And so, a New Year beckons in the New World, and soon a warming sun for my journey. I have ascertained, by various observations, the latitude of this place to be 56° 9′ north. On this occasion, I am to the south of the lands of Polar Night, and so while the sun sinks low, it does not vanish entirely. My Finnar hosts were terrified that the sun might not return each year and would send a godsman up to the highest mountain to observe the sky. I have also the tube of my spyglass swung across my shoulder, which is a troublesome addition to my burden, but on balance, better than a priest around my neck.
ENTRY TWO
MARKLAND IS A VEXING PLACE, a labyrinth of tree and lakes, entirely out of the reach of legal restraint. It is now some seven centuries now since Leif the Lucky first sighted these lands, and I can’t imagine much has changed. There are no borders—the country seems inexhaustible—and so there is free scope given to any ways or means of attaining advantage. Once Hugson and his heirs penetrated the ice, even more chaos ensued as pioneers and pathfinders began to trek north and west seeking their fortune. What with drinking, carousing, and quarrelling with the Skræling along their routes, and among themselves, it is a wonder that the foresters ever return safely to winter quarters.
Consequently, three great ring-forts have been established at the confluence of the various Great Lakes to provide bastions of order. Horgfell is the furthest outpost, seven weeks sail from Skotland through very dangerous and troublesome waters. By license of the viceroy, several colonists make their abode here, breaking up the soil into corn and pasture lands. They pay a certain tribute to the crown, and each family is still obliged to furnish a soldier for the army or a sailor for the navy. Otherwise, whether it is a time of peace or war is all the same to them, as they are burdened with no taxes. There is no doubt that most of the land will, in time, become colonized and filled with farmers as Vinland was before it. What this means for the Skræling tribes is for the Nornir to tell, but I imagine they have decided it is wise to howl with the wolves one is among.
The Skræling outside the walls are the mildest nation that is to be found on the borders of Hugson’s Bay, regardless of affronts or losses, and by being now so frequently engaged with the fylkir’s servants, they have acquired several words of Norse. They call themselves the Denésoliné, the “people of the barrens.” One evening, we were joined from the Westward by a group, travelling with furs, and other articles for trade. They informed me that they had returned from a hunt at a large lake, which they represented as several hundred miles from Horgfell. They call it the Thrall Lake, deriving its name from that of its original inhabitants, who were made army slaves and transported east to help construct Leifsbúðir, Botulftun, and New Jórvík. The tribes, when they used to maraud against the Marklanders, would come in canoes to that lake, and then leave them there, journeying farther along a beaten deer path all the way to the fork in the Horgfell river (which they call simply Missinipi, the “big waters”). This became their war road. No-one alive remembers those times, of course. They have been engaged in making their snowshoes; the weather has become bitterly cold, and it froze so hard in the night that my watch stopped.
I found that one of the young Skræling had lost the use of his right hand by the bursting of a gun. His companions brought him to me, having heard something of my abilities. His wound was in such an offensive state and emitted such a putrid smell that it required all the resolution I possessed to examine it. His friends had done everything in their power to relieve him, but the wound was in a deplorable state. I was rather alarmed at the difficulty of the case, but as the young man’s life was in a state of hazard, I was determined to risk my already damaged reputation. I immediately fashioned a poultice of bark, stripped from the roots of the spruce-fir, which I applied to the wound, having first washed it with the juice of the bark. This proved a very painful dressing, but in a few days, the wound was clean, and the noisome flesh around it destroyed. The salve I applied on the occasion was made of the Vinlander balsam, wax, and tallow dropped from a burning candle into water. In short, I was so successful that my patient soon embarked on a hunting party and brought me the tongue of an elk by way of thanks. A generous gift; I must remember to do the same for Högen!
This episode underlines my irritation when I am told healing is a womanly art. It seems to be the vilest hypocrisy to prevent a man from contributing to the wellsprings of knowledge on the spurious and sanctimonious grounds that medicine is an exclusive female preserve. The Skræling have no such great divide—neither for that matter, do the Finnar, who live on the very doorstep of the empire.
I WILL DIVERT MOMENTARILY TO some observations about my latest hosts. These Denésoliné are excellent hunters, and their pursuits and exercise in that capacity reduce them to very lean appearance. The males eradicate their beards, and the females remove their hair from across their body, except their heads, where it is strong and black and without a curl. In many respects, they remind me of the Finnar: their stature also very diminutive; their faces of the darkest brown, eyes dark and sparkling, pitchy-coloured hair hung loose. One might even imagine they were arranged around a common ancestry, were the distances not insurmountable.
The Skræling religions I have encountered are of a very contracted nature, and I have never witnessed any ceremony of devotion which they had not been taught by Northmen—you will hear our hosts refer to us as Ashmen—with feasts and fasts introduced to them by our people and heartily adopted. In addition, there are many uncommon cultural ties between Northman and savage. The skalds appear to have ranged far, beginning their work in these lands by teaching the Skræling some of their written forms, and leading indigenous minds by degrees to greater understanding of the gods. However advantageous these lessons may be, their interpretation leaves much to be desired.
For instance, from what I have seen [mention again the general sense of geography here], when death overtakes any of them, their property is sacrificed and destroyed as Odin decreed. But whilst it is the practice of these people to burn the bodies of their dead, the larger bones are excepted and are rolled up in bark and suspended from poles. Cremation of this sort was common in the interior of Asia and among the ancient Greeks and Romans, and has also prevailed among the Hindoos up to the present time.
Funeral ale is unknown, but there is no failure of lamentation or mourning on such occasion: those most nearly related to the departed person black their faces and sometimes cut off their hair. They also pierce their arms with knives and arrows. The grief of the females is carried to a still greater excess; they cut their hair and cry and howl, but even so, they oddly refuse to follow their masters into the next world on the pyre.
There are many old men among the Skræling, as they avoid battle for the most part and know nothing of the glory of Odin’s halls or the gleaming leaves of Glasir beyond what the skald have repeated. A Denésoliné tried to explain his age to me, by telling how he remembered the hills and plains on the opposite shore, when they were covered with moss, and without any animals to hunt but reindeer. By degrees, he said, the face of the country changed—now, it is interspersed with groves of poplars, with elk migrating from the east, followed by the buffalo; the reindeer retiring to the high lands above the river. I was reminded of how Uppsala had changed since the days before the university was built.
I took the old Denésoliné with me when I made another observation of Thor and his chariots for the longitude. He wasn’t perplexed by the lens, which surprised me, but rather pointed to indicate some geese he had seen, and excitedly told me these birds are always considered as the harbingers of spring. His name is Keskarrah, as best I can gather, but whether it is a given name or an honorific I cannot be sure.
ENTRY THREE
FROM MY FIRST ARRIVAL IN Finnmǫrk, I noticed that all the inhabitants used a peculiar kind of boot that seemed at first sight very awkward. I soon found, however, that they had many advantages over common shoes, chiefly that they are easier in wearing and impervious to water. Tho
se who wear them may walk in water up to the tops without wetting their feet. They are cut so that not a morsel of leather is wasted. Nature, who no artist has yet to surpass, has provided once again. I instructed the Denésoliné in the required stitches, and they taught me some of their spirit songs in return. A fair trade I thought.
Suitably dressed, I went to great Bare Frost, as was the custom; the weather was calm, clear, and of course, very cold. The wind blew from the southwest, and during the afternoon, it began to thaw. On hearing this, the guardsmen engaged in drinking to the gods: this wind never failed to bring us clear mild weather, whereas, when it blew from the opposite side of Dritvik, it produced snow. The warm winds come off the Peaceful Ocean, which I hope cannot be very far from us; the distance might be so short, that even though the winds pass over mountains covered with snow, there is not time for them to cool. I fear this Continent of Hvítramannaland is much wider than many people imagine, particularly Hugson, who thought that the ocean was but a few days journey from the West coast of his bay, for I have not met with any Skræling, either Northern or Southern, that ever had seen the sea to the Westward.
Not long afterwards, we were visited early by our usual summer companions, the gnats and mosquitoes. On the other side of the lake, which was still covered with ice, the plains were a delight. Trees were budding, and many of the plants were about to bloom. Herra Dahl, the company cook, brought me a bunch of flowers of a pinkish colour, and a yellow whorl, a corolla with six petals of a light purple. We determined to press them and catalogue them in due course. The change in the appearance of nature was as sudden as it was pleasing, for a few days only were passed away since the ground was covered with snow. In just a few days more, the river was cleared of the ice.
ENTRY FOUR
WITH OUR ICY CAGE MELTED away, I was most busily employed in trading with the Skræling bands. I ordered our canoe to be repaired with bark. I retained six of the men from the fort, and they agreed to accompany me on my projected voyage of discovery and examination in return for three silver crowns apiece. I also engaged some hunters and closed my personal business by writing my dispatches to the university, in accordance with the terms of my expedition, and to the viceroy at Leifsbúðir, as required by the court.
I found that my chronometer was one hour forty-six minutes slow to apparent time, a consequence of the freezing no doubt. Having fixed it as best as possible with dabs of fish oil, we embarked at seven in the morning or as close to it as I could practicably measure.
Our canoe was put into the water. It was twenty-five feet long, excluding the curves of stem and stern—at the same time, it was so light, that two men could carry her on a good road three or four miles without resting. In this slender vessel, we shipped provisions, goods for presents, arms, ammunition, and baggage, to the weight of three thousand pounds, and an equipage of ten people. The voyagers: Halsand Kyndillson, Jósepr Laufrey, Karl Ljótsson, Gjafarr Audvard, Anders Dahl, Göran Rothman, and Olof Rubeck. They laughed and swore their oaths to protect me from all things but made a special exception for the rain. I have also contracted with two Denésoliné, as hunters and interpreters—the first, the young Idotliazee, whose injury I treated so ably, who no doubt imagines he is in my debt; the second, Keskarrah, seeming to have need for his own adventure, despite his advanced years.
My winter interpreter, whom I left at the fort, shed tears on the reflection of those dangers which we might encounter in our expedition, while my own people offered up their prayers to Odin that we might return in safety from it.
ENTRY FIVE
Nóttleysa—“Nightless” Summer 1735
WE BEGAN OUR VOYAGE AGAINST a strong current one mile and three quarters, south by southwest one mile. I was aggrieved to discover that the canoe quickly became strained from being very heavily laden. It became so leaky that we were obliged to land, unload, and gum it within hours of having set out. As this circumstance took place about noon, I had an opportunity of taking an altitude.
When the canoe was repaired, we continued our course, steering west by southwest one mile and a half, when I had the misfortune to drop my pocket-compass into the water. This was most vexing, and I let out a loud shout of frustration. I became momentarily understanding of my father’s resolve to bind me as apprentice to a shoemaker where I should have caused altogether less harm. Perhaps I might have made my fortune with the Finnar boots rather than trampling around in them.
On this stretch of river, the banks are steep and hilly, and in some parts collapsed by the river. Where the earth has given way, the face of the cliffs reveals numerous strata, consisting of reddish earth and small stones, bitumen, and a greyish earth, below which, near the water’s edge, is a red stone. Water issues in bubbling, roiling springs, a veritable Hvergelmir, except the ground on which it spreads is covered with a thin white scurf, or particles of saline. A large and dreary pine forest loomed above, in which the herbaceous plants seemed almost starved in the barren sand.
At half past six in the afternoon the young men landed, killed an elk, and wounded a buffalo, determining that the gods required a blood sacrifice to ease the passage ahead. In this spot, we formed our encampment for the night. In the interlude before sleeping, Herra Audvard advised me that one should not vent one’s wrath on animals because, in his estimation, both animals and men have souls. His demeanour was such that I now take him for a Christian. I am not anxious as, for the most part, Christians practice their piety in quiet corners. It is well known that many Vinlanders are Christian, having migrated to colonial shores to enjoy new beginnings. Nevertheless, I think it is unwise to give men freedom of conscience and still expect them to hold their oaths sacred. Sedition is at the very heart of the Codex religions.
ENTRY SIX
I AWOKE AT DAWN, AS IF in a dream of distant Alfheim, fairer than the sun to behold. It truly seemed that I had reached the residence of Frey himself. The west side of the river displayed a succession of the most beautiful scenery I had ever witnessed, a magnificent theatre that had all the wonder that the nature could deliver: groves of poplars in every shape and size, vast herds of elks and buffaloes and, no doubt, a myriad of Álfar watching over all. Being spring, the buffalo were surrounded with their young ones, who were frisking about them. The whole country displayed fecund Freyja’s blessing; the trees that bear blossoms were thriving and the rosy rind of their branches reflected the beams of the rising sun, the goddess’s tears of red and gold, to which none of my expressions can do justice. The east side of the river consisted of a range of high land covered with the white spruce and the soft birch, while the banks abounded with alder and willow, all of which seemed to sing to us of creation. We saw bluejays, yellow birds, and one beautiful hummingbird.
The water continued to rise, and that day, the current being stronger, we made a greater use of setting poles than paddles. We perceived tracks of large bears along the river, some of which were nine inches wide and of a proportionate length. We saw one of their dens in an island, a gaping hollow ten feet deep, five feet high, and six feet wide; but we had not yet seen one of those animals. The Denésoliné entertain great apprehension of this breed of bear, which they hold in almost godlike reverence. Larger and more aggressive than the black bears to the east, they boast grizzled golden-brown fur tipped in grey, and Keskarrah explained they never venture to attack them but in a party of at least three or four. Herra Laufrey maintained he was descended from bear-shirts, who often entered battle naked but for an animal mask and pelts, howling, roaring, and dangling his courage. We dissuaded him from following in his ancestor’s footsteps lest he bring wrath down upon us.
ENTRY SEVEN
AS WE PROGRESSED, THE WIND blew from the north throughout the day, and at times it raged with considerable violence. Our hunters, though they had been much farther than this by land, knew nothing of the river.
The land above our encampment spread into an extensive plain and stretched on to a very high ridge, which, in some parts, presented
a face of bare rock, but was generally covered with verdure and enriched with poplar and white birch trees. Not far distant, a huge stone was to be seen. Idotliazee related that it was a remnant from a malignant game of skittles, with the stone hurled by an ancient giant. As a confirmation of this history, he pointed out the evident marks of four huge fingers and a thumb on the upper side of the stone. The country was so crowded with animals as to seem like a Jötunn farmyard, from the trampled state of the ground, and the quantity of dung scattered over it. To add to our sense of foreboding, we saw two of the feared brown bears. Herra Laufrey stayed firmly in his canoe, at which juncture, it was remarked that he ought to change his talisman to the wolf-hide instead.
Further upriver, the land took on a very irregular elevation and appearance, composed in some places of clay, and rocky cliffs, and others exhibiting strata of red, green, and yellow. This beautiful scenery is a pristine paradise for my studies, Finnmǫrk a dreary rehearsal by comparison. The banks of the river are coated with elk and buffalo, which, unmolested by the hunters, feed in great numbers. On an island which we passed, there was a large quantity of white birch, whose bark we employed in the construction of canoes. Keskarrah mentioned that, following a war expedition, his party had returned this way and made their vessels in the general vicinity, an account that reassured me that he had our bearings.
Herra Kyndillson killed two elks and mortally wounded a buffalo, but we only took a part of the flesh of the former. The newer rifles are most deadly at short range. Herra Kyndillson has sailed on many Viking expeditions—he bears a long scar from a Hottentotten spear he received in the Suðurnes to prove it—and he swears by their manufacture. We discussed the merits of gunpowder over the magical arts of vǫlur and the Finnar, which are said to include magical archery. These practices include being unable to miss a target, being able to shoot three arrows simultaneously, and magic arrows which fly back to the bowstring of their own accord and hit whatever they are aimed at. Neither of us had seen such arts first hand, so we agreed saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal were just as potent as any sorcery.
The All Father Paradox Page 13