Paradise Reclaimed

by Halldor Laxness

  When it was two or three days past the expected time, the children thought they could make out yet another vagrant coming round the shoulder of the hill with his knapsack on his back. But as the stranger approached, they seemed to recognize his walk: with every step he would put each foot down twice, as if he were testing ice that might not be quite safe. When he reached the edge of the home-field he stopped and ran his hand over the wall, adjusting a stone here and there and fitting in some small ones which lay loose nearby.

  Steinar’s little daughter stood outside on the paved doorstep and suddenly burst into tears.

  “I knew it, I dreamt it,” she sobbed. “I knew this would happen. Everything’s finished now.”

  And with that she rushed into the house and hid.

  Steinar came walking into the farmyard with his saddle on his back. He greeted his wife and son affectionately, and asked where little Steina was.

  “Where’s Krapi?” asked the viking.

  “It’s a long story,” said Steinar. “But here I am with the saddle at least. And the riding-crop.”

  “He has sold the horse, naturally,” said his wife.

  “A small man cannot carry a big horse,” he said. “So I gave him to the king.”

  “How silly of me,” said his wife. “You gave him away, of course.”

  “I had the feeling, somehow, that the only proper owner for such a horse was the king,” said Steinar.

  “I’m so glad you didn’t accept money from the king, my dear,” said his wife. “I have no desire to be married to a horse-coper.”

  “And anyway, money for a horse like that! It’s absurd, is it not, my dear?” said Steinar.

  “Our Krapi cannot be valued in money,” she replied. “Good health and peace of mind are the only real blessings in life; whereas all life’s evils spring from gold. Oh, you’ve no idea how glad I am and grateful to God that we never see gold here at Hlíðar!”

  “On the other hand, the king promised me his friendship,” said Steinar.

  “There you are! When has any crofter in these parts ever been given the king’s friendship?” said the woman. “God bless the king!”

  “What have we left to be fond of now?” said the boy, and started to cry like his sister.

  “A man can never discover his real worth until he has renounced his horse,” said Steinar.

  “Stop making such a fuss, silly,” said the boy’s mother. “You don’t understand what a father you have. How do you know the king won’t summon him before long and make him his counsellor?”

  This was enough to console the boy, for he was a true viking and king’s-man.

  “I was only sorry I forgot to get the bridle back,” said Steinar. “But we can manage somehow, I expect.”

  He took the saddle over to the outhouse.

  It was late in the autumn when a sheriff’s messenger came riding into the farmyard, stepped on to the paving, pulled out a letter with an official seal on it and handed it to Steinar of Hlíðar.

  In those days it was unusual for a sheriff to send a special messenger to peasants unless to tell them that their possessions were being confiscated for some valid reason, or to give them notice of the date on which they were to be evicted. A letter of the kind that was now delivered had never been received by an ordinary peasant in Iceland before, as far as is known. This document stated that His Majesty the King of Denmark sent Steinar of Hlíðar his most gracious greetings and favour as before; it was the king’s pleasure to invite this farmer to pay him a visit in Denmark, and the keeper of the royal purse had been instructed to defray the costs of his passage and all the expenses of his sojourn in the royal city of Copenhagen. The king wished to receive Steinar in person at whichever of his palaces he happened to be residing when Steinar arrived. This royal invitation was inspired by gratitude for the pony which the king had been given by this man in Iceland, and which was now called Pussy; Pussy was a great favourite in the palace, particularly with the children in the royal household. He was stabled at the Bernstorff Palace, the king’s summer residence outside the city.

  It was not considered proper for sheriff’s messengers to accept hospitality from ordinary farmers when they were on official business: “We royal officials don’t have time to sit down.” But curiosity kept this one lingering on the paving while Steinar read the letter.

  “This is a good letter, to be sure, and of great importance,” said Steinar when he had finished reading it. “You deserve to be given a gold piece for it—not that there is one available here, nor likely to be, either. Indeed, my dear wife says that gold is the source of all ill-fortune in men’s lives. Convey my respects to the king. Say that I shall come to visit him at the earliest opportunity. And would you remind the master of the royal household that I forgot to remove the bridle when I handed the horse over in the summer; I would be glad to have it back whenever possible.”

  It was mentioned earlier in this book that Steinar of Hlíðar had the reputation of being a skilled and ingenious craftsman; his neighbours always brought their broken implements and household utensils to him for repair, and he would make them all as good as new. And now as winter approached he was more and more to be found away from his family, sitting in his workshed and tinkering with bits of wood. But it was all rather trifling and did not appear to be anything special, and he would toss his carvings aside like any other idle pastime. But if he were ever passing near the shore he would always pick up a few likely-looking bits of wood from the littoral farmers who collected driftwood. He pottered about like this all winter. He was always reciting an old stanza to himself while he was busy with the wood, one from an old ballad involving the hero Þórður hreda (Menace);* he never recited the whole verse at a time, but always in snatches, a line at a time. This is how it went:

  She gave food for hungry hound,

  She gave bed for sleeping sound;

  She was merry above all,

  She was very liberal.

  But however much he carved and whittled, the wood was never the right size, it was either too long or too short, too thick or too thin. And so winter passed and the bustle of spring began; and one day Steinar came into the kitchen with all his winter’s work in his arms and thrust it on the fire under the kettle. Then he began to clear his hayfield of all the stones which had spilled down off the mountain during the winter, and to touch up the wall around it.

  During the summer, people asked him if it were true that he were going to visit the king soon, but he always changed the subject. When the hay was safely stacked, however, and the approach of autumn brought ease from toil, he once more had to make a journey along the coast and then, as he had so often done before, he asked leave to poke around in the farmers’ woodpiles; but he could find nothing to his taste in most places, and almost before he realized it he had gone all the way down to Leirur.

  Old Björn of Leirur was his usual genial self; he kissed Steinar affectionately and ushered him into the house, and asked what he could do for him. Steinar said he needed a few good pieces of wood, a spot of mahogany, preferably, even though it were no more than half a puppy-load: “And I beg you now, dearest friend, not to hold against me my boldness a year or two back when you offered me gold and I refused it.”

  “You’ve always been a hell of a man,” said Björn of Leirur, “and I’ve never thought more highly of you than when you refused to sell me a pony that time—but you were even more of a true Icelander when you turned the sheriff down too. That’s the kind of saga-men we need nowadays! No crawling around on your knees for you! Pay heed to no one lower than the king! Some bits of wood, did you say? Mahogany? I know it’s the choicest wood in the world, and the only wood that is worthy of you. Now it so happens that I was having a Russian shipwreck dismantled down on the shore here the other day, and the whole thing was done up in mahogany. Go ahead and help yourself to whatever there is.”

  “I can hardly manage to buy for more than about 75 or 80 aurar,” said Steinar. “I can give you a
note for that amount in my account at the store in Eyrarbakki.”

  “We king’s-men and saga-Icelanders are never such small fellows that we grudge one another a horse-load or two of mahogany,” said Björn of Leirur.

  “I am a poor man,” said Steinar, “and I cannot afford to accept gifts. It is only rich men who can afford to accept gifts.”

  At all events, Björn of Leirur took Steinar out to the field where the mahogany was stacked under cover.

  But even though Björn of Leirur refused to listen to any mention of payment, Steinar of Hlíðar was not the man to accept more than a modest amount of mahogany. Björn and two of his men helped Steinar to load it on to a pony; then he saw him off down the path and kissed him: “Goodbye, and may God be with you for ever and ever, you hell of a man, you.”

  Steinar of Hlíðar mounted and rode off, with the mahogany-laden pony in tow. Björn of Leirur closed the gate of his homefield. He was wearing big topboots, and did not get his feet wet. But just as he was tying up the gate he remembered a little trifle, for Icelanders never remember the main point of their business until after they have said goodbye. He gave Steinar a shout and said:

  “Listen, my dear chap, since you happen to live on the main track, would you not let me graze my colts on your pastures for a night or two if I should happen to be driving them down this summer for shipment to the English?”

  “You will always be welcome at Hlíðar with your colts, night or day, bless you, my old friend,” Steinar called back. “The grass does not care who eats it.”

  “It may well be that I’ll have a few drovers with me,” said Björn of Leirur.

  “You are all welcome at Hlíðar for as long as you can find houseroom there,” said Steinar. “Good friends make the best guests.”

  9

  Steinar leaves, with the secret

  She gave food for hungry hound, She gave bed for sleeping sound.

  Who was the woman who performed such prodigies of hospitality, people asked? Was it the Good Fairy of days gone by, or the Norns who decided men’s fates? Or was it the good housewife of Hlíðar, who never doubted her husband’s superiority in anything and thought it a measure of his integrity that he refused to accept gold? Or was it the blue-clad elf-woman who for a thousand years has been seen wandering alone over the heather moon beside the cliffs on hot summer days? It could hardly be His Royal Majesty of Denmark himself, could it? Or was it just that shallow jade whom some people call Mother Earth? Only one thing was certain: the woman was no more overpraised in this ballad than is the custom in Iceland when the talk is about anything of value.

  As the winter wore on, Steinar of Hlíðar would all the more often shut himself away in his workshed with the door locked from the inside; and whenever he came out, he would lock the door again and put the key in his pocket.

  “Daddy,” said the girl, “when we were small you used to tell us everything. Now you don’t tell us anything, and lock yourself in when we are curious.”

  “We have almost worn out the shoes of our childhood, my little darling,” said Steinar. “Our fairy-tale horse has now become a royal pony and is called Pussy.”

  “Yes, but you could tell us just a tiny little bit sometimes, Daddy, even though it’s only a fairy-tale. We are so longing to know what you’re making in there.”

  “Perhaps with God’s help I shall manage to concoct some little trifle before spring—and then I shall open up the workshed for you,” he said.

  And that is just what happened. In spring, when the land was freeing itself from its bonds of ice, Steinar called his children into the workshed one day and showed them his completed handiwork. It was a casket, most beautifully finished. It was quite unvarnished, and therefore retained the natural colour of the wood, but the surface was highly polished as if it had been kneaded between the hands; and this had been done with such artistic skill that the wood seemed to have surrendered and allowed itself to be moulded like wax. It was taller and longer than most other caskets, but did not seem to be larger; all its proportions were somehow unique; there was no other casket quite like it. And it was as agreeable to the eye as it was pleasing to the touch.

  It was divided into several compartments of different sizes. Under the largest compartments, which were detachable, was the bottom; but there was more to that than met the eye, because under it there lay three, some say four, secret compartments which no one could open except by an ingenious special device which will be dealt with shortly. But first the locking mechanism of the casket must be described; it is said to have been the most complicated and cunning arrangement that had ever been known in Iceland, and many delicate operations were required to open it. On the lid there was a large group of numbered studs which had to be adjusted according to an intricate formula before the casket could be unlocked; to do this, one had to start with the seventh stud and end with the sixth, and with that the lid would open. Steinar had no alternative but to set the formula to verse in order to commit it to memory. It was a long poem, composed in a verse-form which only Icelandic farmers know, and for anyone who did not know the poem off by heart it was an impertinence even to attempt to get the casket open.

  Steinar recited the poem to his children and opened the casket according to its instructions; and the children gaped as if thunderstruck by this miracle.

  POEM TO OPEN A CASKET

  First you shove the seventh out,

  Eleven can soon be moved away;

  Flip the fourth one round about,

  For the ninth to come in play.

  Now you press the second spur,

  And see the eighth come swinging round;

  Then the third can start to stir,

  And thirteen moves up with a bound.

  The fifth is now at last set free,

  And fourteen slides down with a click,

  Give the twelfth a twist with glee,

  And turn the sixth one with a flick.

  You who seek life’s happiness,

  Set ten and fifteen on their own;

  And you will glimpse just how intense

  Is God’s glory. But leave it alone.

  With fourteen clues I’ve favoured you,

  To find the gold that’s hidden well;

  But still there’s yet another clue,

  And that one I shall never tell.

  Steinar’s daughter asked what was to be put into all these compartments.

  “The large compartments are for silver,” said Steinar.

  “What about the trays that are divided into four?” asked the boy.

  “They are for gold and precious stones,” said Steinar.

  “Then I don’t understand what is to go into the secret compartments,” said the girl.

  “Then I shall tell you, light of my life,” said her father, and laughed his falsetto titter. “That is the place for what is costlier than gold and precious stones.”

  “What could that be, Daddy?” asked the girl. “I never thought that such a thing existed.”

  “It is the secrets which no one else will ever know until the end of the world,” said Steinar, and closed the casket.

  “Is all that gold ours, then?” said the little viking. “And all these precious stones?”

  “And what secrets do we have, Daddy?” said the girl.

  “Why did God create the world with compartments for silver and gold and precious stones, my children?” asked their father. “And with so many secret compartments as well? Was it because He had so much ready money that He did not know where to keep it all? Or was it because He Himself had something on His conscience which He had to hide away in holes?”

  “Daddy,” said the young girl, staring spellbound at the closed casket, “who’s going to open up the casket when we are dead and no one remembers the poem any more?”

  The news of this masterpiece of carpentry spread far and wide, and many whose journeys took them near Hlíðar knocked on the door to ask if they could feast their eyes on this phenomenon. Others
travelled miles for this specific purpose. And many offered large sums of money for the casket.

  Late that summer, Steinar made it known that he was going to travel to Denmark to visit his Krapi, and that he was going as the guest of King Kristian Wilhelmsson of Denmark. He made his preparations to the best of his ability. A renowned seamstress from another district made up a suit for him of blue homespun, and he ordered a pair of topboots from Eyrarbakki. He left home in the middle of the night without saying goodbye to his children; but before he went he looked at them for a moment as they slept. Steinar was 48 years old when he undertook this journey.

  His son Víkingur had just been confirmed, and his daughter Steina was almost sixteen. And although the departure of this home-loving farmer gave his family cause for tears, there was consolation in their pride at having a father whom foreign kings wished to have at their side, just as in the sagas. His wife wiped away her tears on the corner of her apron and said to her neighbours: “It is not surprising that kings should send for my Steinar. What a wonderfully peaceful world it would be abroad if there were more like him there. I’m quite sure there will be God’s heaven on earth when men like my Steinar can influence kings.”

  These were Steinar’s circumstances when he set off on his journey: as was said before, the land he farmed was his own, inherited from his father. The farm was worth twelve hundreds according to the old system of valuation, whereby one hundred was equivalent to the price of a cow. He owed no man anything, because in those days farmers had no credit, nor was there any money available for lending. If any farmer got into difficulties, he just had to sell up. Steinar owned thirty milch-ewes and a dozen nonmilkers, two cows and a year-old heifer, and five work-ponies which for the most part fended for themselves. The cow has always been the people’s bread and butter in Iceland, and the sheep their ready cash. In modern terms, the income from one sheep is equivalent to two days’ pay for a labourer, but in those days there were no wage-earning labourers. Of thirty sheep on a farm, ten were required for maintaining the stock; thus, Steinar only had the income from twenty sheep for his ready cash, or in other words the equivalent of forty days’ pay for his year’s expenditure. With this income he bought rye-meal and barley and other necessities from the store at Eyrarbakki, two days’ journey away; this was the largest trading concern in the Danish overseas empire, and customers came to it from many hundred of kilometres away. A few old ewes were slaughtered every year for meat, and clothes were home-made from waste wool. Shoes were also made at home, from untanned hide dipped in alum, and it was always impressed on the children that they must not put too much strain on the shoes by treading hard on the ground. Fish and dulse were bought from the littoral crofters in exchange for mutton, and sometimes, when provisions were low, Steinar would himself go and spend a fishing-season at Þorlákshöfn in an open boat. With any luck he could earn himself a few baskets of fish off that surf-tormented coast where relatively more Icelandic fishermen were drowned in storm and tempest almost every winter than soldiers were killed in wars.