Asotirica: 2013

2013-06-18

Swan’s Path: 10

Swan-Maiden: Ten

THAT NIGHT ROSE cloud-flecked and cold. The moon was thin and sharp. Its light sprinkled the land like a chessboard, and it gleamed from off the frosty peaks and rippled valleys of the glacier Vatnajokull.

But at Hof torches burned about the garth; and the folk stood out, drank mead and laughed. Some were dressed in goodly garb, but many wore the white. By the door stood a tun of mead: therein they dipped their horns and bowls freely.

And within the hall the long fire leaped higher, bright and hotly cheering. In the highseat sat Olaf and Gudruda, and great seemed their happiness: so great there were little tears in the corners of Gudruda’s eyes.

Food was heavy on the boards, pork and meats, lamb, fish boiled and roasted, bread and goose, eggs, curds, sweet-cakes, ripe cheeses. Men and women filled their troughs and emptied them more than once that night: and this only the first night of that feast. Even Thorgrim, full of mead and belching loudly, was merry, in spite of those sour glances he cast now and then over at the beardless priest.

They were crowded in the hall, for many had come and more were hourly looked-for. The bright firelight and the many lamps glowed and sparkled hazy through the mist of smoke and risen dust: cast glowing crowns over their heads, the wimples of married women and temple-ribands of the men.

Of them all, only Erik Gudrudarson seemed unpleased. He wandered about the garth and through the hall twice over, asking after Olaf’s daughter; but none knew where she hid. He went then out to the barn to count the bridles. He came out blushing, for he had happened across a couple rolling in the hay, and been roundly cursed by the man and laughed at by the woman, who cast a love-glance aftet him as he left.

The night fell colder, and folk filled the hall and emptied the garth. The hollow tun was put aside, and the hall waxed hot with fires and sweating bodies. There were riddles told, verses and stories; and prophecies and jests for the bridal couple. All the people came round before the high seat to offer well-wishes and words of cheer to them.

Then the men’s door swung open and flooded the hall with a bitter cold breath, and Swanhild came in.

Those before her fell still: opened a path before her, and she walked between them cold and chill as a Norn’s child. She did not look at them, but her face was grim. Before the bridal couple she came, as if it were her turn. An ill look, and maybe some fear, fell athwart Gudruda’s face whenas she beheld her stepdaughter. Swanhild was garbed as she had been that even, before her mother’s howe-mound: but there was blood upon the blue-black gown, and blood upon the silver belt: sprinkled over her in little fiery drops: and all of them still wet.

Olaf looked down on his daughter’s face and frowned. ‘Daughter, where were you?’

And she answered, ‘In the temple: and offered up a sheep to Odin, Lord of Hosts. Then I had men singe the sheep’s head: now it is cooking: then you may eat it. And that is my gift to you this night.’

There was somewhat of silence after that. Only Thorgrim shouted drunkenly from the far side, ‘Now, that was well done!’

Gudruda reddened and took her cross in hand. ‘I call that a wicked shameless deed.’ Swanhild looked up at her from out her slanting Finn’s-eyes, and smiled, and showed her teeth points.

‘No good will come of it,’ Olaf muttered. It was then, in the silence, that hoofbeats sounded from the yard. Olaf half rose. ‘Go see who that is.’

They returned saying, ‘It is Ulf Haraldsson, and he would speak to you, Olaf, out in the garth.’ Ulf was one of those who had gone to Breidamerk with Olaf for the arvel-feast; he had stayed behind to be with his wife’s kin there.

‘Do not go, husband,’ said Gudruda. ‘Surely these tidings are not so needful that they cannot wait.’

‘I will not leave Ulf out in the night,’ Olaf said. ‘Nor will I flee what seeks me out.’ He stood, took from Rannveig a woolen cloak, and went out.

Swanhild stood by herself, deeper into the hall. Erik started to go to her, but stayed himself and turned aside. Then Thorgrim neared her with a bowl of mead.

‘Will you drink, Olaf’s-daughter?’

She looked up at him. ‘Do you not know by now I do not drink, Thorgrim? Or has that mead addled your old brain?’

He shrugged and sat beside her, supping at the mead himself. Then he said, ‘My thanks for what you did this night: more than one should have thought on it. In five days the blood-offering for strength and victory is due, and we shall make it, Westman priest or no. Will you be a ninth, and see the gods reddened? One of Hardbein’s kin ought to be there for it.’

But bitterly she answered him, ‘For what? Those are only poles of wood.’

IN THE YARD Olaf greeted Ulf and gave him a horn. That Ulf took thankfully and drank off at a swallow.

‘Now,’ said Olaf, ‘what is the word you bear, and is it well or ill?’

‘I see little enough of cheer in it,’ answered Ulf. ‘Njal Thoroldsson has granted shelter to Killer-Hrap. He vowed his help in the lawsuit, gave him a silver ring and has betrothed him to one of his cousins, Alof. Hrap grew drunk with this. He boasted then of his ill-will for this hall. And Njal sat there across from him, and nodded, and said never a word against him.’

Olaf went up and down before the halls, twisting at his beard. He had heard already of Hrap’s coming to his hall. ‘What time was this?’

‘Only this forenoon.’

‘Yet maybe Njal knew not my wife had thrown this fellow out.’

‘That I deem unlikely: Hrap himself told the tale, and Njal nodded when he heard. I know not how Hrap could have reached the Breidamerk so swiftly. I rode as hard as ever I might to give you warning. But sure enough, Njal was no slower with his favors than Hrap or I with a horse.’

Olaf nodded. There were no wet gleams from his eyes now, but they glinted from beneath his brows, like two swords whose peace-strings have burst. ‘Tell me then, what the priests at Breidamerk had to say of this.’

‘What should they say? Hrap holds to the cross, and Njal says he granted him mercy. The tale is, Hrap turned Christ-man grieving over all his slayings. But no necklet changes such a man.’

‘There we are of a mind.’

They went back into the hall. Olaf crossed through the folk and sat again in the carven highseat beside his bride. The dark woolen cloak fell across Olaf when he sat there, his face dark like night over the white shirt. Gudruda watched him with worry in her eyes. Olaf did not look at her.

‘Well,’ he said at length. ‘Now Njal has taken on Killer-Hrap as one of his kinsmen, the very day after we vowed there should be peace between us.’

‘You see, father?’ asked Swanhild. Some would have said she laughed.

Olaf scowled. For a space his waxing rage took the years from him: his eyes flashed like copper mallets now, and his face fell dark as blood. ‘Was this what you prayed for, daughter?’ he asked.

She said nought: but there was for a twinkling a spark of fear in her eyes, and she looked away. Then she looked back and gave her father stare for stare, until at last it was Olaf who looked away. Then the black-haired girl shrugged and stood and walked to the women’s door. She put a mantle about her shoulders, and went out once more into the night.

2013-06-17

Swan’s Path: 9

Swan-Maiden: Nine

AT HOF THE hall was all astir, readying Olaf and Gudruda’s wedding. So busy was it there that Olaf, sitting moodily with both legs stretched out from the highseat, was in the way of all who went by. At length, after the third bondmaid had tripped over his feet, he stood, girt on his sword and a brown cloak and went into the day.

They slaughtered a swine there: in the sunlight the men and women shone in the plain white linen tunics of the newly-baptised. For a full week must they wear these, in a sign of steadfastness for their vows. Olaf let hitch the hay-cart: drove it with some down to the strand, and filled it with the driftage; but Swanhild and Erik had already gone from there. Against the black sands those men all seemed ghosts. When all the wood was in they drew it up to Hof.

In the garth Olaf could see new ponies tied and saddled: that meant more of his neighbors and thingmen had come to ask if the news were true. He shook his head, let the others bring down and stack the wood, and rode off to the north. On the top of a hill he went by the old temple that Hardbein Oxen-Hand had built up and upheld. The temple had given the stead its name: Olaf’s kin had been the leaders at offerings ever since. Olaf rode from there farther upland.

He rode by a tongue of the glacier, up beneath the Svinafell. Many streams, swollen by the rain, cut down the sides of the high fell. Skillfully Olaf led his pony through the scrub-woods. The trail cut back, and Olaf came out from the green up onto the upper reaches of the fell. The winds were stronger here; the airs brisker, chilled by the great glacier beyond. Before him rose a great broken cliff and ice-walls, gray and blue, hollowed out by many a low and darksome cave; behind him the land fell steeply off on all sides. A short ways before him a spread of grass rolled with big built-up mounds: they might have been the turf-roofs of round houses sunken in the risen earth-sea of the fell.

Olaf stepped down onto the grass. Thoughtlessly he stroked his pony’s muzzle, then let her roam. He walked up to the mound-field. Half-sunk in the ground was a lava-rock: there sat Olaf, his back to the faraway sea, and gazed upon the grassy knolls. His eyes were red and clouded, and he sneezed. He wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. A hawk flew overhead, and went into the fell.

A sound came from the wood below; half Olaf turned: saw who it was and turned back. Swanhild stepped down from her pony and walked up beside him. She was well dressed in a black-blue gown and deep red undershift. Her long hair was braided: the ends of the braids were bound with dark red ribands and tucked beneath her belt. That was a belt of goodly workmanship, cunningly wrought out of silver and gold, of beasts’ heads, jaws and tongues and looping leaf-work.

‘I knew I should find you here,’ she said.

‘It is maybe where I belong.’

She sank to her knees and sat upon her heels. ‘I like this place,’ she said. ‘This seems more truthful here. If I ever wed, it is here I will look for my husband.’

He laughed gloomily at that, and took her hand. ‘Little life will you find in him then. Yonder is where your mother lies.’

She frowned, and answered, ‘No, father. Do you not remember? There is Hardbein – there Sigurd – there Ragnhild – Bui – Grim – Glum. That one there is mother’s howe.’

He took the braids of his beard in hand and tugged at them. He shook his head. ‘You know them better than I,’ he muttered. He coughed and spat. ‘Swanhild, he said, ‘you know it is time and beyond you took yourself a husband. Many girls younger than you have children already afoot. And yet, it is not for want of asking.’

‘I have found no man that pleases me. And I liked the life at Hof.’

‘Yet now I have a new wife, you find it not so fair. Now you do not always get your way. Yet if you were wed, you would run your own household.’

‘Now you have a new wife,’ she said after him. ‘You went winters enough without a wife before: life was better then. Why did I not go to the Althing last summer? Orvar-Odd might have seen to those sheep.’

Olaf coughed again. The sun was wheeling down in the west, and the shadows grew and gathered up around them, stretching toward the cliff beyond. ‘You do not give Gudruda what you ought, Swanhild. Kindly she is and strong – stronger than I, though you will gainsay that. And when I saw her, then there was an Easterling preaching, and there was such a look in her eye... An old man gets cold in his bed a’nights, and needs a proper helpmeet.’

‘Was not Rannveig enough for you?’

‘Sweet is Rannveig, and warm-breasted: as fair now as when I first took her to bed. But she has no kin. And tell me then, if you deem her able to run the stead.’

‘It is true, she has no head for figures. Yet I did make up for all she lacked.’

‘You will not be with me always, daughter. Soon I hope will you meet a man comely and strong enough for your pride; then you will leave, and I will fare on alone. But now I have Gudruda, and need not fear that, and may hope for it as I ought. And who knows? She is still of a childbearing age.’

‘Father, tell me again of the first time you met her.’

He was still for a space, to show he knew it was not Gudruda she had meant. ‘That too is a tale you know better than I,’ he said. ‘I could not tell it fairly now: that is not my mood. Besides, it is not seemly. This is my wedding-eve.’

She let go his hand and fell still. Then lowly she bade him, ‘Tell me then of Skarphedin Kalfback’s-son.’

‘Ah.’ He looked down and took the hem of his tunic in his fist. ‘I feared you would hear of that. He will not come back. A man of such a heart would win great wealth in the courts of kings; – that, or death. What could he look for here?’ The girl said nought, waiting. ‘How much do you remember of him, daughter?’

‘Only the name. Nought else.’

‘Once he held you on his knee and gave you a field-flower he had plucked: then you blushed, and went to the far side of the fire. Then your mother was yet alive, and Skarphedin a wild, roistering lad. Well: I shall tell you the tale then. That will fit my mood well. You will like it: your mother has a part of it. So I will tell it you, even in the right saga style:

‘The beginning of it is that there was a man named Yngvar: he dwelt in Norway in the Uplands. He was a carle there; but his wife died and his herds sickened, and he had little luck withal. One summer he took all his land in fee and got faring to Iceland. That was in the rule of Haakon Athelstane’s-Fosterling; but in the next summer there fell King Haakon at Stord, when Gunnhild’s sons won again the kingdom of Harald Hairfair.’

‘Yes,’ said Swanhild, ‘that King I know: Harald bade the English King Athelstane foster him, and Athelstane must swallow that. Was not this Haakon a Cross-man, and would have nought to do with the gods? But then the bonders grumbled, and the men of the Thrandlaw slew the Christ-priests and made the King stand over all blood-offerings. Was he not this one?’

‘Yes,’ said Olaf shortly. ‘Yngvar came aland at the Hornfirth. He had cattle and timber but little silver; but he found all the land thereabouts was held.

‘Thorold Skeggison was then godi over the Breidamerkur, and was the greatest of landowners in the Side. He was a big man, great of strength and fame: and he harried as a youth all the sea-ways of Norway and the Western Isles, and got great fee therefrom. And Thorold takes in Yngvar for that winter with his kin. Thorold was an Odin’s-man, but Yngvar vowed by none but Thor.

‘Thorold was a man not to matched for strength: greatly he loved the glima. That winter he wrestles Yngvar on the ice-pond below the stead. Thorold was so great of bulk he was not to be moved; yet not for that might he budge Yngvar. Then Yngvar went somewhat slowly at Thorold, so the onlookers thought he held off, and called words at him. Then says Thorold, ‘That you should not go light-handed with me, Yngvar: for in nowise can such as you throw me. Never has any man had the putting-down of me, not even the champions of King Erik Bloodaxe.’

‘Then Yngvar wiped his nose, and huffs and puffs till his cheeks were all round and red. Then he grips Thorold about the waist, and takes him up and hurls him to the ice. Thereat was a great sound of cracking. But Thorold stood, albeit slowly: shook the snow from his head and owned Yngvar the win. Yngvar says that never had he a harder lifting than that, and it seemed to him his arms were loose in their joints. At that Thorold lightens his mood, and there was cheer again.

‘They held drinking-bout then, those next three nights: this was about the Yule. But here Yngvar was nowise an outstanding man, and Thorold drank off his horns quick as curds, and seemed nought the worse for it. Then they had sport with Yngvar, Thorold and his men; Yngvar smiled fondly and let them have their way. At the end of the feast Yngvar gives to Thorold a goodly cloak, of that stuff we call ‘crimson:’ bound it was with a pin of gold-work, and fairer far than any Yngvar was seen to wear. Thorold took this, but said no more than was needful.

‘That summer Yngvar let gather his goods, to seek some place where the land was not all taken. But Thorold said that nowise would he let such a man go to another district: gave him land up beyond Breidamerkursfell beneath the Oraefajokull, and it looked over Jokulsa’s lake: that place Yngvar names, Jokullsknoll. Thereafter Yngvar and Thorold were the fastest of friends. Thorold gave Yngvar his son Njal to foster, in hope that Njal should grow up with goodly strength – thus Njal was reared in Yngvar’s hall with Yngvar’s son Skarphedin. And between these brethren too was fair friendship.

‘That summer Yngvar drove his cattle up to Jokullsknoll; and he came to a spot in the river where it was full so that the cattle durst not cross. Each time Yngvar drives them to it, then shy they away; then he gathers them again and drives them to it again, and again they shy away. Not Summer’s-day in the Finnmark should be long enough for this.

‘It happened Thorold rode by and watched Yngvar. Then Thorold rode down and spoke some words with Yngvar, and asks him how it was. Yngvar tells him. There was a low ford down the stream, but Thorold will not tell him that. ‘Well,’ says he, ‘so it seemed to me last winter, Yngvar, that you were a stronger man than to be bettered by two cattle.’

‘Then Yngvar wiped his nose, and huffs and puffs, and lifted one of the cows in his arms. Then he walks to the stream and takes up the other cow: half over his back they were. Then he wades across the stream, and not even middle-stream is enough to halt his step. He sets the cattle on the far bank, prods them with his stick and went on to Jokullsknoll. And from this they called him Yngvar Kalf-back.

‘Skarphedin grew, and was every bit as strong of body as his father; but little work he did on the stead. Yngvar worked each day in the fields, for he had no man to help him. But Skarphedin slept to forenoon, and sat about the hall, and drank and played at draughts. Sometimes Njal went to help Yngvar in the field, but mostly he did as Skarphedin. Thorold called them two coal-biters; but Yngvar said nought.

‘One night they sat about the fire and a cow got in Skarphedin’s way. That was the Mother Night, and the snow fell in great dark drifts up on the fell. Skarphedin nudged the cow with his foot but the cow lay down and did not budge. Then Skarphedin put his arms about the cow’s legs and threw it over the fire at the door, so that its head struck against the door-stone and all its brains gushed out: and that was the death of that cow.

‘Skarphedin sat him down in place again, and Yngvar said no word. Only Njal said aloud, ‘It seems to me there will be less milk for us this winter.’

‘Then Yngvar did not hold his peace but said, ‘That was a hard throw, Skarphedin: but somewhat better would it be if you did more with your strength hereabouts than lift cows.’

‘Quoth Skarphedin, ‘Rare is son unlike his father.’ But they spoke no more on that. There was the greatest wonder at Skarphedin’s strength, for he was not yet man-grown.

‘That winter they played ball on the ice-pond by Breidamerk. Skarphedin went against Raud, a thrall of Thorold’s and a big man: they were a good match for strength, and there the greatest interest lay. Njal was matched with Einar Four-fingers, a boy much the stronger: self-willful and nasty in anger. Njal was not so big nor strong, but quick and sharp-eyed, and clever at tricks.

‘It fell out that Raud hit the ball and Einar went fast to catch it on his bat; it was on this the game hung. But Njal strikes Einar’s bat with his and the ball goes past. Then Einar put down his bat and threw Njal down on the ice and says, ‘That was a sly trick, but needful. For had I caught the ball I’d have struck it so strongly none would have stopped it.’

‘‘You should not have struck it half so strong as this,’ says Skarphedin, and smites him with his bat so hard his head broke off his body, and that is his death-sore.

‘Then Thorold laughed – I was there to see it – and gave Skarphedin a penny and a blue cloak. ‘Nor need you worry as to Einar’s kin, nor fines nor lawsuits,’ says he, ‘but I will undertake your defense so that they will be dropped.’ Then Njal came back from staring at the body, and Thorold sets them both on the seat opposite his, and toasts the boys thrice. Njal was somewhat pale, but Skarphedin drank his ale like a full man. So they go back to Jokullsknoll for the rest of winter.

‘Folk looked for great things from Skarphedin after this; but in the summer he showed no more willingness to work than theretofore. He went up walking on the fells a’nights, and that was thought no good thing. But that summer Njal went oftener out into the fields, and hung about Skarphedin less. Yngvar spoke thankfully to Njal for his help, but for Skarphedin had few words.

‘That was late in the hay-making, that a storm came off the glacier, dark and fearsome. Great was the hail and sodden the fields. When it was done, then comes Yngvar back into the hall and flings a mowing-axe at Skarphedin’s feet. Then says he, ‘The stack would be full high now if you but knew the use of this.’

‘Skarphedin took up the mowing-axe and put on his blue cloak; went out of the hall, but said no word.

‘There is an outlaw in the fells; Ketil Lambison was his name. He was outlawed for the killing of Flatnose Arnbjorn. Ketil wrote love-verses about Arnbjorn’s wife and Arnbjorn struck him; but Ketil lived from that, and Arnbjorn did not. In the law-court Ketil had no support, for Arnbjorn had been a kinsman of godi Yrsi; and besides, Arnbjorn’s blow was deemed proper after those verses. Afterward Ketil could get no faring out of Iceland, nor none durst shelter him, not even his half-brother. Then he went up into the fells, and he wrought much ill on the wethers and all travelers; and none had thought Ketil a good fighter until now. It was said he was berserk-gang and that no weapon would bite him, and he had offered-up his son to Odin. Yrsi put a price upon his head, of twenty-four ounces of silver, or three marks. And nine men did Ketil slay that went against him.

‘Skarphedin fared unto the cave and found him Ketil Lambison. Skarphedin had now twelve winters, but was of such growth you would have took him for a full man: all but his beard. Ketil saw him and laughed and said, ‘Do they send me women now, and I need not even write them love-verses?’

‘‘Yes,’ says Skarphedin, ‘and here in my hands I hold your dowry.’ Thereat he rushes upon him and deals him a blow with the mowing-axe, and that was the bane-wound of Ketil Lambison. Then Skarphedin dragged the corpse down to the strand and buried it below the tide-mark, beneath a cairn of stones. Then he went home.

‘Then there was peace in the East Firths, and none heard more of Ketil; whereat folk wondered. That was the end of summer, near the winter’s day offering, that a many men went up to the fells, and found the outlaw’s cave. Then one at length went in: he found no Ketil, only his goods. There on the floor was a field-axe, and it was brown with blood, and lay beneath runes upon the wall. So the stave went:

‘These were a riddle to them: they had not the wit to read the verses. They went to Thorold and spoke the stave to him. Thorold rises out of his seat and asks to see the field-axe. Straightway he knew it for one of Yngvar Kalfback’s and says, ‘I have no mind now but that Skarphedin slew Ketil. He it is who merits the fee.’

‘From this Skarphedin had great fame, and the greatest love Thorold showed any man. But when the word went to Yrsi he said, ‘It seems to me that men are grown big with pride, that are nought but the sons of poor men. Surely Skarphedin now will deem himself above all others and unmasterable. But it was the head of Ketil I vowed fee for, and where is that?’ And nowise would he pay the silver to Skarphedin unless the body were shown or witnesses to the deed. But the crabs ate Ketil’s body, and so Skarphedin got nought. That next summer some verses went round, and all of them scathed Yrsi vilely; none knew who had made them, but it was thought it was Skarphedin. After this there was coldness between Skarphedin and the men of Yrsi’s district.

‘After this Yngvar died; Skarphedin and Njal went and dwelt with Thorold. Thorold set two thralls to work Jokullsknoll, and did not ask Skarphedin to do any work. Thorold tried to get the silver from Yrsi for Skarphedin, and there was a lawsuit; but Yrsi won that, and put sharp words on Thorold, and now is a harshness between the Breidamerkurs and the East Firthers. Afterward matters waxed no better. Skarphedin was the strongest and boldest of men, and a good friend to your mother and me: but still he was a man of short word and long deed. Three men of Yrsi’s he slew, but got off on all suits. Njal was now a clever lawyer, and defended his foster-brother most skillfully; and the end of that was, that those suits not undone on flaws in the proceedings were overcome by Njal’s shrewdness and the strength of his father’s following. But not for this went things any the more peacefully.

‘Yrsi had a son, and he was called Hoskuld, and by all men deemed the gentlest of men. One winter was both harsh and long, and many were like to starve. But Hoskuld gave out meal and hay to them. Yrsi betrothed him to Hallgerd, she was the daughter of Vemund Agnar’s son: she was the fairest of maids, and her brow could have matched Balder’s; but hard of heart, and overproud. This saying she laid down to Hoskuld: that he would never have the enjoyment of her until he had paid off these slights against his father. Hoskuld took an oath on it and sought Skarphedin.

‘Hoskuld came to Breidamerk, and with him went three men: and they all wore blue cloaks. They found Skarphedin before the door of the hall. Hoskuld held in his hand a birch-switch, and asked if Skarphedin would go apart with him. But Skarphedin laughed and said wolves need not fight hall-dogs without cause. Hoskuld leaned over and laid the switch up against Skarphedin’s cheek so that the blood spurted out. Then he asked whether this were cause enough. Quoth Skarphedin, ‘Only a slave takes vengeance right away; only a coward never. And I think I see a woman’s skirts behind this.’ Now Hoskuld was unwilling to press the matter any further, so he must go back home and seem only the worse for it.

‘For three nights Skarphedin abode there at the hall, and seemed very restless. On the third night, Skarphedin takes three men, and rides in secret up to the East Firths. This was of a summer, and men were in the shielings. Hoskuld was there with them. Skarphedin came to the shieling so swift none was ware of him: then he and his men laid up stones against the doors and kept watch so none within might venture forth or reach the privy. Five nights Skarphedin held them so: then scattered their sheep and went back to Breidamerk. Hoskuld was not quick to venture down again; and when he did, then he was made the greatest mock of...’

FOR A SPACE Olaf was still. Then Swanhild asked, ‘Yet father, what of my mother in all this?’

‘Well,’ Olaf answered, ‘great was the friendship between those twain; and some said your mother thought up that prank for Skarphedin: she often gave him counsel. Then came time for the offering for a mild winter, and we bade Skarphedin to the guesting and he came. It fell out that a ship was in to the Hornfirth, and half the shares of it were mine, and half Thorold’s. So I went to bring in the lading and share it out with Thorold. Word of that went up to the East Firths and Yrsi. Hoskuld wastes no time but gathers straightway a great force of men and goes round Vatnajokull and so down by the sand road. But there was a man, Sigfus, and he knew them: came down to Hof and told where they lay. Skarphedin wanted to fare back to Breidamerk. Your mother too would go, and with her four men. Skarphedin said it was not his way to have a women for a shield; but your mother only said, ‘That you may think and say of this what you will: but I shall now go to Breidamerk and come back at my husband’s side. And there is little you may do about that.’

‘So off they go eastaways. When Hoskuld saw them he knew your mother right off: then he seemed unwilling to go on. But those others behind him muttered and said, ‘We knew Yrsi well enough, but the son ill. And like as not there is a saddle that must be cleaned when we are back to home.’ Then Hoskuld waxed red down to the collarbone, and drove on his horse. They fought there, at that spot you know so well, because there your mother fell. Struck through with a lance and crooked in the rime, and cold: that was how I found her.

‘When Hoskuld saw that she was slain, then he lost all heart and turned back; his men went after him, and Skarphedin followed after them. He cut Hoskuld down out of the saddle, and scattered the others: but Skarphedin went onwards swiftly to Yrsi’s hall and laid a millstone up against the door. Then he set the hall afire and rode up into the fells where none might find him. That summer they gave notice of the suits: they sought the greater outlawry for Skarphedin. Yrsi offered me atonement for your mother; I took none of that. Then I waxed hot and cold, but might think of no deed harsh enough. Ah, that summer was cold, and too many storms rode in off the sea...’

Awhile the old man sat quiet on the lava-stone. The black-haired girl stared at the grave-howes, and did not look at her father.

‘And then?’ she asked at length.

Olaf coughed and scratched his beard.

‘Well, Thorold sent lesser men of his up into the fells, and they bore food and words to Skarphedin. And Njal saw to the defense of his brother. Thorold bade him so play the thing, that Skarphedin should get off with the lesser outlawry. Hoskuld was let fall with no atonement, for that blow and the death of your mother; that was deemed very shameful. But Skarphedin had few friends withal, and some say that Njal did not defend his brother so skillfully this once as he had theretofore. So Skarphedin got the greater outlawry, and he went abroad to work his quarrels: and that was nine years ago and more. Of what he has done in those years, scant tales only have come hither; none at all for some while now. Some said he harried in the Western Isles and died. And now daughter, do you know enough of Skarphedin the outlaw?’

‘No,’ she answered. She looked round, and saw gleams from her father’s eyes. Then she looked away and closed her face. ‘Only father, is that why they name my mother Unpaid-For?’

Olaf looked down as if he had been stuck. Then he coughed vilely and answered, ‘Yes. And do you call to mind how I bore her body into the hall and laid it down upon her bed? Or how I kept her body so all that winter, until the ground should be soft enough to dig up yonder great howe? Why else would you wear her belt now? But if Skarphedin does come back to Iceland, then that is one man I will not be sad to see cut down to death before me. For I hold no other man so blameable for her death. Now chew on that hair, and I will wipe these tears I have no shame of. And as for me, I have wept and now shall be merry: for this turns out to be my wedding-feast.’

The old man stood and loomed over his daughter against the sunset and the last winkings of sunlight across the sea. One last sign he gave to the howe-mounds to hallow them: then clambered up on his old strong pony, and rode down off the fell.

His black-haired daughter watched him for a bit. Then she sat down on the worn stone in his stead.

2013-06-16

Swan’s Path: 8

Swan-Maiden: Eight

SOUTHAWAYS FROM HOF the land slopes down into a small shallow bay, whereof the bound and shield is the large hillock of green land, Ingolfshofdi. There Ingolf, the first settler of Iceland, stayed a winter while he searched for his pillar-seat. That next summer he found his pillar-seat far off to the west, and there he took land and settled, and left this land empty: so it remained until Hardbein came ashore here. Beyond the long hump of Ingolfshofdi was the sea.

Toward the mid-part of the day a horseman rode down toward that bay, and that was Erik Gudrudarson. He skirted the bay, went westaways above the shore, and brought his pony to a halt upon a grassy ridge. With his hand he shielded his eyes against the sun’s glare. Below him the long line of the strand stretched empty of life save for here and there a skua gull. Beyond that, farther to the west, was the beginning of the Skeidararsandur: that was a waste of black mud flooded with rain and meltwater, a treacherous place, whose few tracks led into hungry bogs. Erik shuddered: new to the district, he liked that place little.

He looked back to the strand. Then he saw a lone dark figure moving between the sea-stones and the black sands. A pony trailed behind. Olaf’s daughter gathered in the driftage for her father’s hall.

The big waves, angry and storm-fed, broke like giants’ fists upon the shore. The girl faced those waves and threw back her head; the long black strands of her unbound hair gleamed like dark rainbows. She leapt from rock to rock, dancing in and out of the waves’ grasp. There was a piece of wood awash there in the salt: the girl did up her skirts about her hips and waded after it. She was in and out of the water between Dufa and Unn, the kindest waves of Ran’s nine daughters. Out she came with the driftwood proudly towed behind. Erik leaned forward in the saddle, his mouth agape. The girl’s long white legs shone against the dark sands like icicles in dawn-light.

When Erik reached the level of the strand, the girl had let down her skirts again, so that only her shoes might be seen. She had not seen him yet, nor heard him in the thunder of the waves. He waved, and bellowed her a greeting with all his lungs.

She stopped. Her head came round, quick as a bird’s: the long eyes widened. The shoulders went down somewhat. She came up toward him grudgingly.

Erik loped down to her and took the line in hand. He wound it round his fists and over his shoulder and pulled the heavy driftwood up beyond the tide-mark. ‘Is not this day fair?’ he shouted happily to her.

She went past him and sat upon a flat lava-rock. ‘More than fair enough for shepherds and swine-keepers,’ she said. She stood up and led her pony down the beach. Erik unbound the log and threw it easily onto that pile she had made, and followed.

They went down the shore as far as Olaf had driftage-rights, and gathered the wood together; but Swanhild said little. Nor did she dance before the waves nor lift her skirts again. Erik too soon fell into stillness. Now he was sorry he had come down from his watching-place.

It was noontide, and all the storm-wood was gathered up into neat piles above the tide-marks. Swanhild took a wood-axe and a whetstone from her pony’s bag. Erik wiped at his brow.

‘Surely you do not mean to cut the wood yourself?’ he asked. ‘Would you not wish a rest?’

She answered, ‘If you are weary, then rest.’ She stroked the blade with the stone and began chopping at the wood. Her slender arms and thin shoulders had little more than bird’s-thew in them: not for that flew the axe any the slowlier. Only the smaller branches she cut: the large would be cut up at the stead, and their chips used for kindling. The biggest would be adzed and used for building.

Erik drew an axe from his bag and joined her. He matched her stroke for stroke and more: and his blows cut deeper. Soon her blows struck the ground more than the wood, and he knew she grew weary. Then he said, ‘Swanhild, it is late, and I would rest.’

She stuck the axe in a big log and wiped at her brow with her sleeve. Erik went to his pony and got out a skin of goat’s-milk and a half-loaf of bread. These they shared: sat on a rock and ate. Swanhild looked out to sea, but Erik did not. The stiff breezes caught the long black hair and threw it about: a few strands hit Erik in the face and whipped past. He thought of the tales they told at Hof of the girl’s mother. She must have been an odd one! It was said the Finns were the most sorcerous and trollwise folk in the world. He wondered if the daughter knew any of the mother’s spells.

Below them, quite close, a few terns went skittering across the sand. The girl swept up the crumbs in her skirts and cast them out to the birds. The terns took fright at this, but soon came back to peck charily at the brown crumbs.

‘I saw you not this morn at meat,’ he said. ‘No one knew whither you had gone. Then your father told me it was likeliest you were here. He said that this was a chore you ever liked.’

She did not look back at him, but asked the waves, ‘What do they, back there?’

He shook his head. ‘They are still talking over your father’s plan, like as if it were a house-thing. Yet Gudruda readies matters for giving the water with the holy priest. Olaf says they will take the water this afternoon.’

The black-haired girl cast out more crumbs.

‘Was it not freezing cold there in the waves?’ he asked.

‘Colder than it will be for them this afternoon.’

‘You must love those birds greatly, Swanhild, you feed them so much.’

‘Oh yes,’ she gave answer. ‘Sometimes I love them so, I wish I might take them in my hands and break off their little heads. But they only titter and fly off, and next season return to mock me more.’

‘Swanhild! What do you mean, that you say such a thing?’

‘What I say.’ She wiped her hands, and stood. Her skirts caught the wind and billowed wide behind her. ‘I am no tern, Erik: call me skua rather.’ She went down to the water’s edge and gathered a handful of stones: cast them down into the maw of the waves. Erik had never seen a girl throw so well: she must have done this a great deal. Erik followed after her and sat above her in the sand.

‘It was said they might take out the fish-boat later, but the sea looks over-rough to me,’ he said over the billows’ roar. ‘I wonder what it is, that makes men sail out of sight of the land, where they cannot pick their days. What do they do in storms? That seems wondrous to me, and frightening.’

‘That seems wondrous to me, and thrilling,’ she mocked. ‘The land is dull,’ she said then, turning: ‘the sea will ever eat it whole. But those men that live upon the sea’s very face, and snatch livelihood from its jaws, they defy one greater. What are we here but clever beasts, little better than our flocks? But a sailor, be he chapman or rover...’ She caught his look and colored; turned again to the sea.

‘There was a sailor at Breidamerk, an Easterling,’ Erik said. ‘The men told his tidings this morn at meat. They told many of his tales.’

‘Yes?’ she asked carelessly. ‘And what man-gossip did he spread.’

Erik thought on it. ‘One tale he told, was how Jarl Haakon the Mighty died two summers ago.’

She looked to him, and he smiled. ‘Tell it me then, Erik: for ever did I love the tales of that great man, of how he battled Gunnhild’s sons and defied the kings of the Danes, shattered the Jomsvikings’ host, cast out the Cross priests and upheld the gods in all his ways, and gave the finest blood-offerings. That he died have we heard; of the true facts, none. No doubt he died in a manner seemly to his state.’

‘I knew not you put such store by him,’ Erik said. ‘Then this tale will please you ill; yet the Easterling knew of it firsthand, so we may well trust in it. He said, that Jarl Haakon took the wife of a man named Brynjulf for his bedmate; and when he had his fill of her, sent her back home with gold and gifts, as was his custom; and it was said she went unwillingly. But then had Haakon set his eye upon Gudrod: she was the wife of Orm Lyrgja; he was a mighty bonder.

‘Haakon sent men to Orm, and they bade Orm send his wife with them to the jarl. But Gudrun says she will not go unless Jarl Haakon sends Thora of Rimol to fetch her. Then Orm sent out the war-arrow; and Brynjulf met with him, and there was then such ill-will against the jarl from all these husbands that all the bonders rose up and went against the jarl. The jarl gets word of this: goes with his men into a deep dale, and there hides. Therefrom he sent his men to seek his son Erlend, that had the jarl’s ships.

‘But by then Olaf Trygvason was come to Norway, and he sought the kingdom: he fights against Erlend Haakonarson and slays him. Then came Olaf Trygvason before the bonders and he said, ‘Long have I harried in the Eastlands, and have great strength in Wendland and in England: from England have I come. And you may not know me now, but my father you knew, and he was King Trygvi Olafson: and my father’s grandfather you knew, and he was King Harald Hairfair the Mighty.’ The farmers took him for their king: and he bade them scour the lands and get for him Haakon the jarl.

‘Haakon lay now in the dale with but one man beside him, and that was his thrall Thormod Kark. One night Kark has a dream; and Haakon deemed the meaning of that dream was that his son Erlend was slain. Therewith he made his way a’nights to Rimol. There Haakon sent Thormod Kark in to Thora: she was foremost of the jarl’s mistresses. She came out and greeted the jarl with great show of happiness. She told him the bonders then met with Olaf Trygvason, but she would shelter him: but that that was a place they would soon come upon. She hid him then beneath her swine-sty. Over the cave-mouth Thora put boards and muck and drove swine over it, and none might know of it. Haakon abides there with Thormod Kark the thrall, and they had food and a lamp.

‘That next day Olaf Trygvason comes with his men to Rimol and looked in all those buildings, but found not the jarl. He gathered Thora’s servants in the garth, before the swine-sty, and told them he would reward with the greatest honor and wealth any man that slew Jarl Haakon or brought him to Hladir. Haakon and Thormod Kark lay in the swine-sty and heard Olaf’s words; then Haakon stood and called on Odin, and vowed him all for victory; for Haakon knew Olaf Trygvason for a follower of the Christ. But Odin gave the jarl no answer, no matter what he promised. Then Haakon sits again and was gloomy. Thormod Kark looked at him, and said no word.

‘That night Olaf Trygvason went from Rimol to Hladir. Thormod Kark awoke in the middle-night, and Jarl Haakon says to him, ‘Poor dreams have you had: for while you slept, your face was now white as whey and now black as earth.’ Thormod Kark said it was a thing of no matter: ‘Only I dreamt I was before King Olaf Trygvason in Hladir, and he put a gold necklet over my head.’ Jarl Haakon answered and said, ‘Olaf Trygvason will set a blood-red ring about your throat that time you come before him. We two were born of an hour: now you would not betray me?’ Kark said nay; but after that they lay both awake, and did not snuff the lamp.

‘At length Haakon the jarl fell asleep, and Kark watched him. The jarl twitched horribly in his sleep, and shrieked so that Kark waxed sick with terror: leaps up and draws his knife from his belt and sticks it in the jarl’s throat and cuts it out.

‘That even Thora came to the cave-mouth and called down to Haakon. Kark answered and said the jarl slept. ‘Why then does your voice quaver so?’ asked Thora: and straightway bids her men uncover the cave. Kark leaped out with the jarl’s head before him; and they all shrank back, even Thora. So Kark ran into the woods. The next day he reached Hladir, and there Olaf Trygvason had set himself as King and outlawed all those men yet faithful to Jarl Haakon. Thormod Kark gave the King Haakon’s head, and told him all that had gone on between Jarl Haakon and himself. The Easterling at Njal’s was there then: he heard this tale of Kark’s own mouth.’

Swanhild asked in a low voice, so that Erik was unsure he heard her rightly above the waves, ‘And what did young King Olaf Trygvason then?’

‘He bade his men take Kark away and strike off his head. And afterwards he takes both heads to Nidarholm. That, they say, is an island where they hang thieves and mankillers of the Thrandlaw. King Olaf strung up the two heads, and all his men cast stones at them and made many a jest.’

‘And Thora of Rimol?’

‘She saw that the day had been lost for her, and bade all her folk go from Norway into the Swede-realm. But she had dug a great howe, and there lay with the body of Jarl Haakon and died. Later the bonders dug up the howe and drew out the jarl’s body and burned it; but Thora’s body they would not touch, for that they said she looked as though she only slept.’

‘That was a noble lady,’ said Swanhild. ‘Such an end befits her. Yet of this tale of the Easterling’s, I know not whether I would believe it.’

‘There were others at Breidamerk, they say,’ Erik told her. ‘And the skipper was there as well: and all held to that tale.’

The blackhaired girl shrugged, and put her face back to the sea. She took up another handful of stones and threw them singly into the waves. Now her arm threw harder and more awkwardly to Erik’s eye.

‘So much will I well believe,’ she said: ‘and that is what was said of that Christ-loving King. His deeds do not amaze me.’

‘He labors well for his god and faith. Now they say he has ordered that the home gods should be banished from his realm, and his armies tear down the temples and take the lands from all men that still give blood-offerings.’

Swanhild laughed. ‘So did King Haakon Athelstane’s-Fosterling, and King Harald Graypelt and those others of Gunnhild’s sons; yet little more will this new King win, I trow. Soon, Erik, I think the bonders will be little-pleased in their bargain, that they traded Jarl Haakon the Mighty for this Olaf Trygvason.’

‘Swanhild,’ Erik asked then, haltingly, ‘should I now follow the Christ?’

She looked at him, and straightway he rued asking. ‘I thought that was all set out.’

‘It is in my mother’s eyes. I took the water with her, and I bear a cross. But now I am a man. I must choose my path. So I ask your rede.’

‘You should not ask me that.’ Her manner now was odd, and Erik did not know how to understand her.

‘But why not? You are clever, Swanhild, more than I. You would not give me ill counsel.’

‘I never give aught but ill counsel. Ask my father that.’

‘But you seem to think so ill of it. And yet I have never seen you give an offering at the temple, either; and you will drink no mead nor ale. What then is so wrong with the Christ? Our ways are well, but they are more stories of dead men than of God. Did you ever see any of them, Odin or Thor or Freyr or Freyja or Frigga or any of them? Did you ever see land-sprites or Norn-women or elves or dwarves or Valkyries?’

‘No.’

‘Then what is there in this, that you look down on it? Why does your father’s will wound you so? There are heathen in Norway and the Swede-realm, Iceland, and the new settlements on Greenland: nowhere else. All else in the world are Christ’s men. What strength can Odin have that he is unable to halt the priests? What good did it do for Jarl Haakon, that he so supported the temples?’

‘Erik, you ask no questions I do not.’

‘And doesn’t your father like this as well? Hasn’t he said so?’

‘He has said so.’

‘Then I don’t understand you. I know that you will never take the Cross; nor do I think that seemly. Yet – you have nought against the Christ?’

She sat beside him on the black sand and bent her head over her knees: and her hair fell like a cloak about her and covered the sand; only it was blacker than the sand.

‘Erik, you are a goodly young man, and you should make a home in this world. This outland cult will come: it came to the Dane-land, and it has come to Norway; now it reaches these shores. Ships bring it, and the chapmen. All the traders bow to it: even the men that vow by Thor and Niord will be prim-signed, so that they may trade with the southern kingdoms. Iceland will not stand against it: that I see plain, now my father has yielded. Would you put yourself apart, like Thorgrim or Orvar-Odd? They are old men, and will be forgiven old men’s ways. You, Erik, are young. Your mother would grieve if you went not her way: so too my father. And it would win you the love of none. So would it set you amongst men as if you rode a little boat far out to sea, and sought a land you would never reach to, for that the waves had already gulped it down. Would that be your wish?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Well then.’ She lifted her head and put back the long strands of hair from her eyes. Down among the sands of the barrier-islands some skuas were fighting over fish-heads washed up by the storm.

She said, ‘Once I saw a whale upon this beach. Rare are they hereabouts. A storm drove him in, up over the sand-isles; yet then the tide slacked, and the whale might not swim back, and so he died in the sun. Then came my father and all the carles with axes, and hewed the meat and blubber off him in great chunks, like as if they cut peat. There were Easterlings in a boat, and a quarrel started; yet my father was their master, and made them take his leavings. In the end there was left nought but the bones, and them the skuas perched upon. But the carlines followed their husbands and gathered up the bones as well; and that is why our knives have all bone handles hereabouts. There his bones lay – there.’ And she pointed.

Erik saw the outline of her face, wan and bleak, bone-hued, set against the wind like a flat sail. She put her arms about her knees and stared out over the waves. All at once Erik felt a great sadness for her.

‘Swanhild,’ he said, ‘why do you ever gaze out to sea? Even from Hof you are scarce able to keep from looking that way. What hope you to find there? What is there to see?’

She smiled, but did not look at him. One arm stretched forth. ‘There.’

‘Where?’ He shaded his eyes and peered into the blue-gray glitter. Far, far out, a tiny red sail bobbed. ‘That is but a ship.’

‘Oh, yes. And I am but a woman, and the sea but water, and Odin but a god.’

He could not riddle her words, but feared to ask their meaning. He did not like her very much then. Away out on the horizon the ship went on, crossing to the west. It was likely she went to the West Firths; else maybe the storm had blown her northward, and she was bound for Greenland. Swanhild sat staring at it as if she had forgotten all about Erik.

‘Swanhild – guess what else the Easterling told.’

‘Is that a riddle, Erik?’ she asked after a bit. ‘I am unskillful at them.’

‘No, but it was why those men were at Breidamerk. They had come to give Njal this word, that Skarphedin abode in Norway, and sought passage back to Iceland.’

She turned and stared at him. He grinned, pleased.

‘Skarphedin the outlaw? Kalf-Back’s son?’

He nodded.

She shook her head. ‘Now I know those men for liars. Skarphedin was given the greater outlawry. It would mean his life to come back. There may be those outlaws that cannot get away; none such has ever returned. He has not been in Iceland for many years. He could not be so foolish. He would be slain.’

‘Ask your father. I am sure it was Skarphedin they named. But no skipper would give him a berth as yet.’

She stood and stepped to the waves’ reach. ‘Would he come on such a ship then, and easy as that, dare all men to kill him? He has no kin here I heard of. His wits are surely weak. Twenty years ago and more he was outlawed, when I was still a little girl. I can scarce remember it. Why should anyone want to come back?’ She shook her head wearily. ‘Come, Erik. They will look for us at home.’ She went to the woodpile.

Erik brushed the black sand from his knees. ‘I will swear by Christ, then,’ he said with firmness. ‘So a man believes in one, it little matters which. From faith come courage and mighty deeds. So Kjartan says. Yet Swanhild, this too I wish, that you might take the Cross too and be sprinkled with us.’

‘Think you I don’t wish that too?’ she asked. ‘Erik, if I might believe in a wave in the sea, and that it smiled or scowled at me, then you should never have known me here.’ She did not let him answer, but mounted her pony and rode on up the hill.

2013-06-15

Swan’s Path: 7

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!’

2013-06-14

Swan’s Path: 6

Swan-Maiden: Six

THAT NIGHT SWANHILD lay abed in a fine bed-shift Olaf had won years before when he had gone over the seas eastaways. Beneath her the dry straw of the mattress crumpled softly. The curtain of her shutbed was drawn across, so that she was alone. Above the curtain-pole was the faintest glow, shifting and fading, of the embers off the smoke: it made the wooden walls, low-falling roof and curtain seem all the blacker and closer. Of a sudden, up swept Swanhild: put back the curtains all the way open. Then she lay back.

Through the opening gleamed the long red line of the fire and before it the huge black hulk of the highseat. There was a sound from the back of the hall of someone using a pot. Away somewhere else were whispering and rustling: one of the guests had beguiled a serving-girl. The sounds came to an end and there was silence – then they began again. One man groaned, dreaming. Ulf the house-dog padded by to find a spot closer to the fire. The embers of the longfire hissed somewhat when they fell apart.

The sounds crept slyly into the little room. Swanhild’s black eyes glinted with the glow. She put forth her arm as if she would draw the curtain back: then halted. She drew the blankets over her head. She threw them back again. She lay now upon her side, now her back, now the other side, while the hall-noise slowly lapsed. Far away, it seemed, the winds of the storm rose and fell, whispering and groaning through the old turf roof.

2013-06-13

Swan’s Path: 5

Swan-Maiden: Five

THE NIGHT WORE on, still and peaceful in the fire-warm hall. Only seldom would the moan of the wet wind without rise so that it might be heard. The lamps now were all snuffed, and the long hall dark. The ember-pit, four ells wide, fifty long, cast up a darkly-reddish glow upon the stones and the benches filled with sleeping men. At the middle the glow cast up like a sea-wave upon the roof-trees. Only the bottoms of them were in that glow: half-way up their lengths they were lost in the darkness. Between them was the highseat of Hardbein Oxen-Hand: a thing of red and black, carven and big and shadowy.

There sat Olaf, unmoving as stone, seeming larger for the blackness of his smoky shadow grown up behind him. Before him could be seen his shoes and leggings, all crusted over with the mud of that night’s ride: then a blackness, and above that his chest and heavy shoulders, arms and hands, beard and face. In the light his face seemed old, older far than Olaf was. But his great dark eyes cast back none of the ruddy gleamings of the fire below.

At his feet his daughter sat. One arm she had put about her father’s lower legs, and her cheek leaned against the mud-splashed thigh. With the other hand, unrestfully, she stroked and played with the thick black braid curling down around the wanness of her throat.

In his hand Olaf held the ale-horn: but it might have been Mjollnir for all he lifted it. The other hand sat thick as a bear’s paw upon his knee. In the wild tangle of his beard were spots of black: and they were clots of mud, thickening among the crinkled hairs. Sleepily Olaf looked down upon the black crown of his daughter’s hair.

She, as if stirred by that gaze, sat up and set to unbinding the muddy shoes. Those laces had been drawn tight by a man’s strength, and even tighter by mud and fire. She was a long time about it, even with her slender clever fingers.

‘I mind me of that first time you unbound my shoes,’ Olaf murmured. ‘Little were you then; and the knots looked bigger than your fists. How I laughed to see that you could undo them all!’

‘Yes,’ said the girl softly. ‘That was when my mother lived. I had to fight that I might unbind your shoes. Then there were many that wished for that honor.’

With a wrench Olaf lifted up the mead-cup and brought it to his lips. He moved his head, and the shadow grown behind him moved a bit, unclosing more of the carved runes of the seat. Olaf sighed, and shut fast his eyes: took a grip on his daughter’s hair. Slowly he let it slip between his rough horned fingers.

‘So, Swanhild, I have done it. Was it so wrong?’

The girl at his feet did not look up. The last knot pulled free, and she tugged off the shoe: knocked it against stone and set it over beside the other.

‘You are a good godi, father,’ she told the ember. ‘It is not for me to gainsay you. You know more of the world than I. I will not grumble.’

She bent and picked up a shoe again, and set it beside her own stockinged foot. ‘When I was a child, and my mother yet lived, then these shoes seemed great to me. The mud on them smelled oddly, of faroff fields. Sometimes there were flowers caught in the lacings: then I knew you had been up in the fells. Sometimes thorns pricked my fingers, and I tried hard not to let you see my tears. But you ever knew.’

‘What,’ he muttered, ‘you do not weep now? But no, you are too proud for that. You are too like your mother, little black swan: long-necked and graceful, but fierce withal. Shy to hand, to fight deadly. You are over-bloodthirsty, Swan: it was your name made you so. Swans are better seen from afar. If you had been born a hundred years ago, then you would have been a great lady like in the tales. Then you would have wed a mighty man, served mead and ale to all his battle-comrades; given birth to sons, decked yourself in gold, and seen wolves glutted on crimson fields...’

‘Yes, you mock me now,’ she said; ‘but earlier it seemed to me you let them argue it out as if you hoped they might shout down these plans of yours, and make you be again that Olaf you once were, in spite of you.’

‘And where then would have been that Olaf I once was?’ he asked, with a weary blitheness.

She was still. Then, very quietly, ‘Father, must it be this way?’

He took her hair and pulled round her head, firmly, gently, so that she must look up at him. ‘Daughter,’ he said to her; then halted. She pulled free her head and sat round with her back against the fire, and her arms curled round her knees. Olaf looked down at her, and saw the red light glinting through the backs of her eyes, so that in the shadow of her face two red slits blazed.

‘Daughter, there was a time when I should never have chosen this path: well you know it. When a man is young, he burns with Odin’s three fires. Poetry, mead, battle... Njal Thoroldsson asked me to give you to him as wife.’

Those red slits grew long. ‘What answer gave you?’

‘I said, that it would be called a good match by many: that his kin are fully the equal of ours, and that Njal himself is known to be a man clever at law and gaining wealth. I said that none would call it aught but gain to both our standings; but that I had vowed you a free hand in it, and must ask you your rede on it.’

‘Why did you not give it to him then, in place of all those words?’

‘Swan, he is a young man yet, and only now feels the highseat of his father. I would not hurt his pride.’

‘But father, weasels have no pride.’

Olaf was still for a moment: then burst out in a laugh, lusty and young. Men turned about and raised their arms where they lay sleeping down the hall. ‘Ah, Swan, thanks... It is long since I have laughed so. How far away seem the days of my youth now! They are laid in howe; and my middle days are far from well. Old Jarl Haakon is dead, and Norway’s King owns Christ for his lord. And I look only for peace in my oldness. What else would you have me do? Let Njal Long-Nose have his way. What care I for temples and wooden gods? We are not changed for that. The goats will still give milk, the winds will blow, and Vatnajokull will flood these dales. Enough, then: I have chosen. Now is that hay cut and stacked.’

The black-haired girl leaned on one arm, her hand flat upon the stones, and looked about the hall. That glow was darkling, and the forms of sleeping men fainter, bigger and more awesome. Half to herself she muttered, ‘I mind me of the tale of how the might of the Ynglings was ended in the Swede-realm. Ingjald the Ill-minded was then king at Uppsala, and his daughter Asa Ill-rede by his side: and twelve kings they slew by treachery and strength, and broadened their realm two-fold in every way. And King Ingjald wived his daughter to Gudrod, king over Skaney; but she set Gudrod to slay his brother, and then brought on Gudrod’s death – so she returned to Uppsala and her father. But then Ivor the Far-reaching, Gudrod’s brother’s son, went into Skaney, and with Odin’s aid raised a host and marched on Uppsala. And all King Ingjald’s men fled. Thereat the king went back into his hall with all his folk; and Asa served all men strong ale, but Ingjald let faggots be laid about the hall. And when the folk were all dead drunk, then the king rose up and laid fire to the hall: he took the highseat, and Asa sat in the guest-seat, and all there were burnt up: and men said that was the costliest funeral-bier...’

To that Olaf had no quick answer. After awhile he spoke lowly and said, ‘That was long ago, daughter: years and years before King Harald Hairfair’s first breath. Do not grieve that those nights are gone.’

‘You have said it, father: this thing is done. But still, in the patterns of these embers, I can see the lines of days to come: things beyond your seeing. And I must say it now for I have no choice: you shall have what you wish, but you will outlive me by many winters; and I will die young.’

2013-06-12

Swan’s Path: 4

Swan-Maiden: Four

HE CAME INTO his home and hung up his cloak on a wall-peg. Behind and around him the door let in a bunch of men, shaggy, rain-wan, their eyes big from the night. Those were the house-carles who had gone with Olaf to the arvel-feast of Njal Thoroldsson at Breidamerk. With them was a stranger: that was a small man, and he took his first chance to break away from those others and chatter his teeth above the fire. But no one looked at him, unless maybe it was the black-haired girl nearby. The others saw only Olaf.

Tall he was, and strongly-made: taller even than Thorgrim; a man just leaving his prime, though of great strength still. His shoes and leggings were strewn with mud, and splatters of mud sprinkled tunic and arms. The folk clustered round him, like children seeking gifts. He nodded, and put one shoulder against a hall-post; and his back was bent, and his eyes lined. Thorgrim offered him drinking-horn, and that Olaf took with a thankful look, and drank slowly down. The voices of the folk rose from a murmuring round him, as he looked down and over them all. At the edge of the crowd stood Gudruda. Shy yet happy she seemed, and she offered no words but those of gentle greeting.

‘Well,’ said Olaf; and at that voice all others stilled. Rough was his voice from the drink and his age. ‘I am come back. Well was it said, ‘Land is good but hearth is better.’’

‘And the Thoroldsson?’ asked Thorgrim.

‘Be calm, hunt-bear,’ answered Olaf, and smiled wearily. ‘The arvel went well, and afterwards, whenas the other guests went homeward, we spoke long, Njal and I: and the word is peace. We have agreed to those same terms I had of his father, that whatever shall come between us, we will meet to agree to atonement between us. Hello, daughter.’

From across the reek of the fire Swanhild raised her witch-eyes, that seemed to see so much and tell so little. ‘Greetings, home-farer.’ He held her gaze, so that after a moment she let her head fall away, and the thick braid stirred and fell.

‘And there is truly peace?’ asked Gudruda.

‘There was no fighting,’ Olaf answered. He sighed, and refilled the horn, but did not leave the doorway, as if loth to take his place anew in the highseat. ‘Nor, wife, is there likely to be in nights to come. I have picked the peace-path.’ Now he came to the fire, and stood over the stranger that sat there.

‘This man I have taken to dwell here among us and teach us: and I would have you treat him with as much honor as you do me. From Irland in the Western Isles he is come: Kjartan is his name, and he is the priest of Christ, and we will take his ways now.’

There fell a silence athwart the hall then. Thorgrim was the first to speak then. ‘Are we to cast aside the old gods?’ he asked.

Olaf looked at him, but said no word.

‘How will you then rule over blood-offerings, Olaf, as it is your duty as our godi? Who will take in temple-tax and see to the holding of the temple, if you will not? I don’t much like this.’

Gudruda stood still, watching now her husband, now the priest, with speechless wonder: as if she feared to trust the truth of it.

‘There will be no more blood-offerings hereabouts,’ answered Olaf; ‘not if you will follow my lead. And the temple at Hof shall abide no more, but we will build there a church to stand in its stead. And then there will not be that cause of ill-will between us and the men of the Breidamerk, that they have these ways while we cling to the old.’

‘Now might we as well all don gowns!’ Thorgrim cried out woefully.

‘And when was the last time you went a-harrying?’ asked Orvar-Odd. At this Thorgrim waxed angry-red. It was well known he had never been out of sight of Iceland in all his life.

‘Thorgrim – all of you – you are good men, loyal and trustworthy,’ Olaf said, slowly, so that they might all catch and take hold of his words. ‘Yet if I am to be as good a godi as you are thingmenn, then I must look ahead and work as I see best. Times change, folk change – only the land does not change. Our ways were good for our grandfathers and we should worship them. Yet think back and ask yourselves, When was there ever a time when we had peace? What has the Raven-Lord to do with peace? What was Thor but a buffoon? We gave them offerings, and got foxish tricks in answer. Odin has no use for peace; but maybe we do.’

At his words they were somewhat stilled, not knowing how to give him answer. He walked through them round the hall: stood before the highseat. They all followed him, muttering among themselves.

‘Now many of you will not abide by this rede,’ Olaf said loudly. ‘To them I say, fine and fare-well! You may choose another chieftain: to him you may give your loyalty. But for the rest of you, them that will honor me as heretofore, know that I will be a Cross-man, even if all men forsake me. And if you will not have it so, then stop me: but else will I sit again in this highseat and be again your godi.’

Then they were still, though some muttered softly, but knew not what word to give aloud. But Thorgrim said, ‘This smells of a woman’s bed-words to me – nor will I be taken for a woman in my ways. And it might still be said that of old, Olaf would not have spoken out the matter so, but would have said, I made up my mind, and so it will be. Those nights are past, it seems. But until the days of choosing come round, you are my godi.’

‘That is well, then,’ said Olaf: and stepped up in the highseat. ‘And will you take the water, and be sworn in Christ?’

Thorgrim looked down and about for a bit. Then he saw Olaf’s daughter where she sat alone by the fire, her head bent low. ‘Not I,’ he said.

‘Yes, you – and you and you and I,’ said Olaf. ‘That, or follow another in the things. This is my will, that all my kin and thralls and men take the water and learn the outland cult. Only then, it seems to me, will men ever have peace in Iceland.’

‘Olaf is right,’ said one of those men that had gone with him. ‘Thorgrim, what is this Odin you give offering to, but a trouble-making, fickle god? My father followed him over the seas, but he never saw the good of it: lost his foot, a hand, and in the end his life. What more has he granted any of you? You all have given many offerings, and our temple is a good one: but still it seems to me is the life hard; and the sheep still die in winter. Do they care for our sheep, or any more for us? That seems bad bargaining to me, that they should take so much and give back so little. I will seek peace with this outland god then, and see what he has to offer me!’

Then there was great clamoring, and some men held to one side and others to the other. Some were for going to take the water that very night; but the rest held back, and said they would never forsake the old gods. In the end Olaf called for peace, and Gudruda and the women went among them, and said the time had come for sleep. And that was the only thing agreed upon that night. The women looked to the men that had come with Olaf, and gave them meat and bread and clean dry linen. One by one the men lay down upon the benches round the long-fire and drew cloaks over them, and in time stillness settled over the hall again.

Then Gudruda went to where Olaf still sat. She came from speaking with the priest, and feeding him.

‘Husband,’ she said, softly and with brimming eyes – ‘and is this really so?’

He looked on her, and his head fell a little, so that it was as if he nodded.

‘Husband, this is a fine thing you do. Greater was the bravery to try the other road. Only thus will we have peace. But you sit still in wet and muddy clothes, and are like to catch your death of cold from it. Will you not let me dress you in a goodly new tunic, that I have woven for you since you went to the arvel?’

Olaf lifted up his eyes and looked down on her. ‘No, wife,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow I will put on your new tunic. But for this night, these old clothes are good enough for me. Now go you to bed, and let me sit here in my seat awhiles.’

‘Yes, husband.’ She stepped up beside him, and kissed his brow. Then she went down round the big roof-trees of the highseat and into the shutbed they shared.

2013-06-11

Swan’s Path: 3

Swan-Maiden: Three

THE SOUND OF Orvar-Odd’s voice lingered between the high rafters of the hall amidst the smoke and fluttering moths. Even those children, usually so talkative, were still: for these were wondrous and impossible tales to them, of great battles and treasure-taking; and all they had known were sheep-shearing, and cow-milking, and taking in the hay in summer.

Raven-headed Swanhild lay back against the dark heavy stone, lifting her angular face toward the ceiling. The thick black braid fell in a curling loop down round her long slender throat, past the brooches over the front of her gown, moving quite slightly with the rise and play of her breasts. Her long eyes were slits, and through the curls of heat her face was seen to shudder; yet her lips were closed. Strangely still and calm had she borne herself that night: as if the soul of her had been drained out in the bleakness of the storm, and only the body come again to her father’s hall. Now her eyes were shut heavy, as if she slept: her head was fallen back and showed her nostrils, wide-seeming and dark. Then she sat bolt-upright and her eyes went open. A sudden heavy knocking sounded from the main door.

Three times the knock sounded, and leaped loudly down the hall’s length.

The men stood to their feet. Thorgrim laid his hands upon his axe-haft. Others also took down weapons from the wall. Rannveig, one of the thrall-women, gathered the children and took them grudging back deeper into the hall.

The great door swung outwards, and in leapt wind and chill and wet, blowing cinders and smoke from the firebed: and a great dark shape bundled in, manlike and fierce.

It stepped across the threshold-stone and pulled shut the door with a bang. The moan of the wind went out with that bang; so that, for a moment, there was quiet. The stranger stood bent over, face lowered, water dripping off his cloak and hair. Then he lifted up his head and looked them over there with a dark and angry eye.

‘Drink,’ he growled. ‘Drink and shelter from the storm!’

He was not tall, but he was broad: and that not all fat either. His dirty hair was dark with wet; his unbraided beard straggled down his chest. He shook himself, and the water flew from his hair and beard, as if he had been some fierce mongrel Dog upon two legs. He slapped his cloak upon the floor and stepped up to the long-fire. The men gave way for him, wordless at his boldness. The women stood far back, close together in a circle, the children peering out from between their skirts. Only Olaf’s daughter did not move at the stranger’s coming, but only sat, watching him with a faint wonder in her eyes.

The man leaned out his bulk over the ember-bed, wringing out his beard with two meaty hands. The water fell hissing in the fire, and waverings of steam swept up about his face. As he rubbed his hands and blew out breath he looked at Swanhild where she sat below him. She said nought, but met his look.

‘Hello, stranger,’ said Thorgrim behind, ‘if you are not an outlaw or enemy of this hall.’

The stranger threw back his hairy head. ‘Have you no ale?’ he asked. Big as Thorgrim was, he seemed a weakling beside the stranger. ‘Have you no mead to warm my belly? By the Christ, it is chill out there!’

Swanhild stood, went to the cask, and filled a cup. She bore it to the stranger: he took it and threw it back into his gaping mouth: smacked his lips, loosed a big belch.

‘Oh, but that’s good!’ he groaned, turning so that his buttocks might get some portion of the warmth. Catching Thorgrim’s mistrustful stare, he barked a short laugh. ‘No, I’m no outlaw, if that’s what you’re so fearful of! – Not yet at least: after the Assembly this summer, well, then I’ll see if I’ve any luck left still! My name is Hrap: come from the West Firths, and before that the Hebrides saw my birth. Don’t ask my father’s name, for you know as much of him as I! Do you have dry linens, or is guest-kindliness not your way?’

He squatted down at the edge of the fire and held his arms forth flat in front of him. The glow of the embers made his skin all coppery and reddish, as if it had been scalded. From beneath his brows he stared at Swanhild. She held again her seat by the firebed, somewhat farther down.

‘I left my pony in your stables and gave him hay,’ he said: ‘I’ll work to pay it if you want. Have I missed my goal, or are you Olaf Sigurdarson?’

Thorgrim shook his head, and sat again beside the highseat. ‘Olaf is away. I am chief of his supporters: Thorgrim is my name. Yonder sits Olaf’s wife Gudruda.’

‘And she, the black proud one, who is she?’

Swanhild looked away.

‘That is Swanhild, Olaf’s-daughter. What did you come here, Hrap, to seek of Olaf?’

‘What do I want?’ The big man laughed mournfully. ‘Some would call it a small thing: only my life, that’s all. As for this night, well, I would have stopped before, had I found one who would shelter me. When will Olaf return?’

‘That we know not. Soon is my wish. What have you to do with him?’

‘Hrap shrugged. ‘You look a man to understand. From the tales they tell of Olaf Sigurdarson, I deemed him the sort of man that would offer me haven. And I guessed the East might be a place of better luck for me. I slew a man back there.’

‘That is serious.’ Thorgrim frowned. ‘Murder or manslaughter?’

‘It was no secret deed, if that is what you ask!’

‘Was he kin or foe?’

‘No kin of mine. I’ve no kin in this land; anyway, not yet.’

What name bore he? I mind me of one who spoke of a recent killing – a pedlar that came by here.’

‘Gisli was his name.’

‘Fornald’s son?’

Hrap nodded over the coals.

‘Aye, I recall it now,’ mused Thorgrim. ‘Fornald is a mighty chieftain in those parts, man. He is not often thwarted in his wishes. Wasn’t Gisli his only son?’

‘Two others has he, but bastard-born, and ill-liked.’

‘Aye, those are powerful folk. How was the killing done?’

‘Fairly and in equal battle. Gisli attacked me.’

‘Hm. That is not the tale I heard; but if it is true, then your course should be a simple one: dig up Gisli’s corpse and summon him in suit for the attack. Then Fornald will not have the right to sue you for compensation. Still, you ask for Olaf’s aid in this, not mine. You are welcome to stay here until he returns if Gudruda gives her leave.’

‘I do not give it!’

Gudruda had come down the longfire to where she might overhear their words: but at the saying of the intruder’s name she had stiffened. Now she stepped forth, picked the wet cloak up off the stone and held it out to Hrap.

‘Thorgrim, you may have forgotten who this man is, but I have not. Hrap he names himself, but I think he is better known as Killing-Hrap! Three poor men has he slain in the West Firths, and when Gisli Fornaldarson came to ask for atonement on behalf of the widows, Killing-Hrap gave him guest-cup, then slew him when he had put weapons aside! It is no wonder to me he might find shelter in no other hall. Go your way now, Killing-Hrap: you’ll find no shelter here!’

Hrap muttered, standing over Gudruda like a frost-giant above a dwarf. Then with one heavy hand he reached down and took up the little brass cross that hung from her neck. ‘By this sign I call upon you for help and shelter,’ he said. ‘Are we not all brethren?’

‘Were they your brethren you slew westaways, when you had stolen their wethers?’ Gudruda asked, and snatched back the charm. ‘What charity did you show their widows, Killing-Hrap?’

‘You will not call me by that name, goodwife.’

‘Beware that you threaten here,’ said Thorgrim, and held his axe in readiness. Hrap saw that look in his eye and stepped back a pace: put his hand down and fingered at the peace-strings that bound his sword in sheath. Gudruda stepped between them.

‘Thorgrim, this is not your hall,’ she said. ‘And now, Killing-Hrap, I shall call folk whatsoever I wish while I am in my husband’s hall; and until my husband should return, no one but I will choose who shall get guesting here. Now go, and take with you your murdering ways.’

But now Thorgrim drew Gudruda a ways apart, and muttered to her these words: ‘This were unseemly, to cast any man out, how vile he be soever, and above all on such a night as this. But a great-hearted man will offer meat to his bitterest foe, though that try his temper to the uttermost.’

But to that Gudruda answered in no small voice, ‘That I am not a man, and I will cast this one out, and above all on such a night as this. But there is a thing called righteousness, and I will try to cleave to that. Now put up all these words of yours, Thorgrim, for in this I’ll not be moved no whit.’

Before this fierceness, in so plump and mild-seeming a woman, Hrap stood unsure. The menfolk saw him waver and stepped in closer, weapons in hand. Then he shrugged; slung the dripping cloak across his sword side, and stepped backward to the door. But at the threshold he stopped and eyed them again. They stood, all the men and Gudruda, and the women far behind. But only one still sat, on the stones at the fireside.

‘You there, proud one,’ Killing-Hrap called. ‘It seems to me you have as much say here as any other. Now, many will say I was never a beggar-man, but you I will ask. Will you give me leave to abide here?’

Swanhild looked up at him, her eyes wide and dark. She looked to Gudruda, Thorgrim, and back to the stranger. She sat quite still, as if become stone, while all the others looked to her: and so a moment passed.

‘Be it thus then,’ Hrap growled. With a heavy shoe he kicked the door wide open behind him, letting in all the rain and wind. And he laughed gloomily, to see all the folk within a-shivering. ‘You have withheld from me shelter and peace,’ he said against them, ‘clean against all the uses of the land. Now you put me out on a night like this. But maybe, Gudruda Sharp-Tongue, there are others, and their ways are somewhat unlike these of yours: maybe too there will come some day when I may do you some other good turn.’

With that he strode out into the night, leaving the great door open behind him and the storm blowing in. Thorgrim stepped upon the threshold-stone and peered out into the blackness. ‘If this were a dry night we might soon have flame for our bedmate,’ he muttered. ‘Bjarni and Ulf, go you out and see that he does us no hurt. Sing out if he threaten, but beset him no more. But get him gone by all means.’

The two nodded, and took on cloaks with hoods to keep the rain off their heads. They took swords and shields, and stepped out after Hrap. Thorgrim drew the door shut after them and stood back in the hall.

‘Those were no fearful words, Gudruda,’ he said. ‘Olaf can be proud to have such a one for a wife.’

Gudruda nodded; her look still held fast to the door. Light and quick came her breath. ‘You do not deem he will give us trouble, do you?’ she asked.

‘Not this night.’ Thorgrim laughed. ‘Saw you his eyes whenas he left? We should name you Gudruda Hrap-Tamer after this!’

‘Please do not.’ She sighed, and drew her hand across her face. ‘I should never have done this were I not so fretful after Olaf. What can it be that holds him?’

Heavily she turned and went back to her seat. The others drew round her, praising her deed and toasting her with mead. Shortly Bjarni and Ulf came back in: did off their rain-cloaks and went among the rest. Swanhild sat where she had before, and held her gaze down into the fire.

But they had not long to wait. Now from the door sounded a heavy bang, and again it came, like a knocking, and quelled the words of praise. The men rose up, took swords and axes once more in hand: stood to ready. Gudruda looked up with great trouble upon her simple face. Swanhild half-smiled, but not for any cheer. Then the door swung out, and a great bristly shape showed, unformed against the darkness. It stepped across the threshold-stone: then all at once they knew him and raised a shout.

That man was Olaf Sigurdarson.

The godi, the hall’s master, had come back.

2013-06-10

Swan’s Path: 2

Swan-Maiden: Two

A SHOUT SOUNDED when she entered, and a big bearlike man came nigh. He stood so tall his head seemed to duck beneath the rafters, and his face was ugly with the marks of years’ striving against stone, wave, wind and man. In his thickly-braided beard streaks of gray shone amongst the yellow-brown: a great-limbed, big-bellied, horn-in-hand man he was and had ever been, that wore his axe by his side even here in a friend’s hall. He was Thorgrim Thorleik’s son, and he was foremost of all of Olaf’s thingmen. He loomed over the blackhaired shivering woman, his great body shutting out the light and warmth of the open fire beyond.

‘If you were not your father’s daughter, it would go the worse for you,’ he growled. ‘Where are your manners, that you do not serve your father’s guests with mead? You have strange ways, Swanhild: that is the Finn’s-blood for sure. Saw you aught of your father out there?’

Swanhild shook her head; pushed gently past him to seek the fire’s warmth. The heavy, bitter smoke, ill-dispelled through the smoke-hole in the roof, stung the girl’s eyes to tears and blinkings.

‘Take you mead to fire your breast!’ Thorgrim said, but she shook her head. ‘Ah yes, I had forgotten: Olaf’s daughter will have no drink! Yet that was never Olaf’s way.’

He stood behind her and gazed into the ale-horn, an ornate and rune-wrought ox-horn. ‘Why did he not take me along with him,’ he grumbled. ‘I am not so old I could not have matched a few of those luckless wights. And where went you, if that is not too bold a question?’

She cast her eyes back at him briefly: dark slanting eyes with long curling lashes: Finn’s-eyes: the eyes of her mother. ‘Hrafnarroddar rode I: looked down on the Hrafn.’

Now Thorgrim pulled on his beard and gaped. ‘What foolishness! Know you not that the holes of Svinafell hold outlaws, and berserks and dead men’s ghosts besides? Only Odin astride Hlidskjalf could know what you might have run across.’

‘I met with nought,’ she answered, shuddering over the baking heat of red embers.

‘Ox with two legs, Thorgrim, will you stop badgering the girl and look upon her state? Her clothes are wet through. If she does not sicken of this to the death it will be through no deed of yours!’

That was a short broad woman, that had shouldered her way from the far side of the hall. Her gown was stained with flour and dried fish-stew; her braided yellow hair was mostly bound beneath a wimple. From her neck swung a small brass charm in the shape of a square cross, and at her waist swung the big bundle of the house-keys. That was Gudruda, the hall’s mistress and Olaf’s second wife. She hemmed in the slender Swanhild with her bulk, fussing over her state. Then the girl turned upon her, and Gudruda left off.

‘There my dear, you look wretched; even the braids of your hair have come undone,’ she muttered, somewhat warily. Over the girl’s thin shoulders she drew a thick woolen blanket. ‘I have just seen to Erik, but you are in even a worse state. Come along and we will see what can be done. – Rannveig, put a kettle of broth over the fire for Swanhild.’

Gudruda tugged at Swanhild’s arm: the girl yielded, and let herself be led down past the long-fire to the household beds beyond, that were built against the wood-covered walls, beneath the low-falling rafters. Gudruda sat Swanhild down upon the bed and drew the linen curtain: then began peeling off the girl’s sodden gown and undershifts. Those she gathered into a great dripping ball and handed to one of the maids, that she should hang them on the chains beside the open fire.

Swanhild made a tent of the large blanket and huddled wordless on the bed. Gudruda brought closer a lamp: iron bowl of fish-oil with a moss wick, set on a tapering iron rod of curling bands. She thrust the point into the earthen floor where it would give the best light. Rannveig came in softly with a bowl of hot broth, that the young woman took and drank. Gudruda put another blanket about her shoulders and rubbed her dry. Swanhild set the empty bowl onto the floor and sat still and yielding in her stepmother’s hands. Now Gudruda took the long, thick hair into her hands and gently wrung streams of water out of it. She took up another towel and began rubbing Swanhild’s head, halting every now and then to see how her work sped. Swanhild sat gazing at the weave of the linen curtain, her eyes black, giving back no light, like two cracks in the glaciers on the fells in the dim light of a new and frosty moon.

‘You are too thin, surely, stepdaughter. What man will sue for so thin a maid? And that you go abroad on such wild nights as this makes your looks no better. In this will I counsel you: so my mother bade me. Eat for a whole month fresh butter; eat for the second month pork; and in the third month eat you cream-cakes. Then will your form wax round and pleasing to a man. It is no mark of health, this thinness of yours.’

Sitting so, Swanhild in her nakedness seemed some stark thing from the barren fells, foreign and unsettling here within this hall filled with warm smoke, happy smell of burning wood and peat, and the richly rounded carvings of the wainscoting. Her flesh, deathly blue-white from the long winter’s lack of sun and the coldness of the rain, took on none of the golden glow of the lamp before her. That chill whiteness was broken only by the darkness about her eyes and her hair, deeper than night, and the untold riddle of the place crowded between her legs, whereof only a few of the curling strands might be seen.

There was little of womanly roundness about Swanhild’s body, as Gudruda well had said: no round folds of butter-fat, no heaviness of milk in those flat, peaked breasts, no wide rolling hips to bring forth many children. But even so that was a woman’s body, and no man would have gainsaid that. The boyishness about the hips and thin limbs only made the deeper femaleness lurking there all the more sharply felt and longed-for. Her leanness held the comeliness of the glacier’s ice. None would call her a handsome woman: but in the right light, holding her head and shoulders even so, she was lovely, dreadfully lovely. And yet that loveliness too, was pitiless, and made even those who liked her somewhat ill at ease. And as for suitors, she had had none since long years back.

‘How silly, to be abroad on such a night. Whatever put in you such wildness? We were worried to forgetfulness. As if your father’s being away were not enough for us to think on! What would he have done, had he been here to know of this?’

‘Understood,’ Swanhild said.

‘Yes, so speaks a wayward child. Thorgrim said you looked for your father. Did you – did you see aught of him?’

‘No.’

The older woman sighed. ‘Then you think all will be well?’

‘No.’

‘What do you mean? Oh Swanhild, do you think it came to blows?’

‘No,’ answered Swanhild, shaking her hair free. ‘I do not think that likely.’

‘Ah, I am so glad that you say that! You are a wise girl, Swanhild. You know your father best of us all. I have prayed many times for Olaf’s safekeeping: I am sure my words were heeded. After all, godi Njal Thoroldsson is said to be a man clever at law, not a fighter – and he holds to the Christ as well. If sheep are missing, then I hold it likeliest they were drowned by a burst of the Jokull or mired in the Skeidararsands rather than stolen. It is the hardness of our men, and that they are unknowing of the Christ. Olaf did not warrant those battles. He and Njal are two peacebearers, and I am sure they have agreed to atonement between them for the wounded and dead. Yes, maybe they hold now to a new friendship, like that one held before between Olaf and Thorold.’

The younger woman turned, looking from her slanting eyes into her stepmother’s simple broad face, that held the lines of all these nights’ worry. For his second wife Olaf Sigurdarson had picked a middle-aged, capable woman, one handsome enough to match his standing. Her first husband, Erik’s father, had been slain in a feud three winters earlier. When she had first come to the household early that winter, then there had been bickerings and bitter words between Gudruda and Swanhild: then Olaf had brought them to peace.

Folk spoke of Gudruda as a good cook, kindly mistress, and a capable handler of accounts, good with sums and people but not too close-handed with either. She was far-told for her open-handedness with guests, and most of all when wandering gangrel women came to the stead; with them she was kindliest of all, and was much praised for it. She also swore by the Christ, and that was as yet no common thing in Iceland.

Swanhild rose, shrugged off the blankets and let the long heavy braid of her hair fall down into the slight hollow between her breasts. Glossy and deep as night was that hair: for that reason she was sometimes called Swanhild the Black. She knelt and pulled out a chest from beneath the bed: drew forth an undershift of light blue linen, sea-borne stuff, very finely woven, and a dark purple dress.

‘Oh yes: I am sure you are right, stepmother,’ she said as she dressed. ‘Once my father told me of a time when he was young and someone had stolen one of his sheep. From what he told me, I think that was a sickly lamb not worth much: still, he went to see the man to see what sort of atonement he might get for it. He went alone, and took no men with him; but he bore along his sword and spear. Now the thief was the elder of two brethren: they had but come from the Hebrides, and both of them had the name of men who liked to have their own way in whatever they set their minds to. – Maybe you have heard the tale? – There had been three suits against these men, and two had been dropped because of flaws in the proceedings, and the third was uncollected. The elder was gift-named Gap-Tooth because of the tooth he lacked in the front of his mouth. To him my father went: but Gap-Tooth stood in his own field with his brother beside him. He would not gainsay the theft but rather boasted of it, and spoke of how sweet that lamb had tasted. Then he gave my father three pennies of bronze and said that was atonement enough.

‘My father took the coins, and was very mild about it. He agreed that that should be compensation enough. Then he gave two of the coins back to Gap-Tooth: who frowned and did not know the cause of that. Olaf my father said then, ‘These two are naming-gift from me to you, for I have a new name for you. No longer will you be called Gap-Tooth but instead Gap-Brow.’ With that he took out his spear and hurled it between the thief’s eyes; burst open his brains and killed him on the spot. Then said my father to the dead man’s brother, ‘I am sorry for that, but you can surely see I had no choice after he boasted how sweet my lamb tasted. But I am not a hard man, and will give you fair atonement for your brother’s life.’ Then he threw down the third penny in the dirt at the foot of Gap-Brow’s brother. Of course he had to kill him too, but there were no suits against my father for that; and greatly grew his standing by this deed. So you see, Gudruda stepmother, what sort of a man it is you have wedded,’ the girl ended, with a slight smile that showed her teeth. ‘There is nought you need worry over. Olaf was ever a man able to fend for himself: and those were hard men, mankillers; and these of Njal’s are only womanish Christ’s-men, after all.’

Thereat Swanhild pinned the second brooch to her purple gown and shoved the chest back beneath the bed with her shoe. She went out through the curtain to the warmth by the long-fire. Behind her Gudruda sat very still upon the bed; and the starkest look of dread spread over her face.

Round the long-fire and over the earthen floor ran the hall-benches, where sat most of the household and the guests. From the highseat to the northern gable and back to the main, or men’s door, the men were sitting; and they drank mead and told tales and verses. Thorgrim sat beside the highseat at chess with Skeggi Einarson, another of Olaf’s followers. On the soft leather board the ornate bone pieces were moved across squares of stitched hide. That was Thorgrim’s own set, that he bore rolled-up behind his saddle wherever he went. Now Thorgrim grinned and made a move: Skeggi looked down sharply, worry in his brow. The women sat beyond the highseat, on a raised flooring of wooden planks: some knitted, and others softly gossiped; one young woman held a bairn to her swollen breast. Quieter they all held themselves this night than was their wont. Between the groups of men and women the oaken highseat, crawling with carvings and rich-wrought runes, reared up big and empty.

Swanhild sat apart from the rest, on the red-and-black lava at the fireside. Below her the cinder-strewn rock hemmed in the long pit of the fire, warm to her feet; the ruddy glow of the low flames gave scant color to her face, sharp and bleak as bone. The men and women’s talk blended round her in a mild buzz. Among the men sat young Erik Gudrudarson, new-dressed in dry garb, watching the play of Thorgrim. When he glanced her way Swanhild looked away. The heat of the flames rose drowsily into her face, causing her to narrow the flattened slants of her eyes. They were strange hard eyes, that those who liked her not called, behind her back, ‘thief’s-eyes.’

A knot of children sat on the earth not far from her, clustered about the knees of Orvar-Odd. The old man sat with his back against the wall, swords and shields and axes pegged on one side, pots and kettles and ladles on the other. He was telling tales to the children, of witches and giants and trolls, and unhappy ghosts that rode the rafters in the winter-nights.

The air rose shuddering from the layers of coals and peat-squares, streaming upward with orange-red arms, to stroke the big, blackened soapstone cauldrons. Hung upon chains above the fire, Swanhild’s dripping shift and gown looked like two ill-formed, dream-wrought ravens: Odin’s ravens, Huginn and Munin. The blue smoke rose to weave flickering mazy patterns upon the rafter-shadowed turf ceiling. So thick and snug was that turf, that it let in none of the cold or wind or wet from without: the lazy smoke twirled in answer only to those gusts that entered through the smoke-hole and the gable at the hall’s end. Old was this hall now: many years had gone by since Hardbein had built it here. The roots of the turf dangled through the roof-bark, and the rafters creaked with the weight of the rare winter snows. Soon it would need to be built anew, out of timber shipped from the high forests of Norway, and peat-bricks from the bogs nearby.

From time to time a man or woman would feel the urge and slip out the women’s-door at the back of the hall to go to the privy: then the silence washed like a sea-wave down the hall, and all eyes sought the shadows thrown across the main door. But it did not open. Then the talk began again, from the men on one side and the women on the other, and wove like drowsy land-winds over Olaf’s daughter’s head.

‘And did you know,’ said Orvar-Odd, ‘in the old nights men were not buried in the earth in howes? Then was there never need to wait until the ground was soft at winter’s end, as Njal had to wait to bury his father Thorold.’

‘Then how did they do their dead ones?’ asked one little girl. She played with the braided ends of her bright yellow hair as she lay on the floor.

‘With fire,’ answered Orvar-Odd. Gently he stroked the silver flax of his scanty beard. ‘Yes, and most of all was it done when a hero fell. Then it was a great thing. Then they should bear away his corpse from the wold-trough and lay it upon a bier. He should be new-garbed in armor and sea-borne robes of fine workmanship: they should comb out his hair and braid his beard, and put bright ribands in his hair above his brows. Beside him went food and drink, drinking-horn, shield, sword and axe. Even gold they laid there, the down-stuff of worms. And if his death were fair, and if he had been mighty in his life, then should they slay his favorite horse in offering to Odin, Lord of Hosts, and lay it there beside him. That was for the Hel-ride.

‘And all this was done on a ship or ship-wrought ring of stones nearby the waves. Thus could he cross the rivers too high to ford. And then they would pick out one of his concubines to die with him and give him company. Sometimes she went willingly; else they must pick her out by lot. And they dressed her in fine bright linens, and put rings on her arms and blossoms in her hair, and gave her ale that was spell-wrought and had no pain, and cut her throat there.

‘Then should they invoke all the gods, but most of all the king of the gallows: Odin, that has his pick of all those men fallen in battle or weapon-slain. Little he cared for us, old blind ones or weaklings dead of sickness. So the bier was set afire, and they made blood-offerings. And as high as the reek of that blaze rose into heaven, so great they said had been the heart of that man in his life.

‘Of course, that was long ago,’ said old Orvar-Odd to the little children – ‘and far away as well, in Norway and the Swede-realm where forests grow as thick as grass. Here in Iceland we are too wood-poor to do any such thing. And anyway it went out of use long ago. Now they build up howes to hold a man down – you know of them, they are the grass mounds on the Svinafell. And it seems to me that few are the men nowanights that die seemly deaths for such an end. Only the lucky get what they want from life, children, and even they are far from happy. The life of a man starts shiny and bright from his mother, with a cry; but it ends in silence, dry and wrinkly and wormy.’

‘But what about the Valkyries?’ asked the little girl. ‘Yes, and the heroes!’ the others clamored, so that Orvar-Odd smiled, and let nod his head.

‘Yes, there were heroes, favored of the gods. And the greatest of these, outside of Sigurd Signison, were the champions of King Hrolf. Those men did not die in their beds, be sure! Their deeds are not unremembered; nor were they overlooked by the High Ones. They knew their ends, and faced them. And so in their last battle, fought they as they had never done in life before, and they great fighters all.

‘And above them, over feast-field of wolves and the fiery billow’s-steeds, would gather the Choosers: deathless maidens on winged mounts, byrnie-clad and shaft-wielding. They obeyed none but the Hanged One, old gray Odin himself: and so gave the win or withheld it, broke hosts and gave men battle-fury so that they knew not what they fought.

‘Of course, those fierce maids come not to Iceland. But long ago, in the firths of Norway, in the Dane-land, in the Swede-realm, they were common as pedlars. They gave luck to their heroes and at times, in troll-ridden forest glades, put on the guise of Swan-maidens, and bathed in icy pools at midnight. Then would they rise and put on again their mail, and fare to battle. An when a hero’s time was done, then would he be borne up heavenward by the maidens, over Bifrost the bridge from Middle-earth, into Asgard where the High Ones dwelt. And there would he feast with all the others, and eat boar-flesh, and do battle in hosts each day, and so be slain. Yet evenward they rose again, and came in fellowship again to Odin’s hall, Valhalla. Mighty kings and jarls led them: such as every hero you have ever heard the tale of. Nor was there pain there, though a thousand died each day. So it is said they took their pleasure at their lord’s command, and readied themselves for the last of all battles, the Battle of Vigrid’s Field...’

2013-06-18

Swan-Maiden: Ten

2013-06-17

Swan-Maiden: Nine

2013-06-16

Swan-Maiden: Eight

2013-06-15

Swan-Maiden: Seven

2013-06-14

Swan-Maiden: Six

2013-06-13

Swan-Maiden: Five

2013-06-12

Swan-Maiden: Four

2013-06-11

Swan-Maiden: Three

2013-06-10

Swan-Maiden: Two

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