The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [35]
Now the time came around for the Thing, and Gunnar declared that he was nineteen years old and ready to journey to Gardar and find out what it was necessary for men to do. He stitched himself a new shirt and new stockings, and took one of the servingmen with him, and, to tell briefly what happened, he returned home seven days later with the news that he had agreed to take a wife, Birgitta Lavransdottir, of Hvalsey Fjord, who was fourteen years old, and who brought as her marriage portion two sheep and a roll of red silk.
Folk said that it was obvious that Lavrans Kollgrimsson hadn’t been to Gunnars Stead in many a year, or else he did not care much for his daughter. Others declared, though, that Lavrans himself was a poor man, although he farmed good Hvalsey land, and getting old, so that any marriage would be a good one for a child as headstrong as Birgitta Lavransdottir.
Birgitta Lavransdottir was considered quite fair among the Greenlanders, red-cheeked and well fed, blond like Gunnar, but of low stature, so that she came up only to the middle of his breast, and only as high as Margret’s shoulder. The marriage was held at the new church in Hvalsey Fjord and the marriage feast at Lavrans Stead, which sat above the water of the inner arm of Hvalsey Fjord, directly across from the church, which was called after St. Birgitta, and had been built by the Hvalsey Fjord folk in the reign of King Sverri. Gunnar presented Birgitta with many fine gifts, including a silver comb his grandfather Gunnar had gotten in Ireland and the boat with its sailors carved from birchwood that Skuli Gudmundsson had given him when he was a boy. Birgitta seemed especially pleased with this toy, and with the thick gray cloak Margret sewed for her. They came to Vatna Hverfi with their sheep and their bolt of silk in Lavrans’ boat, rowing slowly up Einars Fjord on a day in late summer when the fjord was as still and bright, people said, as water in a goblet. The bellowing of the two sheep carried across the water into every farmstead, and even the dip of Gunnar’s oars could be heard in an eerie way, so that many families spoke of the passing of this little boat as they sat down that evening to their meat.
Now it was the case that the Gunnars Stead folk had a pleasant feast in honor of the coming of Birgitta Lavransdottir, and when all were sitting contented at their trenchers after eating their fill, Gunnar said to Margret, “Where is it that Birgitta Lavransdottir will be sleeping now that she is living here?” At this Olaf and Maria, the wife of Hrafn, burst out laughing. Birgitta looked up, her eyes full of curiosity, and Margret looked at her. Now she sent Olaf and Maria from the steading, and gazed upon her brother and the child who was his wife. Birgitta’s headdress, the prerogative of a married woman, sat heavily on her small head, and slightly askew. Margret turned to Gunnar. “My own bedcloset,” she said, “is the largest. I will make a place for her there.” And she got up and showed Birgitta the bedcloset, with its carvings of angelica leaves and its little shelf that ran all around the head, for putting down a seal oil lamp or such other things as the sleeper might care to have near him during the night.
On this shelf Birgitta set about arranging her wedding gifts in a row, the silver comb, a necklace of glass beads, an ivory spindle weight carved to look like a seal with its head up and the thread coming out of its mouth, a small knife with a beaten iron handle, and two or three woven colored bands to be worn with her headdress, as well as the little ship. Next to these she stacked her folded undergarments and stockings, and beside these she set her new shoes, then, after saying her prayers, she lay down and pulled her new gray cloak