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By Root 2096 0

was clumsy, for Hrafn and Olaf did the shearing at Gunnars Stead, and so it was Margret’s task to take the fleeces and lay them across the side of the hill, to cool and loosen so that they could be broken into wool for spinning. These fleeces were laid out for the space of one day, then rolled up at nightfall and put away. With the bleating of the ewes and the crying of the lambs, there was such a clamor that neither Asta nor Margret, who was farther down the hillside, noticed the approach of two skin boats until they were drawn up on the shore and the skraelings in them had already gotten out and begun to cook their meal over a fire they built. This group of demons included three men, a young woman, an old woman, and two children, and these children came up the hillside and surprised Margret at her work so that she cried out. Now the young woman appeared behind them and took their hands and backed away. Unlike the children of men, these children stared into Margret’s face as a cat might, never needing to blink or turn away. The demon woman smiled and nodded.

Now Asta came down the hillside carrying the sheep shears and two of the demon men came up from the shore, one of them carrying a bow and some arrows. This man appeared to be younger even than the young woman, perhaps eighteen or nineteen winters old. He stopped as if startled by the sight of Asta Thorbergsdottir, and let his gaze wander over her. Seeing this, Asta raised her shears above her head and brandished them, and the skraelings and their young turned and went down the hillside. But the young man looked back twice at Asta, although she scowled mightily at him. Now a sheep scampered down the slope, and Margret and Asta saw that the three unshorn ewes had escaped from the ewe fold and scattered themselves among the shorn ewes, and that the fleeces were in danger of being stepped on and broken, so they began to run about the slope chasing the sheep back to the fold. They thought no more of the skraeling group until the next morning, when Asta stepped out of the steading and discovered a fine sealskin upon the doorstone that could only have come from the skraelings. This she carried down to the strand and pitched into the fjord. After that, she went to the cooking spot and scattered the stones once again.

Now it was usual during the summer days that Margret would take the sheep back into the hills behind Steinstraumstead that overlooked the stony creek known as Steinstraum, and were well watered by the glacier, so that they were green all summer, and she would herd them out each morning and back each evening, and also gather angelica and other herbs such as she found and put them in her sack. It was true that in spite of the fact that Margret had lost her girlish appearance, she was still little burdened by pain of the hips or any of the other ills of maturity, and she stepped about the hills with as much speed and grace as she always had. It was also true that such movement was a pleasure to her in all weathers, for the sunlight and the breezes and the rain drove away thoughts of past things. This had been a great trial to her, that the cloth she had fashioned for Marta Thordardottir had been all woven of memories and regrets, so that when Marta brought it out to admire it, the very smell of it brought Margret grief, and she foresaw that this would be the case again in the coming winter and every succeeding one, that her memories, all alike but eternally repeating themselves, would cluster about her as she sat quietly at the loom and bear down upon her and smother her. And yet, Marta was herself growing old and her sight was dimming, so that if she wished to have Margret about her, Margret desired to fulfill her wish.

Going with the sheep, however, was so like her childhood wanderings in the mountains above Gunnars Stead that it seemed to her that she was returned to that time, and the ghostly figure she sometimes caught sight of just ahead of her or half hidden among the scrub birch was only her father’s brother, Hauk Gunnarsson, setting bird snares. And this