by Jane Smiley
Many years ago, in Norway, before the time of Harald Finehair, when there were many kings in every district, there was a princess there, whose name was—now Margret looked at the second child and said “Thorunn,” for the child’s name was Thorunn and Margret could not remember the real name of the princess, it had been so many years since she had heard the tale. Little Thorunn smiled shyly. And she was a princess in Hordaland. She fell in love with a prince whose father lived in Hardanger, and they loved each other very much, and indeed, it was proper for them to marry, for their families were already related in small degree, but the father of this princess, who was a great Viking named Orm, had his heart set upon Princess Thorunn’s marrying one of the men who was in his service, and he told her so. But Princess Thorunn was a true Viking princess, and she lifted her chin and said that she would not. Now Orm said to her that he would confine her in a dark tower, and he only meant to threaten her, for he loved her very much, but she only said, “You may do that if you must,” in a cool voice, and so he grew angry and had a tower built of large red blocks, and turfed all around so that not a speck of light could get through, and inside he put Princess Thorunn and her servingmaid, and he gave the servingmaid a staff and he told her that when Princess Thorunn should change her mind, the servingmaid should hit the staff three times on the wooden floor of the tower, and then he would let them out, otherwise they would have to stay there for seven years, through Yule and Easter and the beautiful summer. But the servingmaid never rapped those three times, for indeed, it was nothing to Princess Thorunn to be true for seven years to her love.
Now the food began to run out, and so the princess knew that seven years was coming to an end, and she was glad enough of that in spite of her pride. But still no one came to get them, and Princess Thorunn turned to her maid and said, “Indeed, we shall die an unhappy death here if we do not help ourselves,” and she took her spindle and began to scrape at the mortar around the red stones, and she scraped for a morning, and then the servingmaid scraped for the afternoon, and then the princess scraped during the evening, and after a while they got one stone out, and then two, and then three, and then the princess took her small knife, which had silver chasing all about the handle, and she began to cut away the turf, and this went on all the next day, until the light came in, and such was the effect of the light that although they were very tired and discouraged, their hearts rose and they redoubled their efforts, and the fresh air came in, and then a view of the blue sky with birds flying about, and the sight of the mountains, with dazzling snow on their peaks and glistening streams running down their flanks, and they worked harder, and soon they saw the green pastures, and they were very glad, but when the hole was big enough for the two girls to step out of, they were not so glad, for they saw no sheep or cattle or dairymaids about, and the castle was in ruins, and the horses had run off, and everything was waste, for one of Orm’s enemies from Stavanger district had come and made war upon him. And so the two women had only the clothes that they stood up in, and they set out to find someone to take them in.
They went north and then east and then south, and nowhere could they find anyone who would take them in, for the land was in the grips of a great hunger. They ate all manner of poor food, such as grass and birch leaves by the side of the road, but at last they found a castle where the cook looked them up and down and said that they would do for scullery maids, since the king there was about to celebrate a wedding, and there would be many guests and many dishes to wash.
Now Margret could not remember what was supposed to happen next, and she thought of giving up the tale, but she saw that the four children were listening closely, and so she stood up and got herself a drink of water. Indeed, it was the tale of the tower that had always attracted her as a child, and she remembered now that her attention had always wandered during the rest. She took some sips of water, and the children looked at her expectantly. “Well,” she said, and then from her bedcloset the voice of Freya said, “The bride. The bride was so ugly that she could not bear to look at herself in the mirror.” And so Margret was reminded, and went on.
This was the very castle of the prince who had once loved the Princess Thorunn, but he thought she would be dead by now, and so he had let his father betroth him to another princess, from Germany, who was so ugly that she could not bear to look at herself in the mirror. She was very rich, but her father never let anyone see her, and so she came to Hardanger Fjord thickly veiled in silk veils. Now the wedding day arrived, and Thorunn, who was but a servingmaid, took the bride’s morning meat up to her. The bride saw her and said, “Thorunn, you are a pretty maid indeed. This is my fear, that when we go in our procession to the church, the folk will laugh and throw things at me, for indeed, I am very ugly. I wish you to wear the bridal clothing and walk in my stead.” But Thorunn said that this would be a sin, and she could not. Now the ugly princess grew very wrathful and swore that she would have Thorunn’s head cut off if she did not obey her, and so Thorunn donned the wedding clothes and went down and took her place in the procession.
When the prince saw her, he was pleasantly surprised, and thought maybe his marriage wouldn’t be so bad after all, because this German princess looked so very like his dear Thorunn. And so the procession began, and it was not simple as processions in Greenland are, for the church was very big, and the way was between two groups of folk who were all interested in the looks of the future queen, and everyone was dressed in colorful garments, and everything was very beautiful, but still the maid Thorunn’s heart was heavy, and she said some verses. When she passed a birch tree, she said, “Little birch tree, little birch tree, what dost thou here alone? Once I ate thy leaves, unboiled and unroasted.” And the prince looked at her, and said, “What?” and she said, “Nothing. I was only thinking of Princess Thorunn.” And he was a little amazed, because no one had ever spoken of that princess in his hearing in seven years.
Now they came to a footbridge, and the maid was greatly afraid, and she said, “Footbridge, footbridge, break not beneath my step, I am the false bride, and I am heartily sorry for it.” But when the prince asked her what she was saying, she only said, “Nothing. I was thinking of Princess Thorunn.” Now they came to the church door, and the princess was nearly swooning in dread because of her falsity, and so she said, “Church door, church roof, break not asunder. I am the false bride, but I am heartily sorry for it.” The prince said nothing, and they were married by the archbishop of Nidaros.
Now night came around, and the real princess came veiled into the prince’s chamber, and when she took off her veils, he was much horrified, and he said, “You are not she whom I am married to.”
“Indeed, I am your betrothed bride,” said the princess.
“Then what was it that you said to the birch tree as we passed it this morning?”
“It is not for me to speak to a birch tree,” said the princess. “I may be ugly, but I am a princess after all.”
“Then how did you speak to the footbridge?”
“It seems to me that you are mad. I spoke to no footbridge.”
“Then, indeed, what did you say to the church door and the church roof? If you cannot tell me, then you are not my wife.”
Now the princess bethought herself, and said, “I must go and talk to my maid, for she keeps my thoughts for me.” And she ran to the kitchen and found Thorunn and asked what she had said to the church door, and Thorunn told her, and she ran back to the prince and she said in a loud voice, “Church door, church roof, break not asunder. I am the false bride, but I am heartily sorry for it.”
Now the prince leapt up and said, “Why did you say this? Indeed, you must tell me all, or I will have your head cut off.” And the princess told about her fears, and said that she had sent the scullery maid in her stead. Now the prince insisted that she go get the scullery maid and bring her to him, and she ran down to the kitchen, but instead of taking the maid Thorunn up to the prince as she had been ordered, she began to denounce h
er, and shout for men to come and cut her head off. Thorunn ran into the courtyard and began to shout and yell, for she was not one to go meekly to such a death. The prince heard this yelling, and came out of his chamber, and saved the Princess Thorunn, and when things were quiet again, he said, “When we were going to the church, you spoke of Princess Thorunn. Have you news of her?” And she said, “Indeed, I am Princess Thorunn, though ill events have sent me penniless into the world.” And the prince took her to his heart, and they lived happily at the castle, and the ugly princess went back to Germany, and married an ugly prince, who liked her very much, and they had seven ugly children, who were nevertheless very rich, and for the rest of their lives they were quite satisfied with themselves.
Now the children were smiling, and Freya sat up and said, “This was not the ending I had heard.”
“But such an ending was typical of my nurse, named Ingrid, for she had much to say about the ways of folk who were not just like ourselves.”
The children were pleased with this tale, but they did not ask for another, for they were not in the habit of asking for anything. However, the next day, the child Thorunn was sitting not far from Margret, and she said to her, “What is a king, then?” And Margret replied that a king was a great personage, so great that there were no kings in Greenland, but that if you thought of a body, then the king was like the head of the body. The child nodded and fell silent, but after this it happened not infrequently that Thorunn or Oddny, the oldest child, would come to Margret with a question: What color was the Princess Thorunn’s hair, or what was the prince’s name, or what was Germany, and Margret was careful to answer these questions in as serious a manner as that with which they were asked. Sometimes, they would talk of what the princess and the maid had done in the dark tower for seven years, how they had celebrated Yule and how they had lighted their work and what they had done when the fire went out, and what they had talked of. Other times, they tried to say just how ugly the ugly princess was, and Margret found a little pleasure in these conversations, although she saw that Freya was not pleased by them, but rather jealous. Gudleif knew nothing of these things. After Yule, Margret had to divide her meat and give half of it to the children, and conditions grew rather bad.
Now it was the case after Yule that Bjorn Bollason got on his skis and went to Gardar and asked Sira Pall Hallvardsson what was left in the storehouses, and Sira Pall Hallvardsson took him and showed him every storehouse and also the kitchen of the bishop’s house, and Bjorn Bollason saw that there was nothing at all left, for he and his men had given everything away the year before, so confident had they been that another year of this sort could not happen. But this year the Greenlanders were in such straits that they remembered the previous year with envy.
Shortly after Yule, Finn Thormodsson left Lavrans Stead with his arrows, and went in search of skraelings. After some four days on skis, he found a large band of these demons, fat and warm and well fed, and offered them a set of arrows. They were much pleased with the arrows, and laughed heartily in amusement, the way they often do, and after a few moments, they brought out their own sets of the same sort of arrows, and Finn saw that the skraelings he had traded his arrows to in the summer had learned how to make their own, and taught everyone else the same trick, and so, although this band of skraelings was willing to take his arrows, they would only give him one small seal for them.
Indeed, those seals that the skraelings get in the winter, which can only be gotten by skraelings and never by men, are hard enough even for skraelings to get. Finn stayed with the skraelings for two days, for they are hospitable beings, and he watched two men hunting, and this is what they do. A man stands with a spear poised above his head, looking down at a seal hole in the ice, and he waits without moving or breathing for as much as a day or even two. The highest winds and the most blinding storms do not move him, for he is enchanted with a spell that turns him to stone. Now a seal comes to the hole to take air, and the spear flies downward, as if by magic, into the mouth and head of the seal, and then the same spear is used to pull the seal up through the ice, for somehow it catches in the seal’s flesh. Finn greatly admired such skills, but it is like admiring the work of the Devil, for as soon as a man declares his faith in God, and puts himself in the hands of the Lord, then he loses the power to hunt in this skraeling way, for men must choose between this world and the next and not do as Esau the son of Isaac did when he sold his birthright for a bowl of broth.
It was the case in this year of the hunger, that the skraelings seemed everywhere fat and happy, and most folk considered that they were put before the Greenlanders as a test of their faith, and some folk were tested and did not endure, for there was a man in Kambstead Fjord who took his wife and child and went with the skraelings and afterwards was not seen for many years. His name was Osvif and his wife was named Marta and their son was named Jon, but sometime later it was heard that they had changed their names to skraeling names and that Osvif had taken a second wife, a skraeling woman with almost no hair on her head.
Now the time came for Sira Audun to set off on his yearly journey to the south, and some days before the journey, Sira Pall Hallvardsson came to him and asked him not to go, for there were not the provisions to support two men on such a journey, both Sira Audun and a servant. “Indeed,” said Sira Pall Hallvardsson, “we have not enough for you to take with you by yourself to the southern part of Vatna Hverfi district. If you go among them with a little, it will not be enough to save anyone, and yet will look like a great deal to them, and if you go among them with nothing, they will feel obliged to support you out of their own stores.”
“This may be so,” replied Sira Audun, “but indeed, some of these folk haven’t seen a priest or made confession or had the sacraments in a year, those whom I did not see in the autumn. It will be a great sin for them to be denied.”
“It has always seemed to me that the Lord sees our condition better than the Church Fathers do, and that He is merciful to us in our transgressions, at least those such as this one.”
“But folk will be looking for me, and will be cast down if I do not come.”
Now Sira Pall Hallvardsson smiled and said, “These are the same folk whom you complain of and who complain of you. They do little enough to deserve you, that is what you have said to me privily in the past. A dispute in every parish between here and Herjolfsnes, and two disputes there, that is how Sira Audun makes his journey. This is what they say of you.”
“Are you saying that men don’t look for a little disputing to refresh a long winter? Greenlanders consider Christ to be a fighting man, and are disappointed if his representatives do not castigate them and quarrel with them a bit.”
“Even so—” But Sira Pall Hallvardsson did not go on, for it seemed to him an impossibility that Sira Audun should make his journey, and he felt no need to say more. Nevertheless, some days hence, Sira Audun was not present for his daily meal. It was the case the folk at Gardar, as at all other steadings in Greenland, now ate one meal each day instead of two. After eating, Sira Pall Hallvardsson went to the other priest’s chamber, and saw that, though as neat as possible, and even cozier and more well appointed than ever, the chamber was empty. He stepped back, and was about to close the door, but then was moved to go in and sit down upon Sira Audun’s stool. There was no writing upon the table, and yet there might have been, so certain was Sira Pall Hallvardsson upon looking at the desk that Sira Audun had gone off to the south.
Even as Sira Pall Hallvardsson was sitting in Sira Audun’s room, Sira Audun was out upon the frozen surface of Einars Fjord on his skis, and he was making excellent time, for he was burdened only with his vestments, and carried no packs of food. The weather was fine and clear and the ice of the fjord covered with a thick, smooth powdering of snow, so that his skis sank and slid with great swishes that carried him three or four steps at a time. His face was shrouded in a mask made of two thicknesses of wadmal, with only the tiniest slits for sight, to protec
t against snowblindness. It seemed to Sira Audun that the past twenty years of his life collapsed into this one feeling, the feeling of setting out for the south in the middle of winter, on the Lord’s work. Except that never before had he truly trusted the Lord, and gone forth alone, without the insurance of plenty of food and extra goods. Never before had he cast off his lower self in just this way, although he might have done it, it was so simple to do, any one of these twenty years. This time he felt such confidence in what was to come that if he could have skied faster, or cast off his skis and run toward it, or, perhaps, cast off his humanity and flown toward it as a bird does, he would have. At evening he made out the sand flats and the valley of the river that runs into the fjord near Undir Hofdi church, and soon he was standing in the church itself, lighting a little lamp.
The light flickered and spread around the small room, and shone upon the wooden countenance of the Lord hanging above the altar, and the Lord’s face seemed to change expression as the light fell upon it, and to welcome Sira Audun to this cold and deserted church, and at that moment, Sira Audun knew that he had done the proper thing, no matter what the outcome of it might be, for it seemed to him that the Lord would have missed him, had he not come to Him. Sira Audun knelt on the cold floor and prayed a great prayer of love and pleasure, and after a little while the light in the church attracted the local folk, who had been looking for their priest, and waiting to confess to him. Sira Audun stood up and went to the confessional, and it seemed to him that he could have swooned from hunger as he stood, but that the Lord lifted him up and helped him to the booth. Now the folk began coming to him, and they were a sorry lot this year, even sorrier than the year before, and rather than confessing their sins, their talk wandered off to tales of the hunger and enumerations of who had died, and who would die soon, and pleas with Sira Audun, or with the Lord, to have some mercy on the Greenlanders. Sira Audun did not turn these digressions back to the proper channels, but only absolved these folk, and reassured them of Christ’s mercy in such eloquent tones that they went off believing that he knew of something, some cache of food or some stranded whale that they did not know of.