by Nevil Shute
ERIC(Whipping the axe out of his belt) I’ve had enough of you. Get off my land now, all the lot of you, before I do you a mischief.
SONI spent all winter on those boards, but not so that a dirty thief like you might take them, and then bully his way out of it.
(He rushes at Eric with a drawn sword. Eric steps back and stops him with a powerful upwards swing of his axe. The Son falls to the ground, mortally wounded, and All join in battle. This is a violent, bloody scene. Eric wades through them, fighting with his axe in a mad fury; man after man goes down before him. Thorgest runs for his life, with One Thrall. His Two Sons and Two Thralls are left lying dead upon the field.)
[DISSOLVE TO:
Thingplain in South Iceland
(This scene is generally similar to the previous Things, with changes in the detail of the setting to indicate another locality. The assembled people are divided into two groups, the smaller of which stands compactly behind Eric. His wife is present, with the three children.)
GODIThis was a quarrel which would have been settled peaceably by a peace-holy man. Instead of that you have killed the two sons of Thorgest and two thralls. Our country is divided, because some support you and some support Thorgest. There are two armies in our land, so that we live at war between ourselves and not at peace.
ERICI can’t help it if people side with me.
GODIIt is for the Thingmen to decide what is to be done, so that we may have peace in our country. Thingmen, is it your will that I should tell you what I think?
(The Thingmen signify assent.)
GODII think this. I think that this man makes trouble wherever he goes, wherever he lives. He lived at Jaederen in Norway, and was outlawed for manslaughter. He lived at Haukadal in the north, and he was banished from there for killing men in a quarrel over a stream. Now he has killed men here, in a quarrel about dais boards. I think that if he stays in our country he will kill more men, and we shall have no peace ever again. I say that we should declare him an outlaw, and that he should get away from here in one month from now, with all his people. Thingmen, that is my advice. What do you say?
A THINGMANIf we kick him out, where can he go to? He seems to have used up most of the places.
ERIC(Loftily) Don’t worry your head over that, little man. There are other worlds beyond the limits of the pigsty, though the pig may not know much about them.
(There are angry murmurs from the crowd.)
— You’ll be doing me no harm. There is no place in this country for a man who is a man with red blood in his veins, and not a little crawling dog licking the Godi’s boots.
(More angry murmurs.)
— There is a new land over to the west, the land that Gunnbiorn saw, the son of Ulf the Crow. A new land, where a man can spread himself.
THINGMANYou’re welcome to that. It’s all ice and snow and glaciers. Gunnbiorn said so.
GODIThingmen, the decision rests with you. If anybody speaks in favour of this man, let him speak up now.
STYR(Stepping forward. He is the spokesman for the little group standing behind Eric.) Well, I’m for Eric, and so is Heriulf here, and Eyiolf of Sviney, and the two Thorbrandssons; I speak for all of them, and for their people. We aren’t satisfied with this at all. We like Eric, and we think that in this quarrel he was right. The dais boards were his, and a man can claim his own stuff; you’re just picking on him because he’s been in trouble before.
(There is a murmur of assent from the small group behind him.)
— If Eric goes to look for the new land that Gunnbiorn saw, I’m going with him, with my people; so will we all. There are too many people in this country anyway; there isn’t enough decent land to go round, so that most of us are hungry half the time.
THINGMANThat’s nothing to do with this Thing. The man has killed four men in a quarrel which a reasonable person would have settled peaceably, and he will do it again if he stays here. We say that he should be outlawed in one month from now.
ERICThat’s all right with me. Only a fool would want to stay in a poor land like this, where a man can’t even get his rights. (Turning to his friends) Let me go first this year, alone with my own people to the Gunnbiorn-land. If we survive the winter in the place of rocks and glaciers, and if so many can exist in such a place, I will come back for you next year, and we’ll make a new colony far from this stinking hole.
(He turns and spits upon the plain, and stalks away, his family following behind him. Little Leif, following behind his father, turns and spits in exactly the same way.)
[DISSOLVE TO:
The Harbour
(This is a scene in a small, rocky cove with a sandy beach. Eric is setting off in a small ship of the same general design as the previous one; he is going to the new land, which was subsequently known as Greenland. His friends are all there to see him off. The ship is heavily laden with all his farm goods; there are cattle and sheep and pigs and poultry on board, and ploughs and farm implements, and a farm sledge or two, and a stack of hay, and a pile of manure, and carved household furniture, and piles of bedding and pots and pans, all in a glorious mixture. His wife and children are on board; the ship is manned by his Thralls and a few other men. One very ugly, small man, Tyrker, should be noticed. There are perhaps fifteen persons in the ship all told.)
ERIC(To his friends) Well, boys, good health to all the lot of you, and thanks for all you’ve done to help me. Look for me next summer; if it’s anything like reasonable over there, I’ll be back to tell you all about it.
HERIULFGood luck, you old redheaded rascal. If you don’t turn up next year, I’ll come and look for you; I’m fed up with this place. Tell me, when you reach the Gunnbiorn-land, which way will you turn, north or south?
ERICI shall go south. In the south a little land goes further. Tyrker here comes from a place far south of Norway; he says they get two crops in the same year there, off the same land.
STYRIt’s a good story, but I bet it’s a lie.
TYRKERLord, it is quite true.
ERIC(Laughing) I’ll come back and tell you if it’s true or not next year. Good health to all of you.
(He goes on board the ship, which pushes off from the land and makes towards the open sea.)
EYIOLFThere goes the best chap in this country. I hope he gets away with it.
HERIULFI shall join him if it’s possible at all. I’m quite serious about that. It may be a hard life over there, but there’d be never a dull moment in a place with Eric.
STYR(Laughing) He’ll get away with it all right.
[DISSOLVE TO:
The Ship
(The ship is sailing forward over a rough sea, littered with small ice. It is a misty, rainy scene. Eric stands at the steering oar at the stern, peering anxiously ahead; Tyrker is beside him. In the body of the ship Thorhild is cooking a meal over a fire made upon the rough stone slabs which are the ballast. One or two of the men are sleeping in their leather sleeping bags. An iceberg passes slowly by, half seen in the murk.)
[FADE TO:
The Classroom.
(Callender is indicating on the map. The attention of the class is utterly fixed; they sit intent upon him.)
CALLENDERThey sailed due west along the latitude of southern Iceland, taking an observation by the mark upon their thwart whenever the sun shone. They hit the coast of Greenland somewhere south of Angmagsalik — here. It’s a rocky, desolate country, that, with no sort of vegetation — hopeless for farming.
[CUT TO:
The Ship
(They are sailing down the coast of Greenland, southwards, in fine weather. The barren nature of the coast should be shown, with the glaciers running down from the icecap. There is floating ice in the sea.)
[CUT TO:
The Classroom
CALLENDERSo they sailed on down the coast, hoping to find a warmer and a better country further to the south. And presently they came to the end of the land, Cape Farewell, here, and rounded it, and came to the south-west corner of Greenland
— here.
[DISSOLVE TO:
The Next Room
(The Headmaster is looking exceedingly dissatisfied.)
HEADMASTERAll this is very interesting, but it’s nothing to do with the History of the United States.
[DISSOLVE TO:
South-west Greenland
(The ship is sailing into a wide fiord; there are mountains in the far distance at the head of the fiord. The land on each side of the fiord is fairly flat moorland, bleak and desolate, and without trees. Callender’s voice continues as a commentary.)
CALLENDERIt was possible farming country, this — not good, but as good as some that they had left in Iceland. It was possible for them to settle here and live; cattle could graze here in the summer, and they could raise crops. Eric settled here at a place that they called Brattahlid in Ericsfiord. They built stone houses in this place, roofing them over with driftwood; wood was very scarce, because there were no trees. Their houses are still there to-day, after nearly a thousand years.
[DISSOLVE TO:
Brattahlid To-day
(The ruins of the stone houses are seen, with a motor truck, or a motor boat, or any present-day appliance of that sort to make the contrast.)
CALLENDERThey settled there, and started farming in that barren land.
[DISSOLVE TO:
Eric’s Farm at Brattahlid
(General scenes of the countrywide and the farm and settlement as it was in Norse times, during the following commentary by Callender.)
CALLENDERA couple of years later, Eric sailed back to Iceland to tell his friends that he had found a land where they could farm. A number of them returned with him to Greenland as colonists. So time slipped by till fifteen years had passed, and the Greenland colony was about two hundred people strong. Remember, it was still an outlaw colony. In the year one thousand and one Eric, who was getting to be an old man, sent his eldest son Leif to Norway on a diplomatic mission.
[DISSOLVE TO:
Eric’s Farm
(This is an exterior farmyard scene. Eric, who is now shown as a much older man, is leaning over a rail in earnest conversation with his son Leif.)
(Leif Ericsson should be shown as a young man of twenty or so. He should be a strong, competent, and intelligent man.)
ERICWe have plenty of stuff to trade with them; tell them there will be quite sufficient to make up a shipload once a year. You must take samples with you of our tusks and hides and wool, and our rare furs; they pay a lot for furs at home. On our part we want iron — iron and wood. Get some of the iron in nails if you can, and some in sheets — I’m fed up with these bone ploughs. Get about half of it in bars. Pig iron would be better than nothing; we can always work it up. Get some brass if they will let you have it.
LEIFHow long should the timber be?
ERICIt is more expensive if it is long. Twenty feet will do for anything that we want here. Oak knees for shipbuilding, straight oak for ships’ keels, beech for table-tops, deal planks — get about half of it in deal planks. Straight oak, if you can get it, for roof-trees and rafters.
LEIFTrust me, Father. I know what we want.
ERIC(Thoughtfully) I think I shall send old Tyrker with you. He’s been in Norway, and he knows the ways of the King’s court. It’s not like this place, you know, where we are all friends. In Norway and in Iceland too, for that matter, you’ve got to watch your step — say Sir to this man, and Lord to another. And those Godis! I was always getting into trouble.
LEIFI expect I shall, too.
ERICYou mustn’t get into trouble. We depend on you. If you don’t come back next year with wood and iron goods, we’ll be in a bad way. We’ve got to get some manufactured stuff out here, somehow. Just think about that, lad, when trouble comes your way. Think of the rest of us, waiting on what you can achieve in Norway.
LEIFI’ll remember that, Father. I’m glad you’re going to let me take old Tyrker.
[DISSOLVE TO:
The Ship
(This may be the same ship that Eric came to Greenland in. It is setting out from the fiord at Brattahlid, loaded with a few bales of fur and hides. There are about fifteen or twenty men on board. Leif is at the steering oar. Beside him is the small, ugly man Tyrker, now older than when we saw him before. The camera dwells on him. Callender’s voice is heard in commentary.)
CALLENDERThis man Tyrker was a German, who had somehow wandered out to Greenland with the Vikings. He had been a slave but he was now a free man; the Norsemen usually made their slaves free in middle age, as a reward for good service. This Tyrker had stayed on with Eric as a paid servant; he was shrewd and experienced, and he had helped to bring up Leif. He was a trusted old family retainer, and as ugly as sin.
[DISSOLVE TO:
The Classroom
CALLENDER(Callender is indicating on the map) So they sailed eastwards round Cape Farewell and then northwards up the coast of Greenland till they found the latitude of Iceland by the mark upon the thwart, and then along till they reached Iceland. They stopped there for stores and fresh water, and they got rather a chilly reception.
[DISSOLVE TO:
A Beach in Iceland
(The ship is beached upon the sand, and Leif and his party are talking to a group of hostile, elderly men. These are Thingmen.)
A THINGMANI know you. I remember you when you were a little boy, when your father was outlawed at the Thing.
ANOTHERIs this the boy who spat?
THINGMANThis is the one. You are an outlaw to this country still. You may buy food and take water for your ship, and then you’d better get away. We will suspend your outlawry for twenty-four hours while you do that. After that time, you must go. We don’t want people like you or your father in this country.
LEIFTwenty-four hours is plenty. Nobody in his senses would want to stay longer in a cold, desolate place like this, with cold, desolate people. I come from a far better land than this one. I wouldn’t stay here if I was paid to.
THINGMAN(Scornfully) A far better land! Gunnbiorn told us about it, years ago. He said it was all ice and rocks and glaciers.
LEIFThat’s all you know. Gunnbiorn didn’t go down to the south of it. Where we live, it’s a fair, sunny, smiling land, with rich fields and warm winters. We hardly ever see snow there, and there is no ice in the sea.
(Beside him, Tyrker’s mouth twitches with concealed laughter.)
— It is a beautiful and gracious country. Our first crop ripens in March from the autumn sowing, and we get another in September off the same bit of land. One of our cows gave five hundred gallons of milk last year. We leave them out all through the winter, grazing.
A THINGMAN(Incredulously) How far southwards is this land?
LEIFFive days’ sailing from the latitude of this place, on the coast you come to first.
A THINGMANWhat is the name of this country where you live?
LEIFWe call it Greenland because it is so beautiful, and because the pastures are green all the year round.
[DISSOLVE TO:
The Ship at Sea
(Leif is at the steering oar, with Tyrker by his side. Tyrker is laughing quietly.)
LEIFWhat are you laughing at?
TYRKERI was thinking of the yarn you told those elders back in Iceland. Green pastures all the year round! Crops in March! and the cow! (Laughs) And the cream of the joke is, they believed every word of it!
LEIF(Seriously) Well, that’s what Father told me to say. He said we wanted more people in our country, so that we’d produce more ivory and furs to fill the ship each year. If we couldn’t fill the ship, he said, they wouldn’t send it and we’d get no manufactured stuff at all.
TYRKERYou’ll get all Iceland if you go on talking like that.
[DISSOLVE TO:
A Hall in Iceland
(The Thingmen are in conference at a table.)
A THINGMANThere may be some truth in it, you know. Five days’ sailing to the southwards is a good distance; you can go a long way in five days with a fair wind
. I wouldn’t say that it’s impossible, by any means.
ANOTHERWe never get two crops from the same land, here in Iceland. I know such things do happen in more southerly countries. I agree — this thing wants looking into.
ANOTHER(Doubtfully) I never heard of any cow giving milk like that.
FIRST THINGMANIt does happen, if the pasture is good enough. We get over a gallon a day here, in the summer months. What I don’t like about this story is that it all checks up so well. If these outlaws really have found a good land down to the south, we ought to take it in as part of our domain.
ANOTHERWhat about the outlaws? What should we do with them?
FIRST THINGMANThey could go somewhere else.
A VERY OLD MANI think we ought to send a ship there to see what the place is really like, and come back to report to us.
A THINGMANThat’s a good idea. Bjarni would be the man to send.
ANOTHERWhy Bjarni? He’s awfully dumb.
THINGMANHis father, Heriulf, went with Eric; Bjarni’s always talking about going out to see his father.
ANOTHERDo you think he’s got enough sense for a job like this? We want a decent report.
THINGMANHe’s a very good seaman, and that’s the main thing. He hasn’t got to do anything but come back here and tell us what he saw in their green land. We can ask his crew, too.
ANOTHERShall I go and find him?
[CUT TO:
The Same Hall in Iceland — Later
(Bjarni is seated at the table in conference with the elders. He is a middle-aged man with a clean-shaven face like a naval officer, with a bold chin. He is pleasant, but stupid; he speaks slowly and has difficulty in expressing himself.)
BJARNIIt’s a bit late in the summer for going westwards. You ought to go that way in the spring.
A THINGMANWhy is that?
BJARNIWell, everybody goes west in the spring. It’s not so easy later on in the summer, you see.
THINGMANBut why? What makes it difficult to go westwards in the summer?
BJARNI(Helplessly) Well, I mean — the ship won’t go.
THINGMAN(Patiently) But there’s plenty of wind.
BJARNIIt makes the rowing so difficult, you see. And it’s a very long way.
ANOTHER THINGMANDo you mean that you don’t get a fair wind in the late summer?
