Part 2 (2/2)

”And why were you not sent back then, when your services were no longer of use?”

And Olaf did not reply, for indeed he did not know. Finally he said, ”Sira, I was but a child myself at that time, and Ivar Bardarson did not send for me.”

”What did you do then, my Olaf, for fourteen years, at Gunnars Stead?”

”Sira, I tended the cows and helped around the farmstead,” said Olaf.

Now the bishop turned away and walked across the room, and then returned, and he said, ”Asgeir Gunnarsson was a man who did as he pleased,” but he said it in a low, angry voice, not as Asgeir had said it of himself, with a shout and a grin. Olaf muttered that Asgeir had made him his foster son after the death of his mother, but the bishop made no reply to this, and Olaf wasn't sure he had heard.

The bishop now turned away again, and stood with his back to Olaf, regarding the chair that sat in one corner of his chamber, and Olaf saw that this was a magnificent chair, with a triangular seat and figures carved into the back and arms, but his eyes could not make out the figures, they had grown so unused to the dim light of indoors. ”There is such a great need of priests to do the work of G.o.d,” said the bishop, ”as there has never been since the days of the Apostles.” He spun around, and Olaf stepped back. ”For the earth is ravaged and decimated by the Great Death, so that the see of Nidaros itself-well, once, my Olaf, there were three hundred priests there, lifting their prayers to Heaven and adding figures in the books.” He smiled briefly. ”Know you how many there are these days? How many there were before myself and Sira Jon and Sira Pall Hallvardsson and Sira Petur were ripped away?” Olaf shook his head. ”Three dozen or fewer. Indeed, up every fjord in Norway whole parishes have been lost, save only a child found in the woods sometimes. Other times whole tracts of land have been swept clean by death.” He looked Olaf up and down, and went on. ”Now is the time for men such as Petur, who are willing but untrained, to come forward and devote themselves to G.o.d's work, or men such as Pall Hallvardsson, foreigners and orphans, to leave those they love, lands and people, and go to where they are needed. We ourself expected to live out our years in Stavanger, close to the district of our birth, but now we are across the northern sea, at Gardar.” Olaf nodded.

The bishop returned to his seat and smiled at Olaf. He opened his eyes wide and they protruded suddenly, causing Olaf to step back another half step. ”Even so,” said the bishop, ”the wonderful mercy of our Lord is such that it provides materials for men to work with in these black days, among the farthest waves of the western ocean.” He looked down again at the page in his book and read from it what was written there, perhaps by Ivar Bardarson himself. ”Olaf Finnbogason,” he said, ”came to us late as a student, but he reads very well and is learning to write in a large but careful hand.” Now the bishop really smiled. Not at Olaf, but to himself, as a man smiles who is making a barrel, when he fits the last stave into place. ”Who better than you, my Olaf,” he went on, ”to bring along the little boys while you yourself study for your long-awaited ordination?”

”Indeed, Sira, I have done no reading in many years. It seems to me that my eyes have grown used to distances. Also, my hands are roughened from much farm work.” He spoke in his usual muttering growl, and the bishop seemed not to hear him, or, perhaps, to understand him. After a brief time, Olaf said, more loudly, ”Sira, as a boy, G.o.d gave me the gift of a prodigious memory, so that when a pa.s.sage was read aloud to me, I could repeat it word for word, but I could make little of the writing, nor did I understand what I was saying if the pa.s.sage was in Latin.”

Now the bishop looked at him, and said, ”The priest is the mouthpiece of G.o.d, and the Lord speaks through him, although he himself does not understand what the Lord is saying. The Word is a wine that does not spill even when the cup is broken.” His eyelids dropped over his eyes and he looked more kindly at Olaf, saying in a softer voice, ”You may trust the Lord to inspire you.”

Thus Olaf was dismissed, but he did not go. He said, loudly, ”Sira, I am betrothed to Margret Asgeirsdottir, and we have been together as husband and wife.”

Now the bishop looked up, surprised, and said that he had not heard this before, but indeed, he had not spoken to Nikolaus, the priest of Undir Hofdi church, in some weeks. Olaf replied that the betrothal had not yet been announced to Nikolaus, but only to Gunnar, as master of Gunnars Stead, and to Ingrid, out of thought of her great age. At this, the bishop stood and approached Olaf and his eyes blazed out of their sockets like stars and sought Olaf's own. Olaf settled himself on his legs, as he would to curb a restive bull, and after a moment the bishop turned away, dismissing Olaf to his cell and asking him to send in Sira Jon.

On the day of Olaf's departure, Margret Asgeirsdottir went up into the mountains above Vatna Hverfi, and Gunnar sat with his wife Birgitta in the sunlight in front of the farmstead and told her stories.

After milking the cows, Maria and Gudrun sat themselves nearby, and listened to Gunnar along with Birgitta. Once in a while one of them or Gunnar himself would get up and carry something to Ingrid. After telling his tales, Gunnar lay back in the gra.s.s and fell asleep, while the two servingwomen went about their work in the storehouse and the dairy. Birgitta Lavransdottir removed her headdress, which she found heavy and uncomfortable, and began to pull her silver comb through her hair, which was blonde, though darker than Gunnar's, and hung to her waist. While Gunnar slept, she braided and bound it in various ways, getting up now and then to look at her reflection in a barrel of water which stood under the eave of the house.

At this time, just after her marriage, Birgitta Lavransdottir was only fourteen winters old, but she was well known among the folk who lived around Hvalsey Fjord for being outspoken and confident in her opinions, for indeed, Lavrans was a wasteful man who had been unable to indulge his only child in much else besides her opinions. On such things as the colors of her clothing or the arrangement of her hair and belongings she was very definite, and she offered notions about much else besides that sometimes made men laugh behind their hands, and Lavrans with them. Everyone around Hvalsey agreed, however, that Birgitta was extremely sharp-sighted and keen of hearing, and she knew about the coming of visitors and the migrations of birds and fish before anyone else did. People thought of these things later, after Birgitta related what she had seen on the homefield at Gunnars Stead while the servingwomen were at their work and Gunnar was sleeping beside her.

The first thing Birgitta noticed was a circle of yellow and white flowers at some distance, on a little hump of the field. Although it was late in the season, almost the beginning of the winter half year, these appeared to be anemones and goldthread. The sun shone full upon them. Then Birgitta beheld a woman in a white gown and white headdress walking among the anemones, and at first she thought that this was Margret, returning from her sojourn, but she recollected that Margret wore a brown cloak, and also this woman was not carrying a bag of any type. At this moment, Birgitta looked away, at Gunnar, to see if he might be waking up, and when she looked back she saw that the woman carried in her arms a child of about one winter's age, also clothed in white. As Birgitta watched, the woman lifted the child to her face and kissed it, then set it among the flowers on the gra.s.s. The child laughed, then stood up carefully and staggered forward with its arms in the air. At this, Birgitta thought the pair must be from Ketils Stead, or another of the neighboring farms, for she was new in the district and had not yet met everyone. But the strange thing was that as the child staggered and stumbled forward, more anemones and goldthread sprang up at its feet, and the bright sunlight followed.

Just then Maria called from the dairy house to ask Birgitta to find her something. Birgitta did not catch what this thing was, and, distracted, she looked away. When she looked back the mother and child were gone.

Soon enough Margret did return, and it was not until the household was seated at their evening meat that Birgitta, in her usual confident tones, related what she had seen in the homefield. And this was the first vision that came to Birgitta Lavransdottir of Gunnars Stead, who was later well known for having second sight.

On the morning of the third day after the departure of Olaf, Sira Jon and Pall Hallvardsson his colleague set out in the early morning from Gardar in the bishop's small boat. Both priests were big in the shoulders and good at rowing, and they glided swiftly through the waters of Einars Fjord, easily avoiding the ice that was beginning to form there. They landed at Undir Hofdi church and left their boat there with Nikolaus the Priest, then walked to Gunnars Stead, arriving well before mid-day. The folk at Gunnars Stead were only just rising, and Birgitta still wore her nightdress. Gunnar was with Ingrid, trying to induce her to taste a bit of sourmilk. Margret met the two priests at the door.

It did not seem to the two priests that she was surprised to see them, and from this Sira Pall Hallvardsson deduced that she knew what Olaf had communicated to the bishop, but then she began talking unaccountably, saying, ”Indeed, Sira Jon, each of the farm folk has looked carefully over the homefield, and found nothing, but you may ask the girl herself.”

Birgitta spoke in her usual confident tones. ”Whether you may see them now or not, the case is that there were anemones and goldthread in the homefield, first a ring of them, then a train of them, where the two walked.”

Sira Jon drew himself up and looked down upon the shorter woman, and said, ”What two were these, my child?”

Margret spoke. ”A mother and a child, and the babe was in a white s.h.i.+rt, and the mother was in a white cloak. But it is more likely, in my opinion, to have been Thora Bengtsdottir, who has twin daughters, and lives in this district.”

”My sister, it was no pair of twins that I saw,” said Birgitta, and she went away to put on her gown and her shoes. Sira Pall Hallvardsson looked at Sira Jon and saw that he had flushed to his hairline and that his hand that lay across the front of his robe trembled slightly. At once, Sira Jon said in a loud voice, ”I have heard of this before, three instances, indeed. And in Norway alone the Virgin has appeared to young girls who were known to friends of mine. One of these girls lived on a farm in the Trondelag, and two of them in Jaemtland. And these flowers, how they appeared, that is a mark of this miracle. These spring flowers. This girl in the Trondelag picked wild strawberries out of the snow and carried them home, and these strawberries are kept carefully in a reliquary at her parish church.” Margret and Sira Pall Hallvardsson looked steadily at him, and he dropped his eyes, saying, ”Indeed, I have not seen them, but we may tramp about the homefield and gaze upon the spot, may we not?”

And so they did so, and the discussion of Olaf was slow in beginning. Sira Jon could not prevent himself from turning all talk to this vision, and he plagued Birgitta with questions until she went off to the dairy and closed herself inside. Finally, Pall Hallvardsson asked Margret outright, ”Is it true, my girl, that you are betrothed to Olaf Finnbogason?” And without a blink, Margret declared, ”Indeed, Sira Pall, this has been the case these four weeks.” The servingmaid, who had been standing behind Margret, picked up some cheeses and went out.

Now Pall Hallvardsson, with Sira Jon trailing after him, sought out Gunnar in the fields and asked whether this betrothal ”between Margret Asgeirsdottir and Olaf Finnbogason” had been duly announced to him, and Gunnar said, ”It seems to me that I have heard of this,” and he said these words steadily, without turning his gaze away from Pall Hallvardsson's face.

”When is the marriage to take place?” said Sira Jon, suddenly.

”Yuletide, when Lavrans Kollgrimsson will come for the feasting,” declared Gunnar, now gazing steadily at Sira Jon.

”Even so,” said Sira Jon, ”we must speak to Ingrid, to see if these tidings have been announced to her.”

Now Gunnar stepped in front of Sira Jon, where he had turned to go toward the steading, and he drew himself up and said, mildly, and with a smile on his face, ”My old nurse sleeps most of the day, and she is very weak, and you may not go to her.”

And Sira Jon glanced about himself, so that his eye fell on the spot of the homefield where the Virgin had walked with Her Child, and he did not press the point. Not long after this, the priests made ready to leave, because they wanted to finish their rowing back to Gardar before nightfall. Thus it was that Olaf returned to Gunnars Stead, but many people said that had Jon asked the question he was supposed to ask, which was, did Margret Asgeirsdottir know of any reason why Olaf Finnbogason should not continue his studies and be ordained a priest, Margret Asgeirsdottir would not have known how to answer.

When Olaf returned, he said only that there were fifty milk cows at Gardar, and they were fat and s.h.i.+ning and sleek, and that the horses had thick manes and big haunches, and that all the animals ate better than the priests.

At Yule, in the presence of Lavrans and his folk, the wedding of Margret Asgeirsdottir and Olaf Finnbogason was held. At this time Lavrans had much talk with his daughter Birgitta, and the result was that Birgitta moved her wedding gifts into Gunnar's bedcloset and crept under Hauk's great polar bear hide with her husband. Shortly after Yule Ingrid Magnusdottir died in her sleep, and she was buried beside Hauk Gunnarsson, her favorite nursling, at the south end of Undir Hofdi church.

In the spring, Olaf and the folk of Gunnars Stead had the reward of their thrifty fast, and that was the birth of seven calves, including a fine bull calf, and of nineteen lambs. Three of these Olaf traded to Magnus Arnason of Nes in Austervik for a young mare. This mare was of a peculiar color, grayish with a dark strip down the middle of her back. Olaf named her Mikla, and he was very fond of her.

Ketils Stead was now the largest farm in Vatna Hverfi district, for Erlend Ketilsson was a hardworking farmer and his wife, Vigdis, no less so. Five children lived with them: Thordis (Vigdis' daughter), Ketil Ragnarsson, who was known as the Unlucky, Geir Erlendsson, Kollbein Erlendsson, and Hallvard Erlendsson. Vigdis had also lost two others, both girls, shortly after birth. Vigdis had grown very stout by this time, and her daughter Thordis, it was said, looked as much like Vigdis had once looked as to be her twin sister. Only Ketil the Unlucky looked like Erlend's lineage. The rest were fair and st.u.r.dy, with wide round faces and large teeth like Vigdis, and they were considered by many to be a very handsome family. Thordis, although not Erlend's daughter, was much sought after, for Erlend had pledged her a large marriage portion, and anyone could see that, like Vigdis, she would be a healthy, hardworking wife. Since they lived near to the church, they attended every ma.s.s, and Thordis often wore a long reddish robe with a high tight waist of her own design and making. Many in the district spoke of how good a farmer Erlend had turned out to be, and many numbered themselves among Erlend's and Vigdis' friends, although nearly everyone agreed that the folk at Ketils Stead could be unusually petty and exacting.

During the summer after the marriage of Olaf and Margret, a large number of skraelings began lingering near Ketils Stead, for it was a prosperous farm overlooking the fjord. Almost every day skin boats of the skraelings could be seen on the water, or drawn up on the sh.o.r.e, and the skraelings would make fires and cook on Erlend's land. Once one of Erlend's good ewes was slaughtered and cooked by these skraelings, but more often they simply fished in the fjord. Erlend was one of the Greenlanders who had never learned any words of the skraeling tongue, and Vigdis knew nothing of it, either, so that when Erlend went out to meet them and order them from his land he could speak to them only as he would to another Norseman. They always greeted him gaily, with much friendliness and laughter, but always acted as if they hadn't the least understanding of what he was saying or what he meant. A few neighbors laughed at this, for it was well known that skraelings often understood much of the Norse tongue. Erlend's was not the only steading used in this way by the skraelings, but because they were so exacting, Vigdis and Erlend minded it more than anyone else, as if, folk said, something more than just the one ewe had been stolen from them every time the skraelings set foot upon their land.

In addition to this, one of the skraeling boys often followed Thordis around, sometimes from a distance and sometimes closer at hand, although if the girl were to wave him away and make faces, the boy would run off in seeming fright. Neighbors who knew something of the skraelings declared that these demons especially admired stoutness in a woman. And it was true that there were no women among the skraelings quite as imposing as Vigdis and Thordis.

Vigdis declared that demons could not be bribed, for, as she had heard from Nikolaus the Priest, if a demon thought that he could get something from you, he would always come back for more, until he had reduced your wealth to nothing. Therefore, said Vigdis, she would give the demons no milk and no cheese, as some of the farmsteads did, and she would receive none of their goods into her storehouses. A few Greenlanders had gotten into the habit of trading cloth and b.u.t.ter to the skraelings for hides and tusks that the Greenlanders could no longer get through hunting, since journeys to the Northsetur had ended. But Vigdis would have none of these.

Erlend said that the demons must be frightened away, and he persuaded Hafgrim Hafgrimsson of Eriks Fjord, who had married a skraeling woman, to come and talk to the skraelings for him. Hafgrim did this, and he told the skraelings that Erlend and Vigdis would injure or kill anyone found on Ketils Stead thereafter, and for a day or so the skraelings stayed away, but then they returned, like maggots to a rotting carcase, and of course Erlend had no power to have them killed, because the Greenlanders had few weapons at this time, and had fallen far from the warrior days of Erik the Red or Egil Skallagrimsson and had little prowess in battle.

Erlend's already irritable nature was not improved by the summer's difficulties with the skraelings, and when, in the autumn, they departed as mysteriously as they had come, he was not made any more pleasant by their absence. And one day in the autumn, Mikla, the new mare from Gunnars Stead, was found in Erlend's horsefield with his stallion. Erlend determined that the mare was in season, and when he led the horse back to Gunnars Stead, he demanded of Gunnar the payment of two good lambs for the breeding, for, he said, a foal by his stallion would be better than any horse Gunnar had, and it was right that Gunnar should pay well for the privilege. At this Gunnar laughed and said, ”Neither Ketil Erlendsson nor Erlend Ketilsson paid Thorleif for the breeding of Ketil the Unlucky, and I would follow the same rule. Unruly mares who stray get to keep what they find.” Erlend was little pleased with this reply, and came toward Gunnar as if to strike him, but then Olaf appeared nearby, in the doorway of the dairy, and Erlend stepped back, saying, ”After all, there will be time enough at the Thing to discuss the matter.” Gunnar's remark went around the district, and folk considered it neatly said. But men cajoled Erlend into dropping his suit before the spring, because in that time breeding arrangements between farms were quite informal, and Erlend's horse was not considered such a good horse as to deserve payment for his services. Nonetheless, the ill feeling between the two farms, which had seemed to subside a little, now flourished again, and it was a bad business.

In this autumn, Gizur the lawspeaker of Brattahlid died. He was very old, and left no children, and so at the Thing the Greenlanders chose Osmund Thordarson, who lived at another large farm at the head of Eriks Fjord, to be the lawspeaker. Osmund was an enterprising fellow, a good friend of Bishop Alf, and the nephew of Gizur Gizursson. Few cases now came to the Thing, and farmers from the distant fjords began to declare that they had too much to do to make the long trip. Gardar was more centrally located, and so folk seeking conversation and trade began going more and more to Gardar for Easter, which came just before the beginning of spring work, and for the feast of St. Michael, which came after haying and the autumn seal hunt. Many also went at Yule on skis, if the fjords were frozen solid and the snow had a good crust on it. All who came noted the changes that had taken place at Gardar, and most were pleased, for although there was more bending of the knee than before, not only to the bishop, but to Jon his vicar, there was also so much activity, so many priests and boys going hither and thither, so many well-favored beasts, so many buildings that had been put into good repair, and so many new and beautiful things in the residence and in the cathedral, that the Greenlanders said to one another that the Church would never abandon them again.

Bit by bit, the bishop had learned the ways of the Greenlanders, and often judged cases as the Greenlanders themselves would have judged them. The only thing to be said against him was that he was somewhat too strict about fast days, and not quite strict enough about the ”wife” of Nikolaus of Undir Hofdi church, who was really his concubine, but had lived with him for so long that she went about with him openly, and even spoke for him on all subjects, including those of proper practices and observances. In addition to this, one of the Gardar servingwomen began spending time with Petur, the plague priest, who, it was said, had once been married. The bishop allowed this, too, and, in fact, Petur still ministered to as many or more of the Greenlanders than he had before, for he was considered a kindly man, discreet, and a merciful confessor.

Pall Hallvardsson came often to Gunnars Stead, and became friends with, first, Birgitta Lavransdottir, who chattered and joked with him as a child might, and then with Gunnar and the rest of the household. He especially enjoyed hearing Gunnar tell the tales he had learned from Ingrid, and once in a while he would tell a tale of his own, which the folk enjoyed although they were strange narratives about people with odd names who lived in lands far to the south, where there was no snow at all. The Gunnars Stead folk praised Pall Hallvardsson for being a good teller of tales, but he only laughed and said that he had read the tales of other men in books, and at that he hardly remembered the details. Gunnar declared that he was surprised to hear of such books, because the only books he had ever seen contained prayers and lists of rules, nothing else. Such were the books Olaf had carried with him when he first came to Gunnars Stead. Pall Hallvardsson said that he would bring with him on his next visit a book of excellent tales that he himself owned, and this he did. The book was called in Latin ”Metamorphoses,” and from it Pall Hallvardsson related a tale, rendering the Latin into Norse as he spoke. This was a book he happened to have, he said, but there were other books in the bishop's library, and some of these were already written in Norse, both histories of the Nors.e.m.e.n and histories of others translated by Icelandic monks at Skalholt and Holar.

Now Gunnar quit his spinning and came over to Pall Hallvardsson and took the book into his hands. It was more elaborate than Olaf's books had been, with small pictures on some of the pages in faded but attractive colors. Pall Hallvardsson said that he himself had copied the book as a student, and that a friend of his had drawn the small pictures. This had taken place in Ghent, among the Belgians. After a while, Gunnar handed back the book and asked to hear another of the stories, and so Pall Hallvardsson leafed through the pages, found one, and began again to translate what he found there. It was a story about a fox and a c.o.c.k, and Olaf and Birgitta found it very funny. Gunnar laughed, but said it was a child's story, not like the tales of Icelanders and Greenlanders he had had from Ingrid. Pall Hallvardsson asked for one of these, and so Gunnar related the tale of Atli, as they tell it among the Greenlanders, where it is very well known and one of the favorite tales.

There was a woman called Gudrun, he said, and she was the sister of Gunnar and Hogni, who were great heroes and very wealthy men in the time of Egil Skallagrimsson and Erik the Red. Gudrun, he said, was married to a rich farmer called Atli, who lived in the east, according to the tale, but this probably meant the east of Iceland, since there is no other mention of this Atli among the Greenlanders. Atli, too, had a great farmstead with a mult.i.tude of sheep and cows and horses, as well as rich furnis.h.i.+ngs inside a large farmhouse with high wooden beams, as high as those at Gardar, and many rooms. He also had many servants, but even so, he was not content, and was resolved to have the wealth of his wife's brothers, which was in the form of gold and silver. And so he ordered his wife to invite her brothers to the Yuletide feast, and since he kept his designs a secret, she did so, and they came alone on their horses to the farmstead of their sister's husband, eager in antic.i.p.ation of great feasting, with much beer and ale as well as meat.

As soon as Gudrun led them into the farmhouse, Atli's servants seized the two men and tied them up, and Atli came to them and demanded to know where the treasure was hidden, and Atli threatened Gunnar with death, and with the death of his brother if he did not tell, but Gunnar did not tell. Then Atli told Gunnar that Hogni had indeed been killed, and that there was no use holding out, for Hogni had divulged the whereabouts of the treasure before dying, and so Gunnar said for Atli's servants to bring him Hogni's heart on a trencher. Since the servants had not killed Hogni, for he was a prodigious fighter, they seized one of their own men and put him to death and cut out his heart, which they brought to Gunnar. The heart, however, quivered on the trencher, and Gunnar declared that this was not Hogni's heart, but the heart of a coward, and so Atli himself subdued Hogni, and cut out his heart and brought it to Gunnar. And Gunnar recognized the stout heart of his brother, and declared that now he would never speak, because now only he knew the secret. At this he took his own knife and cut out his own tongue. Then Atli and his men seized Gunnar and threw him into a snake pit, where he was done to death by adders and other poisonous snakes.

That night Atli went to his bed very drunk, and did not notice the sword that his wife had placed between them. And after he was asleep, she rose up and plunged the blade into him. Then she opened the door of the farmstead, roused all the dogs and sent them outside, and burned Atli and his servants in their beds.

Gunnar paced back and forth while telling this tale, for it was one of his favorites, and he got great enjoyment from it. At the end of it, Pall Hallvardsson smiled. ”This is a b.l.o.o.d.y tale,” he said, ”not much fit for a priest, except as an exemplum of the lives of men before the coming of Christ as their Savior.”

”Is it not true,” asked Gunnar, in an agitated voice, ”that men are still very greedy and murderous, even those who go to the church every Sunday and make themselves good friends with the priests?”

”If there are such men, even so,” said Sira Pall, ”G.o.d thinks ill of a man who cherishes an enemy in his breast, and fondles the injuries done to him by others as if they are treasured possessions.”

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