Paradise Reclaimed

by Halldor Laxness

  This report about sheep-farming in the Promised Land seemed to take everyone aback for a moment.

  “Our Saviour is our Saviour, God be praised!” testified one God-fearing man, as if to brace himself against this enormous holding of sheep.

  “Yes, and is Joseph perhaps not Joseph?” said the Mormon. “That’s what I would have thought, even though I’m not very learned. Joseph is Joseph. God be praised.”

  “The New Testament is our witness!” shouted the man with the clergyman’s vocabulary. “He who believes in Christ does not believe in Joseph.”

  “That’s a lie!” cried the Mormon. “He who believes in Christ can certainly believe in Joseph. No one but he who believes in the New Testament can believe in the golden plates. But he who calls the New Testament a hoax made up by vagabonds and asks ‘Where’s the original?’— he can’t believe in Joseph either. Such a person would tell you he puts the New Testament and the golden plates of Joseph in the same category. Such a person says, ‘Just as the Saviour’s friends concocted the New Testament, so Joseph’s friends invented the golden plates.’ Such a person will try to prove to you that the Saviour and Joseph were both dishonest men. Dear brethren, we Mormons do not speak to people who talk in the way I have just described. They are beyond the pale.”

  “I seem to recall, my friend,” said one well-to-do farmer, “that you were just telling us how many ewes you had. Ten thousand, wasn’t it, eh? How about now telling us how many wives you have?”

  “How many wives did people in the Bible have? People like Solomon, for instance, who was at least as big a farmer as you?” said the Mormon. “And didn’t Luther allow the Elector of Hesse to have more than one wife? And why was the papacy abolished in England? Only to allow old Henry to have several wives.”

  “We’re Icelanders here,” said a voice from the crowd.

  “Yes, and Icelanders have always been polygamists,” said the Mormon.

  There was a gasp from various good folk in the audience. Some shouted, “You’re lying!” Others challenged the Mormon to prove his statement.

  “Well, they certainly were when I knew them,” said the Mormon. “It was just that any one man was free to turn any number of women into harlots instead of giving them honourable status with the seal of matrimony, as we Mormons do. Mormons don’t let nice young girls waste away before their eyes in shame and humiliation if they refuse to marry the first lout who proposed to them. Many fine girls, on the other hand, are happy to share a good man rather than make do with some boor all their lives. We in Salt Lake Valley don’t want to rear harlots or old maids or disgraced mothers and widows for vulgar people to gossip about. But when I was growing up in Iceland the country was crowded with such women. Children were given fathers and women married off for the most part according to whose reputation needed salvaging. I myself was conceived and reared in this form of polygamy. People said I was a pastor’s son. It was the custom of those in authority who had to travel a lot to sleep with whatever women happened to take their fancy, married or unmarried. My mother was forced to seek refuge in the Vestmannaeyjar, and died there from the contempt with which she was treated; and I was brought back to the mainland and reared in her parish. An orphan, usually an illegitimate one at that, was never a person of much standing in Icelandic society. I was invariably given a change of clothes and a haircut on the first day of summer. The sack on which the dog had lain at the door all winter was dusted against the wall, then a hole was made for my head and that’s what I was given to wear. Polygamy has always been practised in Iceland, but that’s how it actually worked out for the women and children. It wasn’t perhaps quite so bad in my time as before, when the unlawful wives of polygamists were put to death by drowning in a pool here at Þingvellir for giving birth to children. With us in Salt Lake Valley, on the other hand . . .”

  When he had reached this point in his argument it was obvious that various upstanding farmers in the audience felt he had gone quite far enough. Some said they had not ridden to Þingvellir from distant parts just to see the sacred lava violated and the place defiled with foul talk about eminent folk and decent farmers. From all around came shouts that the heretic had gone too far. Several good people went up to him and tried to topple him off the stone. The Mormon peered at them over his spectacles and stopped short in mid-sentence, dropped his preacher’s attitude at once, and said quietly in an ordinary tone of voice, “Are you thinking of laying hands on me?”

  “If you insult this holy sanctuary with one more word from your shameless and ungodly mouth, you’ll suffer for it,” said one topbooted gentleman, walking briskly up to the stone on which the Mormon stood.

  “I shall stop now,” said the Mormon. “I always stop when people are going to beat me up. God will conquer without Mormons having to brawl. Goodbye, gentlemen, I shall take my leave now.”

  They cried, “Fie on you!” and “Shame on you for taking the Lord’s name in vain!”

  The Mormon clambered rather stiffly down off the rock. Two or three respectable farmers seized hold of him, not to help him down but to take him to task. They gripped him tightly and exposed him to the crowd, so that whoever was so minded could come forward and deal with him. One topbooted gentleman stepped up and kicked him. Another good man came and struck him twice on the face.

  There was a bystander with a riding-crop in his hand nearby, rather an undistinguished, clumsy-looking fellow.

  “Good, there’s a riding-crop,” said a stout gold-braided man with a goatee beard. “You there, spindle-shanks, lend the lads your riding-crop.”

  “It so happens, heeheehee, that so long as I am holding it this riding-crop has human intelligence, as one might say, though not very much, it’s true,” said Steinar of Hlíðar, with a falsetto giggle.

  Anyway, whether or not it was because they failed to get a loan of Steinar’s riding-crop, they stopped giving the Mormon a beating. They released him and told him to go to hell. He shuffled away down towards the water, straddle-legged and stooping a little from the waist. In characteristic and ingrained Icelandic fashion he was jeered as he departed. Some shouted “America!,” others “Salt Lake Puddle!,” while others just shouted obscenities; but the Mormon neither turned his head nor quickened his pace. It did not take long for the crowd’s vehemence to simmer down, and the people dispersed. Soon there was no one left in Brennugjá except Steinar of Hlíðar sitting on a stone with his riding-crop.

  Steinar was one of the uninvited guests at Þingvellir, representing no one in particular—scarcely even himself, and certainly not his pony; representing, at the very most, perhaps, just his riding-crop. Accordingly, no arrangements had been made to receive him; there was no reserved bed for him at this great national festival except the moss that covered the sacred lava, and no other refreshment than the breeze that the guardian-spirits of the country breathed. After entrusting his pony to the ostlers earlier in the evening, he had found himself alone with only his riding-crop for company; and since he now happened to be in Brennugjá with nowhere else to go, he began to look around for a spot where the moss grew thickly enough to blunt the sharp edges of the rocks.

  And while he was busy with these thoughts, after all the people who had got so excited about the Mormon had left, he suddenly noticed that the speaker had returned to Brennugjá. He had never gone farther than just out of sight round the first curve of the cliff after all, while tempers in Brennugjá were cooling down. Now he was peering about in the late-summer twilight as if he had lost something, and did not take the trouble to greet Steinar even when he walked right past him.

  “Good evening, friend,” said Steinar of Hlíðar.

  “Are you going to use that riding-crop on me?” asked the Mormon.

  “I have never made much of a habit of beating people with riding-crops,” said Steinar. “I am looking for a spot where I can bed down for the night.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve seen my hat, have you?” asked the Mormon.

  “I fe
ar not,” said Steinar. “As far as I could see, you were hatless when you were making your speech.”

  “I stuck it in a hole before I started,” said the Mormon. “I always hide my hat before I make a speech. You never know what they’ll do to your hat.”

  Steinar of Hlíðar readily offered his help in looking for the hat, and for a long time they searched the moss-grown scree at the foot of the cliff. The light was now failing fast. At last Steinar happened to catch a glimpse of some monstrosity glistening among the rocks. It was the hat; it had been wrapped in transparent paper.

  “I don’t suppose this is your hat, is it?” said Steinar.

  “A thousand thanks,” said the Mormon. “You’re a man of luck. This hat and a change of underclothing is all I have left since they took my pamphlets away from me. And if I lost it, it would show that I’m not man enough for my hat.”

  “And you keep it wrapped in grease-proof paper,” said Steinar.

  “Yes, that’s what is always done in America when they are good hats. It’s to keep them from getting wet if it rains. Grease-proof paper repels water. The hat is always as good as new.”

  “Really?” said Steinar. “But what I find most remarkable is all that excellent land you said there was over in your part of the world.”

  “Yes, you people in Iceland can beat me and kick me just as you please,” said the Mormon. “My land is good.”

  “You must be used to most things by now,” said Steinar.

  “Oh, this affair tonight was nothing,” said the Mormon. “I have seldom escaped so lightly. I have three times had a thorough beating, several times a black eye—and one of my teeth is loose. I have travelled through whole counties where I have nowhere been offered so much as a bite of food or a sip of water, never mind a roof over my head. Orders had gone out from the sheriffs and pastors.”

  Steinar of Hlíðar was not in the habit of criticizing others, but now he could not restrain himself from repeating an old saying which is normally used when little fellows get uppish with their betters: “Wipe my arse, Mr. Lawman!”

  “But that was nothing at all compared with taking my poor little pamphlets off me,” said the Mormon. “I travelled 2,000 miles across America, most of them on foot, all the way from Salt Lake Valley to Dakota, until I finally found the one and only printing-press in the Western hemisphere that possessed the letters þ and ð so that I could get my pamphlets set up in type; if you search there long enough you will find some paupers like me from Iceland living on a riverbank behind the forests. When my pamphlets had been printed out there in Dakota I set off with them for Iceland. And now there is none left.”

  “Excuse me,” said Steinar, “but what did these misguided people do with the pamphlets?”

  “That’s easy,” said the Mormon. “They sent them to Denmark—Iceland’s brain has always been in Copenhagen. They told me that the Danish ministries would have to decide. So now I have come to Þingvellir to waylay the king. I have heard he is a German peasant, and I have met many of them in Salt Lake Valley: Denmark’s brain has always been in Germany. But Germans don’t belittle Icelanders, on the other hand, and for that reason I can expect more of a German than a Dane. I am going to ask him why I cannot have books just like anyone else in this kingdom.”

  “That is sensible of you,” said Steinar of Hlíðar. “He is said to be a good king.”

  6

  The millennial celebrations. Icelanders reap justice

  This book does not profess to give the history of the festivities which were held at Þingvellir to commemorate the thousandth anniversary of the settlement of Iceland* and to welcome the Danish king. Detailed accounts of these events were compiled at the time, and later some excellent books were written. But there were one or two not entirely irrelevant incidents, in the judgement of some, which never received attention in those worthy publications. This is the story of one such incident, only to be found in some of the less significant books, which are none the less true for all that.

  But first, a few words on a topic that people now are apt to overlook: there was a time once when Icelanders, despite the fact that they were the most indigent nation in Europe, all traced their ancestry back to kings. Indeed, in their literature they have given life to many kings whom other nations had made little effort to remember and who would otherwise have been consigned to oblivion in this world and the next. Most people in Iceland traced their lineage back to the kings who were written about in the sagas; some only claimed descent from warrior-kings or sea-kings, others to remote petty kings in the valleys of Norway and elsewhere in Scandinavia, or to the leaders of the Norse warriors who served in the Varangian Guard under the emperor in Constantinople;* but a few claimed descent from kings who, it can be proved, were actually crowned. No farmer was considered worth his salt if he could not trace his genealogy back to Harald hárfagri (Fine-Hair)* or his namesake Harald hilditönn (War-Tooth).* All Icelandic genealogies can be traced back to the Ynglings and the Scyldings*—if there happens to be anyone left in the world who knows who these folk were. It was child’s play for most of the Icelanders to prove kinship with Sigurd the Dragon-Killer, King Gautrekur of Gotaland,* and Ganger-Hrolf;* but those of yet more recondite erudition could claim connection with Charlemagne and Frederick Barbarossa, or could work their way right back to Agamemnon, noblest of the Greeks, the conqueror of Troy. Learned foreigners called the Icelanders the greatest genealogists in Europe after royal pedigrees had been denounced as pomp and vanity as a result of the French Revolution.

  Many people had ridden to Þingvellir just to see with their own eyes what manner of man it was to whom the saga-writers of old had given life in their books. Many of them claimed kinship with much greater princes than King Kristian Wilhelmsson; and although the farmers gave due respect to the high rank and royal title that the Danes had conferred on this foreigner, it is unlikely King Kristian ever in his whole life found himself in a company of people who considered him so inferior to themselves in pedigree as did those stunted rickety peasants tramping around in their crumpled cowhide shoes. It has never been forgotten in Iceland that it was only with the help of Icelandic genealogies that this offspring of German cottage-nobility, reared as a foster-child in Denmark, could trace his ancestry back to King Gormur gamli (the Old)* of Denmark—who, according to some, never existed at all. But it is a measure of King Kristian Wilhelmsson’s qualities that, despite his humble origins, the Icelanders have always esteemed him more highly than most other Danish kings; and it goes to show that even in a nation of fanatical genealogists there are people who at a pinch can value some things more highly then the ancestral seed which flowed a thousand years ago. Kristian Wilhelmsson had one outstanding attribute which, despite his lowly antecedents, won him the Icelanders’ regard and even their admiration, and that was his horsemanship. It is an Icelandic dogma that kings should be able to ride well; indeed, a man on a good mount is respected above all others. White horses have always been considered one of Iceland’s greatest glories, and farmers competed to supply them when royalty was riding through their district. Also, in those days most Icelanders took tobacco through the nose from wooden flasks or horn receptacles; this tobacco is called snuss in Low German, and Icelanders respect any man who accepts a pinch from them. It is said that King Kristian Wilhelmsson, too, liked his snuff.

  It is not to be denied that the Icelanders were glad to receive their new constitution from the Danish king—but not exuberantly so. In fact, they completely forgot to thank him for it during the festivities. There was only one man there who had the presence of mind to thank the king for the gift on the Icelanders’ behalf—albeit uninvited and unauthorized; and this was the Danish baron who had drafted the constitution for the king. Perhaps too many Icelanders felt that the gift merely represented something which was already theirs by right and did not go far enough, at that. The king, for his part, quite forgot to thank the Icelanders for what they thought the most significant thing they gave him in retu
rn, which was the poetry composed in his honour. Some poets composed as many as eight poems about him. It is not the custom in Germany to compose poetry in honour of county governors, Electors, or even the Kaiser, and Kristian Wilhelmsson was left wide-eyed and open-mouthed as a procession of poets stepped forward one after the other and recited verse at him; he had never heard verse before, and did not know what it was.

  It is said that on the morning after the main ceremonies at Þingvellir some of the grooms were trying out the horses which the king was to ride on his way back to the capital. A crowd of farmers had gathered round to see how good the horses were and how they performed. Among them was Steinar of Hlíðar, holding by the bridle his aforementioned white horse, Krapi. When he had watched the royal grooms putting the horses through their paces for a while and seen what they could do, he led his own mount away and headed for the huge marquee where the king was at table with his courtiers and the sheriffs of Iceland. Steinar greeted the sentries and asked to see the king. They were reluctant to pay any heed to this stranger’s request, but finally it was brought to the attention of one of the officials in attendance to the king. This man asked Steinar why he wanted to see the king; Steinar replied that he had urgent business with him—he had a gift to present to him. After a while the courtier returned to say that the king never accepted gifts from individual commoners, but that Steinar was to be permitted to come inside and pay his respects to the king while he was at table.

  Inside the marquee sat a crowd of gold-braided men of rank, some of them drinking beer. There was a rich aroma of cigars, which the gentry held glowing between their teeth, emitting thick plumes of smoke. There were Icelandic as well as Danish notables there, and it was only to be expected that some of them should look askance when a plain farmer without official recognition came walking in.

  Steinar of Hlíðar doffed his battered cap at the entrance to the marquee, and smoothed down what little was left of his hair. He made no attempt to straighten his shoulders or stick out his chest; his walk was a clumsy trundle, like that of all farmers, but there was no suggestion from his bearing that he thought himself more humble than anyone present. He looked as if nothing came more naturally to him than meeting kings; nor was he there on any commonplace mission.