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By Root 1996 0

were outside, or in other chambers of the steading, she heard a man’s footstep in the chamber outside the bedcloset. Knowing that this would be Jon Andres, of whom she had just been thinking, she sat up, and looked out of the opening. And indeed, there was a male figure inside the steading, with his back turned to her, but he was not wearing Jon Andres’ sheepskin vest, but rich furs of blue fox. When he turned to face her, she saw that it was Kollgrim, and that he was beaming upon her with the same melancholy smile as he had always had for her, in the old days, when they lived together at Gunnars Stead, before she went away as a married woman. And it seemed to her that she was his after all, entirely his, only lent for a brief while to the others. And when Margret Asgeirsdottir came in sometime later to speak with her, Helga told her of this dream, and Margret said nothing, but they both knew how to interpret it, and so it came to pass that Helga Gunnarsdottir died in childbirth, and the child, whose name was Kollgrim, died as well, some little while after his mother. And it was the case that Helga was buried near the north wall of Undir Hofdi church, near the grave of Helga Ingvadottir and not far from the graves of Hauk Gunnarsson and Asgeir Gunnarsson, and all of the other folk of their lineage. She was thirty-eight winters of age. After Helga’s death, Johanna stayed on at Ketils Stead and cared for Gunnhild and Unn, and though her ways with them were always brisk rather than gentle, the two girls grew accustomed to her.

In this year, once again, no Thing was held, although there was some talk during the spring seal hunt of reinstituting it, but the Greenlanders would have to make up a whole new set of laws for a new lawspeaker to learn, and this seemed both an impossible task and an unnecessary one, since almost everyone agreed on what actions were the proper ones and what were the improper ones. And there were always Sira Eindridi and Larus the Prophet to speak to, and Gardar was a more convenient place to go than Brattahlid, and folk had to go there anyway, to breed their sheep to the Gardar rams, or to breed their cows to the Gardar bulls. On this seal hunt, there was some talk of Skeggi Thorkelsson and of the trouble Sira Eindridi was having with him, and some folk considered that Skeggi was much provoked, and some folk considered that he had always been a stiff-necked fellow, proud of his father’s rich steading and complacent in his relations to other farmers in the district.

In the summer after this seal hunt, shortly before the feast of St. Margaret, Larus received the saint, Lazarus, again, and was insensible for a whole day and a whole night, and could on no account be roused. He fell down in the kitchen, as he was talking to the cook, and stayed there the whole time, for the servingfolk, and Sira Eindridi, were afraid to move him. He lay as if dead, and from time to time the cook wet her finger and put it under his nose, to see if he still breathed. When he finally roused himself, folk saw that he was much weakened by this spell, more so than he had been in the past, and for a day afterward, he could hardly shuffle from place to place, and his face was white as a newly washed fleece. When Sira Eindridi questioned him about these matters, he could hardly speak of them so as to be understood, and finally Sira Eindridi said to him, “Larus, my friend, I see that this Lazarus bears down hard upon you, but that is the sign that you and only you have the strength to bear up underneath his weight.” And Larus nodded, for he had considered this as well.

Now, on the very next day after Sira Eindridi said these words, a woman from Brattahlid came to Gardar, and her name was Gunndis, and she had been one of Larus’ first women. She had sewed garments for him and been many times to his table, and she knew many of his visions as well as he did, and in almost the very same words. He received her with pleasure, and she spoke to him for a long time, and the result was that he saw that the prophecy of the day before, that