by Tim Severin
‘Birch bark is not strong enough to withstand the snows and gales, nor warm enough,’ Rassa explained. ‘For the next few weeks we will use a single layer of deerskin. Later, when it gets really cold, we’ll add extra layers to keep in the warmth.’
His own family consisted of his wife, a married daughter with her husband and their small baby, and a second daughter who seemed vaguely familiar. Then I realised that she had been with the hunting party at the vuodman. With all the Sabme dressed in their deerskin blouses, leggings and caps, it was difficult to tell men from women, and I had not expected a girl to be among the hunters. Nor, during the previous night spent in Rassa’s tent, had I noticed that he had a second daughter because the Sabme removed only their shoes before they lay down and they slept almost fully clothed. I had crawled into Rassa’s tent to find the place half filled with smoke. There was a fireplace in the centre, and the chimney hole in the apex of the tent had been partly covered over because several fish were hanging to cure from a pole projecting over the fire. Staying close to the ground was the only place where it was possible to breathe freely. Arranged around the outer edge of the tent were the family possessions and these became our pillows when we all lay down to sleep on deerskins over a carpet of fresh birch twigs. There was no furniture of any kind.
Rassa asked me to walk with him to the river bank. I noticed that all the other Sabme stayed well back, watching us. The water was shallow, fast flowing over gravel and rocks. Rassa had a fish spear in one hand and a birch-bark fish basket in the other. Without pausing, he waded out to a large, slick boulder which projected above the water. Rassa scanned the surface of the river for a few moments, then stabbed with his fish spear, successfully spiking a small fish about the length of my hand. He carefully removed the fish from the barbs, knocked its head against the rock and laid the dead fish on the rock. Next he placed the fish basket on his head, and spoke some words in the Sabme tongue, apparently addressing the rock itself. Scooping up water in the palm of his hand, he poured it onto the rock, and bowed three times. With the curved knife which every Sabme wore dangling from his belt, he scraped some scales from the fish. Cradling the scales in the palm of his hand he returned to the camp, where he distributed them to the man of each family. Only then did the siida begin to prepare their nets and fishing lines and approach the water. ‘The rock is a sieidde,’ Rassa explained to me, ‘the spirit of the river. I asked fishing luck for every family. I promised that each family that catches fish will make an offering to the sieidde. They will do this at the end of every day that we stay here, and will do so whenever we return to this place in the future.’
‘Why did you give fish scales only to the men?’ I asked.
‘It is bad luck for a woman to approach the sieidde of the river. Ill luck for the siida and dangerous for the woman herself. It can harm her future children.’
‘But didn’t I see your daughter with the hunters at the vuodman. If the women can hunt, why can’t they fish?’
‘That is the way it has always been. My daughter Allba hunts because she’s as good as many of the men when it comes to the chase, if not better. They can hardly keep up with her. She’s quick and nimble even in dense forest. She was always like that, from when she was a little child. Her only fault is that she likes to talk all the time, a constant chatter. That’s why my wife and I named her after the little bird that hops around in summer in the bushes and never stops saying “tik-a-tik”.’
With every sentence, Rassa was strengthening my desire to stay among the Sabme if they would allow it. I wanted to learn more of Rassa’s seidr and to honour my promise to Grettir by sharing in their way of life. Remembering the store of fish hooks in my trade pack, I went to fetch them and handed my entire stock to Rassa. He accepted the gift almost casually, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. ‘We make our own fish hooks of wood or bone. But metal ones are far better,’ he said as he began to distribute them among the different families.
‘Do you share out everything?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘Not everything. Each person and each family knows what is theirs – clothes, dogs, knives, cooking gear. But they will lend or give that item to someone else if it meets a need. Not to do so would be selfish. We have learned that only by helping one another can we survive as a siida.’
‘Then what about the other siida? What happens if you both want to fish on the same river or hunt boazo in the same area of forest?’
‘Each siida knows its own territory,’ he answered. ‘Its members have hunted or fished in certain places down through the generations. We respect that custom.’
‘But if you do have a dispute over, say, a good fishing place when there is a famine, do you fight for your rights?’
Rassa looked mildly shocked. ‘We never fight. We use all our energy in finding food and shelter, making sure that our children grow up healthy, honouring our ancestors. If another siida is starving and needs a particular fishing spot or hunting ground,then they ask us and if possible we agree to lend it to them until their lives have improved. Besides, our land is so broad that there is room enough for all.’
‘I find that strange,’ I told him. ‘Where I come from, a man will fight to defend what he owns. If a neighbour tries to take his land, or a stranger comes to seize his property, we fight and try to drive him away.’
‘For the Sabme that’s not necessary,’ said the noaide. ‘If someone invades our territory, we hide or we run away. We wait until the winter comes and the foreigners have to leave. We know that they are not fit to stay.’
He gestured towards the clothes I was wearing – woollen shirt and loose trousers, a thick travelling cloak and the same ill-fitting leather shoes which had given me blisters earlier. ‘The foreigners dress like you. They don’t know any better. That is why I’ve asked my wife and Allba to prepare clothes more suitable for the winter. They’ve never made clothes so big before, but they will have them ready for you in a few days.’
The unexpected benefit of Rassa’s request for clothes that would fit me was that it silenced, temporarily, the constant chatter of his daughter Allba. She talked without pause, mostly to her mother, who went about her work quietly, scarcely bothering to reply. I had no idea what Allba was saying, but did not doubt that I was often the topic of her conversation. Now, as she sat with her mother stitching my winter wardrobe, Allba’s mouth was too full of deer sinew for her to keep up her constant chatter. Every thread in the garment had to be ripped with teeth from dried sinew taken from a deer’s back or legs, then chewed to soften the fibre and rolled into thread. While the women chewed and stitched, I helped Rassa prepare the family meals. One of the novel features of life among the Sabme was that the men did the cooking.
It must have been in about my fourth week with the siide that two events occurred which changed my situation. The first event was anticipated, but the second was a complete surprise. I woke up one morning at the usual time, just after first light, and as I lay on my deerskin rug I noticed that the interior of the tent was much lighter than usual. I rolled over and peered at the small gap between the edge of the tent and the ground. The daylight was shining through the gap so brightly that it made me squint. Quietly I got up, pushed aside the door flap, and stepped out. The entire camp was shrouded in a covering of heavy snow. The first great snowfall had come upon us in the night. Everything we had left outside the tents – firewood, fish baskets, the nets, the sleeping dogs – were humps in the snow. Even the six boazo had snowy coats. Winter had arrived.
That was the day that Rassa’s wife and daughter finished my deerskin garments. There was much mirth among the Sabme as they came to our tent to see me being shown how to put them on. First came a deerskin shirt, worn with the fur against my skin, then close-fitting deerskin trousers, which were awkward to pull on though they had slits at the ankles, and a pair of hand-sewn shoes. These had the characteristic turned-up toes but no heels. ‘For when you wear skis,’ Rassa explained. He was teasin
g out some dried sedge grass by separating the strands, then arranging them into two soft padded squares. ‘Here put these in your shoes,’ he said, ‘You’ll find them better than any woollen socks. They’ll keep your feet warmer, and when they get wet they’ll dry out in moments if you hold them near the fire.’ Finally he helped me into the long Sabme deerskin blouse. It reached down to my knees. A broad belt held the garment tight around my waist. When I took a few experimental steps, the sensation was quite different from any other clothes I had ever worn before – my body warm and protected, my legs free.
The second event took place on the night after the snowfall. When I entered the family tent, I found a second deerskin had been left on my usual sleeping place. As the weather had turned much colder, I pulled the deerskin over me as a blanket when I lay down. I was on the verge of falling asleep, when I felt the edge of the deerskin lift and someone crawl in beside me. There was enough light from the fire’s embers to see that my visitor was Rassa’s daughter, Allba. I could see the gleam of the firelight in her eyes and her face had a mischievous look. She placed her mouth against my ear and said softly, ‘Tik-a-tik,’ then giggled and snuggled down beside me. I did not know what to do. Close by slept her father and mother, her sister and brother-in-law. I feared Rassa’s reaction should he wake up. For several moments I lay there, pretending to be asleep. Then Allba’s hand began to explore. Very quietly she loosened my Sabme belt and removed my leggings. Then she slid inside my Sabme blouse and nestled against me. She was naked.
I woke up to find that I had overslept. Allba lay curled up within my outstretched arm and the tent was empty. Rassa and the other members of his family had already begun their day. I could hear them moving about outside. Hurriedly I began to pull on my clothes, and this woke Allba. Her eyes were pale blue-grey, a colour sometimes found among the Sabme, and she gazed up at me without the slightest trace of embarrassment. She looked utterly content. She wriggled across to where her clothes lay and, a moment later, she was dressed and ducking out of the tent flap to join her parents. Slowly I followed, wondering what reception I would receive.
Rassa looked up at me as I emerged, and seemed utterly unconcerned. ‘You know how to use these, I hope,’ was all he said. He was wiping the snow off two long flat lathes of wood.
‘I rode on a ski when I was a child, but only a few times, and mostly as a game,’ I answered.
‘You’ll need to know more than that. Allba can show you.’
It dawned on me that Rassa was taking my relationship with his second daughter as normal. Later I was to discover that he actively approved of it. The Sabme thought it natural for a man and woman to sleep together if both were willing. They considered it a sensible arrangement if it is satisfactory for both partners. For a while I worried that Allba was anticipating that our relationship would become a permanent bond. But later, after she had instructed me in a few words of the Sabme language and I had taught her to speak some Norse, she laughed at me when I expressed my concern.
‘How can one expect something like that to go on for ever? That’s how the settled people think. It would be like staying in one spot permanently. The Sabme believe that in life, the seasons change and it is better to travel than to stay.’ I began to say something more, but she laid a finger on my lips and added, ‘I could have come to your bed as an act of kindness, as you are the guest in my tent. But that is not why I joined you. I did so because I wanted you and you have not disappointed me.’
Allba was the remedy for an ailment that I scarcely knew I suffered. My shabby treatment at the hands of Gunnhildr, my disenchantment with Aelfgifu, and my youthful heartbreaks had left me disillusioned with the opposite sex. I viewed women with caution, fearing either disappointment or some unforeseen calamity. Allba cured all that. She was so full of life, so active, so natural and uncomplicated. In love-making she was skilled as well as lustful, and I would have been a dullard not to have revelled in my good fortune. Beneath those layers of deerskin clothes, she was very seductive. She had small, fine bones which made her seem as fragile and lightweight as the little snow bird after which she had been named. Constant exercise while hunting and skiing meant that her body was in perfect condition, with slim shoulders and hips. Tiny, high, arched feet gave her a quick, graceful step, and I was roused to discover that the skin of her body and limbs was a smooth dark ivory in contrast to the dark tanned elfin face, its lines etched by snow glare and the wind. Although neither of us became hostage to the other, I think Allba relished our relationship. She was proud of my role as a foreign noaide. For my part I was entranced by her. In short, I fell in love with Allba and my love was unfettered and free.
She taught me how to travel on skis. Not as well as any Sabme, of course. The Sabme learn the skill of travelling across the country on wooden boards as soon as they learn to walk, and no one can really acquire their expertise. Just as the Norse are the finest ship handlers and shipbuilders, so the Sabme excel at snow travel. Nature seems to have designed them for it. Their light weight ensures that they glide across snow that would crack beneath a heavier burden, and their agility means they can thread their way across broken terrain that would thwart a clumsier man. They do not use the ski as the Norse do, riding a single board, with a stick to steer and propel themselves downhill or across a frozen surface. The Sabme attach a board to each foot and can stride at the speed of a running man. They keep up the pace for as long as daylight will allow them. Where Norse craftsmen know how to shape a hull or cut and stitch a sail to best advantage, the Sabme know how to select and shape the skis that bear them, birch wood when the snow is soft, pine when the surface hardens; every ski – they are unequal in length – is hand-crafted to suit the style and size of the user. In the end I learned to travel on the wooden lathes well enough to keep up with siida when we moved, or to travel slowly alongside when Rassa wanted to show me some remote sacred place. But I could never match Allba and the other hunters. They moved so confidently across the snow that they could run down a wolf and get its pelt. For hour after hour they would pursue their prey across the snow, the animal tiring as it leaped through the drifts over which the hunters glided effortlessly. Finally, when the exhausted wolf turned snarling on its pursuers, the leading Sabme would ski close enough to spear or knife the beast to death.
FIFTEEN
ALLBA WORE AROUND her neck an amulet in the shape of a bird. She never took it off, even when we were making love. The bird was her companion, she said, and she asked why I did not wear my own. As a man I should carry it on a cord looped round from my neck and under my arm, so that the talisman hung within my armpit. ‘Are you so brave that you risk travelling alone?’ she asked. ‘Even my father does not do that.’ I thought she was talking of a good-luck charm and I made a joke of it, telling her that I had a dozen talismans in my trade pack and was well guarded. It was one of the few times I saw Allba angry. She told me not to play the fool.
When I asked Rassa why his daughter had reacted with such intensity, he asked if I remembered where I had first joined the siida. ‘The fishing had been very bad in that place,’ he reminded me. ‘The fish had gone away. They were still there, but they were not there. We had to move to where another sieidde would accept our sacrifices.’
‘How could the fish be there and not there?’
‘They had gone away to their own saivo river. I could have followed them, or sent my companion to plead with the water spirit who sent them there. But if the water spirit was still angry, the fish might not have returned.’
The saivo, according to Rassa, is a world which lies alongside our own. It is a mirror of our world, yet more substantial and in it live the spirits of the departed and the companions of the living. These companions come into our world to join us as wraiths and sometimes we can visit the saivo ourselves, but we need our guardian wraiths to guide and protect us.
‘Our companions are animals, not people,’ Rassa said, putting aside the wooden bowl he had been carving. ‘Every Sabme has
one – whether it is a fox, a lynx, a bird or some other animal. When we are very young the drum tells our parents which creature is to be our saivo companion through life. Occasionally the wrong choice is made and then the child gets sick or has an accident. So we ask the drum again and it indicates a new companion, one that will be more suitable. Since Allba was a baby her saivo wraith is the bird whose image she wears.’
‘Among my people,’ I said, ‘there are fylga, the fetches. I have seen them myself at times of death. They are our other-persons from another world. When they appear, they resemble us directly. Do you mean that I have an animal companion as well?’
Rassa reached across to where his drum lay on the ground. It was always close to his hand. He placed the arpa on the taut drum skin, and without even closing his eyes or singing his chant, he gave a single hard rap on the drum with his forefinger. The arpa leaped, struck the wooden rim and bounced back. It landed on the outline figure of a bear.
I chose to doubt him. ‘How do I know that my companion is a bear?’
‘It was decided for you at the time of your birth.’
‘But I was born on an island in the ocean where there are no bears.’
‘Perhaps a bear entered the lives of your parents.’
I thought for a moment. ‘I was told that when my father first met my mother, he was on his way back from a voyage to Norway to deliver a captive polar bear. But he had handed over the bear many weeks before he met my mother, and anyhow the bear died soon afterwards.’
‘You will find that the bear died about the time you were born,’ said Rassa firmly. ‘The bear’s spirit has protected you since then. That is your good fortune. The bear is the most powerful of all creatures. It has the intelligence of one man and the strength of nine.’
Before the sun vanished below the horizon for winter, Rassa suggested that if I wanted to know more about the saivo I should enter it myself. I hesitated. I told him that my experience of the other world had been in brief glimpses, through second sight, usually in the company of others who also possessed the ability, and that sometimes the experience had been disturbing and unpleasant. I said I was doubtful that I had the courage to enter the spirit world deliberately and alone. He assured me that my spirit companion would protect me, and that he himself could assist me to pass through the barrier that separated us from the saivo. ‘Your second sight shows that you already live close enough to the saivo to see through the veil that divides it from us. I am only proposing that you pass through the veil entirely and discover what lies on the other side.’