Of Kollgrim, there is this to say, that he was a great wanderer, and he was known at all the farmsteads round about and at Pall Hallvardsson’s priesthouse across the water. It happened at this time, while Gunnar was away hunting for seals and Birgitta was occupied with Johanna, that Kollgrim was walking past a neighboring farmstead and two boys, Hrolf and Hakon, came out of the byre with their dog, who was a large deerhound by breed, but not fully grown. This dog, seeing Kollgrim, broke away from the two boys and ran at Kollgrim, baring its teeth and knocking him down. Now Kollgrim felt a stone beside his hand and picked it up and brought it down hard on the dog’s head, so that the dog’s skull was broken and the dog died. Then the boys came up, and Kollgrim jumped to his feet, declaring it was unneighborly to set such a beast upon a guiltless passerby, and he fell upon Hrolf, the older boy, although without the stone, and he beat him. This boy was not quite Kollgrim’s age, and certainly not his size. Hakon ran to get a servingman, as the farmer, Harald, was also away on the seal hunt. This servingman was carrying a staff, and struck Kollgrim with it on the side of the head, and at this the boys ceased fighting.
When Gunnar and Harald returned from the seal hunt, Gunnar paid Harald two sealskins as compensation for the death of the dog and the beating of Hrolf. Birgitta was much annoyed to get nothing for the dog attack and the blow to Kollgrim’s head, and Gunnar and Birgitta had words about this. In addition, Kollgrim was forbidden visiting Haralds Stead, but he went there often anyway, for it seemed that now he would not or could not forbear teasing this boy Hrolf, as he had teased his grandfather and his sisters and Olaf and everyone else.
One day shortly after this, Birgitta sat down beside Lavrans, who now stayed beside the fire, for he was some sixty-five winters old or more. This was the first time Birgitta had gotten up after her confinement, and she carried the new baby with her to show to her father. For a little while, Lavrans held the child in his arms and admired her size and her clothing, for Birgitta had woven a new white shawl for her, and decorated it with handsome woven bands. Then Birgitta leaned over his shoulder and put her finger in the infant’s mouth and felt around gently until she found the tiny tooth, and she said, “Don’t folk say that such a tooth brings ill luck to the whole lineage?”
Lavrans replied, “Such a thing was never spoken in my hearing, but it may be.”
“I am afraid for the others.”
Now Lavrans looked at her for a while, and then he said, “Such pride as I had in you, which folk laughed at, and such doting as I fell into, which folk once marveled at, you show tenfold, and fivefold for the boy alone. The priests say it is a sin to love a child more than God Himself. The truth is that God is jealous and powerful and well pleased to take our cherished idols for His own.”
“I can’t help it that they fill up my eyes with their beauty and winsome ways.”
Now Lavrans waited for a long time, then he spoke in a low voice. “One at least blinds your sight. One at least has brought you some ill luck already, more than a newborn babe has brought you. One at least will do much harm before he does good, because the devil draws him on.”
“He is lively, indeed, but not ill disposed.”
“He is disposed to do as he pleases until everyone around him is displeased. Then he is content.”
Now Birgitta stood up, and she was much offended, and she took the new baby from her father and put her in the bedcloset, and after this Birgitta chatted little with her father, and always spoke to him in a cool and formal tone of voice.
In the middle of the summer, sometime around the feast of St. Benedikt, a ship painted bright colors and sporting a red and white sail rode into Hvalsey Fjord, and stood off Lavrans’ tiny landing until Gunnar, who was herding sheep down by the water, motioned it to approach. This was a ship belonging, of course, to Bjorn Einarsson, and Bjorn and Einar and twelve other men, including Thorkel Gellison, disembarked. Gunnar made them welcome and asked after the news in Vatna Hverfi district and at Gardar, and Thorkel told him the following tale:
At the previous Yule, Vigdis, the wife of Erlend Ketilsson, declared herself divorced from Erlend, although they had never been married by a priest, and moved away from Ketils Stead and installed herself with a steward and six servants and Jon Andres Erlendsson at Gunnars Stead, and when folk, such as beggars and travelers, came about looking for hospitality and gossip, she sent them off speedily without either. Erlend, on the other hand, seemed willing to entertain everyone in the district, and sent out messengers inviting folk to not one but two feasts, except that when folk arrived for the first of these feasts, Erlend had made no preparations, and acted as if he had invited no one, and when folk arrived for the second of these feasts, more to see what was going on than in the expectation of festivities, he served up much food, but it was all nearly rotten or badly cooked, and he spent the whole time making much of one of his servants, a fat, gap-toothed girl who dressed herself in all of Vigdis’ finest gowns, and all at once, one on top of the other.
After these feasts, Vigdis stopped being so unfriendly, and indeed, invited folk to Gunnars Stead and made them talk of Erlend and Ketils Stead and this servingmaid until they were hoarse, for she couldn’t get enough of any tale. And in addition to this, she had her servants take down the stone wall around the great field Erlend had won from Asgeir and Gunnar, and rebuild it so that the field was again part of Gunnars Stead, and any of Erlend’s servants who were found trying to manure the field were driven off by Vigdis’ servants.
And after Thorkel told this tale, which the Lavrans Stead folk found very interesting, Bjorn took Gunnar aside and asked for Gunnhild Gunnarsdottir as a bride for Einar his foster son, and he listed all of Einar’s assets in Iceland and said also that he had given Einar the very ship that they had sailed in to Hvalsey Fjord, which was a large enough ship for seafaring, but nimble and neat. And Gunnar replied, as all men do, that he would leave the decision to his daughter, though he had no doubt that she would agree, but he made one condition, on account of the girl’s age, that she stay at home, only betrothed, until she was the age that Birgitta had been on her marriage, and, should Bjorn choose to leave Greenland before that time, that she would go away under the protection of Solveig Ogmundsdottir, and live with her as a daughter until she reached the proper age. Bjorn and Einar agreed to this condition, and after that, the men from the ship stayed for two days, feasting and celebrating the betrothal.
When it came time for them to leave, Gunnar had a great desire to go with them on the ship, although it was only going to Gardar, and it was arranged that he and Sira Pall Hallvardsson would go on the ship and then return in Gunnar’s big boat, which would be towed along behind. And Gunnar agreed to return some five days hence, the night before Sira Pall Hallvardsson held his Sunday service. At the last minute it was agreed that Kollgrim would go along.
When they went onto the ship, Gunnar was much impressed, for the ship was deeper and wider than she looked from the outside, and had room for a fair number of goods. In addition to this, she was built of six different kinds of wood, including a tall, straight Norwegian fir trunk for the mast. The pieces of the keel were neatly joined, and the strakes nailed to the hull with wooden pegs. This ship, Bjorn declared, had never been damaged, for it was but six years old. Indeed, the carving along the gunwales and the prow, of leaping fish entwined with galloping reindeer, was fresh and sharp. All of the lines and casks and planking and other equipment was of the finest sort.
Passage to Gardar, out of Hvalsey Fjord and up Einars Fjord to the Gardar landing, took but half a day, for Bjorn caught a good wind, and the ship sailed quickly. As a rule, men from Hvalsey Fjord counted on two days when rowing to Gardar, and would stop for the night at Sudarstrand, where men from Vatna Hverfi kept a landing and some pasturage.
When they arrived at Gardar, they saw that Sira Jon had been looking out for them, for he himself ran down to the landing place and began at once greeting Bjorn Einarsson and asking him questions. Before the ship was ev
en drawn up on the strand, he was hurrying everyone up to the Gardar hall for food and other refreshments. Sometime later he began asking Bjorn how long he would be staying, and how quickly he cared to return to the farms he had been given, and it was apparent to Gunnar that Sira Jon did not mean to let the other man go.
Sira Jon was much older-looking now. What hair he had about the sides of his head was nearly gray, and his cheeks had sunk so that his eyes blazed out somewhat as Bishop Alf’s had done. But he did not draw himself up proudly, as his uncle had, and instead seemed to hang his head before Bjorn as a dog does before its master. His face composed itself into youthful smiles and eager looks, and Gunnar saw Pall Hallvardsson watching him from afar. After eating he took Bjorn aside and showed him the accounts and told him the news of Gardar even though Bjorn had only been away for some ten days or so. He also spoke loudly of a dream that had come to him the night before. In this dream, which all about were able to hear, Sira Jon was transported to the cathedral at Nidaros, except that this cathedral was more magnificent even than that one, and looked as Bishop Alf had often described the great cathedrals he had known as a young man. In this cathedral, hundreds of folk in brilliant clothing sat bowed in prayer, and the colored light of the surrounding glass played over them. Now, at the far end, a great priest arose, and this was the archbishop of Nidaros, although his name was never mentioned, and he declared as he stood before them that he was consecrating his greatest bishop and sending him to Greenland in a giant ship, and this ship would be carrying to Greenland all manner of wealth, from the most mundane sorts of seed and tar to the richest and most beautiful of golden vessels and wallhangings, and he lifted one of these last up, and the colors of the glass penetrated it, and glowed within it. And then, as if by a miracle, Sira Jon had seen himself running down to the landing and greeting this bishop and making him welcome, and he had risen from the dream and prayed a great prayer of thanks to the Lord for communicating his purposes to Sira Jon, for this dream bore all the marks of a prophecy, namely that he dreamt it in the morning, and that he had eaten nothing before going to bed but the blandest and mildest of foods.
Now, after this, Sira Jon and the others expressed the hope that these things were indeed true, and that a new bishop would be arriving soon, and some folk spoke of the dream in one way, as a prophecy, and others spoke of it in another way, as a delusion, but Bjorn only listened and nodded and did not enter into gossip concerning the dream. After these events, Bjorn and Einar approached Sira Jon with the news of Einar’s betrothal to Gunnhild Gunnarsdottir, and then Gunnar stepped forward and greeted Sira Jon and was greeted politely in return, except that after every sentence Sira Jon glanced at Bjorn as he had once glanced at Bishop Alf. Then Gunnar brought Kollgrim forward and introduced him, for Kollgrim had never visited Gardar before, and Kollgrim stepped up boldly, kissed Sira Jon’s ring, and then, rather than stepping back, stood and stared freely into the priest’s face, with his eyes wide open and challenging, for indeed, Kollgrim had never learned to veil his gaze in a courteous manner. Gunnar stood to the side of him, and a little behind, and did not interfere, but only watched the priest and the boy with evident amusement. When Sira Jon finally turned away, somewhat agitated, Gunnar only smiled and said to Sira Pall Hallvardsson, “So, we are not made better friends by this branch of the Asgeir lineage.” Sira Pall Hallvardsson shook his head with disapproval.
Shortly after this, it got to be time for everyone on the place to retire, for the three priests, with Pall Hallvardsson, kept canonical hours, and so Gunnar and Kollgrim were shown a small chamber with a seal oil dish for light and heat and a pile of reindeer hides on the floor for them to sleep upon and wrap themselves in. Kollgrim was very disdainful of these provisions and declared that the floor stank, although no one had inhabited the room in a number of winters and Gunnar did not find the room unusually dirty. By the dim, flickering light of the lamp, Gunnar spread out the reindeer skins to make a soft bed for his son, then tucked others tightly about the boy. Finally, he lay down and settled himself to go to sleep, but Kollgrim would take no rest. He bounced and fidgeted, threw off his coverings, and turned awry so that his foot was in Gunnar’s belly. Gunnar sat up and looked at him by the light of the lamp and saw that, though his eyes were open, the boy was nearly asleep. Gunnar lay down again. But still the boy wiggled beside him so that every time sleep came, Kollgrim sent it off again. Gunnar sat up. Kollgrim was still in this state of open-eyed dreaming that he had been in before, and Gunnar found this oddly provoking, although as a rule, he did not often allow himself to be provoked to anger about anything. It was true that when he was angered, it was Kollgrim more often than not who had caused it. Now the boy cried out pettishly in his sleep, as if put out by something, and Gunnar leaned over and shook him until he seemed to wake up, but when Gunnar spoke his name in a sharp voice, the boy made no response. Gunnar shook him again. Kollgrim’s eyes closed. At last, Gunnar dealt the boy a blow upon the side of the head, and he woke up.
If there needed to be any proof that an imp was in partial possession of the child, then this was it, that after jumping about so, and causing such difficulty, Kollgrim opened his eyes, with their fan of lashes, and looked at Gunnar in guileless question, as innocent and well disposed as any child could be, as Johanna herself looked when she awakened between Birgitta and Gunnar in the morning. Now Gunnar said, “It is true, boy, that my father Asgeir was greatly disappointed with me, and went about asking whether he could change my name from Gunnar, which was the name of his father, to Ingvi, which was a strange name, and the name of a stranger, my mother’s father in Iceland. But it seems to me that he would have been much pleased with the likes of you, for you bustle about, even in your sleep, as Asgeir bustled about from dawn to dark on the longest days.”
“Lavrans sits all day in his chair beside the fire.”
“Lavrans is close to seventy winters old, and much afflicted in his joints. But my father was some forty-five or forty-eight winters when he died, still a young man with bright yellow hair, although he seemed to me at the time as old and set in his ways and bitter to me as Lavrans does to you.”
“Did he greet you angrily, as Lavrans does me?”
“Every time he saw me, his countenance fell, for all folk considered me a do-nothing, and it is true that it seemed for a time as if a sleeping curse was upon me, especially after my father’s brother was killed on the ice far to the north.”
“Did he go among the skraelings?”
“Hauk Gunnarsson went often among the skraelings, and was not averse to their ways. He wore the skins of birds for his underclothing, and my old nurse was greatly scandalized at such a thing. But folk didn’t speak of the skraelings then as they do now, for the skraelings hadn’t shown their true devilish natures, and hadn’t killed Christians as they have now. Nor were they about in such numbers as they are now. Hauk Gunnarsson ate his meat raw sometimes, at the end of winter, as skraelings do, and foxes and bears, and he said it wasn’t a sin to do so, but a necessity in the far north, where the world is white from year’s end to year’s end.”
“Lavrans is a do-nothing, and yet everyone serves him, day and night.”
“After a long day, folk rest at night. After a long summer, folk play games and sit about in the winter. After a long life folk sit about the fire and stay warm, for the chill of death is upon them, and even the thickest bearskin can’t keep off the shivering.”
“But folk say that Lavrans was never prosperous or hardworking, and that is why Lavrans Stead is so mean. And Gunnhild sometimes speaks of Gunnars Stead at night in bed, and she says that the fields and the lakes there were like the meadows of Paradise.”
“It is true that Gunnars Stead is a fine farm, and any man would long from time to time for such a place. But when I see Lavrans beside the fire, I am fond of him, for this reason, that one time, after the death of Asgeir Gunnarsson, I went to the Thing at Gardar, and I had few friends, if any, and my booth was small and made of a p
iece of wadmal, not of white reindeer skins, as it is now. Although my father was Asgeir Gunnarsson and I lived at the great farm of Gunnars Stead, men pushed past me without seeing me, or they looked me up and down and recollected what was said about me and laughed into their beards. And so it happened that I wandered away from the Thing field, and I saw a young girl standing on the hillside, right on the hillside out there, where the Gardar stream runs down, before it divides and flows into the homefield.”
“Was that girl my mother?”
“Indeed it was she, and she had just passed her fourteenth birthday. And now it happened that as I was looking at her, she turned her head and looked at me, and from that long way, I could see the blue color of her eyes, and I climbed the hill toward her, gazing at her eyes the whole way. She was not like any other girl I had known, for my sister was tall and much inside herself, and her hair was always braided perfectly, as if her head had been carved from stone, but Birgitta was slight and not a little disheveled. However, she looked at things as if her soul went out to them and fixed upon them. And so I went and sat down on the hillside next to her, and we talked and became friends, and it seemed to me that this young girl and only she would have the strength to save me and make me a man.
“The next day was the last day of the Thing, and all morning men were striking their booths and taking to their boats and leaving, and I knew that I should go to Lavrans, but I had no friends to take with me, and I was afraid. I also knew that Lavrans lived far away, in Hvalsey Fjord at the mouth of the fjord, and that the Hvalsey Fjorders were usually the first to leave. But I walked about in fear and did not approach him, and before long almost everyone was gone, and it was time for me to go, too, for I had come in a boat with a man from Vatna Hverfi who was eager to leave. Finally I saw that Lavrans’ booth was still up, but that his servants were beginning to take it down, so in a panic I ran to where he was packing up his belongings, and I said that Birgitta Lavransdottir was my only friend in the whole world and I wished to have her for my wife. Now another man such as Asgeir or even myself as I am now, with five handsome daughters, might have knocked me down for such a speech, but Lavrans has never acted as other men do. He only smiled and looked at me with a gaze that was somehow like Birgitta’s and somehow different, and less, perhaps, since Birgitta has second sight and Lavrans doesn’t, and he said that such a thing was not as he had desired when the child was born, for then King Hakon had been an unmarried man, and available, but now, alas, the news was that King Hakon had taken Queen Margarethe to his wife, and so Birgitta Lavransdottir would have to look elsewhere, and in short, he gave her to me, and she did as I thought she would, though she was but a child, and I even more of a child, though five winters older.”