“Well now,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “The men of Hraun have always been damned criminals. But I always thought that folk from Seltjarnarnes were good-natured.”
Both men had been sentenced to flogging. It was apparent, not only from their reluctance to answer and their haughty way of speaking, but also from the earnest way in which each pondered his own lot, that these were well-to-do men. Jón Hreggviðsson continued to interrogate them and to prattle. It turned out that this Ásbjörn Jóakimsson had refused to row one of the regent’s messengers over Skerjafjörður. Hólmfastur Guðmundsson, for his part, had been sentenced to lose his skin for having traded four fish for some pieces of cord in Hafnarfjörður, instead of having delivered the fish to the merchant in Keflavík—his farm belonged to the Keflavík trade district according to the king’s new regulations relegating control of the trade monopoly to district authorities.
“What was your excuse for not delivering the fish to the merchant in the district where my Most Gracious Sire commanded you to do business?” asked Jón Hreggviðsson.
The man said that he couldn’t get any cord from the king’s merchant in Keflavík—nor, for that matter, from the merchant in Hafnarfjörður, though a most considerate man at the trading booth had let him have a tiny piece. “And to think that this should have happened to me, Hólmfastur Guðmundsson,” said the man in conclusion.
“You’d have done better to use the cord to hang yourself,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.
Ásbjörn Jóakimsson was less of a talker than his brother-to-beflogged.
“I’m tired,” he said. “Isn’t there any place here for a man to sit down?”
“No,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “This is no parlor. This plank is for me alone and I won’t give it up. And don’t you be roving around there by the chopping block—you might knock down my jug, which is holding my water.”
There was a moment of silence, until someone sighed heavily in the darkness.
“But my name is Hólmfastur Guðmundsson.”
“What about it?” said the other. “Don’t I also have a name? Doesn’t everyone have a name? I have the feeling that it doesn’t really matter what we’re named.”
“When has anyone ever read in the old books that the Danes sentenced a man with my name to the whip, in his very own land, Iceland?”
“The Danes beheaded Bishop Jón Arason* himself,” said Ásbjörn Jóakimsson.
“If someone here wants to start slandering my Hereditary King, just remember that I’m His hereditary servant,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.
There was another long moment of silence. Finally the man from Hraun could be heard muttering his own name in the darkness.
“Hólmfastur Guðmundsson.”
He repeated it, very quietly, as if it were some kind of obscure oracle: “Hólmfastur Guðmundsson.”
Afterward, silence.
“Who said that the Danes beheaded Bishop Jón Arason?” asked Hólmfastur Guðmundsson.
“I did,” said Ásbjörn Jóakimsson. “And since they beheaded Jón Arason do you think it matters whether the king has farmers like ourselves flogged?”
“It’s an honor to be beheaded,” said Hólmfastur Guðmundsson. “Even a little churl becomes a man by being beheaded. A little churl can recite a verse as he’s being taken to the chopping block, like Þórir Jökull* who recited his verse and was beheaded—and his name will live on as long as the land is inhabited. On the contrary, the man who is flogged is belittled. There is no man so gallant who is not humiliated by the whip.”
He added in a low voice: “Hólmfastur Guðmundsson—has anyone ever heard a more Icelandic name? And the memory of this Icelandic name will be connected with a Danish whip throughout the centuries, in the hearts of a people who write down everything in books and forget nothing.”
“I wasn’t belittled in the least by being flogged,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “And nobody laughed at me. I was the only one who laughed.”
“It does nothing to a man, to the man himself, to be flogged,” said Ásbjörn Jóakimsson. “But you can’t deny that it must be slightly traumatic for the man’s children to learn, when they’ve grown up, that their father was once flogged. Other children point at them and say, ‘Your father was flogged!’ I have three little girls. But after three or four generations it’s forgotten—at least I don’t imagine that Ásbjörn Jóakimsson is such a remarkable name that it will be written in books and read throughout the centuries; quite the contrary—I’m like every other nameless man, healthy today, dead tomorrow. On the other hand, the Icelandic people will live throughout the ages if they don’t give in, no matter what happens. I refused to transport the king’s man over Skerjafjörður, that’s true. Neither living nor dead, said I. I’ll be flogged and that’s fine with me. But if I had given in, even in such an insignificant matter, and if everyone gives in always and everywhere, gives in to ghosts and fiends, gives in to the plague and the pox, gives in to the king and the hangman, then where would these folk have their home? Even Hell would be too good for such folk.”
Hólmfastur did not answer, but continued to repeat his name quietly. Jón Hreggviðsson was determined not to let them up on his plank. After some time his fetters stopped rattling and the first snores came, jerky exhalations at the threshold of the senses that gradually deepened and became steadier.
As winter passed thieves were occasionally cast down to join Jón Hreggviðsson, sometimes several at once, confined there the night before they were to be branded or have their hands cut off. Jón was horribly anxious that they might try to steal the jug or even the ax. Others had to wait for their punishment for longer periods of time, mainly people from the district of Gullbringa. A cotter who rented land from the regent had refused to lend the regent his horse; he’d told him that men who were too lazy to go anywhere without the help of ninety good saddle horses, but who had none themselves, might as well get used to sitting at home—Gunnar of Hlíðarendi had never asked anyone to loan him a horse. Another, Halldór Finnbogason from Mýrar, had refused to receive communion and had been arraigned on charges of public blasphemy and desecration of holy relics. Both of these men were sentenced to have their tongues cut. The second of the two cursed and swore the entire night before his tongue was cut, and amongst those he cursed were his father and mother. Jón Hreggviðsson couldn’t get any sleep and finally became so angry that he said that whoever didn’t go to the altar was a fool, and he started singing the Ballad of Jesus, which he unfortunately didn’t know very well. Apart from thieves, there were quite a few other visitors who had been sentenced for crimes against the royal trade monopoly. One had been caught with English tobacco. Another had added sand to his sacks of wool. Some had illegally purchased flour in Eyrarbakki, because the flour in Keflavík was rotten and swollen with maggots. One or two had called their merchants thieves. There were endless amounts of these petty criminals, and they were all flogged. The king’s whip continued to flicker voraciously over the prone bodies of naked and emaciated Icelanders. Last but not least there were several hardened criminals of Jón Hreggviðsson’s mettle who were brought to the dungeon for a night’s lodging, men who were either to be executed or sent south to Denmark, to Bremerholm,* the most familiar of all places known to Icelanders in that distant country.
Jón Hreggviðsson was never allowed to see the light of day during those twenty-four weeks, except for an insignificant glimmer at Yule and Easter when he was brought to church to hear the word of God. On both of these holy days the regent’s men came down into the dungeon, pulled a bag over his head, released him from his fetters, and escorted him to the church, where he was seated upon a corner bench between two brawny men and forced to listen to the customary message with the bag over his head. The rope, however, wasn’t pulled too tightly around his neck, which enabled him to catch a faint glimpse of his surroundings as he sat there in the house of God. Otherwise he saw nothing that whole winter.
Around Easter another man was lowered down t
o the farmer, a man from the Eastfjörds who’d been sentenced to prison at Bremerholm for one of the most infamous crimes ever committed in Iceland: he’d rowed out to a Dutch dogger and bought a spool of twine. His case had been prosecuted during the fall and he was to be sent abroad that spring on a ship lying at anchor at Suðurnes.* During the winter he’d been sent from one bailiff to another throughout the land until he finally ended up here.
“No,” said Guttormur Guttormsson. “They couldn’t prove that I had anything but this one spool. On the other hand, the merchant’s servants were spying on my trips out there. In my region everyone trades with them. A man who’s never seen a Dutch gold ducat doesn’t know what it means to have lived.”
This was a man who spoke passionately and was moved to tears and gasped for breath every time he mentioned Dutch money.
“They’re this big,” he said, and he grabbed Jón Hreggviðsson’s shoulder and made a ring on his forehead in the darkness.
“It would never cross my mind to betray my Hereditary King and Sire for such blood money,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.
“The Dutch are made of gold,” said the man. “At night when I wake up and can’t fall asleep again I think about those blessed huge coins and then I feel very well indeed. Such size! Such weight! Such luster!”
“Do you have a lot of them?” asked Jón Hreggviðsson.
“A lot?” said Guttormur Guttormsson. “Whether I’ve got a lot or just a few—and that’s not really any of your business, pal—I know what it means to have lived. I’ve lived many happy days. You southerners never live a single happy day.”
“You’re a liar,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “We love and honor our king.”
“We men of the Eastfjörds have never been a mob of slaves,” said Guttormur Guttormsson.
After they’d become better acquainted Jón Hreggviðsson found out from the Easterner that even if he hadn’t committed any other crime than to buy a spool of twine from the Dutch—that was the only crime that had been exposed, anyway—he’d traded with them for several years and made a good profit. In the winter his wife wove woolen clothing for the fishermen, and in the summer he brought them butter and cheese, calves, lambs, and children. In return he received good quality flour, ropes and cord, pig iron, hooks, tobacco, cloth kerchiefs, red wine, and corn liquor—and gold ducats for children. “Children,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.
“Yes—one ducat for a girl, two ducats for a boy,” said Guttormur Guttormsson.
Sometime during the last hundred years it had become fashionable for the people of the Eastfjörds to sell children to the Dutch, with the result that the rate of infanticide was much lower in that region than elsewhere in the country. Guttormur Guttormsson had sold them two children, a seven-year-old boy and a fair-haired girl of five years.
“So all you’ve got is three ducats,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.
“How many ducats do you have?” said Guttormur Guttormsson.
“Two,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “I’ve got two ducats at home in Rein on Akranes—two living ducats that look up at me.”
“What did you give for them?” asked the Easterner.
“If you think that I got them with bait, then you’ve missed the point, pal,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.
The man’s papers said that he was a master craftsman, and in just a short time he was dragged up from the dungeon and sent to the Þrælakista to be put to some use while awaiting transport to Bremerholm, so Jón Hreggviðsson neither saw nor heard more of this outstanding man.
A new companion, however, joined him during the last months of winter and remained for some time. This was a sorcerer from the Westfjörds, Jón Þeófílusson by name. He was a rather lanky man in his forties who’d been living with his middle-aged sister in a little cottage in a valley. He’d had little to do with women, mostly because of his lack of sheep, so he’d tried to remedy both shortages by resorting to sorcery, which was frequently in fashion in the Westfjörds, though with disproportionate results. Another man who was a successful sheep farmer had won the heart of a priest’s daughter in whom Jón Þeófílusson also had an interest, and Jón had tried to conjure up a sending* against this man. But his skills as a sorcerer were so awkward that the sending entered the priest’s cow and killed it. A while later one of his rival’s colts died in a waterhole that appeared out of nowhere. Jón Þeófílusson was taken into custody, and found in his possession were the signs of the Blusterer and the Corpse’s Breeches. While the case was being investigated his rival’s brother fell ill and died. The devil, whom the sorcerer called Pokur, appeared to this man on his deathbed and testified that Jón Þeófílusson had pledged himself in exchange for the brother’s ailment as well as for the previous mishaps involving the cow and the horse. The man swore an oath to the truth of this apparition on his dying day, and thus the devil himself had become the chief witness in the case against Jón Þeófílusson, and his testimony sealed the man’s fate.
Jón Þeófílusson was considerably apprehensive about being burned and spoke often about it in whispers. He said he would rather be beheaded.
“Why did they bring you here to the south? Why don’t they burn you out west, you rascal?” said Jón Hreggviðsson.
“The men of Þorskafjörður refused to give them brushwood,” said the man.
“That’s news to me if they have enough extra firewood here in the south to use on anyone from another quarter,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “You should ask to be beheaded with me, preferably on this chopping block here, because I’m sure that there’s not a better chopping block to be found in the whole country. I killed a lot of time when I was bored this winter by trying out my neck in its groove.”
“All winter I’ve prayed to God to let me be beheaded instead of burned,” said the man.
“Why don’t you make your vows to the devil, man?” said Jón Hreggviðsson.
“He swindled me,” said the man in whimpers. “After Pokur swindles a man, a man starts praying to God.”
“It sounds to me like you’re a pretty paltry fellow,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “Stop whining and try to show me one of your magic signs.”
“No,” whined the man.
“You could always teach me to conjure up the devil,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.
“I never had much luck with that myself,” said the man. “Pokur insisted that I had, and because of that got me convicted in court, but it’s a lie. On the other hand I got hold of a Blusterer and fiddled around with it on account of a girl. I also had the Corpse’s Breeches.”
“What?” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “A Blusterer? On account of a girl?”
“Yes,” said the man. “But something went wrong.”
“Do you have one of these Blusterers here?” asked Jón Hreggviðsson. “Better late than never. Who knows, maybe we can conjure up a few hussies of our own. What was once an urge is now a necessity.”
But the authorities had already confiscated the man’s Blusterer.
“Can’t we make a Blusterer ourselves?” asked Jón Hreggviðsson. “Can’t we scratch that damned sign with the ax-point onto the chopping block and get a beautiful, chubby woman in here tonight, right now—or preferably three?”
It was no easy matter to create such a sign, because in order to do so the two men required much greater access to the animal kingdom and the forces of nature than conditions in the dungeon permitted. The sign of the Blusterer is inscribed with raven’s gall on the rust-brown inner side of a bitch’s skin, and afterward blood is sprinkled over the sign—blood from a black tomcat whose neck has been cut under a full moon by an unspoiled maiden.
“Where’d you find an unspoiled maiden to cut a black tomcat’s neck?” asked Jón Hreggviðsson.
“My sister did it,” said the man. “It took us three years to get the raven’s gall. But on the first night that I tried it, when I climbed onto the roof over the priest’s daughter’s bedroom and held up the Blusterer and rattled off the spell, it was all ove
r for me, since the cow was dead.”
“What about the girl?” asked Jón Hreggviðsson.
“There was a man sleeping with her,” said Jón Þeófílusson, in tears.
Jón Hreggviðsson shook his head.
“By the way, didn’t you say something about the Corpse’s Breeches? I can’t really see how you could’ve gotten into such a scrape if you had the Corpse’s Breeches, because I’ve heard that there’s always money in those things if one looks closely.”
“I’d gotten hold of the sign of the Corpse’s Breeches, and had even stolen money from the widow to put in them. But I never actually owned the Breeches themselves. I paid a man to let me cut off his skin after he died, but he’s still going strong even though he’s almost ninety. Anyway it was too late because the cow was dead and the foal had fallen into the waterhole. And a short time later Pokur appeared to the departed Sigurður on his deathbed and testified against me.”
It was silent in the hole, except for the sound of the sorcerer sobbing in the darkness. After a few moments Jón Hreggviðsson said quietly:
“You’ll definitely be burned.”
The sorcerer kept on sobbing.
5
An old woman wants to make a journey.
During the mornings as the seamen shove off from land she loiters on the beach, accosting one man after another, claiming that she needs to go south. On this day they all refuse her passage, but she is there again the next. She is wearing new shoes, and her blue nose pokes out from a brown shawl wound around her head. She is accoutered like a female pilgrim, carrying a walking stick and a pouch made of curried hide, her skirt tucked up and tied.
“It scarcely bodes much ill luck to allow one poor wretch to float along with you and to put her ashore somewhere at the tip of the cape.”
“There’s enough of a crowd of beggars at Suðurnes,” they say.
Iceland's Bell Page 5
