The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [304]
“I will say nothing, but I will pray, as I did once before.”
“And it will have the same result as it had once before, I trust. Now be off.” And Helga turned and went off, and for two days she kept her vow not to speak of this matter to Jon Andres, but after that he came to her, with news of his own that he had heard from other folk, and she answered the questions he asked her.
Now Easter came on, and Bjorn Bollason had agreed with the Icelanders that if Steinunn Hrafnsdottir made no change in her insensible condition by Easter, then he would summon the case as seduction by witchcraft, and as Easter approached, and the woman sank deeper and deeper, he sent for Sira Eindridi, for he wanted to speak to the priest about witchcraft, and Sira Eindridi came as fast as he could on skis, although he had other duties to attend to. Bjorn was sitting at his evening meat when a servingman came into the steading with news that Sira Eindridi and another man were approaching, and Bjorn jumped up and went out of the door to the steading, feeling the eyes of the Icelanders upon his back. Now he went down the slope, and met Sira Eindridi below the shrine to St. Olaf the Greenlander, and before the priest even had his skis off, Bjorn was walking back and forth in perplexity, pouring out the tale of Steinunn Hrafnsdottir. “Indeed,” he said, “with Sigrid, and now Steinunn, it seems to me that these women are unaccountable. As soon as they grasp a man, they cease to want him, but want another.”
“Desires flow through them like the breezes, that is all we know about them,” said Eindridi.
“Now Snorri and Thorstein have been convinced by Thorunn Hrafnsdottir that the fellow used witchcraft to win her sister, and they say they have seen such things many times before. Indeed, they are common as flies in Norway and other places like that.”
“Such a thing would not surprise me. The Devil works among us, and he has his agents. This fellow Kollgrim spends all his time in the waste districts, where the Devil holds sway. And he goes there alone, not with other men. How hard would it be for the Devil to come to him and speak privily into his ear? How hard would it be for the Devil to take the shape of a hare or a fox or a seal, and speak unto him, and tempt him? And how hard would it be for such a man to resist? The Gunnars Stead folk have always been wayward, even for Greenlanders. Does this woman Margret Asgeirsdottir take communion or confess herself? Nay, she keeps her own counsel, does she not?”
“You speak as hardly as the Icelanders.”
“We have known each other for many winters, Bjorn Bollason, and surely by this time you know that I speak my mind. Sira Pall Hallvardsson has done the Greenlanders an ill service by being so weak and kindly. They think that sin is a little thing, and that the Lord is their mother, who pats them on the head and sends them off to find another pleasure when they have destroyed their own playthings.”
“Even so, what are the laws about witchcraft? Know you those of the Church? I’ll warrant you are as ignorant of them as I am.”
“What we don’t know of the letter, we know of the spirit. This Snorri is full of notice. I suspect that he knows more than he tells of such things. And the laws of most places are the same in regard to most grave crimes.”
“That is what the Icelanders say.”
“If there is a devil among us, then it is a greater sin to let him go free than to punish a guiltless man, for as soon as a guiltless man receives his death, he is forgiven in the eyes of the Lord, and welcomed all the more fervently into Heaven for the injustice of his punishment. But a devil who goes free turns others away from the Lord, and brings them into the kingdom of Satan, does he not?”
And Bjorn had no answer for this, and it seemed to him right and proper that in this circumstance, he should give his judgment over to Sira Eindridi, who, as a priest, would know more of such things.
In Hvalsey Fjord, the winter weather was somewhat colder and snowier than it was in districts farther inland, and it seemed