The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [213]
Many years ago, in Norway, before the time of Harald Finehair, when there were many kings in every district, there was a princess there, whose name was—now Margret looked at the second child and said “Thorunn,” for the child’s name was Thorunn and Margret could not remember the real name of the princess, it had been so many years since she had heard the tale. Little Thorunn smiled shyly. And she was a princess in Hordaland. She fell in love with a prince whose father lived in Hardanger, and they loved each other very much, and indeed, it was proper for them to marry, for their families were already related in small degree, but the father of this princess, who was a great Viking named Orm, had his heart set upon Princess Thorunn’s marrying one of the men who was in his service, and he told her so. But Princess Thorunn was a true Viking princess, and she lifted her chin and said that she would not. Now Orm said to her that he would confine her in a dark tower, and he only meant to threaten her, for he loved her very much, but she only said, “You may do that if you must,” in a cool voice, and so he grew angry and had a tower built of large red blocks, and turfed all around so that not a speck of light could get through, and inside he put Princess Thorunn and her servingmaid, and he gave the servingmaid a staff and he told her that when Princess Thorunn should change her mind, the servingmaid should hit the staff three times on the wooden floor of the tower, and then he would let them out, otherwise they would have to stay there for seven years, through Yule and Easter and the beautiful summer. But the servingmaid never rapped those three times, for indeed, it was nothing to Princess Thorunn to be true for seven years to her love.
Now the food began to run out, and so the princess knew that seven years was coming to an end, and she was glad enough of that in spite of her pride. But still no one came to get them, and Princess Thorunn turned to her maid and said, “Indeed, we shall die an unhappy death here if we do not help ourselves,” and she took her spindle and began to scrape at the mortar around the red stones, and she scraped for a morning, and then the servingmaid scraped for the afternoon, and then the princess scraped during the evening, and after a while they got one stone out, and then two, and then three, and then the princess took her small knife, which had silver chasing all about the handle, and she began to cut away the turf, and this went on all the next day, until the light came in, and such was the effect of the light that although they were very tired and discouraged, their hearts rose and they redoubled their efforts, and the fresh air came in, and then a view of the blue sky with birds flying about, and the sight of the mountains, with dazzling snow on their peaks and glistening streams running down their flanks, and they worked harder, and soon they saw the green pastures, and they were very glad, but when the hole was big enough for the two girls to step out of, they were not so glad, for they saw no sheep or cattle or dairymaids about, and the castle was in ruins, and the horses had run off, and everything was waste, for one of Orm’s enemies from Stavanger district had come and made war upon him. And so the two women had only the clothes that they stood up in, and they set out to find someone to take them in.
They went north and then east and then south, and nowhere could they find anyone who would take them in, for the land was in the grips of a great hunger. They ate all manner of poor food, such as grass and birch leaves by the side of the road, but at last they found a castle where the cook looked them up and down and said that they would do for scullery maids, since the king there was about