The Ice-Shirt

by William T. Vollmann

  was impossible. He sailed on. - The world had become green and grey and snowy-white under a leaden sky. The streams were grey, and so was the almost lifeless dirt. Waterfalls smashed through shelves of stale ice. Eirik shaded his eyes against the grey-glare and stood looking upward into that waste: a yellow waste of grass beneath grizzled hills, a waste of dead stone plateaux and rusty ridges wandering down to the milky blue sea, a waste of canted lava dragon-heads. Then he cleared the long promontory between Faxafloi and Breidafjord, and swung in west to Snaefellsness.

  Snczfettsmss

  In olden times, one Floxi from Sodor exclaimed, upon first seeing Snaefellsness, "This must be a great land which we have discovered, and here are mighty rivers!" - But what Eirik first took note of was the long blue broken back of Snaefellsness Peninsula, snow-capped at every mountain-joint, and at its terminus the great white dome of Snaefells Glacier, whose blaze and glare pierced Eirik with dazzle-arrows right through his shield-hopes of peace so that he thought to himself, "If ever I must lurk west of here, I can watch this glacier from farther out than my enemies can see," and this thought made Eirik happy, but for now he forgot it. In the interior of the peninsula were other lesser snow-domes, and crowds of lava pyramids. The cliffs were purplish-grey, and banded by strata which marked the sad slow recession of the Muspel-Sea. Slide washes narrowed and widened on their faces hke hourglasses.

  Drangar

  The farming was excellent there along the margin of BreidaiJ^^rd, but because Eirik had no connections he could not obtain land. The names of the steadings and districts were like jewels: Haukadale, Breidabolstead, Vatnshom, Laugarbrekka. His father stood beside him and said, "Never mind, son. At least we are out of Grey cloak's hands." - Eirik said nothing. - They went north to Homstrands, where the stony, mossy land was scarcely fit for sheep-foraging. In the bare places nothing grew but purple flowers. Closer to the sea, there was more grass, but not much more grass. - They built their farmstead at Drangar - or rather, Eirik did, for the old man soon caught a sickness from the cold and the labor, to which he was no longer equal. It was a coughing-sickness; both he and Eirik knew that it would be his last.

  Eirik often wondered whether his father reproached him in his heart for having slain Earl Torbrand - and yet when he thought upon it and studied his father's face, hoping to catch out a cloud-glint in his eyes, he never saw that, and they never spoke of it. - He roofed the stead with turf and turned the cattle out. He put the precious bench-boards in place. And with that, Drangar became his home. - The mountains rose very steeply behind him. In their corridors the cold vdnd was always rushing, because a fat blue glacier hid behind them like a spider and breathed down at the sea with its frost-breath, so that the grass froze early, and Eirik's cattle remained lean. Sometimes he came across some little meadow where the farming would have been good, but then came another shoulder of lava-clinkers, and then the mountains, slate-blue and snow-capped under low bars of cloud. - Presently his father lay dying, and Eirik asked him what plans he should make.

  "You should not stay here," said Thorvald. "This place will not bring any profit to you. When I die, let the glacier creep down over this house."

  "Is there anywhere I can go that seems particularly good to your mind?" said the son. "For it seems to me that we searched over half Iceland."

  "Eirik, I imagine that you will have to try yourself in a number of places," said the old man. "You wall often have to defend yourself"

  "I want to be on good terms with everyone," said Eirik, but old Thorvald laughed at this and raised himself up on one elbow. "You would never be on good terms wdth everyone unless you were King," he said, "and then not everyone would be on good terms with you. You're brave, son, and I'm proud of you, but life is easier for cowards."

  "Well, the way I am can't be changed," said Eirik.

  "Not true," said his father. "You are now a lone bear. If you many well, you could be a man of consequence, with many friends and a purse bursting vsith gold."

  "I think it best," said Eirik, "to be guided by your advice."

  Then Thorvald coughed and died, and the black blood burst from his mouth.

  ThjocMUjorund's-Daugfiter

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  Iceland Vacation Planner brochure (1987)

  At the inner elbow of Breidafjord, in the district of Haukadale, there lived a man named Thorbjom, now somewhat gone in years, who was married to Thorbjorg Ship-Breast, the widow of Jorund Ulfsson. (What Jorund died of I cannot tell, for there is a wormhole in that part of the manuscript.) Thorbjorg and Jorund had had a daughter, Thjodhild, whom Thorbjorg brought with her to Haukadale. This girl was now of marriageable age. The Flateyjarbok does not say that she was lovely, from which I infer that she was plain: - all the more likely, then, that Eirik could have her. - "I will not aim at yonder Ice-Mountain just yet," he said to himself, sailing south towards Snaefellsness. "But let me see what I can do." Surely Thorbjom of Haukadale must be more willing to let the girl go to a deedless man than he would any of his own daughters, and she was more than marriage-ripe, so he decided to pay a visit to Haukadale. The farming was excellent there.

  Now when his house-carles gave him word that a guest waited at the door of his hall, Thorbjom came out to give Eirik good greeting as custom required, and led him to the hearth and bade him sit beside him at his high-seat. Eirik was somewhat downcast by the wealth that he saw everywhere about him - for riches are a curse to those who have none -but he counted on his luck to help him. To fight the golden gleaming of so many polished spears, to conquer the little blue troll-folk who grinned at him in the thread-forests of Thorbjom's tapestries, he had brought a bracelet of his father's, well-worked from that good red gold that comforts men in their sorrows better than ever a cool beloved hand can soothe a fevered forehead. - For this gift Thorbjom thanked him cordially. But still he cherished some reserve, for he thought he could tell what errand brought Eirik here. - "Still," thought Eirik, "the deed must be tried."

  "I will not hide what is in my mind," he said to Thorbjom. "I want to marry your stepdaughter Thjodhild."

  "Well," said Thorbjom, "she's a good girl, and needs to be married, but I can't say I know much about you. You're the Thorvaldsson that came from Norway?"

  "Yes, Lord," said Eirik proudly. "My father was of high account in Norway."

  "In Norway he was, no doubt," said Thorbjom. "And you have a farm in Homstiands? The pastures are stony there, aren't they?"

  "They could be stonier," said Eirik.

  "In Jotunheim they could, no doubt," said Thorbjom smoothly. "Well, let me talk it over with my kinsmen."

  Eirik bit his lip, but said nothing. If Thorbjom became his kinsman, such

  affronting words as he had meted out would no longer require atonement; if not, well, Eirik could easily send him to Hel. So thinking, he waited patiently, and felt no fear.

  The next day Thorbjom and Eirik discussed the terms of the betrothal, and reached agreement. Although he did not say as much, Eirik's high birth had weighed heavily with Thorbjom. When he told Thjodhild she raised no objection; for she had begun to feel herself a bit of a burden to her foster-father, and certainly she could not become of any account by staying at home. - Eirik and Thorbjom shook hands, and Eirik paid the bride-price: thirteen orers of silver, counted out from the sack at his belt. - "The bench-gift will be another five orers,'' said Thorbjom quietly. For his part, he agreed to give his stepdaughter a good dower of gold and silver, as well as land in Haukadale, near Vamshom, where roseroot grew in profusion and moonwort rose green and yellow-green in the fields, its leaves like racks of double-bladed axeheads; and the grass was soft and springy beneath his feet, and later, as Eirik gazed upon the land, he saw all his fat white dream-cows grazing there, for this must be the vortex of his whirlpool-life; the cold black waters had whirled him down and down to green deeps, the bright green fields of Haukadale . .. Eirik pronounced himself well sati
sfied with their wedding-bargain. Then Thorbjom summoned his stepdaughter into the room, and placed Eirik's hand in hers. "I now pronounce you betrothed," he said.

  Thjodhild had black hair and greenish-grey eyes. Her smooth young face was lightly freckled.

  Happiness

  Bright candles bumed at the wedding feast. The bride sat on the cross-bench, linen-bound, and Eirik's household keys hung from her belt. Her eyes were wide and sad, but Eirik could not see them because by custom she wore the wedding headdress that hung low over her face, so that it seemed to Eirik as if he were marrying not a woman, but a bale of clothing. But he laughed and drank his ale, and soon put this peculiar notion out of his mind. Of late the trolls had been troubling him while he slept. He sat with his friends Eyjolf, Slayer-Styr and Thorbrand of Alptafjord, while on the other long-bench sat his father-in-law and his men. - "He seems to me a wild, tangle-haired sort of fellow," said Thorbjom to his kinsmen in low tones. "I hope we are doing right by this match." - But they told him to be easy in his mind, for it was patent.

  they said, that all Eirik wanted to do was to settle down on some good land and increase his fortunes. Some day the family might have need of him, they said. - "If it is a good match," said Thorbjom, "we will need him more than he needs us." - But at this, his kinsmen told him to stop saying words of ill omen at such a time. Then Thorbjom drank heavily, and stared into his cup. - The wedding-toasts were drunk, the solemn prayers were made to Frey and Freyja, who watch over the fertility of man and wife, and then Thorbjom conducted the pair to their marriage-bed and left, shutting the door behind him. - Thjodhild stood in the center of the room, listening to the guests shouting and laughing in the hall outside. She felt rather dreary. As for Eirik, his emotion was relief that he had got Thjodhild at last, and with her a measure of security against his poverty and friendlessness. - Thjodhild's 5/a?^Mr-dress fell very narrow and straight around her body. After a long time, in which Eirik neither touched her nor said a word to her, for he did not want to disrespect her person, she flushed and turned away from him abmptly. She began to take her dress off. She pulled it over her head. Beneath it she was wearing a light wool tunic. She hesitated for a moment. She unfastened her headdress and let her long dark hair down. Then very shyly she undid the buttons of her tunic, one by one. - Still Eirik did not say anything. But she looked into his face and thought she saw desire there and began to feel pleasure in her anticipated delight with him; and she undid the last gold button of her tunic and slipped it down her shoulders. Beneath this she wore her white linen night-serk against her skin. - Now in those days, although highbom women loved to preen themselves with bright colors for their outer garments, the custom for all women was to wear a white under-serk, the whiter the better, and as Thjodhild was a very cleanly woman and it was her wedding night she had taken particular care with this, so that her night-serk glittered and sparkled with its whiteness; and as Eirik looked upon her his eyes were drawn away from her face, which though plain was by no means unpleasing (and, moreover, was fixed rather anxiously on his) and away from the shape of her breast, which certainly ought to have pleased him, and his eye lost itself in that whiteness, so that to Eirik it seemed once again that he was marrying not a woman, but a bundle of clothes; and as he stood there so bewildered and bedazzled as to be for the moment not right in his mind, the white glitter mastered him as Thjodhild stood so straight and stiff (for she could see that he was occupied with other thoughts than those of her); and the folds of that white, white night-serk seemed to become the tongues and fjords of a horrible white cliff of ice that reached higher than the sky; and Eirik threw himself upon his knee and prayed to his patron-god Thor to

  send the awful vision away; while Thjodhild stood looking down upon him in astonishment and anger.

  On the morning after the wedding night, Eirik crossed the floor and gave Thjodhild her linen-fee and her bench-gift as she sat on the cross-bench. But she did not raise her head.

  HQXikadciic

  Now suddenly Eirik had friends and kin and slaves, for he had married well. His land brought forth blueberries of its own accord; and on Yule-days they drank the sacrificial blood. The turf-roofed houses of his farm stood watchful in a thicket of birch-trees behind the outhouses. There Thjodhild sat, working at the great loom in the comer, with porridge bubbling on the hearth-fire for her husband when he came home from the fields. Every chest was locked; at Thjodhild's belt was every key. But she was always weary. She milked the cows early on dark mornings, when there was ice in the byre, and her breath and the cows' breath rose as steam, and sometimes when she was finished she sat on in the darkness, letting thoughts of her husband rack her. What was he? What was he? Her spirit was numb and snow-choked; the wind blew from the cold, cold hills.

  The Cfiiidrm

  By Thjodhild had Eirik the Red three sons: Leif, Thorstein and Thorvald. They were all water-sprinkled. Much later, in another country, he also acknowledged a bastard daughter, Freydis. She was clever, with much knowledge, but false. - All of these children were destined to reach for new lands.

  TheEidestSon

  Very occasionally Eirik played chess with his wife, and then young Leif sat down and folded his arms upon the table with bowed head, watching the board. His face was delicate, his lower lip somewhat too full. His father considered him a disappointment, for he took no notice of the fact that the boy always won at chess no matter how carelessly he played, that he never injured himself at his chores, that, in sum, he seemed to live a life of almost indolent ease. Though Leif was die eldest son, Eirik did not want

  to acknowledge that he had inherited the family luck - probably because it did not seem to him that he had any luck to speak of. Within a few winters of his setdement in Haukadale, he was oudawed again.

  The Second Outlawry ca, 979

  Eirik lived at Eirikstead, and his neighbor Valthjof lived at Valthjofstead. They saw little of each other, and both were content that that was so. Eirik knew well that Valthjof despised him for an interloper and a wolf's head;* indeed, he could not but wonder why Thjodhild's foster-father had given him land so close to such a man, for Thorbjom had considerable land to give; and in the end, by the nature of things, Eirik and Valthjof must become enemies. - In this belief Eirik was not deceived. There presendy came a terrible famine to Iceland, in the course of which many were forced to eat ravens; and it was said that men sometimes killed their grandfathers to escape the necessity of feeding them. A catde-plague made matters much worse. The Haukadale-dwellers were not so badly touched; and Eirik was proud that neither Thjodhild nor the children ever had to go hungry, although the portions were sometimes small indeed. Their herd had been touched by the plague, and they had but three beasts left, a dappled heifer, a bull and a stout red cow by which the family set great store, for she gave milk in abundance, so that at least there could be something to put on the porridge. Thjodhild guarded what food they had carefully, and doled it out in the most economical way. It was wonderful also to see how well the children bore it; even Thorvald, the youngest, who was only an infant still unweaned, scarcely cried; in large measure this was due to Thjodhild, who acted always cheerfully with the boys, despite her own mournful nature; and even when she was spinning or milking she nourished them with stories. One warm evening in Sun-Month| the door was open as Eirik came home to his stead with a great load of fish, which he was very thankful to have caught, and as he stopped on the threshold he heard Thorstein say: "Mother, am I lucky?" and Thjodhild said, "Of course you are, sweet boy, but there is only so much luck to go around," and Thorstein said, "Who has the most?" and Thjodhild said very gently, "Your father has it now, for he needs it to feed us," and

  * Outlaw.

  I The Norse months were as follows: Harvest-Month (fall), Gore-Month (when cattle were slaughtered), Frost-Month, Ram's-Month, Winter's Wane, Sowing-Tide, Egg-Tide, Sun-Month, Haymaking-Mondi, Grain-Reaping Month.

  Eirik listened, and Leif said, "But I'm luckier than Thorstein, I know!" -T
here was a haughty fierceness in the lad that repelled Eirik. But he strode into the house and said nothing. - Thorstein meanwhile had begun to cry at Leif's taunts (it was then that Eirik realized how seldom the boys cried or complained), and Thjodhild said, "Hush, and I will tell you a story about luck. As for you, Leif, you may listen, too, if you are good and apologize to your brother." - But Leif would not, and shouted, "Truly I have more luck than Thorstein!" and he ran out into the fields. - "Perhaps he does," said Eirik wearily, "for tonight I have no patience to chase him and punish him." - He sat down in his high-seat, watching the flame-flickers reflected in the polish of those carven bench-boards, which he had just recently greased with a little seal-fat; and Thjodhild sighingly desisted fi-om her spinning for the moment and sat Thorstein on her lap to tell him the story of King Harald Fairhair, the luckiest man in the world, who could turn into a bear whenever he chose and best the other bears in battle, so that all feared him; and Thorstein's eyes were wide and he said, "Where did the King find such luck?", and Thjodhild said, "His father gave it to him," and Thorstein said, "But if his father had it, why didn't he chase away the bears himself?", and Thjodhild said, "Silly boy! If he had done that, what would there have been left for his son to do?", and Thorstein said, "Mother, I wish that King Harald Fairhair were my fiiend," and he burst into tears again, so that Thjodhild grew quite vexed. - "Stop it," she said. "All of us admire King Harald for his luck, but he used it evilly, to strip other Kings of their dignity. Anyhow, he is dead." - Just then Leif came running in, crying, "I cannot fmd the red cow!" - Eirik leaped up and followed his son into the pasture. They searched until the late darkness fell, and the littie boy began sniflfling in the damp, so Eirik was forced to bring him home. - "I cannot think what could have happened to her," said Eirik. He could not sleep. - "Perhaps she strayed," said Thjodhild, to console him. "You must go to Valthjofstead tomorrow, and ask for her."