The Ice-Shirt

by William T. Vollmann

  A Moumfui Banquet in Greeniand

  Wishing to avoid the bittemess consequent upon dreaming too much, Gudrid kept herself busy in Greenland. Because the ship was blown about on the sea by evil winds until the autumn, by which time the ice was already clashing against the shore, they were compelled to winter in Herjolfsness. The chief farmer there now was named Thorkel (for poor Bjami Herjolfsson, the incurious discoverer of Greenland, had by now vanished forever from the pages of the Flateyjarbok). He gave them hospitality, and Gudrid immediately set herself

  to work weaving and spinning like a spider, so that all diought her a most industrious girl; and her father became puffed up with hearing her praises. "What lies over that mountain?" said Gudrid.

  "That way?" laughed Thorkel. "Nodiing but mist, ice, rocks and trolls." That winter came a famine to Greenland. From behind her loom Gudrid saw the house-men go out hunting and return empty-handed. Thorkel's heavy footfalls told her that he no longer expected any luck; and she heard him in speech with his wife Helga, who was saying, "Never before have you come back with nothing from the Reindeer Isles," and Gudrid span her woolen threads, and Helga said, "You saw no seals?" and that night as the moon shone on the ice like copper Gudrid refused to join the others at table, saying that she was not hungry, so that later her father came with a candle into her chamber to ask her privily if she were ill and she said, "I cannot bear to eat their meat any longer," to which he said, "I had not thought that you were capable of such rigor!" at which she flung her bedskins down indignantly and sat up, crying, "I cannot bear it, I tell you!" and Thorbjom smiled and said, "Indeed, my Gudrid, you are proud but I know you!" and he went out and returned with a bit of seal-meat and left it there. Tears coursed down the girl's face, and she sat up in bed and prayed, watching the steam of her breath ascending to Heaven from that cold room; later she devoured the meat. The moon sank below the ridges, and her father's candle went out, and the night was black and ugly. The next day Thorkel set forth once again for the Reindeer Isles with his neighbor, an older man named Gunnar, who brought both his house-carles for the chase. The sky was an ugly purple-grey, like a wound, and sleet came sizzling dov^n. Two days after this Thorkel returned alone, half-dead with cold, and said that the others had been lost. He slept all that day and part of the next, while the others went about their business in a hush, and mist thickened around the stead. When Thorkel awoke he called his wife to him and they spoke in whispers; he rose, drank down hot broth, put on his cloak and went out again. This time Thorbjom went with him, even though he was a poor hunter; and perhaps it was that famous Vifilsson luck or perhaps it was something else, but they returned with a young seal. Gudrid sprang up and embraced her father; she thought that she had never loved him so much. When he descended to the §ord to gather driftwood, she threw on her cloak and followed after him. It was very windy there. Ice glared on the wind-blown rocks; and the horizon was livid. ~ "I had not thought that Thorkel spoke truth when he said that there were trolls here," said Thorbjom, shearing a branch with a stout axe-blow; and Gudrid said, "Father, what do you mean?", and Thorbjom said, "Just after we killed die seal, we spied two

  devils on a hill - or at least they were dark and devilish-looking little men, with round cheeks like babies. When they understood that we saw them, they ran away. Thorkel and I agreed not to tell the others, but I wanted you to know." - Gudrid had turned pale. "Do you think they mean us evil?" she asked in a low voice. - Thorbjom shrugged. "I think we will never see them again. But now I wish that I had not lived beyond my means, and been forced to leave Iceland." - With this, he began to chop at another log, and the conversation was at an end.

  The famine continued, and the cows began to die of cold in the byre. Gudrid always ate what was set before her. One day she took out a length of golden thread which her father had given her to use when she was married, and began to embroider pretty rune-patterns as her foster-mother Halldis had taught her, and Helga came over to watch for a moment and said, "You take great pains to please us, Gudrid; do not think that you are a burden to us!", and Gudrid smiled so brilliantly and said, "No doubt some do say it," and Helga said, "What do you mean?", and Gudrid said, "It is kind of you to compliment me; I too think that this pattern will be very pretty when I have finished it."

  The next day Thorkel went out again for reindeer, and again returned empty-handed.

  Now murmurs began to go up from neighbor to neighbor that it was time to inquire of Thorbjorg, the Prophetess of that settlement, how long the famine would last. (For Greenland was not yet a Christian country at this time.) Every stead seemed to be in straits. Hearing this, Thorkel said, "It does not seem that we are to be allowed much ease. I think that we must make a feast for the Prophetess."

  Thorbjom Vifilsson spoke out against these pagan practices, and Gudrid also, but she only a little, wanting always to endear herself to others. So in the end it was only Thorbjom who swore to leave the house when the old witch came.

  Helga and Thorkel stood together in the doorway when the Prophetess came, and greeted her as respectfully as they could. She hobbled past them with scarcely a word; that was her way. - "May I help you take off your skin cloak?" pleaded Helga. - The Prophetess said: "There are so many beautiful clothes here!" and Helga hastened to present her with a fine wool serk that she and Gudrid had woven together, meaning to give it to Thorkel. Then Thorkel led her to a high-seat that had been specially prepared for her and Helga brought the cushion stuffed with hen's feathers, which the Prophetess took without saying anything, seating herself in the high-seat as the others

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  lined up to greet her. And again Helga said, "Welcome to our house!" and the Prophetess grimaced; and second in line was Thorkel, who said, "Thank you for the honor you show us!", to which the Prophetess answered, "Yes, Thorkel, honor is a thing you have need of," to which no one dared to reply. Next came the cringing house-carles and carlines one after another; and last in line was Gudrid Thorbjomsdottir, who bowed her head and said, "My name is Gudrid, and I also greet you and thank you," and unexpectedly die Prophetess smiled and said, "A lovely girl! And such beautiful eyes!" (Then Gudrid thought to herself: Now will Helga gouge my eyes out and offer them to her?) Thorkel, who had managed to put the Prophetess's insult out of mind, said, "Will you come with me to look upon house and herd?", and the Prophetess got up sighing and leaning on her staff and went through the stead without a word of blessing, so that the host's face was wrathfully tinged. Then she sat down in her high-seat again. Helga and Gudrid rushed to bring her the goat's milk gruel that she always required, and the dish of seals' hearts, the dish of reindeer-hearts, the dish of snow-rabbit hearts ... They sat down to their own meager meal as the Prophetess sighed and grunted, cutting her food with a knife whose point was broken, and refreshing herself avidly with the gruel, shoveling it into her mouth with a strange brass spoon whose like Gudrid had never seen before. Even so, the others finished before she did; there was little enough for them to eat. - "Oh, the Ynglings knew!" said the Prophetess in great satisfaction, licking the last drops of heart-blood from her knife. "But that game is not finished yet; we still have the wild grapes." And she looked at Gudrid very shrewdly.

  "How do you like my stead?" said Thorkel at last.

  "I vdll answer your questions tomorrow," she replied. "Make up a bed for me and leave me in peace."

  But now Thorkel was on his feet. He put on his cloak and left the house.

  "What is it he seeks to do?" said the old woman querulously. "Never mind. Where is the bed that you have prepared for me?"

  "I will take you to your place," said Gudrid. "Here, let me help you." She extended her hand.

  "Oh, but she is a sweet Httle maid!" said the Prophetess to the others. "Her name is Gudrid, you say? If only she had been my daughter. I am the youngest of seven sisters and they were all Prophetesses; now the others are dead. Soon there will be no more of us - aieeF'

  That night Gudrid was fiightened, and wondered if she had
done wrong to permit herself any fiiendship with this heathen woman. And yet she could not help it. Just as ladies poured out the feast-ale, so Gudrid longed always

  to pour herself out for others to taste of her and be refreshed. It would be far better now, she Icnew, if she were to join her father at Gunnarstead. But Helga needed her; she owed Helga so much. As always, Gudrid knelt upon the cold floor and prayed to CHRIST. And she made a resolution that she would do nothing to bring her into dishonor.

  In the morning there was a stir among the waiting folk when the Prophetess rose at last. - "Oh, what gifts can I give her today?" wailed Helga, but Gudrid comforted her and said that there was no need. The sky was a moldy patchy green, like badly cured leather, and the wind ratded the house. Truly it was a very ugly morning. Gudrid longed to be home in Iceland. - "Now we must have women who can help me sing the Warlock-Songs,'' the Prophetess said, and Thorkel (who had returned very late) inquired of all his thralls, but no one knew the songs. But the Prophetess sat in her high-seat with her eyes half closed, saying, "There is someone here who knows - the Spirits tell me so!"; and at last Gudrid said with folded hands, "I am no sorceress, but in Iceland my foster-mother Halldis taught me songs she called Warlock-Songs," to which the Prophetess said, "Well, child, it seems your knowledge is timely!", and there was a silence and then Gudrid said, "That is the sort of knowledge I want no part of, for I am Christian, having hearkened to the words of King Olaf's priest," but the old Prophetess frowned and said, "It may well be that you could help us and not be a worse woman for it!"

  Gudrid hung her head.

  "Come," said Thorkel sharply, "it cannot possibly be Christ's command that a young girl refuse to help the folk who sheltered her!"

  "I know that my father and I have been a tax upon you," said Gudrid. "I promise you that we will leave on the first day of spring!" Her lip was trembling.

  "But it is not that that we ask of you," said Thorkel. "You need not believe the words you sing; but you must sing them, unless you want us all to die of hunger. How well do you think your CHRIST would like you then?"

  Gudrid caught her breath. Her face was very white.

  Thorkel stood up. "Is it right that I should be insulted by every guest who comes?" he shouted.

  "Hush, hush," said Helga. "Pay him no mind, Gudrid."

  The Prophetess wore a blue mande, which was as heavy with stones as all the seas with islands. Her necklace was made of glass beads, and they tinkled one against the other when she moved. Her hood and gloves were lined with white catskin. - Gudrid hated her. Smiling, she sang the Warlock-Songs.

  "My daughter," said the Prophetess, "I have never heard lovelier singing.

  The Spirits shunned us before, but they could not resist you. - Truly I cannot imagine anyone who'd resist you! - The Spirits came down from die ice-mountains; they danced around your head, my Gudrid; they promised to lift the famine before spring comes. (Oh, diey have BLACK HANDS, you know! I heard that from the Skraelings.) And I can see that you will make a distinguished marriage here in Greenland."

  Eirik's daughter, Freydis, who valued praise the more because she so seldom got it, would have loved the Prophetess had she said diose things to her. As for Gudrid, she hated the Prophetess just as much as before. - Kneeling, she thanked her for her words and kissed her.

  So Gudrid bore the winter at Herjolfsness as patiendy as she could, and spring came at last.

  Spring on Baffm Is (and 1987

  Even as I watched I could see the streams increase. The noise of the wind became mingled with the sound of waterfalls. The smell of the sea came into the valley, and gulls flew crying. I ran across the mudflats to watch the advancing water. I saw the reflection of Ulu Peak in a puddle. The sand became ribbed mud, imprinted with the three-toed feet of birds. Every littie channel reflected some snowy mountain. I stood on a littie spit of mud and watched the water come in all around me. Although it moved in starting and stopping pulses, it approached very quickly, for the tide was also coming in; the ocean came and met the streams of melted ice. It was very cool and wild, and the birds sang. I could see no one else in the whole world ...

  Two Gratefuf Guests ca. 990

  When the spring was well advanced, Thorbjom and Gudrid sailed with their thralls to Brattahlid, and Red Eirik welcomed them. The seasons passed. Gudrid could not understand why her father was in no hurry to ask Eirik for land. She fretted and drooped, like a rose whose stem has finally lost its resistance to death, so that the scarlet bell of beauty becomes an insupportable weight; thus Gudrid wove and span at Brattahlid viith her hair bedraggled. They wintered vdth Eirik and played at chess and draughts. Eirik's son Thorstein was very enamored of Gudrid. He stayed at home with his father, for which reason men considered him a more promising youth than his brother

  Leif. Eirik said that he would be quite satisfied if Gudrid was pleased with his son. But Gudrid did not care much for Thorstein. Often Thorstein would come to the door and say to Thorbjom, "Where's Gudrid?", and Gudrid would cower back and pray that her father would not tell him that she was there, but Thorbjom would smile a big comfortable smile and rest his hand on Thorstein's shoulder and say, "Why, Gudrid's right here. Gudrid! Gudridr and Gudrid would have to play at draughts with Thorstein. - Now the lovely rose began to droop somewhat more. "Why must you say that I am there?" she demanded. - Thorbjom paced up and down the room, smiling sadly. "Eirik has been good to us," he said at last. - "He only pays the debt he owes you!" cried Gudrid. "You guested him when he was outlawed from Haukadale; you helped him hide from Thorgest .. ." -"Yes, I helped him," said Thorbjom. "I helped him when I had the means to do so. Now I have almost nothing. The more he pays me back, the greater my new obligation. Greater still, because I cannot meet it. Thorstein is fond of you. You should be grateful for the chance to please. Do you understand me, Gudrid?" - Gudrid sat down slowly, biting her lip. It was very sweet to see the way her hair swept down above her eyes. A single blonde strand of it curled lovingly around her neck. Her little white hands rested in her lap, clenching and unclenching. She tumed her head away, but Thorbjom saw a single tear mnning down the straight sweep of her cheek. - "Oh, well," she said. "It seems that prostitution happens in the best of families." - When Thorstein came that day, Gudrid smiled and rose and smoothed her sleeves. Her shirt had a blue tint.

  In the month of Sowing-Tide, Eirik gave the Vifilssons land at Stokkanes, where his bench-boards had first washed ashore, so that it was considered a lucky place. - "Can you carry up my loom for me, Thorstein?" asked Gudrid. "Oh, you are as strong as a bear!" - They had a little bay for their harbor, and above the beach the land rose at an angle of forty-five degrees, rich with moss and Hchen, and, after flattening just enough to provide space for a commanding house, it became a steep and mossy shoulder of the sky, behind which were snow-peaks. The lichen was green and grey; Gudrid walked ankle-deep in its foamy blooms. In the sky were always eagles. Dwarf poplars grew thick and green in the streams that mshed into the ^ord; from every rise Gudrid and her father could see another stream. Sometimes the streams were full of waterfalls and foamy rapids, so that throughout their length they were the color of the snow they came from.

  For the first few days Thorbjom and his thralls were busy consecrating their ownership of the new land. They traveled all over it, and lit a fire at

  the mouth of every river. Thorbjom's house-carles wanted to build a temple to ThoR, but Thorbjom and Gudrid would not allow it. - "This is good land," Thorbjom said. Wherever a man lives and farms, he considers the land to be good land, and sees abundance and fertility. Just as the Skraeling word for crowberry means "earth-apple," as if it were the harvest of some great hot garden of richness, although to those who live south of Brattahlid the crowberry appears to be a wretched little fruit, so Thorbjom saw die beauty in his land and made up his mind to be contented with it. His farm was hardly as big as the one he had had in Iceland, but he did not complain. He farmed there at Stokkanes until his death. The weather was sunny and m
ild.

  Tftorstein without Gudrid

  Afterwards, on those midnight summer nights, Thorstein closed his eyes and saw blonde Icelandic women leaning in doorways. It was a great grief to him that the Vifilssons were gone. Gudrid had made him feel that he was about to do or be someone infinitely more wonderful than he could ever have imagined, as if his desires were white reindeer running over mndra plains beneath a keen bright sky and he was there, too, running among them, galloping toward the inland ice; but now that Gudrid was gone he had shrunk back into himself, and his longings hung upon him loosely, like the wrinkled belly of a fat man who has starved; - Gudrid would not help him play the Changing-Game! His brother Leif, who was well-traveled in his sharp-keeled ship, told him not to despair, for when the Queen was taken, often some pawn could be found. In fact, Leif had just come away from a delightful affair in the Hebrides. He had sailed to Norway to winter at King Olaf's because he and his father were always quarreling, and Olaf was known as a generous man; as for Olaf, he was well-pleased that Leif had placed himself under obligation to him, because he would not at all mind becoming King of Greenland as well as King of Norway, and when that time came Leif would have open to him the choice of Herlaug or the choice of Rollaug.