Iceland's Bell (5 page)

Jón Hreggviðsson was never allowed to see the light of day during those twenty-four weeks, except for an insignificant glimmer at Yule and Easter when he was brought to church to hear the word of God. On both of these holy days the regent’s men came down into the dungeon, pulled a bag over his head, released him from his fetters, and escorted him to the church, where he was seated upon a corner bench between two brawny men and forced to listen to the customary message with the bag over his head. The rope, however, wasn’t pulled too tightly around his neck, which enabled him to catch a faint glimpse of his surroundings as he sat there in the house of God. Otherwise he saw nothing that whole winter.

Around Easter another man was lowered down to the farmer, a man from the Eastfjörds who’d been sentenced to prison at Bremerholm for one of the most infamous crimes ever committed in Iceland: he’d rowed out to a Dutch dogger and bought a spool of twine. His case had been prosecuted during the fall and he was to be sent abroad that spring on a ship lying at anchor at Suðurnes.* During the winter he’d been sent from one bailiff to another throughout the land until he finally ended up here.

“No,” said Guttormur Guttormsson. “They couldn’t prove that I had anything but this one spool. On the other hand, the merchant’s servants were spying on my trips out there. In my region everyone trades with them. A man who’s never seen a Dutch gold ducat doesn’t know what it means to have lived.”

This was a man who spoke passionately and was moved to tears and gasped for breath every time he mentioned Dutch money.

“They’re this big,” he said, and he grabbed Jón Hreggviðsson’s shoulder and made a ring on his forehead in the darkness.

“It would never cross my mind to betray my Hereditary King and Sire for such blood money,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“The Dutch are made of gold,” said the man. “At night when I wake up and can’t fall asleep again I think about those blessed huge coins and then I feel very well indeed. Such size! Such weight! Such luster!”

“Do you have a lot of them?” asked Jón Hreggviðsson.

“A lot?” said Guttormur Guttormsson. “Whether I’ve got a lot or just a few—and that’s not really any of your business, pal—I know what it means to have lived. I’ve lived many happy days. You southerners never live a single happy day.”

“You’re a liar,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “We love and honor our king.”

“We men of the Eastfjörds have never been a mob of slaves,” said Guttormur Guttormsson.

After they’d become better acquainted Jón Hreggviðsson found out from the Easterner that even if he hadn’t committed any other crime than to buy a spool of twine from the Dutch—that was the only crime that had been exposed, anyway—he’d traded with them for several years and made a good profit. In the winter his wife wove woolen clothing for the fishermen, and in the summer he brought them butter and cheese, calves, lambs, and children. In return he received good quality flour, ropes and cord, pig iron, hooks, tobacco, cloth kerchiefs, red wine, and corn liquor—and gold ducats for children. “Children,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“Yes—one ducat for a girl, two ducats for a boy,” said Guttormur Guttormsson.

Sometime during the last hundred years it had become fashionable for the people of the Eastfjörds to sell children to the Dutch, with the result that the rate of infanticide was much lower in that region than elsewhere in the country. Guttormur Guttormsson had sold them two children, a seven-year-old boy and a fair-haired girl of five years.

“So all you’ve got is three ducats,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“How many ducats do you have?” said Guttormur Guttormsson.

“Two,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “I’ve got two ducats at home in Rein on Akranes—two living ducats that look up at me.”

“What did you give for them?” asked the Easterner.

“If you think that I got them with bait, then you’ve missed the point, pal,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

The man’s papers said that he was a master craftsman, and in just a short time he was dragged up from the dungeon and sent to the Þrælakista to be put to some use while awaiting transport to Bremerholm, so Jón Hreggviðsson neither saw nor heard more of this outstanding man.

A new companion, however, joined him during the last months of winter and remained for some time. This was a sorcerer from the Westfjörds, Jón Þeófílusson by name. He was a rather lanky man in his forties who’d been living with his middle-aged sister in a little cottage in a valley. He’d had little to do with women, mostly because of his lack of sheep, so he’d tried to remedy both shortages by resorting to sorcery, which was frequently in fashion in the Westfjörds, though with disproportionate results. Another man who was a successful sheep farmer had won the heart of a priest’s daughter in whom Jón Þeófílusson also had an interest, and Jón had tried to conjure up a sending* against this man. But his skills as a sorcerer were so awkward that the sending entered the priest’s cow and killed it. A while later one of his rival’s colts died in a waterhole that appeared out of nowhere. Jón Þeófílusson was taken into custody, and found in his possession were the signs of the Blusterer and the Corpse’s Breeches. While the case was being investigated his rival’s brother fell ill and died. The devil, whom the sorcerer called Pokur, appeared to this man on his deathbed and testified that Jón Þeófílusson had pledged himself in exchange for the brother’s ailment as well as for the previous mishaps involving the cow and the horse. The man swore an oath to the truth of this apparition on his dying day, and thus the devil himself had become the chief witness in the case against Jón Þeófílusson, and his testimony sealed the man’s fate.

Jón Þeófílusson was considerably apprehensive about being burned and spoke often about it in whispers. He said he would rather be beheaded.

“Why did they bring you here to the south? Why don’t they burn you out west, you rascal?” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“The men of Þorskafjörður refused to give them brushwood,” said the man.

“That’s news to me if they have enough extra firewood here in the south to use on anyone from another quarter,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “You should ask to be beheaded with me, preferably on this chopping block here, because I’m sure that there’s not a better chopping block to be found in the whole country. I killed a lot of time when I was bored this winter by trying out my neck in its groove.”

“All winter I’ve prayed to God to let me be beheaded instead of burned,” said the man.

“Why don’t you make your vows to the devil, man?” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“He swindled me,” said the man in whimpers. “After Pokur swindles a man, a man starts praying to God.”

“It sounds to me like you’re a pretty paltry fellow,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “Stop whining and try to show me one of your magic signs.”

“No,” whined the man.

“You could always teach me to conjure up the devil,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“I never had much luck with that myself,” said the man. “Pokur insisted that I had, and because of that got me convicted in court, but it’s a lie. On the other hand I got hold of a Blusterer and fiddled around with it on account of a girl. I also had the Corpse’s Breeches.”

“What?” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “A Blusterer? On account of a girl?”

“Yes,” said the man. “But something went wrong.”

“Do you have one of these Blusterers here?” asked Jón Hreggviðsson. “Better late than never. Who knows, maybe we can conjure up a few hussies of our own. What was once an urge is now a necessity.”

But the authorities had already confiscated the man’s Blusterer.

“Can’t we make a Blusterer ourselves?” asked Jón Hreggviðsson. “Can’t we scratch that damned sign with the ax-point onto the chopping block and get a beautiful, chubby woman in here tonight, right now—or preferably three?”

It was no easy matter to create such a sign, because in order to do so the two men required much greater access to the animal kingdom and the forces of nature than conditions in the dungeon permitted. The sign of the Blusterer is inscribed with raven’s gall on the rust-brown inner side of a bitch’s skin, and afterward blood is sprinkled over the sign—blood from a black tomcat whose neck has been cut under a full moon by an unspoiled maiden.

“Where’d you find an unspoiled maiden to cut a black tomcat’s neck?” asked Jón Hreggviðsson.

“My sister did it,” said the man. “It took us three years to get the raven’s gall. But on the first night that I tried it, when I climbed onto the roof over the priest’s daughter’s bedroom and held up the Blusterer and rattled off the spell, it was all over for me, since the cow was dead.”

“What about the girl?” asked Jón Hreggviðsson.

“There was a man sleeping with her,” said Jón Þeófílusson, in tears.

Jón Hreggviðsson shook his head.

“By the way, didn’t you say something about the Corpse’s Breeches? I can’t really see how you could’ve gotten into such a scrape if you had the Corpse’s Breeches, because I’ve heard that there’s always money in those things if one looks closely.”

“I’d gotten hold of the sign of the Corpse’s Breeches, and had even stolen money from the widow to put in them. But I never actually owned the Breeches themselves. I paid a man to let me cut off his skin after he died, but he’s still going strong even though he’s almost ninety. Anyway it was too late because the cow was dead and the foal had fallen into the waterhole. And a short time later Pokur appeared to the departed Sigurður on his deathbed and testified against me.”

It was silent in the hole, except for the sound of the sorcerer sobbing in the darkness. After a few moments Jón Hreggviðsson said quietly:

“You’ll definitely be burned.”

The sorcerer kept on sobbing.

5

An old woman wants to make a journey.

During the mornings as the seamen shove off from land she loiters on the beach, accosting one man after another, claiming that she needs to go south. On this day they all refuse her passage, but she is there again the next. She is wearing new shoes, and her blue nose pokes out from a brown shawl wound around her head. She is accoutered like a female pilgrim, carrying a walking stick and a pouch made of curried hide, her skirt tucked up and tied.

“It scarcely bodes much ill luck to allow one poor wretch to float along with you and to put her ashore somewhere at the tip of the cape.”

“There’s enough of a crowd of beggars at Suðurnes,” they say.

Time passes, and the moving days have ended.* Yet still the woman totters down to the beach every morning, wanting to make a journey. Finally some steersman gives up and takes her on board with a curse, puts her ashore by Grótta,* and rows away. She creeps over kelp-grown rocks and sea-beaten stones until she reaches a grassy bank. Well then, she’d crossed over the sea. The mountains of her home, Akrafjall and Skarðsheiði, appeared hazy blue in the distance.

She set out, following the promontory toward the mainland. The spring day was bright and calm, and she walked up the slope at the center of the cape to have a look about. Cottages cowered amidst the tangle down below the flood-line. On the far side of the fjord south of the cape the sun gleamed off the residence at Bessastaðir, where the king’s men held sway; on the cape’s northern side were oblong buildings on low, flat skerries out in the sea and a merchantman at anchor: the trading station of Hólmur.* Distant blue peaks on the mainland flanked smaller mountains whose darkish slopes were patched with strips of green. She walked along the coastline for most of the day, crossing over stony hills and soggy marshland until she came to a river that fell in two brisk branches into a bight, the stream gleaming white and blue in the sun. She knew there wasn’t much chance that she could cross over by her own strength. A foot-steady individual in the prime of his life might have taken off his socks and waded over, but she was an old woman. She decided to sit down and recite a penitential hymn composed by Reverend Halldór from Presthólar. She took a fishtail from her pouch and gnawed on it as she recited the hymn, and drank the river’s blue water from the palms of her hands as she tried to remember what verse came next, because the Lord stipulated that prayers would be granted only when they were said correctly. She took care, moreover, to recite the hymn in the right tone, drawling at every other line and easing off at the end of every verse, sadly, like a finger slipping over a sounding string.

As she finished reciting the hymn a number of men leading a packtrain crossed over from the east, and she begged them tearfully, in Jesus’ name, to take a miserable wretch eastward over the branches, but they answered that there were already enough vagrant old women on the other side. After they were gone she stopped weeping and carried on with her penitential hymn. Then another packtrain arrived from the west, transporting stockfish. She begged them tearfully to help a poor old creature, but they were drunk from brennivín and said that they would beat her senseless with their whips if she didn’t turn around and go back to wherever it was she’d come from. Water splashed over the woman as the packtrain crossed. She stopped weeping and recited more of the hymn.

Early in the evening a shepherd girl from one of the farms west of the river came riding out to tend her sheep on the islet between the branches. The old woman promised to ask God to bless the girl if she would help her cross over. The girl said nothing, but stopped her horse at a convenient knoll. The old woman climbed up behind the girl and they crossed over both branches, then the girl stopped the horse at another knoll and waited while the woman clambered off the horse’s back. The woman kissed the girl farewell and bade God bless her and all her offspring.

Day had passed into night.

On the farms to the west of the heath there were crowds of people everywhere, especially men leading packtrains to the south coast to procure stockfish; some of them had traveled long distances from the east. There were also solitary travelers, wealthy landowners who had business at Bessastaðir or with the merchants in Hólmur, and these took priority with regard to lodging. All sorts of other folk had congregated here as well, especially those who were forced to spend their lives endlessly roving in search of sustenance, which ill luck guaranteed to be always on the other side of the mountain. This group included paralytics and other invalids, poets, branded thieves, eccentrics, half-wits, girls, preachers, hunchbacks, fiddlers, and lunatics. One family came from out east in Rangárvellir, a man and his wife and five children; they’d squandered their livelihood and were on their way to their kinfolk south in Leira in the hope of fish. One of the children was at death’s door. They reported that the carcasses of itinerant vagrants lay scattered before men’s doors throughout the entire countryside to the east. Nineteen thieves had been branded at Rangárvellir in the winter and one hanged.

The men from the packtrains had to stand guard over their loads of stockfish wherever they took lodging for the night. Tramps hung about on the footpaths and walls and provided various types of entertainment for anyone who wanted to listen, while the lepers reached out with their bare fingerbones and praised God. One particular fool stood up on a gablehead and performed a dismal routine that he called “The Ballad of Breaking Wind,” and he even charged small change for it. A preacher put on a woman’s riding frock and intoned for his in-laws, in the voice of the bishop of Skálholt and through a hardened cod-gill, the so-called
Gospel of Mark in the Midhouses,
about two daughters and two casks of whale suet: “. . . whoever dishonors my daughters at Yule will not get to see their glory at East-e-er.” Then he switched to the voice of the bishop of Hólar and sang: “The mouse jumped up to the altar and bit the candle with his long gray tail and his dark red sho-o-oes.” And in his very own voice he chanted:

“Drat it, confound it, and fie,
What a piteous creature am I,
The loon waddles off in retreat,
Flapping on fumbly fe-e-ee-e-eet.”

No one wanted to see or hear the fiddler, so they cut his fiddle strings.

Finally the old woman asked the way eastward over Hellisheiði and said that she was thinking of continuing on that night.

“Where’re you going?” somebody asked.

She said she had a trifle of an errand with the bishop’s wife in Skálholt.

The men stared at her vacantly. One said:

“Didn’t two vagrant old crones die out on Hellisheiði on Easter night earlier this spring?”

Another said: “The bailiffs have forbidden any further transport of beggars eastward over the great rivers.”

A third, who seemed to be a beggar himself, said: “The tightwads to the east are in the mood for murder, my dear lady.”

As evening wore on clouds gathered and it started to drizzle. The woman’s feet were sore. The birds twittered gladly and vigorously in the luminous night and the warm moss covering the lava was so lushly green that it illuminated the mist. The woman walked for so long that in the end her feet were no longer sore, but benumbed. She crept into a small hollow near the path and tried to rub some life back into them, then ate a bit of hardfish and recited a penitential hymn.

“Oh, well then, so what if they did get caught out here on Easter night, the two old dears,” she murmured to herself between verses. “Oh, well no, so that’s the way it was, you poor old creatures.”

In a moment she was fast asleep, her chin resting on her knees.

Toward evening of the next day, when she’d come as far east as the Ölfus River, she found that everything she’d heard south of the heath was true: travel permits were being demanded of dubious individuals at the ferry landing. Waiting in a swarm of terns on a sandbank at the edge of the river were six vagrants, amongst them one corpse. The ferryman said no. One of the vagrants said that he’d tried to beg for milk at the nearest farm, but was told that the salmon were sucking the cows. He said he’d offered to tell a story in exchange, since he was a poet and knew more than a thousand stories, but at this time of year no one was willing to part with even one bowl of skimmed milk, no matter what was being offered in return.

“What would Gunnar of Hlíðarendi have said if he’d seen other such folk?” said the poet. “Or Egill Skallagrímsson?”*

“There was a time when I worked as a silversmith for the gentry,” said a blind old man who was holding the hand of a blue-eyed boy. “Now I have to beg for a fin.”

This comment was somewhat out of place, like most of the things that blind men say, and the entire thread of conversation, if there ever had been one, snapped. The beggars stared long and silently at the glacier-colored streamwater passing by.

The corpse was of a young girl, and it had been placed neatly on the sandbank, but no one claimed responsibility for it. Someone said that she’d been insane in the life of the living. If one lifted the hair from her forehead one could see that she’d been branded.

“Two ravens have been croaking for a long time east of the river,” said the blue-eyed boy who was leading the blind man.

“The raven is the bird of all the gods,” said the poet. “It was the bird of Óðinn and the bird of Jesus Christ. It will also be the bird of the god Skandilán, who has yet to be born. Whomever the raven rends attains salvation.”

“And the tern?” said the boy.

“The Lord gave all the earth and all the sky to some birds,” said the poet. “Lie down flat on your back like me, young man, and study the flight of the birds for yourself, but do not speak.”

The glacier stream continued to pass by.

A distended-looking beggar, his liver most likely swollen, had been sitting there on the sandbank with his legs stretched out, looking down between his feet. Now he lifted up his sluggish eyes and said:

“Why silver? Why not gold?”

The blind man answered: “I’ve also worked gold.”

“Why didn’t you say gold then?” asked the distended one.

“I’m more fond of silver than gold,” said the blind one.

“I’m more fond of gold,” said the distended one.

“I’ve noticed that very few people are fond of gold for itself,” said the blind one. “I’m fond of silver for itself.”

The distended man turned to the poet and asked:

“When’s silver ever mentioned in poetry?”

“If you were an unbetrothed maiden,” said the poet, “which would you prefer to marry, one man or thirty whales?”

“Is this supposed to be a riddle, or what?” asked the thicker beggar.

“My girl married thirty whales,” said the poet.

“From evil company, parce nobis domine,”* said an old, ancient-mannered woman, and she turned her back on the men and wandered off.

“She didn’t want me,” said the poet. “And at that time I was at my best. There was a famine then, like now. That same spring thirty whales were washed up on the beaches of a seventy-year-old widower in the countryside.”

“Gold isn’t precious because it’s a better metal than silver,” said the blind man. “Gold is precious because it resembles the sun. Silver has the light of the moon.”

Two important-looking men who crossed over from the east took charge of the blind man and his boy and they were ferried over. One man took charge of the popish old woman and even the distended man turned out to have a leprous brother in Kaldaðarnes. But no one would claim responsibility for the poet, nor for the corpse, nor for the woman come lately from Skagi. She wept for a while and beseeched the farmers in the name of Jesus, but it was useless; they boarded the ferry and the oarsman locked in the oars. Three remained behind, two living, one dead.

The poet said: “You’re new to begging, good woman, if you think that God’s mercy still exists. God’s mercy is the first thing to die in an evil year. What can be done to reduce the tears in Iceland? Not only let beggars be borne across the rivers by oar, but let them glide over the seas on wings.”

The old woman said nothing. She set off up the riverbank, carrying her walking stick and her pouch, thinking that there must be someplace where the bellowing streamwater would be only a little rippling brook, where a child might step over without wetting its feet.

The poet and the corpse were left behind.