A sample from an early work, based on a medieval Icelandic saga.
© 1975 by asotir. All rights reserved.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Swan-Maiden: Seven
GUDRUDA WOKE ALONE. Her eyes were bright in a twinkling. She got out of bed and dressed herself hurriedly, not bothering to fetch a straw from the longfire to light a lamp. Softly she stepped to the women’s door and slipped out into the frost-edged air.
Still it was, with neither wind nor wet. The garth was yet black with night, but the deep blue sky above was laced with patterns of butter and copper and scarlet. Between them the last dim stars burned weakly. Gudruda could hear the animals shifting in the barn and sty. The air had become colder after the storm. Here and there in the dark ground were glimmers of ice.
Gudruda walked across the yard. Her shoes crunched in the frozen waves of mud. Her breath billowed about her red cheeks in little steamy clouds. She went round the hall, past the dunghill and the sheep-cote, out by the side-gate and up to the crown of the hill. There she was dark against the chalky sky. Behind her, beyond the fells, the light was already glinting from the distant peaks of the glacier. Some terns flew over Gudruda’s head, their little wings forming dark gray crosses in the sky.
At the top, Gudruda breathed heavily. So bright was it here that her features could be made out clearly. Rosy were her cheeks: her hair like fresh-churned butter: her eyes bright as tears. Awkwardly she bent to her knees in the stiff brittle grass. She faced south, down past the sloping fields, across the little bay, over the wide stretch of the blackly sluggish sea. There, like a gleaming, fire-hot-red iron blade unbearable to behold, the Sun burst over the line of the sea. Its fierce rays were like a host of cast spears. The terns were struck into pinkish white, pearly with shell-gleamings; the grass stalks grew so green they looked blue; the wave-tops glittered for a twinkling – and then all the sea fell into light and waxed all at once alive, metal, opaque, fiery, and weird. Away to Gudruda’s right the distant spears fell gleaming upon the pastures of empty Kirkjubaer, where Irish monks had lived and worshiped more than a century earlier, before the coming of the Easterlings that had slain them: and where no pagan had been able to live since.
For a while Gudruda could not move, awestruck with the holy fairness of the scene. Steam drifted from her nostrils; her shoulders quivered slightly with cold. Then she bowed her head: took the square brass cross in one hand, closed her eyes, and needfully began to pray.
GUDRUDA RAGNARSDOTTIR had been born thirty-five winters earlier, to a family of Freyr-worshipers, in Reydarfirth in the East Firths. Her father Ragnar was slain in a feud when she was still a child; her two brothers never deemed that the terms of payment had been enough, and sought to get blood-geld from the killers, though their godi would give them no backing. The younger was killed in that fight; the elder fled, but at the Althing was given lesser outlawry, and banished from Iceland for three winters. He got a seat on a ship bound for Norway, but must first pay back an insult put upon him at the Thing. He barred the doors of the halls of his foes one night and set it afire. His luck though did not return: storms held the ship at Hornafirth for a week, and his enemies broke open a door at the end of their hall and got out all living. They rode to the strand and hunted him from firth to firth. No skipper would give him a seat because his foes were such strong men, and among them two godar.
In the end he rode deep into the barren inland, up among the rocks and glaciers and lava-fields. In the holes of Surtshellir he found shelter. At the Thing he was given greater outlawry for trying to burn men in their hall. No man might shelter him nor give him food nor drink: any man might kill him and owe no payment.
The farm was taken. Half went to the suitors, half to the men of the district; and Gudruda went to live with kinfolk who lived nearby.
That winter was long and harsh, and her brother all but starved up in the fells. In the summer he lived off the kindnesses of some friends and kin, hiding in one farm after another, never staying long. But that next winter was all the harsher; and he went sneaking back to Reydarfirth to beg shelter of his sister. Gudruda was scared but hid him in the barn and fed him in darkness, but gave him none of the mead that had been his bane.
So it went for twenty-three nights. But there were many guests at that stead for yule; and after yule a mort of men came to the stead: broke into the barn and dragged forth Gudruda’s brother, clad only in a long shirt. They pinned him beneath a heap of stones on a bundle of twigs and driftwood, then set the pile alight. He fought against the stones but they only heaped them higher. Gudruda ran to help him but they held her back: thereafter she abode in the hall with her hands over her ears. She had then twelve winters.
Three winters later she was wed to Lambi Agnarson, a kindly man, not wealthy but with a good farm, three cows and some sheep. Gudruda was happy with him, and he never dealt ill with her. She bore him three sons, and all of them live; and she prayed and gave offerings to Freyr and to Freyja as theretofore. So some winters sped, and her sons were grown men and strong. Then their godi came by looking for men: there was a feud and some of the sheep had been stolen. Lambi and the two older boys went with the godi, and gave blood-offering to Odin at the district temple.
Erik, the youngest, did not go with them, though he was old enough, because Gudruda would not let him. The three men did not come back. She got a goodly milch-cow for an atonement.
With only one man about, the farm fell from bad to worse. There was some help from the godi and Gudruda’s kin, but that was another ill winter, and there was no great plenty of flour or of fish. Erik did all he might but he was yet only a boy. Gudruda fought and managed to keep them from starving; but toward that winter’s end they lived only by eating moss. They kept only the milch-cow, and had her in the main hall with them: but in the second winter they might not borrow enough hay for her, and the cow fell ill and died. Gudruda made offering after offering at the temple.
It was at the end of that winter she took the cross. There were priests sent from Norway, from the new King Olaf Trygvason: they were at the local Thing that spring, and were giving water to men. Gudruda heard their words: then and there forsook Freyr and all the home-gods. She vowed her life to the Christ if he would but save her family now. That summer she heard a voice in her prayers, and it told her to sell the farm and gather all goods and go to the Althing. She was awestruck at this: Freyr had never spoken to her. She did as the voice had bade her, though there was great fear in her heart of it; for if nought came of it, then she would have been homeless and must live as a gangrel woman, wandering from hall to hall, doing odd bits of work for meat, and living on the handouts of others: and that was the hardest living.
At the Althing she met Olaf Sigurdarson, the wealthy godi of Hof nearby Kirkjubaer: he wooed her, and as a widow, she said yes to him. That summer, in a great bidding, they were wed. In her wonder and the great readying for the feast, Gudruda forgot to be wed by a priest, and was wedded instead in the handfast way, hallowed by the hammer of Thor. And that had been a soreness in her heart ever since.
Gudruda rose, her knees stiff with the damp cold of the earth. As she brushed the dirt from the front of her skirts, she felt the warmth of the sun’s rays, beaming kindly on her face. She smiled. She would let no past sorrows sour the sweetness of this day. With a glance to the west, she went back down the hill. The north face, steeped in violet light, might now be seen: the turf-roofs of the farm buildings, the dark lava wall, the muddy garth. She saw it all now as if for the first time. The roofs of the buildings were like little ridges off the side of the hill, clustered about the level place of the garth where most of the stead’s outdoor work was done. The turf roofs, dark green and brown, gleamed with ice. Faint waves of heat rose through the hall’s smoke-hole into the sky. One of the swine grunted and rolled over happily. From the dairy crept forth the smells of cheeses and fresh-churned butter. There was lowing from the barn: the milch-cows yearned to be milked. The household was slow arising after the lateness of the night. Gudruda walked around the hall and looked up to the frontward gable, and thought how well it should look set with a cross.
She gathered some driftwood in her arms and slipped in through the small back door. For a moment she was sightless in the hall’s inner darkness. Softly she stepped to the cooking end of the longfire and laid in the wood. That crackled and hissed and caught fire, and Gudruda held herself over it, basking in the heat. She saw the sleeping forms stretched out round the walls of the hall. How late they were to rise! She went round the firebed fretfully, to begin the morn-meal’s cooking.
Someone sat in the highseat. Wondering, Gudruda went near: made out Olaf’s form. He had fallen asleep there, his hands upon his knees, his great head bent over his chest, the unbraided beard like a mantle drawn about his chest. He was filthy. All about him, the carvings on the highseat crawled like worms and adders. Then Olaf turned his head and snorted, as if in dream.
She stepped close to him and reached out with one hand. She tugged at his thick horned hand. ‘Olaf,’ she murmured, ‘Husband, awake!’
He stirred him in the seat, rolling his shoulders. ‘Witch-eyes,’ he muttered uneasily, ‘Is that truly you? Do you come to haunt me then?’
Gudruda let go the hand; went back to the wall and took down the cooking-things loudly. Olaf started and opened his eyes. He moved one hand over his brow and blinked, twisted back his neck painfully. He sat up yawning as Gudruda went before him.
‘Hello, good-wife,’ he said.
‘Good morning husband,’ she answered. She took out the stores and set to cooking. Olaf stood up, bent back his shoulders, sighed and sat again. All about the hall men were stirring.
‘Olaf,’ she said after a while. ‘Did you truly mean those words of yours last night? You will take the Cross?’
‘Yes, wife. I have sworn it. It was a part of the settlement with Njal.’
‘Yet was that all there was of it? Do you feel no love of the Christ in your heart?’
He shook his head. ‘Maybe that will come. This I can say to you in truth: I feel no fondness for our own gods.’
She sighed. ‘That is enough, I hope. I know I should not grumble. This is a big step you take: it should answer me. Yet – could you also do me one other favor? It may mean nought to you, yet for me it would be much.’
‘Of course, wife. What would you that I do?’
She paused. ‘Would you wed me again, in the right Christian way? Kjartan could enact it: and there need by no great feasting.’
‘Well,’ he answered at length. ‘It is only fitting, I gather. It can be done this very day after we take the water, if that pleases you.’
‘Greatly indeed does it please me.’ Gudruda stood up. In one hand she held an iron kettle: in the other a heavy ladle. She swung the ladle against the base of the kettle so that it rang.
‘Awake!’ she cried. ‘Awake!’
