishop against Asgeir Gunnarsson for the killing fourteen years earlier of Thorunn Jorundsdottir, who had lived at Undir Hofdi for many years.

  At this time the Greenlanders had three types of law, the Thing law, the bishop’s law, and the king’s law, of which the last two were sometimes combined, depending upon whether the bishop or the representative of the king was living in Greenland. Thing law and the law of the bishop were intended to concern the different matters of secular law and Church law, but sometimes the Thing was less powerful, and sometimes the bishop was not in residence, and so the men of most of the fjords settled disputes among themselves, and this was a habit the Greenlanders had gotten into since the death of the last bishop and the aging of the lawspeaker Gizur, who lived at Brattahlid.

  The first thing Asgeir did was to go to Gizur, at Brattahlid, for a few days. When he got back, a message was taken to Ketils Stead by one of the Brattahlid men that Sigmund’s suit was illegal because killings were matters for the Thing, and Sigmund had not brought it up at the Thing, which was just then ended. A few days later, Sigmund sent a message to Gizur, to the bishop, and to Asgeir that Thorunn had been killed outside her cottage on church property, and that this property had been appropriated by Asgeir, who had had illegal use of it and had not paid the tithe on it for many years. Asgeir then went to the bishop and spoke in private to him and to Nikolaus the Priest at Undir Hofdi. After that, a message was sent to Erlend that Asgeir, thanks to the hunting skills of Hauk, had paid his tithe and his Peter’s pence in full for all these years, and that the killing was thus not an ecclesiastical matter, but a Thing matter, and Sigmund was welcome to press his suit the following year at the Thing in the usual fashion. Erlend greeted this message with silence at first, but then, just as people had ceased talking of the matter, Sigmund let it be known that Thorunn had been accused of witchcraft and had been killed as a witch without church inquiry, and therefore, her killing was a matter for the bishop. The bishop and the lawspeaker agreed that this was so, and Asgeir began seeking followers and supporters in the case.

  The day that the bishop set aside for hearing the case came during the spring manuring time, just after lambing, when late lambs were still being born. Nevertheless, when Asgeir gathered his supporters on the field in front of the cathedral at Gardar, they were numerous, and many had come from distant farms in Hrafns Fjord and Siglufjord. These men did as men do at the Thing, to ensure that fighting will not break out, that is, they put all their weapons together in a pile and went about unarmed. Of Sigmund’s supporters, which were rather few, only Erlend was a prosperous farmer with much land. The others were like Sigmund, small farmers from the south, some of whom had lived originally in the western settlement. The two groups had little to say to one another, but there was no fighting, as there might have been at the Thing. Erlend spoke for Sigmund and Asgeir spoke for himself, although Gizur the lawspeaker put in a word for him from time to time.

  Now the bishop came out in front of the door to the cathedral and looked about, and he said, “To whom do all these men gathered here belong?”

  And Asgeir replied, “They are their own men, but they are my supporters in this case.”

  “Whose ever men they may be,” said Erlend, contentiously, “six of them prevented me from drawing my boat up onto the strand, and threatened to pitch me into the water along with Sigmund.”

  Asgeir declared, “Your own bad dealings with folk over trifles have gained you that reward, as everyone knows. It was not for me to suggest that my supporters should prevent the case, for I have no need of that.”

  The bishop now said, “We must know what sort of person this Thorunn was.”

  “This old woman was in the habit of casting spells upon my sheep,” said Asgeir, “and especially on two fine horses I had
, so that each of these two, Flosi and Gulli, stepped into the selfsame hole and broke the selfsame leg, although my men were careful to fill the hole after the first event. And Thorunn caused this to happen because she was much put out, as my wife, Helga Ingvadottir, had refused her milk when she had come about the place seeking some. But all folk know that a wife who is wishing to conceive a son must save her cows’ first milk for her own drink.” He looked about at the men upon the grass, and said, “Others, too, once felt the weight of Thorunn’s curses, and she let it be known about the district that she would cast spells for love and death. But even so, it was that case that I killed her for this, that she cursed my child Gunnar so that he was unable to walk and went upon all fours, even into his third year. And the best proof of this fact is that as soon as the woman was killed, the boy got up onto his feet and went about as other children.”

  “Nay,” said Erlend. “This Thorunn was no witch, but an old woman of little prosperity or power, and Helga Ingvadottir spoke all over the district of how poor and ugly the steading was, and how it ought to be done away with. It seems to me that Asgeir Gunnarsson wanted only this, to bring that plot into his own fields, which he has done, even though on one long side, the plot fronts the homefield at Ketils Stead, and on one short side, it fronts the lands of Undir Hofdi church. No curses could have been proved against the old woman, and so there was no church inquiry.” Erlend looked at Asgeir in his sour way. “And if we are talking of things that are well known in the district, then we must talk of the boy Gunnar, who is as slow now as then, and whose wits are dim. This killing may have been announced, as should be the case in law, but it was unjustified, and therefore Hjordis and Oddny, through Sigmund from Petursvik and myself, are demanding compensation from Asgeir.”

  “Who was there in Greenland at the time,” said Asgeir, “with the learning or the jurisdiction to uncover witchcraft and punish it? If there is no bishop, then the Greenlanders must settle their own disputes, and always have.”

  Gizur nodded. “This is certainly true,” he said.

  “And this, too, is true,” said Asgeir, “Sigmund would have had little luck with his friend Erlend in persuading him to bring this suit, if Erlend lived in another district, in a spot where he could not look out his front door and covet the fields of his neighbor at Gunnars Stead. Or he might have brought a suit against someone else, for some other imaginary crime.” And Asgeir showed his teeth in a bitter smile.

  The bishop turned to Sira Jon, and spoke to him quietly for a few minutes, and then asked these questions, “Had Thorunn ever been heard to speak ill of Jesus Christ, or seen to spit upon and otherwise defame any image of Christ?”

  Gizur and Asgeir stood silent.

  “Had the woman ever been seen to fly out at night, or to turn into a cat or a goat or any other unclean beast?”

  Gizur and Asgeir stood silent, for they had no knowledge of such doings.

  “This Thorunn,” said the bishop, “has she ever consorted with groups of demons, or was she ever seen to disinter the bodies of buried men or cause the disappearance of children?”

  At length Asgeir said, “The witch was friendless enough, except for this niece Hjordis, and she moved to the south some twenty winters ago.”

  The bishop declared that he would go into the church and pray over his decision. As he went to the church, he stopped and again looked out over Asgeir’s supporters loitering on the grass, and Asgeir said that this look was ill-omened, and that he did not expect it to go well with him.

  The bishop stayed in the church for most of the day, sometimes calling Jon to him, or Gizur the lawspeaker. Margret, Gunnar, and Olaf sat together with Osmund and Thord from Siglufjord, but Asgeir did not stay with them, and instead went from group to group, speaking good-humoredly and making jokes. Erlend and his party kept to themselves and stayed near their boat on the shore.

  Toward dusk, the bishop came out and stood on a hillock in front of the cathedral, and began to preach a sermon.

  A servant, the bishop said, goes out of his master’s steading in the depths of winter. It is a clear, frosty day, so that he can walk easily on the crust of the snow, and the moon is full, so that even before daylight all objects are visible to him. His work is simple. He wishes only to feed the cows and the horses some hay and to bring a vat of sourmilk from the storehouse back to the steading, where the household awaits. His life is a good one, for he is a servant on a prosperous farm, where he is well fed and rarely beaten, and his master watches him carefully, and is just but merciful.

  At once a cloud passes in front of the moon and a great wind comes up and the stars are hidden and a storm begins. The servant can only just see the byre in the darkness, and he directs his steps there with difficulty, on account of the storm. He is greatly afraid, for he hears, he thinks, voices crying out to him, and he recollects a dream that he, or perhaps someone else of the household, has had, about a walking ghost who tears the eyes out of the heads of men if they try to see, and tears out their throats if they try to speak. The servant is so afraid that he can hardly move, yet he knows that the cows and the horses will starve if he doesn’t give them their feed. He says a Hail Mary and then cries out to our Lord Jesus Christ, and the storm only grows worse and the cries louder, so that he is buffeted about and no longer knows where he is, near the byre or near the storehouses or near the bathhouse. Now he gets down on his knees and prays fervently to Christ to preserve him, and he is preserved, but at the same time the storm increases in power, and there are great crashes of thunder and repeated flashes of lightning, so that the man is sorely afraid and he calls on Thor to save him, promising Thor the sacrifice of a good sheep or a goat or even a cow, although these are his master’s animals, if Thor will only make the storm diminish a wit. And the storm does diminish, and the servant thanks Thor and declares that Thor is more powerful than Jesus Christ.

  And then the servant makes his way into the byre in the darkness, and he sees a man amongst the cows, and he thinks that the man is stealing a cow, and so, in the darkness, with the howling of the storm and the crying of many voices in his ears, the servant sneaks up behind the man in the byre and he bashes him on the head with a great club that has come into his hand, perhaps thanks to Thor, and the intruder falls senseless to the ground. And then the storm subsides, and members of the household come out with torches and lamps looking for their faithful and hardworking servant, and they find him in the byre, and they discover that he has beaten and killed, not an intruder, but the master’s only son, who has seen the hunger of the livestock and begun to feed them. And the bishop declared that this is a true tale, one that took place on a farm in Vik, when the bishop himself was a boy on the neighboring farmstead. And now Asgeir turned to Thorkel Gellison, who was standing beside him and said, “This case will be the death of me, and that is truth.”

  “Thus it is,” said the bishop, looking at Asgeir, “that the servant succumbed to two temptations. First of these was the temptation to think that our Lord Jesus Christ was powerless, although his prayer was promptly answered, and he was spared. This was the temptation that led Thorunn into sorcery and casting spells. But the other temptation, the temptation to act ignorantly on behalf of his master, was a more powerful and still more evil temptation, for any man can recant his belief in demons such as Thor, but no man can undo the murder of his master’s only son.

  “It may be,” the bishop went on, “that the killing of Thorunn was duly announced, so that Asgeir is not guilty of murder, and therefore not subject to a sentence of outlawry. And it may be that Thorunn was a sorceress, and guilty of casting injurious spells. After fourteen years these things cannot clearly be proven. There is no evidence that the old woman abjured her savior, made a pact with the devil, or engaged in witchcraft as it has recently been defined among the Italians and the Germans and the French by the holy inquisitors of the Church.”

  The bishop paused and looked around the Gardar field at Asgeir’s many supporters. “And in thi
s case, too,” he said, “Asgeir Gunnarsson shows a fondness for force, and a desire to sway our decision by a show of strength. We do not care for such threats. Those who threaten do so because they fear that they do not have right on their side.”

  “Asgeir himself,” the bishop said, “is a beloved member of our flock, and now, at the end of a long winter, when the shepherd has been absent from the flock for many months, many of the sheep have lost the way, and some have strayed farther into the mountains than others, and are in danger of being forever lost. Asgeir, who treats all subjects lightly and with merriment, is one of these.

  “The spring has come, however, and the shepherd in his strength has returned. He goes out among the wastelands to seek his sheep, and his desire is not to punish them, but to bring them into the fold, and to assure their safety, thus,” the bishop declared, “we will be merciful in our sentence.” The muttering among those standing in the field ceased so that even the lapping of the waters of the fjord on the hull of Erlend’s little boat could be heard.

  “Asgeir,” said the bishop, “is the possessor of two great fields. Of these, he will be allowed to keep for himself and his heirs the larger homefield, but he must surrender up the second field to the Gardar church, and the hay on this field will be divided as follows: A third part to the see of Gardar, a third part to Undir Hofdi church, and a third part to Sigmund and Oddny and their heirs, the whole to be administered by Erlend Ketilsson, as the nearest neighbor, for a commission of one-fifth of all the hay grown on the field. After nine years, Asgeir may purchase the field back for a price to be set by the bishop at a later date, and if he is unable to do so, any man of the settlement may purchase the field.” Then the bishop said prayers, and went away, and the group on the Gardar field began to take up their weapons and go off, for it was now dark, and people were hungry for their supper.