Odinn's Child v-1

by Tim Severin

  Downwind, anyone would have thought we were a mobile farm when we set sail. A small bull and three milch cows took up most of the central hold, and the smell of the cattle and wisps of dried hay from their stack of feed drifted out across the water in our lee. For the first few hours there were farmyard sounds as well because the cows kept up a low, distressed mooing before they settled to their strange new routine.

  With youthful zeal I had expected instant adventure and excitement the moment we cleared the land, but like the cattle I soon found that life aboard followed the same routine as at home. I had chores to do — give the animals fresh water to drink, keep their hay topped up, clear the cattle dung. Our knorr proceeded at a stately pace, towing the scouting boat behind on a thick cable. The sea was calm, and there was nothing to see except for the escort of seabirds hovering over us and an occasional flock of black and white waterfowl with massive thick beaks, which swam along the surface of the sea beside us, occasionally ducking down and speeding ahead underwater. When I asked Thorvall why these birds did not take to the air and fly, he laughed. 'They do not know how to fly,' he said. 'The Gods gave them wings more like fish flippers. They swim when they want to travel, even from one country to another, from Iceland to Greenland, from Greenland to Vinland. That's how our sailors first guessed that there must be land to the west. When they saw the swimming birds heading out in that direction.'

  This was the third of the many, many voyages of my lifetime, and I believe that Odinn had a hand in sending me upon the journey as he deliberately provoked in me the wanderlust which would bind me to him as the Far-Farer. I had been a babe in arms when my mother sailed with me from Birsay to Iceland, and still too young to remember much when I went with Gudrid from

  Iceland to Greenland and suffered shipwreck. But now the crossing from Brattahlid to Vinland made a deep and lasting impression on me. There was a sense of travelling towards the new and unknown, and it was a drug. Once tasted, I could never forget it, and I wanted more. It would make me a wanderer all my life, and that is what the All-Father intended.

  My first sensation on the westward journey was the slow, rhythmic motion of the fully laden knorr. She swayed up and down over the long, low swells in a seemingly endless repetition of the same movement, rising and falling, and giving a slight lurch as each swell passed beneath her keel. Looking up at the mast top, I saw the pattern repeated constantly in the steady elliptical circles that the weathervane made against the sky. And just behind each movement came the same sequence of sounds — the regular creak of the mast stays taking up the strain each time the vessel rose, the slight thump as the mast moved in its socket, the wash of the bow wave as the prow of the knorr dug into the sea and, when the vessel checked, the soft thud of a loose item rolling across the bilge and striking the hull. I found something hypnotic and comforting about the way that life on board took on its own rhythm, set by the timing and order of our meals. The sequence began at dawn with rismal when the night watch ate a cold breakfast of dried bread and gruel; in mid-morning came dagmal when the entire crew, except for the helmsman and lookout, gathered round the little charcoal fire lit on a stone slab balanced on the keelson and out of the wind and consumed the only hot meal of the day, usually a broth, though sometimes there was fresh fish or boiled seagull if we had been able to catch anything. Finally, as the sun went down, we ate the nattmal, again a cold meal of skyr, sour milk, and gruel.

  On the very first night, as soon as it was dusk, Thorvall brought me to a quiet corner of the deck and made me gaze upwards past the dark outline of our sail. It was still early in the season so the night was dark enough for the stars to be visible. 'The vault of the sky,' he said, 'is the inside of Ymir's skull, the ancient frost giant. Four dwarves, Austri, Vestri, Nordri and Sudri, sit in the four corners and they took molten particles and sparks and placed them as stars, both wandering and fixed, to illuminate the earth. That way the Gods made it possible for us to guide our way at night.' He pointed out to me the leidarstjarna, the Pole Star, and how it was always at the same height in the sky on our right hand as we moved through the night. Thorvall was in his element when he was on the sea, and every day at noon he would produce a little wooden disc with small notches on the rim and lines scratched on its surface. He held it up in the sunlight so the shadow from a small pin in the centre of the disc fell across the engraved face, then he grunted directions to the helmsman.

  'Trust the Gods,' he told me. 'As long as the wolves chase Sol, she will move across the sky and we can follow beneath her.'

  'What if it is too cloudy and we cannot see the sun?' I ventured.

  'Be patient,' he growled.

  It was not cloud but a dense fog which shrouded the sun two days later. The fog was so thick that we seemed to be gliding through a bowl of thin milk. Drops of water condensed on the walrus-hide ropes of the rigging, the deck planks were dark with moisture, and we could not see farther than fifty paces. We could have been sailing in circles for all we knew, and the helmsman was edgy and nervous until Thorvall produced a flat stone from a pocket in his sea cloak. The stone was thin and opaque. Thorvall held it up to the light and peered through it, turning the stone this way and that, his arm held out straight. Finally he pointed ahead, slightly to the steering-board side of the ship. 'That course,' he ordered and without question the helmsman obeyed him.

  Apart from two days spent groping our way through the fog and relying on what Thorvall called his sunstone, we had remarkably good weather and a smooth passage. Thorvall had absolute faith in Thor's power over the weather and the sea conditions, and whenever he caught a fish on the hook and line he always trailed behind the boat, he made a point of throwing a small part of the catch back into the sea as a sacrifice. No one dared to scoff at him openly for doing this, though I did notice some of the crew members, the baptised ones, exchange amused glances and snigger.

  Certainly Thorvall's gifts to Thor seemed to be remarkably effective. No one was seasick except for Gudrid, whose servants looked after her as she vomited, and it was on the morning of the ninth day after leaving Brattahlid that Thorvall gave a deep sniff and said firmly, 'Land.' By evening we could smell it too, the unmistakable scent of trees wafting to us from the west. On the morning of the tenth day we saw on the horizon the thin flat smudge that was the edge of Vinland, and twenty-four hours later we were close enough for Tyrkir and Thorvall and the other veterans to establish our exact position. With the help of Thorvall's wooden disc our knorr had made a near-perfect landfall. By general opinion we were only a day's sail from the place where we would find Leif s cabins.

  The land was vast. The coastline extended across our ship's bow, as though the country would go on for ever in each direction. Behind the coast, in the interior, I could see the dark green swell of an immense forest, where the land rose in a succession of low hills as far as the eye could see. The shore itself was one low, grey headland after the another, divided by deep bays and inlets. Occasionally there were beaches of sand, but for the most part the foreshore was a jumble of sea-worn rocks, where the waves rumbled and surged. The colours of the stones were drab except where a crust of seaweed and lichens added touches of green and brown. To anyone from more southerly climates, the shore of Vinland would have looked like a bleak and forbidding place. But we had come from barren Greenland and, before that, from Iceland with its equally harsh landscape. Vinland showed great potential to the farmers among us. They noted the early growth of wild meadow-grass speckling the land behind the beach and the first flush of shoots on the low bushes of willow and alder. The bull and three cows on board also sensed the pasture and became restless to get ashore. We kept a sharp lookout for signs of

  Skraelings and Tyrkir probably kept an eye open for his mysterious unipeds. But nothing moved. The land seemed empty.

  Neverthless Karlsefni was cautious. He remembered Thorstein's death at the hands of the Skraelings and summoned our two 'wild Scots', Haki and Hekja. He told them that he was going to put them ash
ore so they could make a wide sweep inland. If they encountered Skraelings, they were to avoid contact, stay hidden, and try to assess the numbers of these strange people. After three days the two scouts were to report back to the beach, where our vessel would be anchored close by. Haki and Hekja each filled a satchel with dried food, but took nothing else. They were both wearing their usual dress, nothing more than a coarse blanket with a slit through which to put the head. There was a hood for when it rained, but otherwise the garment was so basic that it was open at the sides except for a single loop to fasten the cloth between the legs. Underneath they were naked. Both scouts clambered down into our small tender, and Thorvall and a small crew rowed them to the beach. There the Scots slipped into the water and waded to land before walking up the beach and disappearing into the scrub. Apart from a knife, they carried no weapon or tool, not even a steel and flint for making fire. 'If the Skraelings catch them, they'll think we've come from a tribe more wretched than themselves,' someone said as we backed our oars and manoeuvred the knorr to a safe distance, well out of arrow range.

  Those three days seemed like an eternity for an eight-year-old boy. Karlsefni flatly refused to let anyone go ashore. We had to sit on the knorr, impatiently watching the run of the tide, trying to catch fish but without much success, and looking for signs of movement on land and seeing nothing until, suddenly, the slim figures of the two runners reappeared. Thorvall and a couple of the men went in the scouting boat to pick them up, and the two Scots returned with encouraging news. They had seen no Skraelings, they said, nor any sign of them.

  We arrived at Leif s cabins at noon on the second day of coasting, but did not go ashore until Thorvall and four of the men

  had gone ahead, armed and alert, to check the abandoned huts, looking for strangers. But they found no sign that anyone had been there since the unlucky expedition two years earlier. Our scouts waved to us to bring the knorr into the anchorage, and by nightfall the entire expedition was safely ashore and setting up the wadmal tents which would be our homes until we had refurbished the semi-derelict cabins.

  Three winters of rain and wind and snow had beaten on the turf and stone walls of Leif s cabins until they were slumped and crumbled. The rafters had fallen in. Weeds and wild grass grew on the floors. The original cabins had been constructed only for short-term occupation, so they had been roofed over with wadmal to keep out the weather. Now that we were here to stay, we needed something much more sturdy and permanent. So we began to mend and enlarge the cabins, build a big new longhouse, clear the land for our cattle, dig latrines. Our knorr, which had appeared to be so amply laden when we started out, now seemed to be a meagre source of supplies. The cattle had taken up most of the available cargo capacity, and Karlsefni had brought tools for the future, not food for the present. So we nearly starved during that first month. Of course there was no question that we would kill and eat the cattle. They were the beginning of our herd, or so we hoped. We had no time to investigate the fishing or check the forest to see if there was any wild game. Instead we laboured from dawn to dusk to cut and carry and stack hundreds of turf blocks for the main walls of our new longhouse. Soon people began to complain of hunger and how they needed proper food, not thin watery porridge, if they were to work so hard. The Christians among us began to pray to their God, seeking his help to alleviate their distress. They set up their cross-shaped symbol at one edge of the settlement, and when Thorvall — rather provocatively, I thought — built a little canopied shelter on the opposite edge of the settlement and made a pile of stones under it as his altar to Thor, there was very nearly a fight. The Christians accused him of being poetry from its guardian Suttung. More important, my growing devotion to Odinn was in harmony with my natural wanderlust. Whenever I have set out on any journey I have done so in the knowledge that the All-Father is the greatest of all far-farers, and that he is watching over me. In that regard, he never played me false, for I have survived when many of my travelling companions fell.

  TYRKIR ALSO TAUGHT me the details of the mysterious prophecy which Gudrid had mentioned on that dismal day in Lyusfjord when she sat beside Thorstein's deathbed, and I had let slip that I had seen the fetches of the not-yet-dead. Tyrkir had been delayed late in his workshop, where he made and repaired the metal tools essential to our farming. Gudrid had sent me to take the little German his supper. 'She's a good woman, your foster mother,' Tykir said as he set aside the empty bowl and licked his fingers. 'Far too good to fall under the influence of those crazy White Christ fanatics. No one else can sing the warlock's songs so well.'

  'What do you mean, the warlock's songs?' I asked. 'What are they?'

  Tyrkir looked at me from under his bulging forehead, a momentary gleam of suspicion in his eyes. 'You mean to say that your foster mother hasn't told you about her and the Little Sibyl?'

  'No, I've never even heard of the Little Sibyl. Who was she?'

  'The old woman Thorbjorg. She was the Little Sibyl, the volva. She died four years ago, so you really never knew her. But plenty still do, and they all remember the night when Gudrid Thorbjornsdottir revealed herself.'

  Tyrkir settled himself on the low stool near his anvil, and pointed for me to make myself comfortable on a pile of sacks that had held charcoal for his simple furnace. It was obvious that his story would be a long one, but he considered it important that I know the details about my foster mother. Anything which concerned my adored Gudrid was important to me, and I listened

  so attentively that I still remember every detail of Tyrkir's explanation.

  THE LITTLE SIBYL, Tyrkir began, had come to Greenland in the earliest days of the colony to avoid the turbulent White Christ followers who were causing such ructions in Iceland by insisting that everyone should follow their one true God. She was the last of nine sisters, all of whom had possessed the seidr skills, and being the ninth she had more of the gift than all the others. She could foretell the weather, so farmers planned their activities according to her advice. Their wives asked her about the propitious names they should give their babies and the health and prospects of their growing children. Young women quietly enquired about their love lives; and mariners timed their voyages to begin on the auspicious days the Little Sibyl selected. Thorbjorg knew the correct offerings to the Gods, the right prayers, the proper rituals, all according to the Old Ways.

  It was in the autumn of the year that my foster mother Gudrid first arrived in Greenland that a black famine had gripped the colony. After a meagre hay harvest the hunters, who had gone inland or along the coast looking for seals and deer, came back with little to show for their efforts. Two of them failed to come back at all. As the cheerless winter months wore on, our people began to die of starvation. The situation became so bad that a leading farmer, a man named Herjolf, decided he should consult the Little Sibyl to ask whether there was any action that the settlers could take to bring the famine to an end. Herjolf arranged a feast to honour the Little Sibyl and, through her, the spirit world she would have to enter if she was to answer their plea for advice. Also, consuming their last reserves of food in such a feast was a signal to the Gods that the people placed their trust in them.

  Herjolf supplied the banquet from his final stocks of dried fish and seal blubber, slaughtered the last of his livestock and brought out his stores of cheese and bread. Naturally the entire community was invited to attend the feast, not just for food to fill their aching bellies but to hear what the Sibyl would say. Herjolf’s wife arranged a long table running the full length of their hall. Crosswise at the head of the table and raised slightly above it where it could be seen by everyone, a seat of honour for the Little Sibyl was placed - a carved wooden chair with a cushion stuffed with hens' feathers.

  While the guests were assembling, a man was sent to escort Thorbjorg from her home. When she arrived, it was immediately clear that the Little Sibyl had acknowledged the gravity of the emergency. Normally when called upon to practise seidr she arrived dressed in her everyday homespun
clothes, and carrying only her seidr staff, a wooden stick about three feet long carved with runes and hung with withered strips of cloth. But when Thorbjorg was led into the great hall that evening she was dressed in clothes no one had ever seen her wear before: a long overmantle of midnight blue reaching almost to the ground and fastened across the chest with cloth straps worked with intricate designs in red and silver thread. The entire surface of the cloak was encrusted with patterns of small stones, not precious stones but pebbles, mottled and marbled and all smooth from lying underwater. They shimmered as if still wet. They were magic 'waterstones' said to contain the spirits of the river. Around her throat the volva wore a necklace of coloured glass beads, mostly red and blue. Her belt was plaited from the dried stalks of mushrooms and fungi, and from it hung a large cloth pouch, in which she kept her collection of dried herbs, charms and the other ingredients for her sorcery. Her feet were encased in heavy shoes made of calfskin, the hair still on them, and laced with heavy thongs with tin buttons on the ends. Her head was hidden within a dark hood of black lambskin lined with the fur from a white cat. On her hands were mittens also of catskin, but with the fur turned to the inside.