The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [181]
Now it did seem that Kalf and Oddny would be out of luck, for the men in the boat had exceptionally good weather, and came to the forests of Markland in a very short time, some twenty days or so, with nine men rowing half the time and the other nine rowing the other half of the time, and when they got there, they had good hunting and no encounters with the skraelings, and they got so many furs that Oskar tore the benches out of the boat and piled furs where they had been, and the men sat on these for the trip homeward. Now it happened that one night Osmund came to Oskar and said, “It seems to me that our luck is about to turn and unless we prepare ourselves properly, we will lose all these riches that we have already counted as ours and already used to pay for many things in our mind’s eye.” But because Osmund was the youngest man on the voyage, Oskar merely smiled upon him and paid him little heed. Perhaps, as Osmund said, Oskar considered Oddny to be his, and in his dreams he was already enjoying her. At any rate, there was little to bear out Osmund’s prediction, for the good weather and the good luck held, and they cast off from Markland around the time of the feast of Mary Magdalen, as they thought, for Oskar carried a stick calendar that he had made the previous winter. And they had good weather and rowed vigorously, and by this time Oskar was already counting his sons and daughters.
After some days it happened that some of the men sighted flocks of birds off in the distance, and Oskar thought that he was close to Greenland indeed, and as Herjolfsnes is the first stopping place in Greenland, he began to brag about how he would row into the harborage at Kalf’s steading and throw the furs on the ground in front of the old man, and then claim his wife, but as he was speaking, the birds all disappeared, and within moments a great storm blew up, a storm such as would swamp a ship, much less an open boat that should have been used for coasting from farmstead to farmstead among the fjords of the eastern settlement. The little boat shipped a great deal of water, and the men were often in fear of their lives, and it happened that Osmund, who was indeed prepared, raised his voice in prayer both to the Lord and the Virgin, and also to St. Nikolaus, who once saved a boatload of sailors and since has often interceded for them. And so Osmund rowed and prayed and prayed and rowed, and after some time, the storm died down, but indeed, there was no sign of land, and none of the men recognized anything, for there was nothing to recognize, only open sea and the occasional iceberg. And so they drifted and rowed for many days, and their supply of water began to run low, and with his lips now parched, Osmund raised his voice in prayer again.
Now Oskar lamented his fate, and began to blame Oddny and declared that her hand was little worth such a trial. After a few days, and when they were in great fear of their lives, they awakened one morning to discover that they had drifted within sight of land—great black cliffs and green valleys. And this land was Borgarfjord in the west of Iceland, and they were not a little glad to see it, and they took up their oars with renewed strength, though they were greatly debilitated by their journey, and they rowed into Borgarfjord.
It happened that the farmer who controlled much of the land along the southern shores of Borgarfjord was a man named Elias Egilsson, and he and his folk came down to the fjord to greet the newcomers. And when Elias Egilsson the Icelander saw the open boat, he was not a little amazed at the journey the Greenlanders had undertaken, and he doubted their words, but when Oskar, in his brash way,