The Crow-Girl--The Children of Crow Cove

by Bodil Bredsdorff

  She got up, stretched, and looked around. Far away she glimpsed the sea, which calmly mirrored the blue of the sky. In the other direction, the gray-and-green land stretched out before her eyes, and there, farther down the road, another road turned off, leading to a couple of low gray buildings that were hunched beneath a pair of windblown trees.

  Her first thought was to hurry past the place when she came to it. Then she caught sight of the two crows. She could just make them out as two black spots among the gray trees, but the wind carried their screeches over to her.

  She gathered up her things and started across the grass and stony ground, toward the house in the distance. She thought the crows screeched, “Here it is. Here it is.”

  She had to cross back and forth between the stone fences, which showed that the ground had once been cultivated. Fencing was meant to keep out sheep. Now ferns stood tall behind the low walls.

  When she got close to the house, she stopped. It looked deserted: no smoke from the chimney, no people in the farmyard. The crows flew up from the trees and sat on the ridge of the roof. The Crow-Girl plucked up her courage and went over to the house.

  The first person she met was a little boy who came to the doorway. He was not very tall; he scarcely reached up to her waist. His skin was brown and his hair was flaxen.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Doup,” said the boy.

  “Doup,” answered the Crow-Girl. “I’ve never heard that name before. I’m called Crow-Girl.”

  “Doup,” said the boy, grabbing her hand and beginning to pull her.

  The Crow-Girl laid her bundle down on the ground and let him lead her. He drew her into the house and over toward the hearth.

  “Doup,” he said again.

  Above the cold ashes hung a pot.

  “Doup,” said the boy, pointing to the pot.

  The Crow-Girl lifted the lid. At the bottom of the pot was some moldy soup.

  “Doup,” said the boy, satisfied, and let go of her hand.

  “Soup!” exclaimed the Crow-Girl. “You want some soup. But, little one, you can’t eat that. It’s much too old. Now just look what I have for you.”

  She ran to retrieve her bundle, got out the bread, and gave him a large piece, but it was as if he did not understand that it could be eaten.

  “Doup,” he cried, and continued to point to the pot.

  The Crow-Girl broke off a piece of the bread, hid it in her hand, and put her hand inside the pot. Then she brought her hand up again and gave him the bread.

  “Soup-bread,” she said. “There’s nothing better.”

  The boy looked at her, amazed, and then began to cry.

  She repeated the performance, and this time he accepted the bread and plopped it into his mouth. He pointed again to the pot and said, “Mush Doup.”

  And the Crow-Girl continued to break off pieces of bread, dipping them in the pot and handing them to him, until all the bread was eaten and the boy had had his fill.

  Then she turned around to see what the room actually looked like—and stared right into a pair of eyes that were peering at her but seemed as if they were seeing nothing.

  A man with his head supported in his hands was sitting behind the table by the wall opposite the fireplace. He must have been sitting there the whole time that she was feeding the boy. The Crow-Girl got up and walked over toward him.

  “Hello,” she said. “I am Crow-Girl. What is the boy’s name?”

  The man gave her a look filled with pain. His light, gray-sprinkled hair was unkempt, and his beard-stubble was long. In the middle of that pale face his eyes shone like two blue lakes. He did not answer her.

  “Where’s the boy’s mother?” asked the Crow-Girl.

  The man continued to gaze at her with that empty look.

  “Dead,” he whispered, and suddenly rose and left the house.

  Running over to the door, the boy stood looking after him.

  “Pa, Pa,” he called, but his father was already far out on the moor that bordered the house.

  “Come here, little Doup!” called the Crow-Girl. “You can’t catch him anyway. And I probably can’t either. Let’s see what you and I can do here instead.”

  She sat down on a chair and looked around. Doup came over to her and tried to crawl onto her lap. She took hold of him, pulling him the rest of the way up.

  She could see that it had once been pleasant here. The room reminded her of her grandmother’s, with not too much and not too little. But now it looked terrible: unmade settle beds, dirty clothes, dust and dirt and ashes on the floor, and something that looked as if it could have come from Doup’s bottom.

  She looked down at him, right into his dirty, tousled hair.

  “You must have a bath, little Doup, really you must,” she said, putting him down on the floor. “So we need to start a fire. I’ve been told how one does it, but I’ve never tried it.”

  First, she swept the hearth clear of ashes and prepared a pile of the driest heather twigs that she could find from the heap out in the hall.

  Next, she drew out a piece of half-burned wood from beneath the ashes. With her knife she bored a small hole in it. Then she found a long stick and sat down close to the hearth. Holding the piece of wood in place with her feet, she put the stick in the hole and rolled it between her palms. She continued doing this for a very long time.

  Doup watched with interest.

  “Oooo,” he exclaimed, when eventually a very slender column of smoke arose from the hole.

  The Crow-Girl continued to roll the stick; next, she quickly held a tuft of wool over by the hole, but she did not succeed in lighting it. She had to try three times before the wool caught fire so she could move it over to the pile of twigs. At last they went up in flames.

  The flames hungrily leapt up about the heather twigs and devoured them instantly. The Crow-Girl piled on several more and then added larger pieces of wood, until she and the boy felt the warmth radiate toward them and the fire lit up the room.

  “Oh, oh, warm, warm,” said Doup, holding his hands out toward the fire.

  “Yes, it is warm. Be careful,” said the Crow-Girl.

  She poured water into a kettle and hung it over the fire. And in the evening, when the man returned, Doup had been scoured pink and clean amidst loud screams, the floor had been swept, and the room was fragrant from fried, smoked fish.

  * * *

  “This is for you,” said the Crow-Girl, placing a plate of fried fish in front of the man.

  He just sat there with his head in his hands and stared straight ahead without seeing anything at all.

  Doup had hold of his fish with both hands and munched loudly and contentedly.

  “Pish,” he exclaimed with delight at each mouthful.

  The Crow-Girl thought the man looked so terribly sad that she wanted to console him, but she did not know how. She cleared her throat, then said, “Is it long since Doup’s … the boy’s mother died?”

  The man stared blindly out into space and did not answer her.

  “Mine pish, mine,” exulted Doup.

  “How did she die?” asked the Crow-Girl.

  Silence.

  “My grandmother is dead, too, so now I am all alone,” she continued. “We lived by a little cove, but I left. I walked along the coast and came to some houses by a fjord. There I lived with a woman and her husband, but I didn’t want to stay with them, for they were only out to get my grandmother’s place.”

  “Pish, pish,” Doup called out across his empty plate.

  She handed him another fish.

  “I miss her so,” she then said to the man.

  “Just shut your ugly mouth!” he screamed, striking his fist on the table.

  He got up and left the house once more, while the Crow-Girl and Doup silently finished eating. Afterward she and Doup fell asleep in one of the settle beds.

  8

  When she got up the next morning, the man was again sitting at the tabl
e with his chin in his hands, staring vacantly into space.

  She crawled very carefully out of the settle bed in order not to awaken Doup or disturb his father.

  She dug the coals out of the ashes and kindled the fire; then she walked over to the doorway and looked out across the landscape.

  The sea fog had pushed its way in from the open water, and a thin drizzle wrapped the land in mist. All the colors were dampened into gray and brown, from the sky’s mouse-gray to the heath’s wet, black-brown pelt. The leaves of the trees hung withered and black, and water dripped from their tips. From the heather came a quiet calling, as if from a bird. Otherwise everything was still.

  Then came a crash from within the room. The Crow-Girl rushed in and saw Doup’s father holding a chair above his head, which an instant later he splintered to bits on the one he had already smashed.

  Doup, completely stupefied, stood in the middle of the room while back slats and chair legs flew about his ears. The Crow-Girl ran over, grabbed him, and pulled him over to the doorway. The maddened man tipped the table until the plates and mugs fell to the floor and smashed to pieces, and the edge of the table hit the floor with a hollow crash.

  He continued until nothing was left untouched. Settles were toppled, blankets torn, pillows turned into clouds of feathers. The kettle above the hearth was kicked down, and the fire disappeared in ashes, steam, and smoke.

  When the man moved closer to where they were standing, Doup began to cry. The Crow-Girl picked up the boy and, carrying him, ran over to the outbuilding on the other side of the farmyard.

  She stood there with him in her arms and became aware that they were both shaking all over. Doup’s crying slowly diminished and little by little turned into long sniffs. He had his arms around her neck, and at last, exhausted, he laid his head down on her shoulder.

  “There, there,” said the Crow-Girl, patting him on the back.

  Just then someone breathed on her neck. She became cold with fear and did not dare move. Something soft and warm touched her, and she let out a scream, leapt aside, turned around, and found herself looking into a pair of large eyes that belonged to a very small, very shaggy horse.

  “Mine hoss, mine,” shouted Doup, wanting to get down.

  He said mine about everything he liked, the Crow-Girl had noticed. As soon as he was on the ground, he threw his arms around one of the horse’s forelegs.

  “Hey, watch out,” said the Crow-Girl. “It could kick you.”

  “No kick, no kick,” Doup assured her, while he shook his head to emphasize his words. “Mine, mine,” he repeated.

  In the meantime the sounds from the house had subsided. The Crow-Girl went out into the farmyard and stood for a moment, listening. Then she cautiously walked over to the doorway and looked in.

  Everything was in chaos; it was as if a mighty storm had swept through the house. Even the windowpanes were broken. The damp odor from the dead fire hung in the air. And in the midst of that splintered world stood the man, drooping like a wounded animal.

  The Crow-Girl walked very quietly over to him and looked into his blue, blue eyes. They were filled with tears, like lakes spilling over their shores after a long period of rain.

  The Crow-Girl remained motionless beside him and didn’t say a word.

  “Take the boy with you when you go,” he said. “Take the horse, too!”

  The Crow-Girl nodded. The man turned on his heel and left the room. The last she saw of him was his stooped back as he made his way across the heath.

  * * *

  Out in the stable she found a sort of saddle with a wicker basket suspended on each side. She cinched the saddle on the horse. Doup could sit in one basket; she just had to find something to put in the other as a counterweight.

  She went into the house and found her bundle behind an upended bench. The walking stick was broken, so she left it there. But she took the largest remnants of the blankets.

  In a corner of the stable she found a sack of potatoes, which weighed about the same as Doup. With it and her bundle in one basket and Doup and the blankets in the other, she set out toward the road.

  She would have resumed her journey down this road without giving it a second thought if the two crows had not come flying past.

  “No, no, not that way! No, no, the other way!” she thought they screeched.

  They themselves were flying in the opposite direction, up past the road leading to the houses by the fjord.

  The Crow-Girl paused. She had no wish to come into the vicinity of that hamlet again.

  “Cwo, cwo,” called Doup, pointing at the crows. “Mine, mine.”

  So she followed them.

  * * *

  They had walked all of one day and most of the next when they reached the road down to the houses.

  On the first day the sun had appeared, but now the rain had returned. In heavy showers it came driving in from the sea. The Crow-Girl had swaddled Doup in her shawl, and the tightly woven wool kept out every drop. He sat in the basket, warm and safe, talking to the horse, the Crow-Girl, and himself. From time to time, he fell asleep, so that his head with its flaxen hair jounced back and forth in rhythm with the horse’s movements.

  The Crow-Girl had wrapped a blanket around herself until only her face was uncovered. She kept warm by walking beside the horse while she held the reins.

  The cloud cover was heavy, and twilight came early. It was nearly dark when the Crow-Girl heard a wagon come rumbling behind them. She pulled over to the side of the road so the wagon could pass.

  The people driving by were talking loudly, and suddenly the Crow-Girl recognized the woman’s voice. She hurriedly pulled the blanket up about her head.

  “Don’t worry,” she heard the woman say. “We’ll find her all right, that little thief. What does she think she’s doing? To pay me with money she has stolen from my father!”

  “Well, what if he really did give it to her?” the man said.

  “Nonsense. As stingy as he is,” snarled the woman. “He says that only to needle me.”

  The wagon rushed past, as the man shouted, “Get out of the way!” and let his whip snap across the back of the small horse.

  “Rabble,” exclaimed the woman. “The roads are teeming with scavenging riffraff.”

  Farther on, the wagon turned down the road toward the houses, and the Crow-Girl breathed a sigh of relief.

  While the wagon was driving past, there had been a pause in the rain; now it started up again. She checked on Doup in his basket. He had rolled himself up at the bottom and lay beneath the shawl, sleeping with a thumb in his mouth. She felt his hand. It was quite warm. Then she put a piece of blanket over the basket. He could lie there keeping dry until she found a place where they could spend the night.

  As she walked along, she could feel the water seeping through the blanket around her shoulders and neck. A single cold drop trickled down her back. Before long she would be thoroughly soaked, and it would be too dark to see anything at all.

  Then, far ahead, she saw a campfire flickering in the darkness. Without thinking, she headed straight toward it.

  But when she got closer, she stopped. Two dark figures were casting enormous shadows on the rock walls behind them. The figures sat stock-still, but the flames made the shadows dance.

  “Who’s there?” came an anxious voice from over by the fire.

  “It’s only me,” called the Crow-Girl.

  “It sounds like a child,” the speaker said to the other person.

  “Are you alone?” came the voice again.

  “No, I’m with Doup.”

  “Who’s Doup?”

  “A little boy.”

  “And who are you?”

  “Crow-Girl.”

  “Come on over then.”

  Now the Crow-Girl could hear that it was a woman who had made her voice as deep as a man’s. She approached her.

  “I won’t cause any trouble,” she hurried to say when she saw the knife in the woman’
s hand.

  “No, of course not,” said the woman, sticking the knife back in her belt. “Come get warm!”

  There, at the base of the cliff, they were completely sheltered from the rain. The speaker was a grown woman, not quite young, but not old either. She looked tired and worn. Next to her sat a girl who appeared to be a couple of years younger than the Crow-Girl, but her face was hidden because she had pulled her kerchief so far forward.

  “Welcome,” said the woman. “Just pull the horse in here, too. There’s enough room for all of us.”

  Doup was awake. He had pushed the blanket away and was sitting up in the basket. He looked around, confused. The Crow-Girl led the horse over close to the cliff, tied it, and lifted Doup down from the basket.

  “What a little fellow you’re traveling with,” said the woman in a friendly way.

  The Crow-Girl nodded. She sat down with him on the ground in front of the fire. He was warm and dry; she was thoroughly soaked and ice-cold. She stretched her hands out to warm them.

  “Warm, warm,” exclaimed Doup, blowing on his fingers.

  “The weather has taken a terrible turn,” said the woman. “We were lucky to find this place.”

  Then, suddenly, there was the sound of quiet sniffling. It was the girl. Her mother put her arm around her.

  “I’m so hungry,” said the girl.

  “Yes, I know,” said her mother, “but there’s nothing we can do about it now. In a while you’ll be asleep, and then you won’t feel it.”

  “Yes, I will,” whimpered the girl. “It wakes me up all the time.”

  “Wait…” said the Crow-Girl, and got up.

  She had been so cold and wet that she had forgotten all about food. Now she fetched several potatoes and put them in the embers. Then she took the last of the smoked lamb and divided it between them.

  “Thank you so much,” said the woman. “We haven’t had anything to eat for several days.”

  They each ate a small piece of meat in silence.

  Then the woman said, “My name is Foula, and this is my daughter, Eidi. So you are Crow-Girl, and this is your little brother, Doup?”

  “No, he isn’t my brother.”

  While the potatoes lay roasting in the coals, the Crow-Girl told them her story. When she had finished, Foula said quietly, “Dear child. It sounds like it hasn’t been easy.”