10 Karlsefni headed south around the coast, with Snorri and Bjarni and the rest of their company. They sailed a long time, until they came to a river which flowed into a lake and from there into the sea. There were wide sandbars beyond the mouth of the river, and they could only sail into the river at high tide. Karlsefni and his company sailed into the lagoon and called the land Hop (Tidal pool). There they found fields of self-sown wheat in the low-lying areas and vines growing on the hills. Every stream was teeming with fish. They dug trenches along the high-water mark and when the tide ebbed there were halibut* in them. There were a great number of deer of all kinds in the forest.
They stayed there for a fortnight, enjoying themselves and finding nothing unusual. They had taken their livestock with them.
Early one morning they noticed nine hide-covered boats, and the people in them waved wooden poles that made a swishing sound as they turned them around sunwise.
Karlsefni then spoke: ‘What can this mean?’
Snorri replied: ‘It may be a sign of peace; we should take a white shield and lift it up in return.’
This they did.
The others then rowed towards them and were astonished at the sight of them as they landed on the shore. They were short in height with threatening features and tangled hair on their heads. Their eyes were large and their cheeks broad. They stayed there awhile, marvelling, then rowed away again to the south around the point.
The group had built their booths up above the lake, with some of the huts farther inland, and others close to the shore.
They remained there that winter. There was no snow at all and the livestock could fend for themselves out of doors.
11 One morning, as spring advanced, they noticed a large number of hide-covered boats rowing up from the south around the point. There were so many of them that it looked as if bits of coal had been tossed over the water, and there was a pole waving from each boat. They signalled with their shields and began trading with the visitors, who mostly wished to trade for red cloth. They also wanted to purchase swords and spears, but Karlsefni and Snorri forbade this. They traded dark pelts for the cloth, and for each pelt they took cloth a hand in length, which they bound about their heads.
This went on for some time, until there was little cloth left. They then cut the cloth into smaller pieces, each no wider than a finger’s width, but the natives gave just as much for it or more.
At this point a bull, owned by Karlsefni and his companions, ran out of the forest and bellowed loudly. The natives took fright at this, ran to their boats and rowed off to the south. Three weeks passed and there was no sign of them.
After that they saw a large group of native boats approach from the south, as thick as a steady stream. They were waving poles counter-sunwise now and all of them were shrieking loudly. The men took up their red shields and went towards them. They met and began fighting. A hard barrage rained down and the natives also had catapults. Karlsefni and Snorri then saw the natives lift up on poles a large round object, about the size of a sheep’s gut and black in colour, which came flying up on the land and made a threatening noise when it landed. It struck great fear into Karlsefni and his men, who decided their best course was to flee upriver, since the native party seemed to be attacking from all sides, until they reached a cliff wall where they could put up a good fight.
Freydis came out of the camp as they were fleeing. She called, ‘Why do you flee such miserable opponents, men like you who look to me to be capable of killing them off like sheep? Had I a weapon I’m sure I would fight better than any of you.’ They paid no attention to what she said. Freydis wanted to go with them, but moved somewhat slowly, as she was with child. She followed them into the forest, but the natives reached her. She came across a slain man, Thorbrand Snorrason, who had been struck in the head by a slab of stone. His sword lay beside him, and this she snatched up and prepared to defend herself with it as the natives approached her. Freeing one of her breasts from her shift, she smacked the sword with it. This frightened the natives, who turned and ran back to their boats and rowed away.
Karlsefni and his men came back to her and praised her luck.
Two of Karlsefni’s men were killed and many of the natives were slain, yet Karlsefni and his men were outnumbered. They returned to the booths wondering who these numerous people were who had attacked them on land. But it now looked to them as if the company in the boats had been the sole attackers, and any other attackers had only been an illusion.
The natives also found one of the dead men, whose axe lay beside him. One of them picked up the axe and chopped at a tree, and then each took his turn at it. They thought this thing which cut so well a real treasure. One of them struck a stone and the axe broke. He thought a thing which could not withstand stone to be of little worth, and tossed it away.
The party then realized that, despite everything the land had to offer there, they would be under constant threat of attack from its prior inhabitants. They made ready to depart for their own country. Sailing north along the shore, they discovered five natives sleeping in skin sacks near the shore. Beside them they had vessels filled with deer marrow blended with blood. They assumed these men to be outlaws and killed them.
They then came to a headland thick with deer. The point looked like a huge dunghill, as the deer gathered there at night to sleep. They then entered Straumsfjord, where they found food in plenty. Some people say that Bjarni and Gudrid had remained behind there with a hundred others and gone no farther, and that it was Karlsefni and Snorri who went further south with some forty men, stayed no more than two months at Hop and returned the same summer.
The group stayed there while Karlsefni went on one ship to look for Thorhall. They sailed north around Kjalarnes Point and then westwards of it, keeping the land on their port side. They saw nothing but wild forest. When they had sailed for a long time they reached a river flowing from east to west. They sailed into the mouth of the river and lay to near the south bank.
12 One morning Karlsefni’s men saw something shiny above a clearing in the trees, and they called out. It moved and proved to be a one-legged creature which darted down to where the ship lay tied. Thorvald, Eirik the Red’s son, was at the helm, and the one-legged man shot an arrow into his intestine. Thorvald drew the arrow out and spoke: ‘Fat paunch that was. We’ve found a land of fine resources, though we’ll hardly enjoy much of them.’ Thorvald died from the wound shortly after. The one-legged man then ran off back north. They pursued him and caught glimpses of him now and again. He then fled into a cove and they turned back.
One of the men then spoke this verse:
3. True it was
that our men tracked
a one-legged creature
down to the shore.
The uncanny fellow
fled in a flash,
though rough was his way,
hear us, Karlsefni!
They soon left to head northwards where they thought they sighted the Land of the One-Legged, but did not want to put their lives in further danger. They saw mountains which they felt to be the same as those near Hop, and both these places seemed to be equally far away from Straumsfjord.
They returned to spend their third winter in Straumsfjord. Many quarrels arose, as the men who had no wives sought to take those of the married men. Karlsefni’s son Snorri was born there the first autumn and was three years old when they left.
They had southerly winds and reached Markland, where they met five natives. One was bearded, two were women and two of them children. Karlsefni and his men caught the boys but the others escaped and disappeared into the earth. They took the boys with them and taught them their language and had them baptized. They called their mother Vethild and their father Ovaegi. They said that kings ruled the land of the natives; one of them was called Avaldamon and the other Valdidida. No houses were there, they said, but people slept in caves or holes. They spoke of another land, across from their own. There people dressed in white cloth
ing, shouted loudly and bore poles and waved banners. This people assumed to be the land of the white men.*
They then came to Greenland and spent the winter with Eirik the Red.
13 Bjarni Grimolfsson and his group were borne into the Greenland Straits and entered Madkasjo (Sea of Worms), although they failed to realize it until the ship under them had become infested with shipworms. They then discussed what to do. They had a ship’s boat in tow which had been smeared with tar made of seal blubber. It is said that shell maggots cannot infest wood smeared with such tar. The majority proposed to set as many men into the boat as it could carry. When this was tried, it turned out to have room for no more than half of them.
Bjarni then said they should decide by lot who should go in the boat, and not decide by status. Although all of the people there wanted to go into the boat, it couldn’t take them all. So they decided to draw lots to decide who would board the boat and who would remain aboard the trading vessel. The outcome was that it fell to Bjarni and almost half of those on board to go in the boat.
Those who had been selected left the ship and boarded the boat.
Once they were aboard the boat one young Icelander, who had sailed with Bjarni, called out to him, ‘Are you going to desert me now, Bjarni?’
‘So it must be,’ Bjarni answered.
He said, ‘That’s not what you promised me when I left my father’s house in Iceland to follow you.’
Bjarni answered, ‘I don’t see we’ve much other choice now. What would you advise?’
He said, ‘I see the solution – that we change places, you come up here and I’ll take your place there.’
‘So be it,’ Bjarni answered, ‘as I see you put a high price on life and are very upset about dying.’
They then changed places. The man climbed into the boat and Bjarni aboard the ship. People say that Bjarni died there in the Sea of Worms, along with the others on board his ship. The ship’s boat and those on it went on their way and made land, after which they told this tale.
14 The following summer Karlsefni sailed for Iceland and Gudrid with him. He came home to his farm at Reynines.
His mother thought his match hardly worthy, and Gudrid did not stay on the farm the first winter. But when she learned what an outstanding woman Gudrid was, Gudrid moved to the farm and the two women got along well.
Karlsefni’s son Snorri had a daughter, Hallfrid, who was the mother of Bishop Thorlak Runolfsson.
Karlsefni and Gudrid had a son named Thorbjorn, whose daughter Thorunn was the mother of Bishop Bjorn.
Thorgeir, Snorri Karlsefni’s son, was the father of Yngvild, the mother of the first Bishop Brand.
And here ends this saga.
Translated by KENEVA KUNZ
TALES
THE TALE OF THORSTEIN STAFF-STRUCK
porsteins pdttur stangarhdggs*
There was a man named Thorarin living in Sunnudal. He was old and saw poorly. He had been a great Viking in his youth. He was not an easy man to get along with, even though he was old. He had one son named Thorstein. Thorstein was a large, strong, even-tempered man, and he worked so hard on his father’s farm that he was just as productive as three other men together. Thorarin was not a very wealthy man, but he owned plenty of weapons. The father and son also owned some stud-horses, and they earned most of the money they had by selling stallions, for all of them were good riding-horses and spirited.
There was a man named Thord. He was a farmhand of Bjarni’s at Hof. He took care of Bjarni’s riding-horses because he was regarded as being good with horses. Thord was very overbearing, and he made people feel that he worked for a powerful man, though he himself became no more valuable or popular for that.
Two men named Thorhall and Thorvald were working for Bjarni at that time. They were always gossiping about everything they heard in the district.
Thorstein and Thord arranged a horse-fight for young stallions. At the fight, Thord’s horse was getting the worst of it. Now when Thord found that his horse was being beaten, he dealt Thorstein’s horse a heavy blow in the jaw. Thorstein saw this and dealt Thord’s horse an even greater blow. Thord’s horse ran off, and people really started shouting. Thord then struck Thorstein on the brow with his horse-prod, causing the skin to tear and slip down over his eye. Thorstein then cut off part of his shirt, and bandaged his brow, acting as if nothing had happened, and he asked people not to tell his father about it. The matter was dropped then and there.
Thorvald and Thorhall taunted him about this and nicknamed him Thorstein Staff-struck.
Shortly before Yule that winter, the women at Sunnudal got up for work Thorstein got up too and carried in the hay but then lay back down on the bench. Then old Thorarin, his father, came into the room and asked who was lying there. Thorstein said he was.
‘Why were you on your feet so early, son?’ asked old Thorarin.
Thorstein answered, ‘I don’t think there are many others to do the work that must be done around here.’
‘Don’t you have a headache, son?’ asked old Thorarin.
‘Not that I am aware of,’ said Thorstein.
‘What can you tell me, son, about the horse-fight that took place last summer? Weren’t you knocked unconscious, kinsman, like a dog?’
‘I do not see any honour,’ said Thorstein, ‘in calling it an attack rather than an accident.’
Thorarin said, ‘I would not have thought that I had a coward for a son.’
‘Do not say anything now, Father,’ said Thorstein, ‘that you will later learn is an exaggeration.’
‘I will not say as much now,’ said Thorarin, ‘as I have a mind to.’
Thorstein then got up and grabbed his weapons. He then set off and walked over to the barn where Thord was taking care of Bjarni’s horses. Thord was there.
Thorstein found Thord and said to him, ‘I want to know, Thord my friend, whether that blow I took from you at the horse-fight last summer was an accident or dealt intentionally, and whether you are willing to compensate me for it.’
Thord answered, ‘If you have two mouths, then put your tongue in each of them and say with one that it was an accident, if you like, and with the other that it was dealt in earnest. And that is all the compensation you’re going to get from me.’
‘Then prepare yourself,’ said Thorstein, ‘for the possibility that I won’t come seeking again.’
Thorstein then ran up to Thord and dealt him his death-blow.
Afterwards he went to the farmhouse at Hof and found a woman outside and said to her, ‘Tell Bjarni that a bull has gored his stable-boy Thord, and that Thord will be waiting there until he goes to the barn.’
‘You go home,’ she replied, ‘and I will tell him when I please.’
Thorstein then went home, and the woman to her work.
Bjarni got up that morning, and when he had sat down at the table, he asked where Thord was. The others replied that he must have gone to the horses.
‘I would have expected him back by now,’ said Bjarni, ‘if he were well.’
Then the woman Thorstein had met spoke up and said, ‘It’s true, as we’re often reminded, that we women aren’t very smart. Thorstein Staff-struck was here this morning and said that a bull had gored Thord and that he needed help. But I didn’t want to wake you then, and afterwards I forgot all about it.’
Bjarni got up from the table, and then went to the barn and found Thord there, dead. He was then buried.
Afterwards, Bjarni prepared an action and had Thorstein outlawed for the killing. But Thorstein remained at home in Sunnudal working for his father, and Bjarni did nothing about it.
That autumn at Hof, the men were sitting by the fire preparing sheep-heads, and Bjarni was lying outside on top of the fire-room wall listening to what they were saying.
Then the brothers Thorhall and Thorvald spoke up and said, ‘We never expected, when we were hired at Killer-Bjarni’s, that we’d be preparing sheep-heads here, while this outlaw Thorstein is prep
aring the heads of geldings. It would have been better of him to yield more to his kinsmen in Bodvarsdal than to have his outlaw living like his equal in Sunnudal. But those who are laid down will be done with once they are wounded, and we don’t know when he will wipe this stain off his honour.’
A man answered, ‘That kind of thing is worse said than unsaid, and anyone would think that trolls had been moving your tongues. We feel that he does not want to deprive the blind father and the other dependants there in Sunnudal of their bread and butter. But it will surprise me if you roast lamb-heads here much longer or praise what happened in Bodvarsdal.’
Then everyone went to eat and to sleep, and Bjarni did not show that he had heard what had been said.
The next morning, Bjarni woke Thorhall and Thorvald and told them to ride to Sunnudal and bring him back Thorstein’s severed head by breakfast time.
‘You two seem to me,’ he said, ‘the most likely to wipe the stain from my honour, if I don’t have the strength to do it myself.’
Now they knew that they had said too much but went, nevertheless, over to Sunnudal. Thorstein was standing in the doorway whetting a short sword.
When they arrived, he asked them where they were going, and they claimed they were supposed to look for some horses. Thorstein said that they would not have to look far for those ‘right here by the hayfield wall’.
‘We might not find the horses if you don’t show us exactly where they are.’
Then Thorstein stepped outside. And when they had walked out into the hayfield, Thorvald brandished his axe and ran towards him, but Thorstein blocked him with his arm, and he fell down, and Thorstein thrust his short sword through him. Thorhall then wanted to attack, but he went the same way as Thorvald. Thorstein then tied both of them on to their horses and laid the reins over the horses’ manes, and drove them homeward. The horses then went home to Hof.
The Sagas of the Icelanders Page 90