Now Kollgrim yawned and declared that this was a nice tale for Gunnar to tell, but not as nice as the tale of the Sandnes polar bear, who used to speak to folk at a big farm in the western settlement just as they were falling asleep or waking from sleep, and tell them what the animals said about them. Kollgrim fell asleep against him, and Gunnar slipped him among the reindeer hides. Then he carried two or three hides away from the boy and settled himself down. The rooms at Gardar were so well turfed that the tiny lamp and their breath were enough to keep them warm all night.
There was much activity at Gardar, of animals and men and farm business and church business and other business. The news of Sira Jon’s dream seemed to imbue everyone with a fresh sense of haste, and folk ran here and there, straightening, polishing, shining, and arranging, as if the new bishop’s ship had already been sighted in the fjord. Even so, Gunnar felt a great longing for Lavrans Stead come upon him, so that every conversation seemed tedious to him, and all the news he gathered stale and dubious. Kollgrim was especially tiresome, for he refused to stay among the other children, and was always going among the cattle or wetting himself in the water below the landing spot. The day stretched out in length, and Gunnar spent much of it down by the water, admiring Einar’s ship. Even among Bjorn’s larger ones, this one attracted the eye by its trim lines.
For Sira Pall Hallvardsson, the day seemed to pass with painful quickness, for there was much to talk about, and not only to Sira Jon, with whom Pall Hallvardsson, of course, had business, but also with Sira Audun and the other boys and with folk from other districts who were visiting for various reasons. In fact, for the first time ever, Sira Pall Hallvardsson could not help conceiving something of a horror against returning to Hvalsey Fjord and the loneliness there. As a young man new in Greenland he had gone from district to district, filling in for absent priests and visiting many farmsteads, but now Sira Audun and an assistant, Gizur, did this, and they complained bitterly about it. It was hard to find boats, and hard to persuade folk to lend servants as rowers, and harder still to come to the churches, most of which had fallen into bad repair, especially in the southern part of the settlement, so that Sira Audun had written a verse, as follows:
Men who come to cut turf with the priest
Men who come to lift stones with the priest
Women who come to sweep sand out of the church
Women who change broken lamps for whole ones
All these are as blessed as the kneelers;
Our Lord hears loudly their voiceless prayers.
But Sira Pall Hallvardsson expected that the younger man merely longed to be among the comforts of Gardar, and it was true, that being himself a Greenlander, Sira Audun would hardly be received with the sort of curiosity that had opened doors to himself. Sira Audun’s father was a man well known in the south for parsimonious dealings with his neighbors, and perhaps Sira Audun was something like his father, or seen to be, which amounted to the same thing. Nonetheless, his hymns and verses were pleasing.
And now, the night before, Sira Audun had sat upon the tall stool in his room, where he entertained Sira Pall Hallvardsson for a few minutes, and he had said, “Indeed, brother, I little like to be away from here, and I always leave with a sense of apprehension and return with a sense of foreboding. I begin looking out for the buildings as soon as they can be seen, or for messengers sent out to meet me.”
“What is it you fear, then?” said Sira Pall.
“Not that he will harm others.”
Sira Pall did not need to ask who it might be who wouldn’t harm others. He said, “He is busy and has all the threads of the bishopric sorted out in his hand.”
“Even so.”
“So what is it you fear?”
But Sira Audun could not say. Sira Pall walked off calmly, as if dismissing such concerns from his thoughts, but when he went in for his interview with Sira Jon, he could not help looking at him closely.
Of the condition of the church and steading at Hvalsey Fjord, the condition of the poor folk under the church’s protection, and the size of the revenues he had received so far in the year from the Hvalsey Fjorders he spoke at length. He was careful to figure in repairs to St. Birgitta’s sheep fold as well as the services of the younger Lavrans Stead ram, an animal of Birgitta Lavransdottir’s own breeding, who produced exceptionally fine offspring even if the ewe was not very large or thick of wool. Sira Jon became annoyed with these items, and declared, “Is it in such bits and pieces that you expect the church to eke out her due?” but Sira Pall Hallvardsson was not disconcerted, and said only “Yes” in a mild and soothing tone of voice. In addition to these things enumerated, Sira Pall Hallvardsson went on, St. Birgitta’s church had a great excess of whale meat and whale oil left over from the winter, and these commodities could easily be transported to Gardar for use there.
“Such oil always burns with a stink that is repellent to us, worse even than seal oil. And the meat is good only for dogs after a day or so, even if it has been dried.”
After his report, Sira Pall Hallvardsson knelt before the other priest, thinking that the other man would never accommodate himself to life among the Greenlanders, and then he made his confession, and among the sins he confessed was covetousness toward Einar, the foster son of Bjorn Jorsalfari, for even on such a journey as the visitors were on, Einar went daily among writings and books and manuscripts as Pall Hallvardsson hadn’t seen since his boyhood in Ghent, and he spoke of authors, and recited fragments of poetry in Latin and Norse and German as set Pall Hallvardsson’s heart afire with longing. In addition to this, Einar was now betrothed to the child Gunnhild Gunnarsdottir, a child Pall Hallvardsson had always known well and felt much love for, as she was beautiful and good-natured and like unto her mother in the calmness of her temperament. And these thoughts of the books and the girl, not to mention the travels, tormented his thoughts, although he liked Einar well enough.
This confession seemed, for a time, to render Sira Jon speechless, for he said nothing, and his silence drew Sira Pall Hallvardsson onward, to speak more and more fully of what it was that he envied of the Icelander. Now, Sira Jon cut him short with a brief sentence of absolution, then suddenly ran off, and some while later, Pall Hallvardsson heard him speaking to one of the servingwomen. At the evening meal, he presided with his customary aplomb, only, as usual, glancing often at Bjorn, who was eating beside him. When Pall Hallvardsson came out of the hall, Einar was nearby, in the yard, and Pall Hallvardsson went up to him, for indeed, he could not stay away from the man, for as folk say, when envy does not engender hatred, it engenders love, and this was what happened to Sira Pall Hallvardsson.
There were folk who did not care for Einar, for he was always ready to contradict what was being said, and to take a greater part in the conversation than some thought proper. In addition to this, he could not forbear correcting folk. If a man declared that a cool but rainy summer was better for the hay than a sunny but dry one, Einar was sure to insist the opposite. After this, a few would offer stories of the starvation of eight winters before, when no rain at all fell until after the hay crop was all burned up, but Einar persisted with tales of the grass rotting in the fields and the hooves of livestock softening and disintegrating, and the weight of his stories was so great that talk would stop.
Or discussion would arise of the efficacy of certain relics. St. Olaf’s finger bone at Gardar would be recalled to have cured a madness, and Einar would declare that the relics of St. Olaf were well known for curing scrofula and other skin ills, but not for curing madness. At this someone would assert that his father or grandfather had been there when the cure took place, or was a member of the household, at which Einar would declare that in that case, it must not be the finger bone of St. Olaf, but of some other saint, perhaps St. Hallvard, or even a saint from Germany or France, such as St. Clothilda or St. Otto, and folk did not know how to answer these notions, for they had not heard of these saints, and hesitated to admit it. It was true that
Einar’s tales had this effect on people, that when he was finished speaking, they were reluctant to admit how little they knew in comparison to him. It was also the case that he often corrected his foster father when Bjorn related tales or made talk, but Bjorn did not mind, and indeed, thanked the younger man for remembering things he himself had forgotten.
Nevertheless, like Bjorn, Einar was a generous and interested man, as free with tales and trinkets from abroad as he was with advice. Best of all, he was of the sort of sanguine temperament that doesn’t recognize when it is giving offense, and so he felt no enmity for others, and received none. When folk heard of the betrothal to Gunnhild Gunnarsdottir, they cocked their heads wisely and declared among themselves that the Gunnar Stead lineage would certainly bring some much needed pulchritude to the lineage of the Icelanders. But mostly it was a lucky match for Gunnar, who was a man of little luck, after all.
Now Einar began to talk to Sira Pall Hallvardsson of the cattle before them in the Gardar pen. These cattle now numbered about forty, including spring calves, who were just being weaned, and Einar was not much impressed with them; he had seen better in Denmark, Germany, even Iceland. And now he told a tale of Iceland, in which someone he knew desecrated a small chapel by using it for a lambing fold in the early spring. And this man lived near a volcano, and one day some vapors rose out of the volcano in the gray cloud and settled upon the farmer’s pastures, and after this his cattle and sheep grew quickly, but in distorted and monstrous ways—their teeth grew out of their mouths so that they could not feed, and their hooves grew long and curved backward toward their pasterns and one or two legs grew more quickly than the others, so that the animals could not stand or walk and were in great pain, so that those who didn’t die the farmer had to kill himself and he was reduced to a beggar and had to go out to the farms of other folk as a servingman.
Sira Pall Hallvardsson had no tale to match this one, so he only said that when he first came out to Greenland, there had been almost a hundred cattle in the pasture, all fat and glossy, with these same lovely white marks upon them. And the Gardar sheep had numbered in the hundreds, and of all possible colors, and in addition there had been many goats, ten horses, a half dozen or so pigs, and many dogs, both of the reindeer hunting breed and of a smaller black and white breed that was sometimes used by herders to ease their work, but these were no longer found much at Gardar or Brattahlid, though more in the southern parts of Vatna Hverfi district.
Einar declared that these deer hunting dogs were fine beasts, but not as fine as those you might see among the Irish, dogs whose backs came up to a man’s waist and who were coursed against wolves as large as themselves. And now he told about Ireland, where everything is greater than everywhere else—the grass is greener, the wolves and dogs and horses are larger, the hermits more austere, the folk more violent, the women more beautiful, the rich men richer and the poor men poorer. And so he went on, and it seemed to Sira Pall Hallvardsson that he was lolling in a wealth of words. Now the great bell of Gardar began to toll vespers and Einar and Pall Hallvardsson strolled toward the cathedral, talking of the Irish.
In the morning, as they were rowing in Einars Fjord, which was still and blue so that the icebergs sat in the water like stones, Pall Hallvardsson said to Gunnar that the tale was that along with Margret and her servingwoman, Asta, there was a boychild of some three or four winters of age running about, and it seemed to folk that he was dark-haired and flat of cheek, as if he were of skraeling lineage, and Gunnar made no response to this, for it was his habit never to speak of Margret and never to act as if he had heard her spoken of. When, at the end of the next day, they rowed up to the landing place at Lavrans Stead, he was much pleased to see his wife and daughters, though not as pleased as he expected to be. And that evening, telling the news, Lavrans Stead seemed quiet and small to him, and he could not help a longing for the business and wealth of Gardar.
It was true that a child lived at Steinstraumstead with Margret and Asta, and his name was Sigurd. He was the son of Asta Thorbergsdottir. The father of this child was the skraeling boy who had once asked her hand in marriage. He had two wives who were skraelings and spent most of his time in the east or the north, or at any rate away from Steinstraumstead, but he visited Asta two times each year, once at Yule time, at Brattahlid, when he brought with him rich gifts of sealmeat, furs, and walrus tusks and once in the summer, when he brought child’s clothing fashioned by his two wives as well as other provisions such as he had gathered in his summer hunting. He spoke no Norse, and he always came by himself. Asta spoke none of the skraeling tongue. But she dressed herself carefully for these visits, prepared rich foods, and looked out eagerly for his skin boat. Although his name was Quimiak, she called him Koll.
Of Sigurd, both she and Margret were very fond. He had no regular tasks and was carried everywhere by one or the other of the women and was made to eat only what he wished to eat and was allowed to speak out no matter who was speaking, and the two women fell silent to hear what he had to say, although it was also true that as a rule he was laconic in the manner of skraeling children. He was not handsome, but he was big and strong, like Asta, and looked much like her, except for his straight black hair. He thought very well of himself, Brattahlid folk said.
Of other matters at Steinstraumstead, there is this to say, that Asta and Margret had made of the place a simple but comfortable steading, and by living with great austerity, they managed to stay there from the time when the ice broke up in Eriks Fjord almost until Yule every year. Margret had gotten for herself ten ewes, and from their milk she made an excellent quantity of cheese, for the pasturage above the tiny steading was rich and little used. All the steadings up that side of Eriks Fjord were abandoned and she could pasture them for a great distance along the fjord and also as far back into the mountains as the glacier. At Yule they went with her across the fjord to Brattahlid and were bred to Osmund’s ram. Also in the summer she spun a great deal of wool and in the winter she wove this into wadmal for the use of folk at Brattahlid, as well as for clothing for herself, Asta, and Sigurd. She was quick at the loom, and was pleased to show the Brattahlid servants what she remembered of the patterns Kristin the wife of Thord of Siglufjord had taught her long ago. Her hair was completely white and her body as thin and hard as a whale bone. She was some forty winters old, and still suffered little if at all from the joint ill. She no longer complained of her dreams. She no longer had recourse to Sira Isleif, and had not taken communion or made a confession in three summers. Sira Isleif was afraid to approach her concerning this matter, for he was a timid man, especially since the death of Marta Thordardottir some two winters before.
Some things were changed at Steinstraumstead, and one of these happened as follows: one day when Sigurd was sitting at his meat, he knocked over his cup of ewe’s milk and spilled it into the moss that lay upon the floor of the steading. At once he began to cry, because he was very fond of this drink, and sorry to lose his. Now it happened that Asta, without speaking or considering, took up the other cup of ewe’s milk at the table and placed it in front of Sigurd, and he drank it down. This cup of milk belonged to Margret, and at once Asta realized this, and was stricken with mortification, and she and Margret gazed upon each other’s faces without speaking for some moments. Then Margret smiled, for she was amused, and she said, “Although you are my servant, Asta, it seems to me that you grow to fill every nook of this place, and all things here flow to Sigurd. We spend our days consulting his pleasure as servants do a peevish master. You grow and flourish as richly as a patch of angelica by the side of a clear stream, but it seems to me that I shrink and harden and shrink and harden, and when I die I will be as a small pebble, and this is not frightening to me, but pleasant.”
And Asta, because she had her child beside her, leaning into her so that she could feel the warmth of his body against hers, was somewhat offended by this remark and offered no reply. When Sigurd jumped up and wandered out of the steading, she, too,
got up, and went to the vat of ewe’s milk from that morning and dipped up another cupful for Margret. This Margret drank, and all of the rest of the evening, Asta dogged Margret’s steps and helped her with tasks she was accustomed to doing herself and quieted Sigurd or sent him out of the way when he seemed to be annoying Margret, but by awakening time the next morning these things were forgotten, and Asta went back to thinking first of Sigurd in all things. Margret took some cheese and followed the sheep for the entire day, eating bilberries as she went about the hillsides, and this was a great pleasure to her.