by Tim Severin
‘I’m sorry, I’m a stranger,’ I replied. ‘What won’t he listen to?’
I expected to hear the usual ramblings of an aged mother about her grown-up son, and I was preparing to invent some sort of an excuse – that I needed to visit the latrine – so that I could avoid this crazy old crone, when she went on, ‘I’ve warned him that he will be hurt and hurt badly.’
Suddenly I felt giddy. Did she mean that she also saw how the man was bleeding heavily? And why had she spoken in the future tense? The blood seemed real enough to me.
I glanced across at the farmer. He was still unconcerned, pushing the awl through a broken horse harness. His shirt was sticking to his side it was so wet with blood. ‘Why doesn’t he take off the shirt so someone can attend the wound and staunch the bleeding?’ I said in a low voice.
She laid a withered hand on my wrist and held tight. ‘I knew you could see,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’ve been watching your face just as I’ve been watching that stain on his shirt for nearly three years past and still he won’t listen to my warning. I told him to kill the creature, but he hasn’t done so.’
This did not make sense, and I began to revert to my idea that the old woman was addled. ‘Haven’t you heard it?’ she enquired, still holding me with her claw of a hand, thrusting her head forward until it was only a few inches from my face.
At this point her mutterings had lost me completely, and I was feeling uncomfortable, shifting in my seat. The farmer, sitting by the fire, must have noticed because he called out, ‘Mother! Are you still going on about Glaesir. Leave the youngster alone, will you. I told you I don’t believe there’s any harm in the animal, and if there is I can deal with it.’
The old woman made a sniff of disgust, got slowly to her feet, and moved off down the hall. I was left to myself.
‘Ignore her, young fellow,’ called the farmer. ‘And I wish you a safe journey wherever it is that you are going.’
‘Was the farmer’s name Thorodd?’ asked Snorri, who had been standing silently, listening to my account.
‘Yes, I think so,’ I answered.
‘He farms over at Karstad all right and there’s a young bull in his herd called Glaesir. It’s an animal you couldn’t miss, spotted, very handsome. Frisky too. Some people think the animal is inhabited by the spirit of another Thorodd, a man called Thorodd Twistfoot. I had several quarrels with him. The worst was about the right to cut timber in a small woodland he owned. He got in such a rage that he went home and had a fit. Next morning they found him dead, sitting in his chair. They buried him twice. After the first time, when his ghost began plaguing his old farm, they dug up the corpse and shifted him to a hilltop, where they buried him under a big cairn. Then, when that didn’t work and his ghost kept reappearing, they dug him up again. The grave diggers found that the body had not rotted away but just turned black and stank, so they burned the corpse to ashes on a pyre. Some say that the ash blew onto a nearby beach and was licked up by a cow feeding near the shoreline. The cow later gave birth to two calves, a heifer and a young bull calf. That’s the one they call Glaesir. The Thorodd you met has a mother with second sight, or so it’s said, and ever since that bull calf got on the farm, she’s been wanting someone to kill it, saying that it will do terrible damage. Did you see the calf? He’s a young prize bull now. Quite remarkable colouring.’
‘No, I left the farm at first light next morning,’ I replied. ‘I wanted to get on my way early, and I didn’t see Thorodd’s mother again. I expect she was still asleep when I left. And there was nobody about, except for a few farm servants. I don’t know anything about Glaesir. I just know that the farmer looked as if he had a serious injury to his side.’
Snorri was trying to assess what I had just told him. ‘Maybe you do have second sight,’ he said, ‘but it’s not quite in the usual way. I don’t know. You seem to have it only when you are with others who also possess the gift. Like a mirror or something. You are young, so perhaps that will change. Either the sight will grow stronger or you will lose it altogether.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t have the sight, though some people think I do,’ he said. ‘My common sense tells me what is likely to happen, and the result is that many believe that I can see into the future or into men’s minds.’
Whether Snorri believed I had the sight or not, from that moment onward he treated me as something more than a itinerant farm labourer. At the end of the day’s work I was seated not among the farmhands down the far end of the hall, but alongside Snorri’s large and rather boisterous family, and when he had free time – which was not often because he was such a busy man – he would continue with my education in the lore of the Old Gods. He was more knowledgeable in these matters than either Tyrkir or Thorvall the Hunter had been, and he had a more elegant way of explaining the intricacies of the Old Ways. Also, whenever Snorri went into the Thor temple, he expected me to go with him.
Such visits were surprisingly frequent. Local farmers came to pay their respects to Snorri as the local chieftain and ask his advice, and they spent hour after hour in the evenings, talking politics, negotiating land rights, discussing the weather and fishing prospects, and mulling over whatever news reached us via travellers or traders. But when the talking was over, and especially if the farmers had brought their families, Snorri would beckon to me and we would all walk across the farmyard to the temple shed, and there Snorri would hold a small ceremony to Thor. He would put on the iron arm ring, say prayers over the altar stone and present to Thor the small offerings brought by the farmers. Cheese, chickens, haunches of dried lamb were placed on the altar, or hung from nails driven into the ring of surrounding wooden pillars. These pillars were tied with ribbons brought by the farmers’ wives, together with scraps of children’s clothing, milk teeth wrapped in packets, embroidered belts and other personal articles. Frequently the women would ask Snorri to look into the future for them, to prophesy what would happen, what marriages their children would make, and so forth. At such moments Snorri would catch my eye and look slightly embarrassed. As he had warned me, his prophesies were largely based on common sense. For example, when a mother asked whom her young son would marry I noticed that Snorri often identified – though not exactly by name – the daughter of a neighbour who, like as not, had visited the temple the previous week and asked exactly the same question about her young daughter. I never found out whether any, or all, of Snorri’s matrimonial prophecies came true, but the fact that the parents thenceforward nurtured the probability of a particular match for their offspring must have helped to bring it about.
However, on one particular occasion which I will always remember, Snorri behaved differently. A small group of farmers – there were about eight of them – had come to see him because they were worried about the weather for the hay harvest. That year there had been little sunshine and the hay growth was exceptionally slow. But eventually the long grass in the meadows was ready to be cut and dried, and everyone was waiting for a spell of good dry weather to do the work. But the days continued cloudy and damp, and the farmers were increasingly worried. If they did not get in their hay crop, they would be obliged to slaughter many of their cattle for lack of winter feed. A bad hay crop, or worse, no hay crop at all, would be a major misfortune. So they came to Snorri to ask him to intercede on their behalf because, of course, Thor controls the weather. Snorri led the farmers into the temple building and I went with them. Once inside, Snorri made offerings, rather more lavish than usual, and called on Thor, using the fine rolling phrases and archaic Norse vocabulary which are a mark of respect to the Gods. But then Snorri did something more. He called forward the farmers to stand around the central altar stone. Next he made them form a circle and join hands. Snorri himself was a member of the circle and so was I. Then Snorri called out to the men and they began to dance. It was the simplest of the stamping dances of the Norsemen, an uncomplicated rhythm, with a double step to the left, then a pause, a step back, a pause, and then two steps more to
the left, their clasped hands swinging out the rhythm. The men swayed down and then arched back at the end of each double step.
As I joined in, I had a strange feeling of familiarity. Somewhere I had heard that rhythm before. For a moment I could not recall when and where. Then I remembered the sound that I had heard while wandering in the forest of Vinland, the strange rhythmic sound that had led me to the shelter of branches with the sick Skraeling inside, and the older man chanting over his body and shaking his rattle. It was the same cadence that I now heard from the Icelandic farmers. Only the words were different. Snorri began a refrain, repeating over and over the same phrases, and this time he was not speaking archaic Norse. He was using a language that I could not recognise. Again there seemed to be something distantly familiar about it. Several of the farmers must have known the same spell language because they began to chant in time with Snorri. Eventually, after nine circuits of the altar, left-handed against the sun, we stopped our dance, straightened up and Snorri turned to face north-west across the altar. He raised his arms, repeated another phrase in the same strange language, and then the spell session was over.
The next four days, as it happened, were bright and sunny. There was a perfect drying wind and we gathered and stacked the hay. Whether or not this was because we had performed our nature-spell I have no idea, but every farmer in the Westfjords managed to save his hay for the winter, and I am sure that each man’s faith in Thor increased. Later, at a discreet moment, I dared to ask Snorri whether he thought the fine weather was the result of our incantations, and he was non-committal. ‘I had a feeling in my bones that we were finally due for a dry spell,’ he said. ‘There was a change in the air, the moon was entering a new phase and the birds began to fly higher. Maybe the dry weather was already on its way and our appeal to Thor only meant that we were not disappointed.’
‘What was the language you used when we were dancing in a circle?’ I asked him.
He looked at me pensively. ‘Under other circumstances you would know it already,’ he said. ‘It is the language of many spells and incantations, though I only know a few words of it. It is the native language of your mother, the language of the Irish.’
Four days later a messenger arrived from Karstad to ask Snorri to officiate at a burial. Farmer Thorodd was dead. During the haymaking on his farm, the young bull Glaesir had been kept confined to a stall as he was troublesome, and the labourers needed to mow the home meadows without being disturbed by the aggressive young bull. As soon as the hay was put up in haycocks, they had let Glaesir out on the stubble. First they took the precaution of tying a heavy block of wood over his horns to restrain and tire him. Glad to be free, the animal had charged up and down the largest of the home meadows. Within moments he had shaken off the block of wood and, something he had never done before, he began assaulting the carefully stacked haycocks. Ramming his horns into the stacks, he shook his head and scattered the hay in all directions. The farm workers were angry to see their work destroyed, but too fearful of the young bull to interfere. Instead they had sent word to Thorodd at the main house. He arrived, took one look at the situation and seized a stout wooden pole. Then he vaulted the low wall into the paddock and advanced on Glaesir.
Previously Glaesir had shown a unique respect for Thorodd. Alone of all the people on the farm, Thorodd was able to handle the young bull. But this time Glaesir had dropped his head and charged the farmer. Thorodd stood his ground and, as the bull closed with him, brought the heavy wooden pole down with a massive thump, striking Glaesir on the crown of the head right between the horns. The blow stopped Glaesir in his tracks and the animal stood there shaking his head in a daze. The force of the blow had broken the wooden pole in half, so Thorodd – confident of his mastery over the bull – strode forward and grasped Glaesir by the head, seeking to twist the horns and bring the animal to his knees. For a few moments the tussle went on. Then Thorodd’s foot slipped on the short cut grass, and he lost his purchase. Glaesir jerked backwards and gave his head a shake which partially broke Thorodd’s grip. Thorodd managed to keep one hand on the left horn and, stepping behind the bull, boldly vaulted onto Glaesir’s back, putting his body right forward on the animal’s neck, intending that his weight – for Thorodd was a big, heavy man – would eventually subdue the young bull. Glaesir bolted down the field, swerving and twisting from side to side in an attempt to dislodge the burden on his back. The bull was quick and agile and stronger than Thorodd had anticipated. An unlucky leap, a change of direction in mid-air, unseated Thorodd and he began to slip to one side. Glaesir must have sensed the change, for he turned his head, placed a horn under Thorodd and got enough leverage to throw the farmer up into the air. As Thorodd fell back down towards the animal, Glaesir raised his head and the farmer fell straight onto one of the horns, which pierced his gut on the left side, low down. The horn drove deep. Thorodd fell off the bull and lay in a heap, as Glaesir, suddenly quiet, trotted off and began grazing. The farmhands ran into the field and picked up their master. They placed Thorodd on a hurdle and carried him up to the farmhouse. As they reached the door, Thorodd insisted on getting off the hurdle and walking into his own house upright. He lurched into the hall, the right side of his shirt drenched in blood. That night he died.
When the messenger finished his story, Snorri dismissed him, and waved away the small crowd who had gathered to hear the gruesome tale. Then he beckoned to me to follow him and led me to the small sleeping closet at the side of the hall. It was unoccupied and the only place where he could speak to me privately.
‘Thorgils,’ he asked, ‘how many people did you tell about your vision of Thorodd in his blood-stained shirt?’
‘No one apart from yourself.’ I replied. ‘I am sure that Thorodd’s mother saw the blood too, but we were the only people to see it.’
‘Let me give you some advice,’ Snorri went on. ‘Don’t ever tell anyone else that you saw Thorodd’s blood-stained shirt before his accident happened. In fact, I advise you not to talk to people whenever your second sight foretells anything that can be interpreted in a sinister way, particularly if there is any hint of death in it. People become fearful and nervous. Sometimes they think that a seer can cause an event to happen, and that once a seer has seen a vision, he or she shapes the future to make the vision come true, and they do this to enhance their reputations as visionaries. When ordinary people start to think like this, and some tragedy does occur, things can get very ugly. Fear leads to violence. People take revenge or try to remove the source of their fear by hurting the seer.’
‘But aren’t seers and volva and seidrmanna respected?’ I asked, ‘I thought that it was forbidden to spill their blood.’
‘So it is. The last time that the people of this area mistrusted a magician, it was a man named Kolmek. He was another half-Irish like yourself, just a small farmer, who could see portents and make forecasts. A gang of his neighbours grabbed him one evening, pulled a sack over his head and bound it so tight that he choked to death. That didn’t spill a drop of his blood. Nor did the way they dealt with Kolmek’s wife. They accused her of black witchcraft. They carried her to a bog, tied a heavy stone round her feet and dropped her in.’
Already reticent about my dreams and second sight, I made a silent promise to myself that only in the most extreme circumstances would I disclose what my second sight revealed to me and not to others. Also I began to suspect that my flashes of second sight came from Odinn himself and, like all of Odinn’s gifts, they could cause both help and harm.
TWELVE
HALLBERA WAS SNORRI’S fourth daughter. She had light freckles on healthy pale skin, rounded arms with a light fuzz of golden down, blue-grey eyes, blonde hair worn long and a face that was perfectly symmetrical. In short, she was the epitome of a normal, wholesome, good-looking Norse maiden. She adored her brothers, of whom she had eight, and she got on well with her sisters, of whom she also had eight. Indeed, if any proof is needed that Snorri Godi was more pagan than Christi
an, it is the fact that he had one official wife, and a second wife, whom he never married but made clear was his second consort. And he treated all their children equally. Hallbera’s background in such a large and well-to-do family could scarcely have been more different from mine as an impoverished newcomer living on the fringes of her father’s household. There were many times when I felt overawed by the energy and self-confidence of the Snorrissons and Snorradottirs. But I was smitten. I did everything I could to stay in her father’s favour so that I could be close to this honey-gold girl. For the first time in my life I was in love.
Quite why Hallbera accepted my infatuation is something I have never been able to explain fully. There was really no reason for her to take up with such a modest prospect as myself. The only explanation that I can find is that she was bored and perhaps curious as to how to manage the opposite sex, and I was conveniently on hand to experiment with. There was nothing improper about our relationship. Hallbera and I began to meet quietly, exchange kisses and indulge in some gentle cuddling. These physical contacts made my head spin and I would feel weak for half an hour afterwards, though Hallbera never seemed to experience similar surges of emotions. She was always so robust and crisp and energetic. She was capable of emerging from an embrace, suddenly announcing that she had promised to help one of her brothers in some task, and go bouncing off in her athletic stride, her blonde hair swinging, leaving me dazed with emotion and completely baffled. I am sure that Snorri guessed at the relationship between his daughter and myself, and there is no doubt that it was known to Hallbera’s mother. But neither of them chose to interfere because there were so many other children and more important matters to occupy their attention.