The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [180]
There was a Greenlander named Oskar Ospaksson who had come to Greenland from Iceland as a small boy, for his father was a poor man in Iceland, and in addition to that had received a sentence of lesser outlawry for attacking a wealthy man. Ospak saw that there was little for him in Iceland, so he came to Greenland, thinking to take to hunting in the Northsetur and make himself a wealthy man, and so he had done so, bringing his son Oskar, but leaving behind his wife. And Ospak and Oskar lived in Greenland for some fifteen summers, mostly in the western settlement, which was closer to the Northsetur. And Ospak was not a bad hunter, and Oskar was not either, although he was hardly so good as he thought himself, for no man could be. These men had one great advantage, and that was that they had had the foresight to bring with them many iron weapons—swords and spears and crossbows with iron-tipped arrows—indeed, Ospak had sold off his patrimony for these weapons, and they were the making of him.
Now it happened when Oskar was some twenty-five winters old, that Ospak grew ill and died suddenly one winter, and Oskar was left alone, and he found just how much he was lacking, as men do when they have only one companion and that companion dies. So Oskar went to the Thing of the western settlement in search of a wife, but none of the girls was to Oskar’s liking, and so he took his boat, which was an open boat he had built himself from driftwood found in the Northsetur, and he rowed to the eastern settlement, where the Thing had already broken up. But he was a man of some resourcefulness, and he carried with him a stock of fine goods from the Northsetur, and he used these goods to gain himself hospitality at all the best houses in Brattahlid and Vatna Hverfi districts, and at Herjolfsnes as well, and he saw many good-looking young women. After the winter had gone by, he looked within his heart and saw there that his fancy was for a young woman named Oddny, who was the daughter of the wealthiest man in Herjolfsnes, and of course she thought little of him, for the Herjolfsnes folk are very proud, refined, and outlandish, and look more to Norway and France than they do to the western settlement for the things they desire.
Now this fellow Oskar was very importunate, so much so that Oddny lost patience and told her father that he had to do something to rid her of this hairy fellow. Oddny’s father, who was a man named Kalf, feared to offend such an unpredictable fellow as Oskar, so he made him a vow, that if he would do something that he had never done before, to prove that he was indeed the best hunter in Greenland, he would give him Oddny’s hand. Oskar asked what this thing might be, and Kalf declared that it would be to go to Markland and bring goods back from there for Oddny’s bridal gift, for as valued as Greenland goods were in Norway at the time, so much more so were goods from Markland. But Kalf knew that there were no ships in Greenland, as none had come at that time in about three years, and so he expected that this would be an impossible task, and he and Oddny were confident that they would now be rid of the northerner.
This was at the end of winter, during Lent, and after hearing these words, Oskar went off and was not heard of for a while, and the folk at Herjolfsnes were pleased enough at that. But then the summer began, and it was just time for the seal hunt, and shortly after the seal hunt was over, news came to Kalf that Oskar had persuaded seventeen men to go with him in his open boat to Markland. And Kalf laughed at this and declared that Oskar had chosen death, not Oddny’s hand.
One of these men who chose to go to Markland was Osmund Thordarson, who was then about twenty-two winters of age, and a big strong fellow, though not much of a hunter. He was a good