“I can well call to mind my grandmother, Tora Ingolfsdatter. She was a large-hearted woman, of great judgment, feared God, and was charitable toward the poor. While she was mistress here—and she had a long life; your great-grandfather and my father obeyed her to her dying day—there was great fishery here in Hestviken. Grandmother sent her ships along the whole coast, as far as the border by the Gauta River and down to Denmark—you can guess, she spied out news of what was brewing against the race of Sverre. Tora always had scent of all such plans that were afoot, and all who were minded to oppose the Birchlegs found good backing with the widow of Olav Torgilsson. Tora had loved her husband with marvellous devotion. Olav Torgillson was a little fair-skinned man, but full of strength, and handsome—somewhat lacking in chastity, but so they were, the men of King Magnus’s time.
“Grandmother herself can never have been fair of face. At the time I remember her she was so tall and so portly that she had to go sideways and bend double to get through the door here in the new house. She was half a head taller than her sons, and they were big men. But fair she was not: she had a nose so big and so crooked that I know not to what I can liken it, and eyes like gulls’ eggs, and her chins hung down upon her chest and her breasts upon her stomach.
“First she sent her sons to Filippus, the Bagler King,1 but soon she grew very dissatisfied with him, deeming him lacking in energy, lazy, and a lover of peace. When therefore this Benedikt came forward in the Marches, she bade the lads go to him. His company was for the most part a rabble of vagabonds of every kind—my father always said that this Benedikt was of little worth as a leader. He was rash and heedless and somewhat foolish—sometimes a coward and sometimes overbold. But Olav held staunchly to him, always, for he firmly believed that Benedikt was King Magnus’s son, though he did not come up to his father. Now, it befell Bene that at the first he had but this herd of rogues that they called the ragged host, but soon more and more good franklins took up his cause, since no more likely leader could be found at the time. But then they were minded to rule Bene and not let themselves be ruled by their claimant to the crown. And when, after a time, Sigurd Ribbung came forward and gained the support of the nobles, the old Bagler leaders, the chiefs of the ragged host took Bene with them and went over to Sigurd, and Benedikt had to content himself with being one of Sigurd Ribbung’s petty chieftains. But Olav Olavsson always bore in mind that Benedikt was the lord to whom he had first sworn fealty, and served and honoured him accordingly. Olav was a loyal man.
“Tora made good marriages for her sons—for Olav, Astrid Helgesdatter of Mork; they were very young, some sixteen years both of them, and they had a goodly life together and loved each other with true affection. Their sons were Ingolf, your grandfather, he was the eldest; then there was the Helge who fell at Nidaros with King Skule, and Torgils, he was the youngest of the sons; he and I were of equal age. The daughters of Olav and Astrid were Halldis, who was married to Ivar Staal of Aas in Hudrheim, and Borgny, the nun—a lovable, holy woman. She died the year after you were born.
“Father was older when he married, for he wished to be a priest. It was the Bishop himself, Nikulaus Arnesson, who ordained him, and he loved my father very dearly, for Father was exceeding pious and learned and wrote books more fairly than any priest in the diocese. My mother, Bergljot of Tveit, was merry, fond of feasting and show, so she and Father were ill matched and did not agree well together, though they had many children—five of us lived to grow up. She was somewhat greedy of money, my mother—Father was so generous that he robbed his own larder behind Mother’s back to give alms. But it chanced unluckily that the townsmen got word of this and laughed at it—you know, it looks ill if a priest be not master in his own house. I remember one day Mother was angry over something—she took two sheets of a book Father had just finished writing and threw them on the fire, but then he beat her. Father was a big, strong, valiant man and he had fought bravely against the Birchlegs, but toward his even Christians he was the most gentle and peaceful of men—but with Mother there was ever some dissension. Between our house at Oslo and the sea there was a piece—one could not call it ground; ’twas but beach and weeds and bare rock. The townspeople had been wont to use a path across it to shorten the way. Mother wished to close this path—Father deemed it unseemly for a priest to wrangle over such a small matter. But there were quarrels without end on account of this right of way—between Father and Mother and between us and our neighbours.
“When the order came that the priests of Norway were to live in celibacy like those of other Christian lands, Father bade my mother go home to Tveit, to enjoy the manor and a great part of his estate. But she and her kinsmen and my brothers and sisters were very wroth, for they thought in their hearts that Father was more glad than sorry to be forced to break up their married life. I know full well that my father had always held the marriage of priests to be an evil custom, and that was also the opinion of Bishop Nikulaus—but ’twas the usage when my father was a young man, and then he had to do as his mother willed. My brothers and sisters and my mother then went upcountry, and I have not seen much of them since: Kaare, my brother, got Tveit, and Erlend got Aasheim; now both the manors are divided among many children. I stayed with Father; I had always been intended for the priesthood—and Father and I lived happily together and looked on Halvard’s Church as our true home. I was ordained subdeacon three years after King Skule’s fall. Grandmother Tora died soon after.
“But it was of your great-grandfather Olav Ribbung and his kin that I was to tell you. Ingolf, you know, was married to Ragna Hallkelsdatter from Kaaretorp—’twas Tora who had busied herself to secure this good marriage for her grandson, as soon as he was grown; Audun, your father, was already some two years old when we kinsmen set out to follow King Skule and the Vaarbelgs. When Torgils turned mad, Ingolf and Ragna had an uneasy life at Hestviken, and afterwards they lived mostly at Kaaretorp. But one Yule, when they were here, Ingolf wished to accompany Halldis, his sister, and her husband across the fiord to Aas and to stay with them awhile. They ran upon a rock, and all who were in the boat were drowned.
“Olav Ribbung bore this disaster so well that my father used to say he had never seen a man bear adversity so nobly—he always named his brother as a pattern of firmness and strength—those twin brothers loved each other so dearly.—Ay, ’twas his son and daughter and son-in-law who were lost. Olav merely said that he thanked God his mother and Astrid, his wife, had died before these disasters had fallen upon his children. He dwelt on there with the madman, and there were no others of his offspring left but Borgny, the nun, and Audun, a little lad. Ingolf’s widow married again in Elvesyssel, and Olav gave his consent that Audun should be brought up by his mother and stepfather. Olav Ribbung then adopted the son that Torgils had gotten by a serving wench here at Hestviken, but the boy lived no long time.
“’Twas the third year I was lame from my broken leg, when Ingolf and the others were lost. And I bore it ill—I thought it unbearably hard to be a cripple, young as I was, and that I could never be a priest. Then father always held up Olav Ribbung to me as an example.—But I know that Olav took it sorely to heart that Audun would not marry again after your mother’s death and would not bide at home in Hestviken—and the race bade fair to die out.
“But now there is good hope, I ween, that it will thrive again, with such young and sound and goodly folk as you and your wife. And you may be well assured that I yearn to take a son of yours in my arms. Four generations have I known—five, if I may reckon our ancestress among them—gladly would I see the first man of the sixth ere I die. ’Tis not given to many men to know their own kindred through six generations. And I would deem it a reasonable thing, my Ingunn, if your husband too should conceive a great longing for the same—his departed kinsmen have possessed this manor of Hestviken since there were men in Norway. Do you hear that, young woman?” he said, laughing to himself.
Olav saw how red she turned.—But it was not the modest blush o
f happy longing; it was the hot glow of shame that mantled her face. Her eyes grew dark and troubled. In charity he took his glance from her.
7 Vaarbelger was the name given to the followers of Skule by their enemies, the Birchlegs. Various explanations of the name have been suggested, the most probable being “hides taken in springtime” (vaar, spring, and belg, hide), the hides being almost valueless during the spring months.
Duke Skule was proclaimed King in 1239. In the following year he was victorious over the Birchlegs at Laaka, but the Vaarbelgs were afterwards defeated by King Haakon at Oslo. Skule fell at Trondhiem in May 1240.
8 Surt is the Norwegian name for a ferruginous earth used as a dye.
9 Fivil: bog-cotton.
1 The Baglers (or “crozier men”) were the party of the Church and the old nobility, opposed to Sverre and his followers, the Birchlegs.
3
INGUNN came out into the balcony and stood gazing at the falling snow. High up against the pale clouds the great wet flakes looked grey as they whirled in the air, but when they settled they seemed pure white, a gleaming white mass against the obliterated white heights toward Kverndalen.
When she looked up for a while into the driving flurry, she felt as though she herself were being sucked up, to hover in the air for an instant; then she sank down and all grew dark. She tried this again and again. The unbearable giddiness that came over her all at once was somehow turned to gentle rapture as she felt herself borne upward; but when the drop came she could not see that she was falling—nothing but grey and black streaks that whirled around.
There was such a strange hush that the very sea-mews were silent—she had seen how they settled in such weather, in cracks of the rock and on the great stones of the beach. Now and again they moved a little, but without uttering a note. When first she came here she had thought these great white birds with their wide stretch of wing were fairer than anything she had seen—even their curious screams made her strangely happy at heart. She had been brought to a new land, far from the region where she had suffered intolerably. In summer, when she came out in the morning and heard the regular pounding of the sea at the foot of the rock on which she stood, saw the wide and bright expanse of the fiord and the bare shore on the other side, and the circling white sea-mews screamed hoarsely, unreal as wraiths—it had made her so light at heart: the world was so great and so wide; what had befallen her somewhere in a spot far, far away could not possibly be so great a matter—it must surely be forgotten in time.
But as autumn drew on out here by the fiord she was alarmed by its being never still. The unceasing murmur and booming of the waves, the cries of the sea-birds, the sweep of the storm over the wooded ridge—all this made her dizzy. If she had but to cross the yard, the wind seemed to rush in at her ears and fill her whole head with noise. And rain and fog drifted in from the sea and took away her courage. She thought of the autumn at home—the ground hard with black frost, the air bright and clear, so that the blows of an axe or the baying of a dog could be heard from farm to farm; there the sun made its way through the morning mist and thawed the rime to dew in the course of the day. And she longed to listen to a stillness around her.
It was as though she had sunk lower and lower as the days and the year grew shorter and darker. Now she was at the bottom-midwinter was past, the year was climbing again. And she felt utterly powerless at the thought that now she was to take the uphill road. Soon the sun would rise higher and higher—the time was near at hand when day by day it would be manifest that brighter and longer days were drawing on—the springtime. But to her it was as though she faced a lofty mountain up which she was to climb—with the burden she now knew full surely that she bore—and it made her sick and giddy to think of it.
Still, still was the air, though the snow whirled so madly—the flakes drifted hither and thither, but at last they fell straight down. The sea was dark as iron, when she had a glimpse of it, and the surf-beat on the beach sounded faint and monotonous in the mild, snowy air.
All was covered now—the road down to the wharf was blotted out. The footprints of the maids who had gone to the byre, her own tracks across the yard, were snowed under. And all the white was turning grey and slowly fading as the first shades of dusk came on.
The door of the bath-house burst open, and in the cloud of white steam that poured out she caught a glimpse of the men’s bodies, dark against the snow. They ran up toward the barn, where they had left their clothes, rolling in the drifts as they went, with shouts and laughter. She recognized Olav and Björn, who came first; they closed and wrestled, ducking each other in the snow.
She lifted up the platter of pickled fish and threw her cloak over it. It was so heavy that she had to carry it in both arms; she could not steady herself or see beyond her feet and was afraid of slipping on the snow-covered rocks. The dusk had deepened and the flickering snow made her yet more giddy.
Olav came into the house and took his place in the high seat at the end of the room. He was hungry and tired—settled down in ease at the thought that it was Saturday and the eve of a holy-day, and that three women were busied about him, bringing in food.
The fire on the hearth glowed red, with little low flames playing over the burned-out logs, but through the dim light of the room the man in the master’s seat was conscious of the new comfort that had been brought in. The table was always set up now on the raised floor along the end wall; there were cushions in the high seat, and a piece of tapestry had been hung over the logs of the wall behind it. By the side of this the axe Kin-fetch hung in its old place, together with Olav’s two-handed sword and his shield with the wolf’s head and the three blue lilies. A blue woven curtain had been hung about the southern bed, where the master and mistress slept.
A faint light showed within the closet—the old man was reciting his evening prayers in a half-singing voice. Sira Benedikt might say what he would, thought Olav—his kinsman was a man of no little learning: he said his hours as well as any priest. When the old man had finished, Olav Audunsson called to him: would he not come in and sup?
The old man answered that he would rather have a little ale and groats brought to him in bed. Ingunn hastily filled a bowl with the food and carried it in to him. At the same moment the house-carls appeared at the door—Björn with a bundle of wood, which he flung on the floor. He made up the fire, threw open the outer door and raised the smoke-vent, so that snowflakes drifted down to the hearth with a hiss. Ingunn stayed with the old man till the wood had caught and the worst of the smoke had cleared away. Then Björn closed the door and the smoke-vent.
Ingunn came in and stood at her table. She made a cross with her knife on the loaf before cutting it up. The five men on the bench ate in silence, long and heartily. Ingunn sat on the edge of the bed and picked at a little fish and bread, enjoying it, for the salmon was good and well pickled. The ale was of the Yule brewing and might have been better, but she had had such dirty grain for the malt, mixed with all manner of weeds.
She glanced over at her husband. His hair was dark with wet; the eyebrows and stubbly beard stood out with a golden gleam against his face, which was red and weatherbeaten this evening. He seemed to have a good appetite.
The three serving-maids sat on the bench below the bed, facing the hearth, and ate their supper. Herdis, the youngest of them, whispered and giggled as she ate; that child was always full of laughter and games. She was showing the other maids a new horn spoon that she had been given; the laughter spurted out of her as she did so—then she gave a terrified look at the mistress and struggled to keep quiet, but the girl was all squeaks and gurgles.
The house-folk went out soon after the meal was ended. The men had been on the water from early morning, and the road from Hestviken to the church was so long that they could not lie late abed on the morrow, when the going was as heavy as it was now.
Olav went in to his kinsman—the old man always needed a hand with one thing or another before he lay down to rest. Ol
av Ingolfsson was specially inclined to talk toward bedtime and wished to hear all about the fishing and the day’s work on the farm. And every answer he received of the younger Olav put him in mind of something that had to be told.
Igunn was sitting on a low stool before the hearth, combing her hair, when Olav came back into the room. She was half undressed—sitting in a white, short-sleeved linen shift and a narrow, sleeveless under-kirtle of russet homespun. Her thick dark-yellow hair hung like a mantle about her slender, slightly stooping form, and through it gleamed her delicate white arms.
Olav came up behind her, filled his hands with her loosened hair, and buried his face in it—it smelt so good.
“You have the fairest hair of all women, Ingunn!” He forced her head back and looked down into her upturned face. “But you have fallen away since Yule, my sweet one! You must not work beyond your powers, I will not have it! And then you must eat more, else you will grow so thin, ere Lent comes and we must fast, that there will be nothing left of you!”
He struggled out of his jerkin and shirt and sat down on the edge of the hearth to warm his back. The sight of the man’s naked chest, the play of the muscles under the milk-white skin, as he bent down to pull off his boots, affected the young wife painfully. His sound health made her feel her own weakness all the more.
Olav scratched himself on the shoulder-blades—a few little drops of blood trickled, red as wine, down his smooth skin. “He is such a rough fellow, Björn, when he bathes one,” laughed Olav.
The Snake Pit Page 6
