The Greenlanders

by Jane Smiley

  Then Pall Hallvardsson took Olaf inside and sat him down at a table with a few of the smaller boys and their books. He told the boys that Olaf would help them with their reading, but Olaf’s eyes were still dazzled by the sunshine, and his thick fingers could not get used to turning pages again, and so the result was that the boys grew rowdy and Jon, at another table across the room, had to come over and quiet them, and now he met Olaf, which he had not done before. He said, “Oh, so you are Olaf!” as if there had been much talk about him, both good and bad. After Jon went away, the small boys settled down and read their work, but Olaf could not tell if they read correctly or not, for he could not see the letters well enough to make out the words.

  Although there was much activity and talk in the great room, the day seemed long and tedious to Olaf, and his bones ached from sitting. Everyone got up twice to file into the church for services, and there was no food until after vespers, when it was nearly dark. Olaf felt much hungrier than usual, and grew sorry that he had given Pall Hallvardsson Margret’s cheese instead of hiding it in his room, or at least keeping a piece in his pocket. Dinner was just enough to fill your mouth once, as Asgeir would have said, and so, as tired as he was, Olaf knew he would sleep poorly. His wakefulness, however, did not make it any easier to get up for matins in the cold dark. He had neither the devotion of Pall Hallvardsson nor the habits of an old priest, who could shuffle into the cathedral and sit upright in his seat without appearing to be awake at all. Even so, when he returned to his cell after services he lay awake until morning thinking of the personal peculiarities of the cows and sheep and horses at Gunnars Stead that only he knew of, and had forgotten to mention before leaving. And who would take note of them, anyway?

  After nones, the bishop requested Olaf’s presence in his room, where he ran his finger down a page of a book, and recited to Olaf Olaf’s own history, the death of his father, the departure of his mother and sister to Ketils Fjord, where both had since died of the coughing sickness, the nature of his duties at Gardar in the time of Ivar Bardarson, his education and his assignment, by Ivar, to Gunnars Stead, for the purpose of teaching Gunnar Asgeirsson to read. From time to time the bishop would look up at him, and Olaf would nod. “And now,” said the bishop, “has Gunnar Asgeirsson learned to read?”

  “Nay,” said Olaf, in his rough growl. “Asgeir Gunnarsson ended the reading lessons when Gunnar showed no inclination for them.”

  “And why were you not sent back then, when your services were no longer of use?”

  And Olaf did not reply, for indeed he did not know. Finally he said, “Sira, I was but a child myself at that time, and Ivar Bardarson did not send for me.”

  “What did you do then, my Olaf, for fourteen years, at Gunnars Stead?”

  “Sira, I tended the cows and helped around the farmstead,” said Olaf.

  Now the bishop turned away and walked across the room, and then returned, and he said, “Asgeir Gunnarsson was a man who did as he pleased,” but he said it in a low, angry voice, not as Asgeir had said it of himself, with a shout and a grin. Olaf muttered that Asgeir had made him his foster son after the death of his mother, but the bishop made no reply to this, and Olaf wasn’t sure he had heard.

  The bishop now turned away again, and stood with his back to Olaf, regarding the chair that sat in one corner of his chamber, and Olaf saw that this was a magnificent chair, with a triangular seat and figures carved into the back and arms, but his eyes could not make out the figures, they had grown so unused to the dim light of indoors. “There is such a great need of priests to do the work of God,” said the bishop, “as there has never been since the days of the Apostles.” He spun around, and Olaf stepped back. “For the earth is ravaged and decimated by the Great Death, so that the see of Nidaros itself—well, once, my Olaf, there were three hundred priests there, lifting their prayers to Heaven and adding figures in the books.” He smiled briefly. “Know you how many there are these days? How many there were before myself and Sira Jon and Sira Pall Hallvardsson and Sira Petur were ripped away?” Olaf shook his head. “Three dozen or fewer. Indeed, up every fjord in Norway whole parishes have been lost, save only a child found in the woods sometimes. Other times whole tracts of land have been swept clean by death.” He looked Olaf up and down, and went on. “Now is the time for men such as Petur, who are willing but untrained, to come forward and devote themselves to God’s work, or men such as Pall Hallvardsson, foreigners and orphans, to leave those they love, lands and people, and go to where they are needed. We ourself expected to live out our years in Stavanger, close to the district of our birth, but now we are across the northern sea, at Gardar.” Olaf nodded.

  The bishop returned to his seat and smiled at Olaf. He opened his eyes wide and they protruded suddenly, causing Olaf to step back another half step. “Even so,” said the bishop, “the wonderful mercy of our Lord is such that it provides materials for men to work with in these black days, among the farthest waves of the western ocean.” He looked down again at the page in his book and read from it what was written there, perhaps by Ivar Bardarson himself. “Olaf Finnbogason,” he said, “came to us late as a student, but he reads very well and is learning to write in a large but careful hand.” Now the bishop really smiled. Not at Olaf, but to himself, as a man smiles who is making a barrel, when he fits the last stave into place. “Who better than you, my Olaf,” he went on, “to bring along the little boys while you yourself study for your long-awaited ordination?”

  “Indeed, Sira, I have done no reading in many years. It seems to me that my eyes have grown used to distances. Also, my hands are roughened from much farm work.” He spoke in his usual muttering growl, and the bishop seemed not to hear him, or, perhaps, to understand him. After a brief time, Olaf said, more loudly, “Sira, as a boy, God gave me the gift of a prodigious memory, so that when a passage was read aloud to me, I could repeat it word for word, but I could make little of the writing, nor did I understand what I was saying if the passage was in Latin.”

  Now the bishop looked at him, and said, “The priest is the mouthpiece of God, and the Lord speaks through him, although he himself does not understand what the Lord is saying. The Word is a wine that does not spill even when the cup is broken.” His eyelids dropped over his eyes and he looked more kindly at Olaf, saying in a softer voice, “You may trust the Lord to inspire you.”

  Thus Olaf was dismissed, but he did not go. He said, loudly, “Sira, I am betrothed to Margret Asgeirsdottir, and we have been together as husband and wife.”

  Now the bishop looked up, surprised, and said that he had not heard this before, but indeed, he had not spoken to Nikolaus, the priest of Undir Hofdi church, in some weeks. Olaf replied that the betrothal had not yet been announced to Nikolaus, but only to Gunnar, as master of Gunnars Stead, and to Ingrid, out of thought of her great age. At this, the bishop stood and approached Olaf and his eyes blazed out of their sockets like stars and sought Olaf’s own. Olaf settled himself on his legs, as he would to curb a restive bull, and after a moment the bishop turned away, dismissing Olaf to his cell and asking him to send in Sira Jon.

  On the day of Olaf’s departure, Margret Asgeirsdottir went up into the mountains above Vatna Hverfi, and Gunnar sat with his wife Birgitta in the sunlight in front of the farmstead and told her stories.

  After milking the cows, Maria and Gudrun sat themselves nearby, and listened to Gunnar along with Birgitta. Once in a while one of them or Gunnar himself would get up and carry something to Ingrid. After telling his tales, Gunnar lay back in the grass and fell asleep, while the two servingwomen went about their work in the storehouse and the dairy. Birgitta Lavransdottir removed her headdress, which she found heavy and uncomfortable, and began to pull her silver comb through her hair, which was blonde, though darker than Gunnar’s, and hung to her waist. While Gunnar slept, she braided and bound it in various ways, getting up now and then to look at her reflection in a barrel of water which stood under the eave of the house.

&n
bsp; At this time, just after her marriage, Birgitta Lavransdottir was only fourteen winters old, but she was well known among the folk who lived around Hvalsey Fjord for being outspoken and confident in her opinions, for indeed, Lavrans was a wasteful man who had been unable to indulge his only child in much else besides her opinions. On such things as the colors of her clothing or the arrangement of her hair and belongings she was very definite, and she offered notions about much else besides that sometimes made men laugh behind their hands, and Lavrans with them. Everyone around Hvalsey agreed, however, that Birgitta was extremely sharp-sighted and keen of hearing, and she knew about the coming of visitors and the migrations of birds and fish before anyone else did. People thought of these things later, after Birgitta related what she had seen on the homefield at Gunnars Stead while the servingwomen were at their work and Gunnar was sleeping beside her.

  The first thing Birgitta noticed was a circle of yellow and white flowers at some distance, on a little hump of the field. Although it was late in the season, almost the beginning of the winter half year, these appeared to be anemones and goldthread. The sun shone full upon them. Then Birgitta beheld a woman in a white gown and white headdress walking among the anemones, and at first she thought that this was Margret, returning from her sojourn, but she recollected that Margret wore a brown cloak, and also this woman was not carrying a bag of any type. At this moment, Birgitta looked away, at Gunnar, to see if he might be waking up, and when she looked back she saw that the woman carried in her arms a child of about one winter’s age, also clothed in white. As Birgitta watched, the woman lifted the child to her face and kissed it, then set it among the flowers on the grass. The child laughed, then stood up carefully and staggered forward with its arms in the air. At this, Birgitta thought the pair must be from Ketils Stead, or another of the neighboring farms, for she was new in the district and had not yet met everyone. But the strange thing was that as the child staggered and stumbled forward, more anemones and goldthread sprang up at its feet, and the bright sunlight followed.

  Just then Maria called from the dairy house to ask Birgitta to find her something. Birgitta did not catch what this thing was, and, distracted, she looked away. When she looked back the mother and child were gone.

  Soon enough Margret did return, and it was not until the household was seated at their evening meat that Birgitta, in her usual confident tones, related what she had seen in the homefield. And this was the first vision that came to Birgitta Lavransdottir of Gunnars Stead, who was later well known for having second sight.

  On the morning of the third day after the departure of Olaf, Sira Jon and Pall Hallvardsson his colleague set out in the early morning from Gardar in the bishop’s small boat. Both priests were big in the shoulders and good at rowing, and they glided swiftly through the waters of Einars Fjord, easily avoiding the ice that was beginning to form there. They landed at Undir Hofdi church and left their boat there with Nikolaus the Priest, then walked to Gunnars Stead, arriving well before mid-day. The folk at Gunnars Stead were only just rising, and Birgitta still wore her nightdress. Gunnar was with Ingrid, trying to induce her to taste a bit of sourmilk. Margret met the two priests at the door.

  It did not seem to the two priests that she was surprised to see them, and from this Sira Pall Hallvardsson deduced that she knew what Olaf had communicated to the bishop, but then she began talking unaccountably, saying, “Indeed, Sira Jon, each of the farm folk has looked carefully over the homefield, and found nothing, but you may ask the girl herself.”

  Birgitta spoke in her usual confident tones. “Whether you may see them now or not, the case is that there were anemones and goldthread in the homefield, first a ring of them, then a train of them, where the two walked.”

  Sira Jon drew himself up and looked down upon the shorter woman, and said, “What two were these, my child?”

  Margret spoke. “A mother and a child, and the babe was in a white shirt, and the mother was in a white cloak. But it is more likely, in my opinion, to have been Thora Bengtsdottir, who has twin daughters, and lives in this district.”

  “My sister, it was no pair of twins that I saw,” said Birgitta, and she went away to put on her gown and her shoes. Sira Pall Hallvardsson looked at Sira Jon and saw that he had flushed to his hairline and that his hand that lay across the front of his robe trembled slightly. At once, Sira Jon said in a loud voice, “I have heard of this before, three instances, indeed. And in Norway alone the Virgin has appeared to young girls who were known to friends of mine. One of these girls lived on a farm in the Trondelag, and two of them in Jaemtland. And these flowers, how they appeared, that is a mark of this miracle. These spring flowers. This girl in the Trondelag picked wild strawberries out of the snow and carried them home, and these strawberries are kept carefully in a reliquary at her parish church.” Margret and Sira Pall Hallvardsson looked steadily at him, and he dropped his eyes, saying, “Indeed, I have not seen them, but we may tramp about the homefield and gaze upon the spot, may we not?”

  And so they did so, and the discussion of Olaf was slow in beginning. Sira Jon could not prevent himself from turning all talk to this vision, and he plagued Birgitta with questions until she went off to the dairy and closed herself inside. Finally, Pall Hallvardsson asked Margret outright, “Is it true, my girl, that you are betrothed to Olaf Finnbogason?” And without a blink, Margret declared, “Indeed, Sira Pall, this has been the case these four weeks.” The servingmaid, who had been standing behind Margret, picked up some cheeses and went out.

  Now Pall Hallvardsson, with Sira Jon trailing after him, sought out Gunnar in the fields and asked whether this betrothal “between Margret Asgeirsdottir and Olaf Finnbogason” had been duly announced to him, and Gunnar said, “It seems to me that I have heard of this,” and he said these words steadily, without turning his gaze away from Pall Hallvardsson’s face.

  “When is the marriage to take place?” said Sira Jon, suddenly.

  “Yuletide, when Lavrans Kollgrimsson will come for the feasting,” declared Gunnar, now gazing steadily at Sira Jon.

  “Even so,” said Sira Jon, “we must speak to Ingrid, to see if these tidings have been announced to her.”

  Now Gunnar stepped in front of Sira Jon, where he had turned to go toward the steading, and he drew himself up and said, mildly, and with a smile on his face, “My old nurse sleeps most of the day, and she is very weak, and you may not go to her.”

  And Sira Jon glanced about himself, so that his eye fell on the spot of the homefield where the Virgin had walked with Her Child, and he did not press the point. Not long after this, the priests made ready to leave, because they wanted to finish their rowing back to Gardar before nightfall. Thus it was that Olaf returned to Gunnars Stead, but many people said that had Jon asked the question he was supposed to ask, which was, did Margret Asgeirsdottir know of any reason why Olaf Finnbogason should not continue his studies and be ordained a priest, Margret Asgeirsdottir would not have known how to answer.

  When Olaf returned, he said only that there were fifty milk cows at Gardar, and they were fat and shining and sleek, and that the horses had thick manes and big haunches, and that all the animals ate better than the priests.

  At Yule, in the presence of Lavrans and his folk, the wedding of Margret Asgeirsdottir and Olaf Finnbogason was held. At this time Lavrans had much talk with his daughter Birgitta, and the result was that Birgitta moved her wedding gifts into Gunnar’s bedcloset and crept under Hauk’s great polar bear hide with her husband. Shortly after Yule Ingrid Magnusdottir died in her sleep, and she was buried beside Hauk Gunnarsson, her favorite nursling, at the south end of Undir Hofdi church.

  In the spring, Olaf and the folk of Gunnars Stead had the reward of their thrifty fast, and that was the birth of seven calves, including a fine bull calf, and of nineteen lambs. Three of these Olaf traded to Magnus Arnason of Nes in Austervik for a young mare. This mare was of a peculiar color, grayish with a dark strip down the middle of her back. Olaf
named her Mikla, and he was very fond of her.

  Ketils Stead was now the largest farm in Vatna Hverfi district, for Erlend Ketilsson was a hardworking farmer and his wife, Vigdis, no less so. Five children lived with them: Thordis (Vigdis’ daughter), Ketil Ragnarsson, who was known as the Unlucky, Geir Erlendsson, Kollbein Erlendsson, and Hallvard Erlendsson. Vigdis had also lost two others, both girls, shortly after birth. Vigdis had grown very stout by this time, and her daughter Thordis, it was said, looked as much like Vigdis had once looked as to be her twin sister. Only Ketil the Unlucky looked like Erlend’s lineage. The rest were fair and sturdy, with wide round faces and large teeth like Vigdis, and they were considered by many to be a very handsome family. Thordis, although not Erlend’s daughter, was much sought after, for Erlend had pledged her a large marriage portion, and anyone could see that, like Vigdis, she would be a healthy, hardworking wife. Since they lived near to the church, they attended every mass, and Thordis often wore a long reddish robe with a high tight waist of her own design and making. Many in the district spoke of how good a farmer Erlend had turned out to be, and many numbered themselves among Erlend’s and Vigdis’ friends, although nearly everyone agreed that the folk at Ketils Stead could be unusually petty and exacting.

  During the summer after the marriage of Olaf and Margret, a large number of skraelings began lingering near Ketils Stead, for it was a prosperous farm overlooking the fjord. Almost every day skin boats of the skraelings could be seen on the water, or drawn up on the shore, and the skraelings would make fires and cook on Erlend’s land. Once one of Erlend’s good ewes was slaughtered and cooked by these skraelings, but more often they simply fished in the fjord. Erlend was one of the Greenlanders who had never learned any words of the skraeling tongue, and Vigdis knew nothing of it, either, so that when Erlend went out to meet them and order them from his land he could speak to them only as he would to another Norseman. They always greeted him gaily, with much friendliness and laughter, but always acted as if they hadn’t the least understanding of what he was saying or what he meant. A few neighbors laughed at this, for it was well known that skraelings often understood much of the Norse tongue. Erlend’s was not the only steading used in this way by the skraelings, but because they were so exacting, Vigdis and Erlend minded it more than anyone else, as if, folk said, something more than just the one ewe had been stolen from them every time the skraelings set foot upon their land.