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By Root 1988 0

her lips ran out the sides of her mouth. If she was pinched or slapped, she winced not, nor showed any pain. Neither Thorunn nor Signy had ever seen such a thing, except that Thorunn had heard of a child in Hordaland and another man in Borgarfjord in Iceland, who had had these spells put over them by witches, and they spoke frequently of such things—for indeed, said Thorunn, the priests in Norway were much concerned with witches and sorcery and devilish practices. Through talking, Signy and Thorunn became convinced that Steinunn had been bewitched, for otherwise her actions were unaccountable, they agreed. Thorstein half agreed with them, as well, for he had gone about among the Norwegians for a number of winters, and had himself heard numerous tales of these sorts of practices, done in secret. Besides, he told the women, how else would such a fellow as Kollgrim Gunnarsson make himself attractive to a woman such as Steinunn, whose husband was a respectable man, handsome and personable and talkative, as well as prosperous and well-mannered? Now Signy took issue with this, and maintained that Kollgrim was a fine Greenlandic man, with a good farmstead and many skills, but the others dismissed her opinion, for indeed, she had been in favor of Sigrid’s marriage to the fellow, had she not? Sigrid herself had been sent with Margret Asgeirsdottir to Dyrnes, to her uncle’s steading, along with the two younger boys, so that the sight of Steinunn Hrafnsdottir would not weigh upon their spirits too much.

As for Thorgrim, he did not know what to make of these events, for his wife Steinunn seemed to him to have had no complaints. Indeed, she had always smiled upon him, and held her hand out to him, and served him as a wife should do. All features of her behavior seemed unaccountable to him. He could not remember that she had ever looked upon this Greenlandic fellow throughout the time when he had been about Solar Fell, nor had she ever spoken to him. Thorgrim could not see what the fellow had done to draw her eyes to him, and when Thorstein mentioned that there were such spells, it seemed to Thorgrim that this was the only possibility for explaining what she had become. In fact, it seemed to Thorgrim that there must have been two spells, one to draw her eyes and affections to the fellow, and another to render her numb as a stone, as she was now. That, it seemed to Thorgrim, was what the fellow had been doing before he sat upon the stool, bewitching Steinunn so that she would never be as she had been before. Thorgrim was much cast down, and sought out Thorstein’s company day and night, for Thorstein was rather older and more experienced than Thorgrim.

Now Snorri and Thorstein and Bjorn Bollason sat with their heads together, preparing to summon a case against Kollgrim before the Thing, and they had strong disagreements about the nature of the case, for Thorstein and Snorri wanted to have the man convicted of witchcraft as well as adultery, because for the one, the penalty was lesser outlawry, which would be no punishment at all for Kollgrim Gunnarsson, as accustomed as he was to the wastelands, but the penalty for the other was death by burning, at least in Iceland and Norway. Bjorn Bollason did not know what the penalty was in Greenland, as there had never been such a case that he had heard of. To this, Snorri and Thorstein made the answer that the laws of one northern place were much the same as the laws of another, since the king was the head of all. Bjorn Bollason cited certain laws that were held among the Greenlanders, especially about trade, that went against the king’s laws, but indeed, the three did not know, for a long time, how to agree on this question, and so they argued about it every day, and there was no improvement in the condition of Steinunn Hrafnsdottir, and it seemed as though she would die.

Now it happened that shortly after Kollgrim returned to Gunnars Stead, Helga went around the mountain, carrying little Gunnhild, and she was much afraid of what she would find at her brother’s steading, for she had not been