Later in the summer they often slept outside, until the Skraelings came. -Who knows why the starry sky is full of brighmess? - It was all so joyous, because Wineland was a place of joy.
Freydis in the Forest
Up in the northern headlands Vinland was a little more like Greenland, with steep hills of loose rock shining in the sun, and secret Skraeling paths along the cliflf-sides, beside white waterfalls; but the gorges were clothed by birches which grew taller than any Greenland trees, and in such great numbers as to almost exhaust her cupidity.
Here by the ocean were spruces which the wind had bent at right angles to their trunks, so that they grew horizontally, dead grey in color like witches'
brooms. The low hills were ranked with these trees, whose grey trunks and white trunks stood like rib-bones planted upright in the darkness. Ravens winged through the fog. Freydis could sometimes see the air between their pinions. The grey breasts of the unknown trees were covered with ivy, as if they were knights dressed in ring-armor. She pushed her way between these, and entered a forest eaten by bugworms. Here and there a tree-corpse had fallen, wrenching up roots, dirt and turf wdth it like a toppled pedestal. The farther she went, the closer together grew the spruce trees. Their grey twigs, which seemed white in the shadow, formed wiry shelves on which Freydis hung gold rings as an offering to Amortortak, for the place was cursed in her imagination. When she had finished with her work, there would be dirty patches of snow here even at the end of Sun-Month, hiding between the trees on the steep hillsides. But as yet there was still no winter in Wineland. - A plump grey rabbit sat beneath a tree, its forelegs resting against its folded hindlegs, its ears raised. When it saw her, it shifted its legs, but it did not otherwise move, not knowing what she was, so she speared it easily and hung it from a tree as a sacrifice. Then she turned away from the forest, its cold and shady branches raking her on every side. Although the sky was clear, a grey cloud-stone was poised in the north, ready to fall down over everything and blot it out.
The Grove ofUppscda ca. 800 - ca. 1000
In Sweden, dead horses, dogs and men hung from the trees. During the nine-day assembly in honor of the gods, men were impaled on spears and raised into the trees, where they hung and rotted so that flesh-gobbets dangled from the black claw-branches and ODIN's ravens picked at their faces and hooded them beneath their black wings. Skeletons creaked in the breeze like lanterns. In the summer the horse-fat sizzled in the sun and dripped from the free-spinning hoofs that clanked and clanked so restlessly. Flies lived beneath the tree-leaves, happy in sun and shade. Ravens lived in ribcages, feasting on livers and then nesting there like the half-hidden faces that had been carved in Eirik's bench-boards, so that when the new victims were raised up the ravens flew into their safe bone-houses and peered cawing between the rib-bars until the groans and struggles had stopped; and then they flapped cautiously through the leaf-sky like shadows, ready at any time to read menace with their sharp eyes and hide in their nests, which were lined with beak-tom scraps of the dead men's clothes, so that for the first time the men wore their
robes inside them instead of outside, and the plump black mother-ravens hatched their eggs there and fed their young on the maggots that writhed as white as living bones. - When the people killed their victims, they sang beautiful songs. Sometimes they drovmed them in the springs that watered the grove, and if the gods were delighted the dim white bodies vanished in the water, transubstantiated into heaven like the lucky inhabitants of Hiroshima. - The hoHest assemblies lasted for nine days, and at them sacrifices were required every day, for the wooden god-images were watching and waiting in their dark wooden house, which was red and white wdth gold omaments that gleamed and sent their sun-rays upwards through the trees to pass between the rib-bones and so ascend to Valhalla, where the gods were pleased, Freyja especially, for gold was Her tears; and because gold belonged to FREYJA it also belonged to Freydis, who had been named for Her and dedicated to Her just as her dead brothers Thorstein and Thorvald had been dedicated to Thor for their good, their strength. At the name-fastening their father had given each of the boys a hammer-token with which to bless himself and protect himself from evil, but all that was laid aside when Greenland was Christianized. -Beyond the god-house rose a great sacred tree that was green in summer and winter. That tree, of course, was the World-Ash, Yggdrasil. Many died when Yggdrasil died.
A Depiction of Yggdrasil in a Seventeenth-century Icetondic Manuscript of the Prose EdHa*
Yggdrasil grows high, vdth a crovm like an artichoke, and green and yellow banana-leaves. An eagle peacock crows in crest-heaven. Below are the four mischievous squirrels, Dain, Dvalin, Duney and Durathror, scaling the green trunk in their hunger and agile malice, the first pair of them almost at the crovm, the others ascending from the tree's great and wdld blossoms, no two of which are alike, some being star-shaped, some fruited or flowered; and then the trunk of Yggdrasil speeds down, down, down, through infinite space, coarsening as it goes until it has become a chain of oval orange vertebrae branching into world-roots, beneath which waits the horrid Midgaard Serpent.
*AM 73846 'Okumur listamathur.
The Trees ofVMand
In Markland and Wineland the trees rose high and green. Markland of course was Tree-Land, and trees of great magnificence could be found there, but Wineland was WiNELAND THE GOOD; and it was here, if anywhere, that Freydis might fmd Yggdrasil since she was not in Sweden. Here, so the sagas read, the grapes on the vine made men drunk. Somewhere in Wineland, then, must be a great Tree of Splendor whose leaves were moist, whose fruits were sweet, whose blossoms were of every color. She had thought upon her mission to Blue-Shirt even upon leaving Gardar with its foggy mountains, Gardar with its low green ridge-wrapped bay; for as she stepped aboard her ship (Thorvard trailing behind on the dock, with many backward looks at their fine stone house) she knew that her duty to Blue-Shirt lay undone; and Freydis was a great respecter of her duties to others when they were more powerful than she. They sailed down the straight sea-arm that they had often sailed the other way to Brattahlid; they went south to Herjolfsness, for Thorvard had a little trading to do there on the way, and then they left that last fjord, leaving behind the shelter of its black slab-walls; and they sailed deeper and deeper into the Greenland Sea until they could barely sight the rocky tip of Herjolfsness twisting like the tail of a seahorse, and the black blocky headland above it vanished in the clouds; and then they were alone in the sea, and all the time Freydis did not know what she must do in Vinland to plant her frost-seed; and now she was alone in the forest amidst a delicate airiness of trees and still she did not know what she must do; and white light slid up and down the taut spider-threads stretched between the forks of shaggy trees, upon which shadows shimmered (while on the surface of a shallow creek, the light trembled as if only it, not the water, were moving); and under the trees many extended raspberry-arms rose and fell quietly, while the ferns rocked themselves in sunlight as in darkness: until Freydis was lost and confused, and peered up a steep slope of yellow-green and evergreen at the peaceful darkness in which more deeply losing herself would have been a luxury because then she might have lost the imperative which Blue-Shirt had strapped to her shoulders. When she craned her head she could see, at almost the extremest angle toward the vertical, a few blue chinks of sky, like tiles set into a stained-glass window; and the sun pressed lovingly down and struck a single golden tree, while everything behind was filled with shady wonder, and still Freydis did not take the hint, although the tree-boughs rode the sea of wind so silently and tirelessly that they seemed uncanny to her, for she had led a treeless life; and suddenly she recalled the fear she had
felt upon walking late one evening down a forest path, soon after she had come to Vinland, and perceiving that in the absence of any breeze one tree's branches were waving; she could not understand how this could be, unless there were spirits; and now the sun came lower and set all the trees on fire, and she saw one tree streaming with go
lden glory and wholly believed in YGGDRASIL the Summer-Tree so that her faith was beating in her breast with great heart-strokes, and Freydis decided that for Blue-Shirt's sake (which was her sake) she would find Yggdrasil and cut it dovm. It did not matter so much to her. She was, after all, a Christian woman.
i ThcDreamof the Seven Birds
i
I Meanwhile, Gudrid also dreamed a dream. It seemed to her that there were
I seven wood-brown birds flying through the forest, and then suddenly one
I of them turned white and fell down dead.
skins for Mi(k
The man who is to be a trader will have to brave many perils, sometimes at sea and sometimes in heathen lands, but nearly always among alien peoples; and it must be his constant purpose to act discreetly wherever he happens to be.
Speculum Regale, III.79
I
n the following summer, Karlsefni and Gudrid sailed south, with most of the other ships in their expedition. Their foam-trails marbled the sea. -Freydis, how^ever, remained in Leif's houses. After all, she reminded everyone again, he had loaned them to her. She considered this time, when the others were away, an excellent opportunity to find the great tree Yggdrasil. Her men, having been idle for some time, had begun to chafe at her leadership, and might soon have seized their liberty, had Freydis not taken them into her confidence. - "There is a certain tree I am looking for," she said. "Its wood wall bring a high price at home. I will give a good reward to whichever of you finds it. And if you meet the SkraeUngs, I give you Hcense to rape and to rob as you desire, provided you bring me back one prisoner alive." - Thus incited, her men set off into the trees, singly and in small groups, as they would. - As for Helgi and Finnbogi, no one consulted them any longer. They stayed in their house with their thirty men, their five women, and no one knew what they did.
The other ships sailed south for many days, until they found a tidal lake around which wild wheat grew in abundance, waving and shining like Gudrid's hair. On the higher ground were more grapes than they had ever seen, even those among them who had been to Germany. Their purple juice was very sweet. A cupful of it made a man drunk. In the streams of the fjord were so many fish that the Greenlanders had but to dig trenches at high tide to trap all the halibut they wanted. The forests were full of
far more game than they could eat. Gudrid and her husband formally took possession of this country; burning no THOR-fire, however, as they too were Christians.
They had been there a fortnight when early one morning they saw nine skin-boats coming up the river. As the Skraelings approached them, they began to wave long rattle-sticks in a sunwise motion, and the Greenlanders were confounded.
"Have your weapons ready, but not obvious," ordered Karlsefni. He stood there watching the Skraelings. "I wonder what this whirling of sticks means?" he said.
"Perhaps it is a sign of peace," said Snorri Thorbrandsson. "I suggest that we go to meet them wdth a white shield."
"That seems wise," said Karlsefni, and that is what was done.
Wading ashore, the Skraelings stared at them astonished. They had never seen anyone like the Greenlanders before. To the Skraelings they seemed great big people, vdth wide legs like bears. The women, though smaller, seemed very stiff and straight to the Skraelings; their hair was a golden wonder. The Skraelings could not understand where these tall people had come from. For a long time they looked at them, and then they got back into their skin-boats and paddled away.
Snorri Karisefnisson
Gudrid wanted to winter where they were, and as usual she got her way. The Greenlanders built houses on a slope by the lake, some close to the water, some far, and upon Karlsefiii's orders they erected a palisade around the settlement. The livestock were let out to graze as they would. There was no snow at all. Shortly after Christmas, Gudrid gave birth to a son, whom she named Snorri. He was the first white to be bom in Vinland. Laughing, Gudrid took him in her hot arms.
Two Dear Friends
"Mistress, you must hurry south!" cried Freydis's men when they found out what had happened. "Gudrid has had a brat and taken possession of the best land in the south, and there are Skraelings!" - "Very good," said Freydis coolly. She threw them a golden ring. But she was shaking with excitement.
- She set sail the same day. Her husband, too, was anxious to make the voyage: he smelled trade. - When Karlsefhi saw that pair of vulture-birds, he became flushed with rage, for Gudrid had incited him unwearyingly against Freydis, but now it was Gudrid herself who said, "Well, husband, we have seen Skraelings after all, so now she may prove useful." - Then Karlsefhi shook his head and let the matter rest. - As for Gudrid, she greeted her guests heartily, and gave their men quarters in one of her longhouses. She played the hostess with Freydis as Freydis had done with her, and none of this was lost on anyone. - So only Helgi and Finnbogi remained with their men by Leif's houses. Everyone else was now living in Gudrid's country.
Freydis^s Mi(k
In the spring (it would be the last spring) the Skraelings returned, a vast horde of them, swarming up the river in their skin-boats and waving their sun-sticks sunwise. There were so many of them that their numbers blackened the river. - "Raise your white shields," said Karlsefiii. The others did so, and the Skraelings landed and approached them. They made it clear by signs that they wanted to trade. - Oh, but they were evil-looking litde people! Their cheekbones were broad; their hair was coarse; their skins were a swarthy darkness! They dressed themselves in skins, like shape-changers. The Greenlanders despised them. But trade was trade.
Now, what did the Skraelings have to offer? The women brought their reed-woven bags stuffed full of moose-meat; the men offered arrow-points of stone. But the Greenlanders had no use for such trifles. Then the Skraeling men threw down their packs, and took out pelts and sables and furs of ail kinds, pointing to the Greenlanders' spears as if they craved them. - "We will not let them have weapons, no matter what they offer us," said Karlsefiii. "Remember, they are fiiends today, but they might be enemies tomorrow." And all the Greenlanders deemed this a wise principle.
"Let us trade them red cloth," said Freydis's husband Thorvard. He had never seen furs so fine. There would be a tremendous market for them at Herjolfsness. - Freydis smiled at him; and he looked up at her, rubbing the sleeve-buttons of his robe. Freydis knew that his purse hung at the belt of his undercoat, dangling and wobbling like his bloated testicles.
Thorvard approached the Skraelings with his bundle, smiling and twinkling his eyes. Here at last he was in his element. The Skraelings watched him cautiously. When he threw down his bundle they leaped back, but then
they saw him open it; then, when he took from it span after span of red cloth, they shouted with excitement. So they traded red cloth for grey pelt, and the Skraelings tied the cloth around their heads as soon as they got it and danced for happiness, for red was sacred to them * Now the other Greenlanders ran to get all the red cloth they had, and the trading went on until the red cloth ran short, and Freydis cried, "Cut it smaller, you fools!" -Thorvard was the first to try this trick. He took a span of cloth, and solemnly sliced it into pieces no more than a finger's width. The poor Skraelings, having never before seen public dishonesty calmly and graciously performed, thought that the smaller cloth-lengths must be more special and sacred than the others, and so they paid even more pelts for them, and all the Greenlanders liked Freydis that day and Freydis laughed until she was almost sick. - But at last the red cloth was exhausted, no matter how small the Greenlanders cut it, and the Skraelings were still standing there with skins in their packs. - "Let's pay them with milk!" said Freydis, intoxicated with her own shrewdness. -"Bring them milk, all you women," said Karlsefni. - The women went inside their houses and came out with pails of milk, Freydis going first because the others were afi-aid. When the Skraelings saw the white liquid they sniffed it and wrinkled up their faces in puzzlement, as if they did not know what it was, for there were no cows in Vinland. -"Don't you even k
now what milk is, you animals?" Freydis screamed at them, quite carried away with herself "Don't your women have milk in their tits?" - And she pointed to the milk-pails and squeezed her own breasts through her robe, to make the Skraelings understand. - But at this gesmre they cowered back, and Freydis saw that they feared her when she did that. - "Oh, you don't like my tits?" Freydis mocked them. She stopped playing with herself and put her hands on her hips. "Well, the milk isn't from me. Go ahead and taste it, you ugly thralls! Drink it up and give us all your skins!" - She seized a dark Skraeling boy by the hand and forced his head into a milk-pail. He drank, and when she let him go he was grinning and dancing. The others touched his milky face with their fingers and licked them. They they rushed up to drink the
* In those days there was Power everywhere. You did not have to be wise to find it. Power lived in pretty feathers; Power was in stars and owls' beaks; Power was in the patterns that the women painted on everyone's shirts so that they could find the animals they hunted and kill them; they could bring back meat to eat and clodie everyone in their skins and they could all dream of the Star People who dwelled on the black roof above the trees and sparkled at their images in brooks and lakes; they dreamed also of the Plant People who came on green legs bringing corn-gifts and tobacco-gifts; and all the gifts had Power, but die most Powerful color was red, and the women made paint fi-om red eardi and birds' eggs and painted special things on everyone's shirts, so the red cloth of the Jenuaq was highly prized.
milk. - "Well done, Freydis!" cried Karlsefni. - And so the Greenlanders got all the Skraelings' pelts, and the Skraelings got some milk and some scraps of red cloth. (Who is to say who traded most advantageously? For they are all dead now.)
The Ice-Shirt Page 26
