The Greenlanders

by Jane Smiley

  Of the hunters, no one was killed, and only Thorbjorn was badly hurt, although three others had been gored or kicked by the struggling deer. The Greenlanders spent the rest of the day gutting the deer, and toward dusk, the fleet of laden boats made its way up Einars Fjord toward Vatna Hverfi and Gardar. Gunnar had little to say, but rowed with Hrafn at the rear of the flotilla.

  Now for a few days all farm work was put aside so that the reindeer could be taken care of. Olaf stretched the hides fur side down on the grass of the homefield, and Margret hung strips of meat up to dry on the drying racks. The bones were boiled clean and stacked in the storehouse along with the antlers. The hooves were boiled for broth, and the heads skinned and singed like sheeps’ heads, and the blood ran out and was made into blood puddings, and of these Birgitta was required to sup on twice daily, which she didn’t mind, as she was especially fond of blood puddings. The meat from this hunt, and from the seal hunt earlier, was especially welcome to the Greenlanders in this year, for there were not as many sheep to slaughter as there had been, and when people visited from farm to farm they spoke of hunting in this way every year, for indeed, after the dozens of deer taken, Hreiney was still as full of deer as the ocean is of water after a dipperful is lifted out, and they remarked at the plenitude of game and sea animals in their land and gave thanks for God’s bounty in the western ocean.

  In these days the weather smiled on the folk preparing their deer, for the sky was high and clear and day after day the sun sparkled on the fields and on the blue icebergs floating in the fjords. A brisk, dry wind blew steadily from the east and the meat dried on the racks in less than a day. People were well able to work at night, for the moon shone brightly, unringed and full. Each night the northern lights waved and fluttered in the midheaven. On one of these nights, Birgitta Lavransdottir arose from her bed cupboard soaked to the waist with her waters, and Margret arose with her, and gave her a little sourmilk mixed with honey. Then they sat down with their spinning to await the coming of the pains, but after many hours and into the day they did not come. After the morning meal, Birgitta took off her headdress and brushed and arranged her hair, then she went to her bedcloset. Margret went outside to oversee the boiling of the reindeer bones, for these would later be of great use to the farmstead. With Birgitta she left Svava Vigmundsdottir, an old nurse who had come to Gunnars Stead from Kristin in Siglufjord, who was an ugly old woman indeed, with a humped back and one walleye, but knowledgeable about children nonetheless, and experienced at births.

  After the evening meal, Svava said that Birgitta must be made to walk about, for sometimes this would bring on the pains, but Birgitta refused to walk, and indeed, it seemed as though she could barely stand upright. Then Svava said that once in such a case as this, she had seen a man go to lie with his wife, and soon afterward the pains had come on and the baby had been born, but Margret said that Gunnar and Birgitta would not like this, and she feared to ask them. While they were talking, Birgitta fell asleep and she slept until sunrise, but when she awoke, the pains still had not come on. At this, Svava and Margret lifted her from her bed and made her go back and forth between her room and Margret’s, but they were supporting her, and her legs hardly moved.

  Now the girl began to toss her head and mutter, and her cheeks became very red and warm to the touch. When they laid her in her bed, a foul odor rose around her, so that Margret was not a little reluctant to raise her shift. When Margret gave her sips of cool water from a cup, she eagerly took some, but then tossed her hand so that the rest flew onto the floor. Gunnar now came in, looked at the girl on the bed, and went out again. After a while, he came back with the “wife” of Nikolaus the Priest and two of her servants. This woman went up to Birgitta at once and undid the top of her shift. Then she placed her hands on Birgitta’s breasts and began to rub vigorously, although Birgitta cried out and shook her head and tried to push her away. When the priest’s wife no longer had the strength to do it, one of her servants stepped in for her, and then Margret, and then the wife again. Svava held her hand on Birgitta’s belly, and the other servant stood by the girl’s face with a bit of cloth, wiping away tears and sweat. After some time, Svava felt the belly go rigid beneath her hand, and then again a little while later. But the women did not stop their rubbing, for Nikolaus’ “wife” said that if they did, the pains would stop, too, and the baby would never be born—she had heard that some babies had to be cut out of their mothers, though of course she had never seen this.

  It was well into the night when Svava declared that she could just see the top of the baby’s head for the first time, and almost morning before the baby was born, a boy as small as a puppy, his nostrils flaring and his chest heaving like a horse that had just run itself into a sweat. The “wife” took one look and whispered to her servant, who ran for Nikolaus the Priest. Margret bent down and asked Birgitta if she wanted to see the baby, but Birgitta could not speak, and lay there with her eyes closed, so Margret walked back and forth with the baby, who heaved and trembled and sometimes gave out little cries. Svava blew gently in its face, and after a while, they carried it out to Gunnar and asked him what the name would be, and he said Asgeir. And then the priest arrived just as the baby lay still in Margret’s arms, and he baptized him with the name Asgeir Gunnarsson, and then after a moment he blessed him and prayed over him, and then wrapped the baby up tightly in a piece of wadmal and laid him in his cradle, and Gunnar bent down over him, and then stood up and said that they would bury him near the farmstead, where other infants had been buried in past times, and that he and Olaf would do this in the morning.

  Now folk left the steading, and Gunnar went to his bedcloset, but Margret and Svava could not sleep and sat down at the table for some refreshment, and Margret said, “Do you remember the birth of Ketil the Unlucky?”

  “Nay,” said Svava, “but you may say that most children are unlucky for the women who give them life. I have seen enough hard births in my time. They are ill to speak of.”

  “Kristin has four children, and there are folk with more than that.”

  “Even so, I have taken care of others’ children since I was twelve winters old, and it is no accident, nor the result of my ugliness that I have never known a man, because more often than not, a Christian woman gives up her life to her child, if not the first, then a later one. Hafgrim Hafgrimsson has three children about him now, and the woman hardly lay down for the births, folk say. These skraelings are different, and it matters not whether they are baptized.”

  “But folk will be married, and then they must have children.”

  “Nay,” said Svava, “it seems to me that folk wish only one thing above all, and that is to have goods for themselves, to hold and to keep, and then they are surprised at the cost of these goods, for this cost is either almost more than they can pay, or more than they can pay.” Now she fell silent for a space, and then she gazed at Margret across the table and said, “I have gone from steading to steading all my life, and never taken things for my own, and I have no regrets.”

  After this, it was many days before Birgitta Lavransdottir was able to get up on her feet again. Svava went back to Siglufjord and a servant of Nikolaus the Priest came in the days to help take care of the girl. When Margret spoke of the baby, and its death, Birgitta looked at her for a long time, and then said she was little surprised, for on the day of Svava Vigmundsdottir’s coming, she had seen Margret run off and come back with a strange woman, and then, as quickly as an eye blink, the woman had turned into a blazing fire, and Margret had put her hand in the fire and brought it forth burning like a torch, and Birgitta had been so afraid that she had fallen down in a faint. Since then she had had little hope for the baby, and was grateful enough to God that he had spared her life, for she had looked forward to death with certainty. Afterwards, Margret and Birgitta did not speak of these things again, and neither mentioned this to Gunnar. At Yule, Birgitta was strong enough to be churched again, and she went forth on her own two feet, weari
ng the gray cloak she had received at her wedding, and leading her husband, at her left, and her father Lavrans at her right. And that was the tale of Gunnar’s firstborn son.

  The folk at Gunnars Stead were much diverted at this time by the visits of Skuli Gudmundsson, whose duties on the king’s farm at Thjodhilds Stead were rather light. Skuli had much to say, about the court in Norway where he had lived for many years, and about Kollbein the ombudsman, and he had a way of telling these stories that made their subjects seem foolish. Margret sometimes teased him, wondering in what sly ways he spoke of Gunnars Stead when he was at Thjodhilds Stead, but Skuli knit his brows and feigned ignorance of this.

  He also told them what sorts of things folk were wearing at Queen Margarethe’s court, for, he said, the court always dressed in a rich and colorful way even when they had no meat for the table and no wood for the fire. Queen Margarethe herself, Skuli said, was low and dark, not at all pretty, though all of the courtiers said she was, but she had an attentive way about her that showed she knew where to step. King Hakon was more handsome, like his father Magnus, and in Skuli’s view, this caused folk to pay attention to him when they might better be watching the queen, and indeed, this very thing had overtaken Kollbein the ombudsman, who had been a tax collector in the Trondelag and had made a rich man of himself. He had purchased two estates for next to nothing, though they were much improved with good byres, rich chapels, and water systems in excellent repair. It was the queen who noted the richness of these estates and compared them to the relative leanness of the tax collections for these years. Although Kollbein had in fact purchased these estates for much less than it appeared, and probably had not cheated the treasury, he had spent so much time flattering the king and so little flattering the queen, that the queen had turned a displeased ear to his protestations when he made them, and sent him off to Greenland as his punishment, placing some Danes upon his farms as “stewards.”

  “We should pity him for these hardships,” said Margret, “but folk only laugh at him.”

  “He knows not what to do with Thjodhilds Stead and Foss,” said Skuli, “though they are goodly pieces of land. He chatters on and on only about bearskins and walrus tusks. And he has slaughtered nearly all the sheep that the Greenlanders gave him. It doesn’t seem to the sailors that the Greenlanders will be so generous again. We all look forward to empty bellies.”

  Now Olaf spoke up, and said, “This Kollbein is the king’s tax collector, is he not? He must know that there are farms in other districts, and that generosity has little to do with it, come to that.”

  Formerly, Skuli had spoken of his dead wife, and especially of his four sons, but now he did not do this as much, because, perhaps, of the recent death of the baby Asgeir Gunnarsson. He acted very kindly toward Birgitta Lavransdottir, and carved her a small round box with a lid out of the base of a large reindeer antler. Around it marched the figures of a polar bear and a seal and a man with a bow and arrow. For Margret, he carved six sharp needles out of bird bones, and they were very cleverly done, so that the eye of a needle was hardly wider than the body, although big enough to carry seal-gut thread. Although these gifts were remarkable to the Gunnars Stead folk, Skuli hardly paused in his talk while he made them. In return, Margret and Birgitta sewed Skuli a pair of purplish stockings from the thickest and warmest Gunnars Stead wadmal, woven by Gunnar himself, and Skuli was considered by the folk at Gunnars Stead to be an old and good friend.

  Pall Hallvardsson, too, continued to visit, and Skuli’s stories sometimes aroused him to remember ones he hadn’t told before, about his childhood among Belgian priests, and the things he had learned there about singing and illuminating manuscripts. From time to time, though, he and Skuli discussed the Great Death and the sinfulness of cities, where unprotected folk passing through the ways at night were as likely as not to be beaten and stripped of their possessions, if not killed, and where such abundance of food as the Greenlanders knew except in the severest winters was never known to anyone but the highest folk.

  “As for abundance,” said Margret, from her great loom, “anyone who has come to the Greenlanders after the time of Ivar Bardarson, and since men stopped hunting in the Northsetur, has never known abundance. It took a whole summer’s day to carry all of the Greenlanders’ goods out of the bishop’s storehouses when Thorleif departed for Norway, and this was not only wealth, but also meat and sourmilk and blubber and eggs and other good things to eat. Thorleif himself said to my father Asgeir that the ship sat so low in the water that the sailors would have to eat their way to Bergen.”

  “That was a fat trip, indeed,” said Skuli, with a laugh, “not like our crossing with Kollbein Sigurdsson, for all that he is the king’s representative. It seems to me that the queen must have purposely stinted him on money for provisions so that the sailors would grumble the whole journey.” And so the talk went on many evenings, while Margret and Birgitta wove and spun, and Skuli carved this and that, and Gunnar repaired such furnishings as needed his attention.

  Once, in very early winter, when Margret was in the hills above Vatna Hverfi laying partridge snares, a man came upon her suddenly, and gave her a fright. He was wearing a shirt and hood of very thick sheepskin that fell forward over his face, so that she didn’t know him, and when he stepped out from a willow cleft, where he had been doing something, she jumped back and gave a cry. As she stepped back, her foot rolled with a loose stone, so that she would have fallen, except that the man caught her elbow and held her up.

  There was a man at this time living above Vatna Hverfi district, who had committed the crime of killing his cousin over a horse fight, and had been outlawed for three years by the Thing, although in Greenland outlaws were allowed to live at the fringes of the settlement, sometimes among the skraelings and sometimes not, since there was no going abroad as there had been in the old days. This man was named Thorir the Black-browed, and so, when Margret regained her balance, she said, “Thank you, Thorir Sigmundsson,” and backed away from him, for it was not known how he had been enduring his time of outlawry. Nonetheless, although she was afraid, she took three fat ptarmigan from her pouch and laid them side by side on a flat rock at her feet, saying, “You would do me a great favor by accepting these poor birds, Thorir Sigmundsson.” Then she backed away, slowly, not taking her eyes off the outlaw and feeling her way with her feet. The man neither looked at her, nor picked up the birds, and after a while she was out of his sight and she ran the rest of the way to Gunnars Stead.

  The next evening, when she came into the farmhouse from the dairy, the three birds, all neatly plucked, were lying on the bench beside the fire. Margret went at once to the door and surveyed the homefield for signs of the outlawed man, for there were many reasons why such visits were not a little to be feared, and the fact that they were contrary to the law was not the least of these. Vigdis, the wife of Erlend, for one, would be glad of something new to bring against the Gunnars Stead folk. Aside from this, an outlawed man living above Isafjord had gained entrance to an isolated farmstead and stolen a great deal of food from both the kitchen and the storehouse, although the tale that he had killed a member of the family had turned out to be false. But there were no signs of anyone except Olaf and Skuli, who were standing near the cowbyre. Margret took the birds outside around the house and buried them in the midden with a spade.

  After that, Birgitta came from her bedcloset, and the two women prepared the evening meal of reindeer meat seethed in broth, sourmilk, and dulse mixed with butter and spread on dried meat. Soon Olaf came in and sat before his trencher, and looked at it once, and said, “What more is there to eat, then? I am looking for a good roast ptarmigan.”

  Birgitta laughed. “You may look for it as hard as you please, but you are not likely to find it until we have all eaten our fill of reindeer meat.”

  Olaf looked around again. The roasting spit was standing upright, unused, near the fire. The only birds in the room were the wheatears and larks in Margret’s willow cages.
“Well,” demanded Olaf, “where are these birds Skuli Gudmundsson has brought us, plucked and bled? I laid them on the bench myself.”

  Now Margret looked at Skuli, who laughed heartily in his beard. “Indeed,” he said, “I have heard that from time to time a ghost may come between a gift and its recipient, and so it is considered the better course to place it in the hands of the one you are giving it to.”

  Olaf growled, “Anything is possible, but truly I have been looking forward to roast fowl all afternoon.”

  Later that evening, Margret went to Skuli, and said that it ill behooved him, especially as one of the ombudsman’s men, to consort with outlawed men and in reply, Skuli went outside and carried in a large sheepskin shirt with attached hood, and declared to Margret that she should admire the thing, poor as it was, for one of the young women at Thjodhilds Stead had sewed it for him, and he expected to be very warm in the winter. At this, Margret reddened and turned away, and what had befallen the three birds on the bench remained a mystery that the Gunnars Stead folk talked about for a day or so afterward.