• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Even so,” said Sira Jon, “we must speak to Ingrid, to see if these tidings have been announced to her.”

Now Gunnar stepped in front of Sira Jon, where he had turned to go toward the steading, and he drew himself up and said, mildly, and with a smile on his face, “My old nurse sleeps most of the day, and she is very weak, and you may not go to her.”

And Sira Jon glanced about himself, so that his eye fell on the spot of the homefield where the Virgin had walked with Her Child, and he did not press the point. Not long after this, the priests made ready to leave, because they wanted to finish their rowing back to Gardar before nightfall. Thus it was that Olaf returned to Gunnars Stead, but many people said that had Jon asked the question he was supposed to ask, which was, did Margret Asgeirsdottir know of any reason why Olaf Finnbogason should not continue his studies and be ordained a priest, Margret Asgeirsdottir would not have known how to answer.

When Olaf returned, he said only that there were fifty milk cows at Gardar, and they were fat and shining and sleek, and that the horses had thick manes and big haunches, and that all the animals ate better than the priests.

At Yule, in the presence of Lavrans and his folk, the wedding of Margret Asgeirsdottir and Olaf Finnbogason was held. At this time Lavrans had much talk with his daughter Birgitta, and the result was that Birgitta moved her wedding gifts into Gunnar’s bedcloset and crept under Hauk’s great polar bear hide with her husband. Shortly after Yule Ingrid Magnusdottir died in her sleep, and she was buried beside Hauk Gunnarsson, her favorite nursling, at the south end of Undir Hofdi church.

In the spring, Olaf and the folk of Gunnars Stead had the reward of their thrifty fast, and that was the birth of seven calves, including a fine bull calf, and of nineteen lambs. Three of these Olaf traded to Magnus Arnason of Nes in Austervik for a young mare. This mare was of a peculiar color, grayish with a dark strip down the middle of her back. Olaf named her Mikla, and he was very fond of her.

Ketils Stead was now the largest farm in Vatna Hverfi district, for Erlend Ketilsson was a hardworking farmer and his wife, Vigdis, no less so. Five children lived with them: Thordis (Vigdis’ daughter), Ketil Ragnarsson, who was known as the Unlucky, Geir Erlendsson, Kollbein Erlendsson, and Hallvard Erlendsson. Vigdis had also lost two others, both girls, shortly after birth. Vigdis had grown very stout by this time, and her daughter Thordis, it was said, looked as much like Vigdis had once looked as to be her twin sister. Only Ketil the Unlucky looked like Erlend’s lineage. The rest were fair and sturdy, with wide round faces and large teeth like Vigdis, and they were considered by many to be a very handsome family. Thordis, although not Erlend’s daughter, was much sought after, for Erlend had pledged her a large marriage portion, and anyone could see that, like Vigdis, she would be a healthy, hardworking wife. Since they lived near to the church, they attended every mass, and Thordis often wore a long reddish robe with a high tight waist of her own design and making. Many in the district spoke of how good a farmer Erlend had turned out to be, and many numbered themselves among Erlend’s and Vigdis’ friends, although nearly everyone agreed that the folk at Ketils Stead could be unusually petty and exacting.

During the summer after the marriage of Olaf and Margret, a large number of skraelings began lingering near Ketils Stead, for it was a prosperous farm overlooking the fjord. Almost every day skin boats of the skraelings could be seen on the water, or drawn up on the shore, and the skraelings would make fires and cook on Erlend’s land. Once one of Erlend’s good ewes was slaughtered and cooked by these skraelings, but more often they simply fished in the fjord. Erlend was one of the Greenlanders who had never learned any words of the skraeling tongue, and Vigdis