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By Root 2093 0

will themselves to marry in deceit, then their punishment is always to be smothered and crushed by the presence of the unloved husband, whose every innocent action seems monstrous and repellent, who cannot sit at his meat without bringing vomit into the wife’s mouth, or, worse, bitter reproaches. And swallowing back the one is not less difficult than swallowing back the other. If, however, women will themselves to have whom they desire in their weakness, the punishment is even greater, for everything is lost—the lover, the comforts of the family, the issue of the union, if there be one, and the woman is rubbed down to a stone, and is certain of eternal damnation in addition to this. Thus it is that I say to you, Sigrid, that you must have no desires and no will, for they cannot go against the desires of the Lord. The grief that lies in the heart is never emptied out, but is always fresh and bitter, and the very sights that once called forth joy turn upon themselves and then call forth torment.”

Now Sigrid lay silent for a long time, but Margret saw that she was awake, although from the other bedclosets came the snores and shufflings of sleep. After a long while, she said in a croak, “It seems to me that I must have him.”

Margret smiled, and said, “It is not a bad thing. The Herjolfsnes folk are said to be—”

“Not this child from Herjolfsnes, but Kollgrim Gunnarsson.”

“Is it the case that you heard nothing that I have told you?”

“But the flaw in your story is this, that Sigurd came too late. If Marta had married him instead of this low fellow, there would have been no punishments.”

“Nay, it is the will itself that leads a woman into sin.”

“Nay, it is not, it is that men and women work their will without thought or plan.” And it seemed to Margret that this was spoken from the mouth of Bjorn Bollason himself. And she took Sigrid in her arms, and lay with her until she slept, but Margret did not sleep.

It happened that when Kollgrim had returned to Gunnars Stead and found one of Jon Andres Erlendsson’s men sitting at his table and eating up the game he had caught, he was extremely wrathful, and he sent him off with dire threats. Early in the spring, Jon Andres Erlendsson himself came to Gunnars Stead, and he came on foot and without arms, wearing only a thin gown and no hood, so that it would appear that he had nowhere to conceal even the smallest knife. And Jon Andres boldly walked up to Kollgrim, without waiting to be beckoned, and he said, “Kollgrim Gunnarsson, you may wish to kill me, and for this you may have good enough reason, or you may not. It seems to me that mischief is not always unprovoked, and when our case was argued at the Thing, other men agreed with me.”

Kollgrim stared at the other man, and then said, “So you made them think, for you have a trick of speaking, just as now you have a trick of looking helpless, but not being so.”

“Indeed, you are a skilled man with weapons, and you have some axes at hand. I will neither run, nor lift my arm against you.”

“Why do you tease me and provoke me in this fashion?”

“Such is not my intention.” Jon Andres Erlendsson spoke mildly.

“Then speak your intention out as a man should and be gone from this steading.”

“It is my intention that the history of enmity that lies between these two steadings be broken up as the ice in the fjord is broken up in the spring, and blown out to sea. I give it to you to decide how this shall come to pass.”

“Nay, indeed, this is the greatest trick of all, for soon enough you will ask again for the hand of my sister, and she will be stolen from me.”

“Indeed, that is my plan for the Thing assembly this year, I will not deceive you in this. But men may not look to their sisters to keep house for them all their lives. Is it not better for a sister to marry around the hill than to go off to another district?”

“She is well fed here, and has plenty of work to keep her out of trouble.”

“This may be, and yet I will not stint my effort to remove her from you. We may be friends even so. A wife’s brother does as well in a fight as a brother,