The Snake Pit

by Sigrid Undset

  Olav put his arm about Torunn and led her to Ingunn. Torunn was not yet thirteen, a fair and merry child. But not even she could thaw the mistress of the house.

  In the evening Olav accompanied his guests on the way. It was fine weather; the full moon shone brightly in the clear sky, but the frost fog was beginning to creep in from the fiord, blotting out the shadows. Olav walked, leading Torunn’s horse.

  “Your wife likes us not, Olav,” said the little maid.

  “Can you think that?” said Olav with a laugh. “Not like you! I know not what it is that has gone against Ingunn tonight.”

  Ingunn was in bed when Olav came home, and when he lay down beside her, he found that she was weeping. He stroked her and bade her say why she was so sorrowful. At long last he got her to come out with it—she felt so mortally unwell; it must come from her having eaten some shellfish when she was down by the waterside that morning. Olav told her not to do such things—she could speak to him or to Björn if she had a mind to such food, and they would find her some shellfish that was good to eat. Then he asked if she did not think his kinswomen were pleasant and comely maids.

  Ingunn answered yes, “and merry indeed were these daughters of Arne,” she said in a tone of disapproval. “And you sported right wantonly with them, Olav—utterly unlike you. I can guess that you like them.”

  “Yes,” said Olav, and his voice was filled with gladness at the thought of the mirthful evening. ’Twould be a great comfort to them both that he had these blithe and courtly young kinswomen so near at hand, he said again.

  Olav could hear that she was breathing heavily. After a while she whispered:

  “Were we not as sisters to you, Tora and I, in your boyhood?—but never do I mind me that you romped and jested so wantonly with us.”

  “Oh, maybe ’twas not unknown,” replied Olav. “But I was under another man’s roof,” he added quietly. “Had I grown up among my own kindred and in my own home, I trow I had been less grave and silent as a boy.”

  Soon after, he heard that she was weeping again. And now her sobs took such hold that he had to get water for her. On lighting a splinter of wood he saw her face so red and swollen that he feared she had eaten something downright poisonous. He threw on some clothes, dashed out, and fetched fresh milk, which he forced her to drink, and then at last she began to mend and fell asleep.

  One day just before Hallowmas Olav was at the manse together with certain other franklins; they had come to have letters drawn up by the priest. Olav had—not exactly fallen out—with another man, named Stein; but yet the two had exchanged words somewhat sharply once or twice.

  As they were about to ride home again, some of the men went out to look at Apalhvit, the horse Olav Audunsson was riding. They praised the horse highly and remarked how well groomed he was. And they teased Stein, who also had a white horse, but his was ill kept and rusty yellow, and it was easy to see that he had been roughly handled by his rider.

  Stein said: “It has been Olav’s calling to break and tend horses—’tis but meet that a knight’s horse should be well groomed. But wait till you have known a few years of husbandry; then you will have forgotten all your courtly ways. And then you will own the truth of the old saying that white horses and too fair wives are not for country folk, for they have no time to watch them.”

  “’Twill surely never go so hard with me that I have not the means to keep two white horses,” said Olav proudly. “Will you sell me the horse, Stein?”

  Stein named a price, and at once Olav held out his hand and bade the others witness the bargain. It was settled on the spot how and when Olav should pay over the purchase money. Stein took the saddle off his horse and went into the house to borrow a halter of Sira Benedikt. The other men shook their heads, saying that this time Olav had made a bad bargain.

  “Oh well—” Olav shrugged his shoulders and gave a little laugh. “But I care not always to be so thrifty as to split a louse into four.”

  He put his saddle on the horse he had bought and let Apalhvit trot behind. The other men stood and watched him; one or two of them gave a little sneering laugh. The first trial of strength between horse and rider came at the bend of the road. It looked as though Olav would be well warmed ere he reached home.

  Ingunn sat sewing alone in the hearth-room when she heard the beat of hoofs on the rocky floor of the courtyard. She went to the outer door and looked at her husband in surprise: in the rarefied autumn sunlight he was holding in a strange and restive horse; his face was fiery red and both he and the horse were bespattered with the foam that covered the bridle, while the horse champed and pranced till the stony ground rang again, and would not stand still. Olav greeted her and the house-carl, who came up, with a laugh.

  “I will tell you all when I come in,” said Olav; he leaped from the saddle and stayed by the house-carl who was to lead the new horse to the stable.

  “What is it?” she asked in wonder when he came in. He stopped just inside the door—looking like a drunken man.

  “Is the old man at home?” asked Olav.

  “No, he went down to the sea—shall I send Tore for him?”

  Olav laughed and closed the door behind him. Then he came forward, lifted his wife as one takes a child in one’s arms, and squeezed her till she gasped.

  “Olav—” she cried in terror. “What has come over you?”

  “Oh, naught else but that you are too fair a wife,” he muttered with the same drunken laugh, and pressed his heated face against hers till she thought he would break her neck.

  Late in the afternoon Olav betook himself to the mill, and Ingunn went into the cook-house; she had a pan of cheese standing by the fire, below the bake-stone.

  The lid could not have been fitted on tightly, so much ash had got in. And it smelt ill—had doubtless stood too long, but it would not curdle sooner. Ingunn could never get her cheeses to work in the right way: the cheeses she had made the week before had gone soft again and run over onto the shelf where she had put them to dry.

  Her mouth twitched as she stood kneading the sticky, evil-smelling cheese in the pan, with slow and clumsy hands. She was no skilful housewife—all work was to her heavy and difficult, and accidents were always happening. Each new misfortune made her so utterly despondent—when would it strike Olav that his wife was incapable besides her other faults? At the end of a day like this, when everything she put her hand to had gone wrong, she felt bruised all over, as though from a number of falls.

  He had not been drunken after all, Olav. At first she had sought comfort in the thought that he must have partaken more freely than was his wont of that ale of which their priest made such boast. But he had been quite sober. And her heart fluttered fitfully as she pondered—what could have come over Olav to make him so utterly unlike himself? Never had he been aught but kind and affectionate and tender in his love. At times she would fain have had him—not quite so calm and sober-minded.

  The thought weighed heavily upon her: true enough, he was calm in his bearing, master of himself—as long as might be. But she had seen occasions when he lost his self-control. But even in that night of madness when the boy came to her and said he had slain Einar, she had felt his love for her as a safeguard. His rage she had seen once—when it was turned against herself; once she herself had lain cowering, mortally afraid, face to face with his white-hot anger. It was a thing she could not bear to think of—and she had not thought of it, till now. But now she recalled it, with such stifling vividness—But now she could not have done anything to make him angry?

  She had felt so easy in these four months they had been married. Unconsciously she reckoned her marriage from the hour when her kinsmen in the presence of witnesses had given her into the hands of Olav Audunsson. He had been so good to her that the memory of all the terrible things that had befallen her on the eve of that event was now but as the shadow of a horrible dream. And she had been obliged to acknowledge the truth of what he said—Hestviken was far away; it had been
easier than she could ever have imagined to forget what had happened there in the north. But at the same time she had striven to show him that she was grateful and loved him—unspeakably.—Surely, then, she could not have done anything to cause him to be so—strange—just now, when he came home. But then she was seized with terror at the thought of what might have caused it—

  And yet that was foolish—for he had shown no sign of wrath; it had all been caresses, in a way, the whole of it. Only wild ones—and then he had played with her, roughly, mad with an ungovernable merriment that had scared her, for she was not used to seeing Olav thus. But perhaps that was no proof that anything out of the common had befallen him—perhaps it was the way with all men, that such a fit came over them now and again. It had been Teit’s way—

  Teit—she felt a kind of sagging at the heart—it had been just like Teit. Her memory of him had grown distant and unreal like all the rest that sank below the horizon as she moved farther and farther away from it with Olav. Now it had again come nigh her, alive and threatening, the memory that she had been Teit’s—

  She uttered a scream and started, trembling all over, as Olav suddenly appeared just behind her—she had not noticed his coming.

  He had stood in the doorway for a while watching her, the tall and slender young wife bending over the board, narrow-shouldered and lithe, working slowly and awkwardly with her long, thin-fingered hands in the mess of cheese. He could not see her face beneath the coif, but he had a feeling that she was in low spirits.

  He was ashamed of himself for the way he had behaved to her when he came home before. ’Twas far from seemly for a man to show his wife such conduct. He was afraid she might feel insulted.

  “Have I frightened you?” Olav spoke in his usual voice, calmly, with a shade of tender solicitude. He placed himself beside her, a little awkwardly—took a pinch of the curds she was now kneading into balls, and ate it.

  “I never did this work until I came hither,” she said in excuse. “Dalla would never let me. Maybe I have not pressed out the whey enough.”

  “You will learn it, I doubt not,” her husband comforted her. “We have time enough, Ingunn.—I was so vexed over that matter of the horse—but the man Stein provoked me to it.” He looked down with embarrassment, turned red and laughed with annoyance. “You know ’tis not like me—to make a fool’s bargain. I was so glad when you came out to meet me—” he looked at her as though begging forgiveness.

  She bent yet deeper over her work, and her cheeks flushed darkly.

  “She is not yet fit for much,” thought her husband. “The unwonted labour tires her.”—If only the old man in the closet would keep quiet tonight. His poor frame was rent by rheumatic pains, so that he often wailed aloud for hours at night, and the young people got little rest.

  Olav Ingolfsson had broken down completely as soon as his young kinsman had relieved him of the duties of master. He had worn himself out at Hestviken, though there was but little to show for it. Now he abandoned himself wholly to the afflictions of old age. The two young people were kind to him. Olav felt it as a support—without being clear in what way he needed support-that after years of waiting he was living under the same roof as a man of his father’s kindred. And he was glad that Ingunn was so kind and thoughtful in her manner toward the feeble old man. He had been a little disappointed that she seemed to like neither the daughters of Arne nor their father, whom they had since met. Olav himself had a great liking for this cousin of his father’s. Arne of Hestbæk was a man of some fifty years, white-haired, but handsome and of good presence; the family likeness between him and Olav Audunsson was striking. Arne Torgilsson received Olav very open-heartedly and bade him be his guest at Yule. And for this Olav had a right good mind; but Ingunn did not seem so set on going.

  But he was glad that in any case she seemed to take to Olav Ingolfsson, though the old man gave no little trouble. He was often restless at night—and then he befouled the place with all the simples and unguents he prepared for himself—and the old dog, who lay in his bed at night and was to draw out the pain from his sick leg, was uncleanly, thievish, and cross-tempered. But Ingunn patiently assisted the old man, spoke to him gently as a daughter, and was kind to his dog.

  Both the young people found it diverting to listen to old Olav’s talk in the evenings. There was no end to what he knew of men and families and their seats in all the country around Folden. Of the warfare that followed Sverre Priest’s coming to Norway he could tell them many tales learned from his father; but in King Skule’s cause Olav Half-priest had fought himself. Olav Audunsson’s great-grandfather, Olav Olavsson of Hestviken, had followed Sigurd Ribbung to the last, and then he had fought against Skule. But when the Duke was proclaimed King at the Öre Thing, Olav Ribbung mustered men about him and marched northward with his three sons to offer him his support; and his brother, Ingolf the priest, gave his son leave to accompany his cousins: “We were then in our fifteenth year, Torgils and I—but we gave a good account of ourselves. The scar I bear on my back was gotten at Laaka. They made such sport of me, the Vaarbelgs,7 for getting hurt there—but we had come into a deep cleft with a stream between landslides and had the Birchlegs above us both behind and before—there were Torgils and I and three other lads—there were so many young lads among our party. One of them we called Surt, for he had the reddest hair I have seen on any man.8 It chanced, as we followed Gudine Geig into the Eastern Dales, that we lay one night at a little farm and woke to find the house afire. ‘You have lain with your shockhead against the bare wall, you devil,’ said Gudine. ‘Yes, and then you blew on it,’ said Surt—he-he-he, his words were less decent than I will repeat for Ingunn’s sake; we lay all over the floor, Surt just behind Gudine. The penthouse was all ablaze, but out we came and hacked our way through. They had an ill habit of setting fire to houses, the Birch-legs—’twas a jest with us that there were so many sons of bathhouse carls and bake-house wives among them. But now you are to hear how we fared, Torgils and I, at Laaka—nay, first let me tell you a little of this Gudine Geig—”

  Olav noticed that it vexed Ingunn when the old man questioned her impatiently whether she would not soon have news for them. Now she and Olav had been married five months—

  “We do what we can, kinsman,” said Olav with a little laugh.

  But the old man was angry and told him not to jest lightly with the matter, but rather to make vows and pray God to grant them an heir betimes. Olav laughed and thought there was no such haste. In his own mind he deemed it hard enough for Ingunn, even now when she was in full health, to cope with the affairs of the household and keep her three serving-women to their work.

  But Olav Ingolfsson complained: he believed he had not long to live. Now he had known four generations of the family, greatgrandfather, grandfather, father, and son—”I would fain greet a son of yours, Olav, before I quit this world.”

  “Oh, you will live sure enough to greet both my son and my grandson,” Olav consoled him. But the old man was despondent:

  “Olav Torgilsson, who was the first man of our race here in Hestviken, was married to Tora Ingolfsdatter ten years before they had children—and he fell before his sons saw the light. That was his punishment, to my mind, for having married her against his father’s will. Ingolf of Hestviken and Torgils of Dyfrin had been enemies, but Olav Torgilsson said he would not forgo this good marriage because the two old men had quarrelled once in a drinking-bout. Tora was the heiress here, for Ingolf was the last man of the old Hestvik line, who are said to have dwelt in this spot since there were men in Norway. And Torgils Fivil was the last of the barons’ line at Dyfrin. Sverre gave the manor and Torgils’s young widow to one of his own men—he had been thrice married, Torgils Fivil. He had been given the name in his youth from his flaxen hair and the fine, white skin that has ever been an inheritance in our kin.9

  “So you may see, our ancestor had cause enough for vengeance upon Sverre—his manor, his father, and three brothers. And the winter t
hat his wife perceived there was a hope that the race would survive them was the same winter when the country folk here around Folden rose to take vengeance for Magnus, their crowned King, and strike down that Sverre, who had no right to the kingdom and sought to upset all our ancient rights and bring in new customs, which we liked not. Men of the Vik and of the Upplands, of Ranrike and Elvesyssel, wellnigh the whole people of Norway were with us. Olav Torgilsson was among the nobles who were foremost in counsel and boldest in fight from the very first.

  “You know how we fared at Oslo that time. The Devil helps his own, and he bore up Sverre Priest till he had him well housed within the gates of hell, ’tis my belief. Olav Torgilsson fell there on the ice; but some men from these parts rescued the body and carried him home. So many men had fallen above Olav there around the standard that the Birchlegs had not despoiled him, and home he came, axe in hand; they could not loosen the dead man’s grip of the weapon. But when the widow came up and took hold of it, he let go—the arm dropped, and Tora was left with the axe, and at the same moment the child quickened within her—’twas as though the unborn babe had struck out with his clenched fist, she told the sons she bore that spring. From the time they were big enough to understand, she spoke of this early and late, that they had vowed to avenge their father while they were yet in the womb. That axe was the one you have now, ‘Kin-fetch.’ Tora gave it that name; of old it was called ‘Wrathful Iron.’ It came to Olav, since he was the elder of the twins, when she sent the boys to a man named Benedikt, who was said to be a son of King Magnus Erlingsson. His was the first company in which these brothers took part.