The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [72]
At this time, Birgitta had been at Lavrans Stead for eight or nine days, so that there was little more for her to do there, and much work, especially in the dairy, calling her back to Gunnars Stead, but a dream came to her once during the day, when she did not even know that she was quite asleep, and in the dream Vigdis appeared, and she was so fat that she covered Vatna Hverfi district. After this dream, Birgitta was even more reluctant to return to her home, but she went about Lavrans Stead as if distracted, not sitting for more than an eye blink, but unable to work at anything useful, always going out and in, sometimes wandering toward the church and sometimes wandering away from it. One night she would sleep as if dead well into the morning light, and the next she would be up and down so that the servants complained and yawned at their next day’s work. Now Lavrans went out of the farmstead and reappeared not long afterward with Sira Pall Hallvardsson, and he closed the priest and his daughter in the dairy together and barred the door and said that they could come out when the girl was cured of this fretfulness.
Birgitta declared in her opinionated way that Vigdis Markusdottir of Ketils Stead was visiting her in her dreams, and striving to cast the evil eye upon Birgitta’s unborn child, and she would feel safe only when she had come upon a suitable charm against these endeavors.
“Are you not ashamed of seeking evil where there is none, my Birgitta?” And although he spoke to her in a low and soothing voice, Sira Pall’s eyes flashed in the dim light as if he were exceedingly angry with her. Birgitta lifted her head and thrust out her chin. “Think you of the Virgin, into whose womb the Lord Jesus Christ miraculously came through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Mary’s eyes were cast down and her thoughts within, for she trusted the Lord and rejoiced in her soul. Nor did she look about for enemies, conjuring up baseless fears and slandering her neighbors, but instead the love for all men grew in her as the child grew.”
“I have heard this tale.”
Pall Hallvardsson took her hand in his and lifted it up so that she could see it in the ray of light that came in through the single high window in Lavrans’ dairy. “Just as this hand might come into the light through the will of Pall Hallvardsson or Birgitta herself, so Birgitta can will her fears into the light of the Virgin’s care, for prayer is the arm and the shoulder and the strength that does such a simple deed, and the virtuous heart turns to prayer even as a thirsty person turns to water.”
“This must be so, if the priest says that it is so.”
Now Pall Hallvardsson leaned forward and spoke more quietly in Birgitta’s ear. “The race of the Asgeirssons,” he said, “is known to be a wayward and self-reliant lineage. In addition to this, many in the district speak of the enmity between Gunnar Asgeirsson and Erlend Ketilsson, and say that this enmity is cherished more carefully in the heart of Gunnar Asgeirsson than it is in the heart of his neighbor.” He paused. “True enough, Erlend is a choleric man, but a hasty one as well, and not as hard as he might appear on the surface.”
“I have no knowledge of this, but Gunnar sees a few things very well, namely whose servants they are who scuttle about on a certain large field, and whose cart it is that they drag here and there, and whose byre it is that receives the thick hay taken off the field in the autumn. Never once has this cart turned toward the Gunnars Stead byre in what some might call a neighborly fashion.”
Now Sira Pall Hallvardsson grew very wrathful. “It seems to me that the Gunnars Stead folk are much to blame in