A sample from an early work, based on a medieval Icelandic saga.
© 1975 by asotir. All rights reserved.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Swan-Maiden: One
THERE WAS A storm, and it was long ago. It gathered over shores where the sun burns the open sands, and it moved north. There the wind and waves were colder, and the water silver-gray, and through the water wove jagged islands all of ice, slick with streaming rain. And the storm drove deeper into the north. And there in its path beyond all lands, a land rose out of the depths of the sea, gleaming and dark; and that was Iceland.
Murkily, drawing from the sea, the storm drifted across the land: over pasture, rock, stream and sand. In the gray daylight much of the landscape could still be seen: reek of stream billowing from hot springs, yellowish pastures scarred by braiding streams, desolate choked expanses of black and moss-green lava, sand, gravel, ash. That was not a land of little men but of risen rock, volcanoes, falls, mountains and wastes: an all but empty land, unbounded in its carelessness.
The storm passed above upturned boats of fishermen shining like wooden whales stranded beyond the tide-marks; it passed above the rare, distant mounds of sod that were the farmers’ halls. It crossed the rocky wastes up to the high valleys. Heavily the storm hemmed in the hills and alpine fells beyond. Slowly the rain wet and laved the faces of those fells, basalt, granite, iceclad, as severe and as untrodden as the moon’s thin face. There across the highest peaks, over mountaintops, gorges and volcanoes alike, lay a mighty glacier, like a small kingdom. Land of frost-giants, not of men.
The rain gathered in gray pools upon the glacial ice, ice a hundred thousand years old; as old almost as the island itself. And the rainwater rose above the tops of the hollows and spilt down across the glacier’s steps, down past caves used by dying outlaws and runaway thralls, down to meet the braiding streams, down to run again into the cold dark sea.
FEW WENT ABROAD that even. Only one shape could be seen to move, tiny and weak-seeming from the heights. That was the shape of a man; and that man struggled to haul a small cart along a muddy, stony track out of the fells. The man’s legs gleamed all wet with mud, and his cloak was shabby. Nought of the face could be seen save for the braids of a long gray bear angling beneath the broad brim of his hat. The man’s form was stooped and twisted, and the hands that gripped the harness leads were cracked and spotted and misshapen. But still there showed between the swollen knuckles cordlike sinews that once had used great power.
The cart groaned and clattered as it rocked along behind him. On both of its ox-hide sides alongside a crude likeness of a raven were bound odd things of iron and bone, ladles and knives and charms of stone and amber and colored glass.
At length in the murk the old one halted and shrugged free of the harness. He straightened, and kneaded with cracked wet knuckles the small of his back. He had an old, old face, scarred and shattered like a ledge of rock between the tide-marks after too many hard winters. The broad nose was broken, and one eye was gone, but the wide mouth was turned in a sly grin.
The path there ran by a stream that cut deep and jagged through sand and stone. Upon the far side the stone rose sharply from the bubbling lips of the stream to a rude and unsafe peak some nine ells above the bank’s top. On one face of the basalt, down by the grass, some passing man once had scratched the sign of Thor’s hammer and a few faded runes: maybe it had been a curse, or maybe he had wanted to lure back lost luck. High above it, on the thin stone peak, was perched a lone and slender shape. And that was the shape of a woman.
She stood quite still upon the stone: and she looked skyward. Her long, nightdark hair, heavy with water, fell down her back and over the breast of her sodden gown. She wore no cloak. Her body was straight and her hands hung moveless at her flanks. She did not move, nor look down about her. It was as if she too were of stone, like the basalt growing out of the hem of her gown.
For awhile the old one did not speak; then, putting his hands to his face, he shouted up to the woman: and she answered. The old one shouted, but the woman answered in a low voice all but lost in the rain’s soft groan, as if she cared not whether he heard her.
‘Ho, mistress! Are you woman or shield-maiden up there so high?’
‘Where are you bound?’
‘I am looking for Hof. I seek Olaf, for he is said to be a godi with a good eye for the worth of things.’
‘Olaf is away.’
‘What of Olaf’s new wife, then? Men often look, but women often buy.’
‘What do you have?’
‘Oh, I have many goodly things. Goods for offerings, fair spears from abroad, sharp swords, and charms with Thor’s hammer.’
‘Go away. Gudruda will buy nought of that.’
‘This is a hard word of yours. Still, what of you, High One? Have you need of nothing?’
‘I have no pennies to spend. Go away, old man. Look to some other stead, there is no need of you at Hof.’
To this the old one had no word at first. Then in a lower voice he said, ‘You speak as though all the folk there are dead, mistress.’
She shrugged. ‘Soon enough, maybe.’
The old man stooped and gathered up the leads of his cart. The little cart rocked and groaned and clattered, but soon enough the sound was lost in the rain and the rushing of the stream. In time the old pedlar and his cart faded into the rainy darkness. Then it was night, and all that could be seen were the hills and fells black and shapeless against the dull dark sky.
For a long while afterward the woman stayed on the stone. The rain was soft and heavy, but chill. Had it flashed and roared and riven, then men would have said it was the sound of Thor’s hammer whenas it crushed the skulls of mountain giants; had it soothed and caressed, then would they have named it the seed of Frey; if it had moaned and wailed, then would they have called it Freyja’s tears. But this was only rain, and it fell down in the night.
The woman’s shoulders rose and fell. Had the winds been strong, then she would surely have been thrown off that slight, slippery perch and dashed upon the dark sharp rocks below. Slowly she bore out her arms to either side, palm-upwards, so that the water streamed off her sleeves. She stretched out her arms, stiff and shuddering, for she held them there long. Her face she bore back even farther, until it was into the very face of the starless night she stared, blinking as the raindrops pelted her eyes. Then she crouched down and took hold of the stone with both her hands and, very carefully, began to clamber down the far side.
A goodly pony was tied in the slight shelter of the rocks; its shaggy many was thick and wet as grass-roots. The woman stroked the pony’s long muzzle and climbed into the hide saddle, awkward against the gown’s sodden weight. She sat loosely in the saddle and let the reins trail from her wan thin fingers. Behind pony and rider the rocks fell away into the mountains and were lost. They went away from the stream, down away from the hills, and for awhile the woman rode aimlessly, as if she too were searching. In time though, she let the reins fall looselier, and the pony fared on as if it knew whither it should go.
Now it was not dark but black. Wayfarers passing within four steps of each other would not have been seen. The rain fell more heavily, and it did not groan but sang with a weighty rhythm. The woman rocked to and fro in the saddle, her head low, the long, wet hair swaying slowly forth and back. Then a voice called out in the darkness, and she raised her head.
She halted the pony and sat upright, listening. The rain fell. Then the voice called out again. The woman looked from side to side sharply.
Again the voice hailed the darkness. It was closer now, and the woman seemed to sigh, and she urged her pony to go toward the sound of the voice.
The shouts grew out of blindness. It was a high-pitched man’s voice. It called out, ‘Swanhild, Swanhild!’ It was very near now.
The woman rode on, and a dim shape broke from the rainy black. ‘I am here, Erik.’
There was only one man there. Swiftly he turned in his saddle: the song of the rain had hidden the sound of her pony’s approach.
‘Swanhild?’ he ventured, coming nearer. ‘Is it you? Where have you been?’
She smiled unwarmly. ‘Did you hunt me, then?’
‘Why else should I fare abroad on such a night? We were all worried at what might have befallen you. Gudruda asked about you.’
That was a young man, and a lean and strong, with the beginnings of a dirty yellow beard sprouting from his chin. Over his left shoulder he wore a big embroidered wool cloak: this he offered her, but she would not have it. She put her pony in beside his, and together they rode down the muddy trail. They rode awhiles in silence. Swanhild went ahead.
When they had come aways, Erik asked, somewhat warily, ‘What were you doing out here in the night, Swanhild? Did you look for your father?’
She looked back at him. ‘Has he come back?’
‘No, not when I set out. All the men speak of it. The womenfolk grow fearful. Five nights now have we looked for his homecoming. Do you think maybe this storm held him back?’
‘This rain would not hold Olaf up.’
‘So Thorgrim said. But he also said—’ Erik lowered his voice now, so that it was all but lost in the rain – ‘he said it may have come to blows. He does not trust Njal to hold to his oath.’
‘Nor do I.’
‘Then do you think it might have run to fighting? While Thorold lived there was peace; now, if there is a feud – Do you think truly it might run to that, Swanhild?’
‘Whatever may come, you can be sure my father will be equal to any deeds of those men of Njal’s, Erik. You need not fear.’
‘I am not afraid. But I would not seek it either.’
‘That is the word of a wise man,’ she answered. ‘But Thorgrim I think is not so wise. This afternoon I watched him sharpen his axe and put a new nail in his spear: he was singing then. If only your beard were long enough to braid maybe you would be unwise too.’
He had nought to say to that.
At length they reached a cluster of long low masses: those grew out of the dark side of a hill. Side by side the halls grew out from the earth. Swanhild and Erik rode through a gate in the turf-covered stone home-fence and came into the muddy courtyard, or garth, between the buildings. They came to a halt before a storeshed and there hung up their bridles and hide saddles. The ponies they fed hay, then let wander free.
‘You know, Swanhild,’ offered Erik then, ‘My mother has been very worried over Olaf. She grows fearful lest some harm may have befallen him. You would not say aught to trouble her, would you? I hoped for this time to ask you, now we are alone. Could you say some words to her to cheer her? That would be great comfort to her, above all if you say them.’
She walked out of the shed and waited for him to close and tie the doors again. ‘Yes, I will do that, Erik.’
‘You promise?’
‘Yes. I promise.’
‘That is good, then. It is a kindly act.’ They walked along the stones set in the mud toward the door of the main hall. There Swanhild stopped.
‘I have just now remembered my need. Go you on in and I will follow in a moment.’
‘Yes, of course,’ he muttered. He stepped down into the stone well before the door and opened it. A swirl of lighted smoke and the buzz of many voices girt him and drew him in; and as swiftly ended with the shutting of the door.
Swanhild went past the hall: came to the stone wall of the pen. There she sat and stayed for some minutes, her head held low. Below her the hogs nestled deep in the mud against one another for warmth, scarcely in the shelter of the birchbark overhang. Swanhild sat and watched them, the chill rain streaming down her hair and the back of her gown. The wind shifted then, and she shivered. She stepped down off the wall and walked back to the hall. There, before her at the bottom of the stone steps leading into the ground, stood the main door on the threshold-stone.
That was a door deep-girthed and of solid oak, carved richly with shapes of beasts and warriors and patterns of mingling loops and horns and paws. It was old, that door: rare and prized in Iceland, where the only trees were stunted birch and willow unfit for building. Hardbein Oxen-Hand had let it be hewn and worked in Norway, in the North More. There Hardbein had lived as a landed man under King Hunthjof; but King Harald Hairfair slew King Hunthjof and laid the More-shires under him.
Hardbein Oxen-Hand then had that choice, to live under King Harald and be his man without odal-rights and pay the king a tax each year, or leave Norway. Hardbein chose to leave, and went west. Many others chose as Hardbein had; that was the founding of Iceland, and called the Age of Settlement.
Hardbein took all his goods in three broad ships, and sailed along the coast of the new land until he saw what pleased him: cast overboard this door and the highseat roof-trees, like as many others did. The highseat washed up at one spot, and the door at another. Hardbein Oxen-hand then had fire borne all about the land in between, and took it for his own. On the upward right corner the door still bore the blade-mark of that battle wherein Hardbein’s brother Sigurd had been slain, when King Harald’s men had come to More. Not alone had Sigurd died.
Swanhild took hold the ring with her chill wet hand and pushed her great-grandfather’s door inward on its great wooden hinges. The bluster of the night stepped into the hall with the young dark woman in its midst, and the draft blew up smoke from the open fires, making many blink and cough and curse. But then she swung the door close behind her, and they looked up and knew her.
