Tim Severin - Odinn's Child

They eventually made their Greenland landfall not at Brattahlid but at Lyusfjord some three days' sail to the north-west. Here a small group of Norse had already established a few coastal farms, and Thorstein struck up a friendship with a namesake, who invited him to stay and help him work the land, which was plentiful. Perhaps my uncle was ashamed to return to Brattahlid with so little accomplished and without Thorvald's body, so he accepted the offer. That autumn a small coaster came down from Lyusfjord with a message. My uncle was asking for his share of the family's cattle herd and other stores to be sent to Lyusfjord, and - in a note added by Gudrid — there was an invitation to send me along as well. It seemed that I was still high in Gudrid's affections and her substitute child.

My uncle's new-found partner was remarkably swarthy for a Norseman, hence his nickname Thorstein the Black. This giving of a nickname which identified him from all the other Thorsteins, including my uncle, is a sensible Norse custom. Most Norse derive their names, simply enough, from the parents. Thus, I am Thorgils Leifsson, being the son of Leif Eriksson, who is the son of Erik. But with so many Leifs, Eriks, Grimms, Odds and others to choose from, it is helpful to have the extra defining adjective. The easiest way is to say where he or she comes from - not in my own case, though - or refer to some particular characteristic of the individual. Thus my grandfather Erik the Red's hair was a striking strawberry red when he was young and, as we have seen, Leif the Lucky was extraordinarily fortunate in his early career, always seeming to be in the right place at the right time. During my time in Iceland I was to meet Thorkel the Bald, Gizur the White and Halfdan the Black, and heard tales of Thorgrimma Witchface, who was married to Thorodd Twistfoot, and how Olaf was called the Peacock because he was always so vain about to his clothing, and Gunnlaug Serpent Tongue had a subtle and venomous way with words.

To return to Thorstein the Black: he had done remarkably well in the five or six years that he had been farming at Lyusfjord. He had cleared a large area of scrubland, built a sizeable longhouse and several barns, fenced in his home pasture, and employed half a dozen labourers. Part of his success was due to his wife, an energetic, practical woman by the name of Grimhild. She ran the household very competently, and this left Thorstein the Black free to get on with overseeing the farming and the local fishery. Their farmhouse was easily large enough to accommodate my uncle Thorstein and Gudrid, so rather than waste time and effort building their own home my uncle and aunt moved in with them. By the time I arrived, I found the two families sharing the same building amicably.

So I now come to an event which makes me believe that the mysterious hauntings which accompanied my own mother's death were not as implausible as they might seem. That winter the plague came back to the Greenland settlements for the second time in less than five years. It was the same recurring illness which was the curse of our existence. Where it came from, we could not tell. We knew only that it flared up suddenly, caused great suffering and then died away just as rapidly. Perhaps it is significant that both times these plagues visited us in autumn and early winter when we were all living cooped up, close together in the longhouses, with little light, no fresh air and a tremendous fug. The first person to contract the illness in Lyusfjord this time around was the overseer on the farm, a man named Gardi. Frankly, no one was too sorry. Gardi was a brute, untrustworthy and with a vicious streak. He could be civil enough when he was sober, but turned nasty when he was drunk, and was even worse the following morning when he had a hangover. In fact, when he first fell sick, everyone thought that he was suffering from yet another drinking binge until he began to show all the signs of the fever - a pasty skin, sunken eyes, difficulty in breathing, a dry tongue, and a rash of purple-red spots beginning to blotch his body. When, after a short illness, he died there was very little mourning. Instead the settlers around Lyusfjord began to wonder who would be afflicted next. The illness always picked its victims randomly. It might attack a man but leave his wife unscathed, or it would carry off two children from a brood of five, and the other three siblings never even had a sniffle. My uncle Thorstein contracted the sickness, but Gudrid escaped. Thorstein the Black was spared, yet his wife, Grimhild, succumbed. The progress of the sickness was as erratic as its selection was unpredictable. Sometimes the patient lingered for weeks. Others died within twenty-four hours of showing the first pustules.

Grimhild was one of the rapid victims. One day she was complaining of headaches and dizziness, the next she could hardly walk. She was so unsteady on her feet that by evening she could barely get to the outside privy a few steps away from the main farmhouse. Gudrid offered to accompany Grimhild in case she needed help and, as I was nearby, beckoned to me to assist. I took my place beside Grimhild so she could put her arm over my shoulder. Gudrid was on the other side with her arm around Grimhild's waist. The three of us then made our way slowly out of the door, and we were not halfway across the farmyard when Grimhild came to an abrupt halt. She was deathly pale and swaying on her feet so that Gudrid and I had to hold her from falling. It was bitterly cold and Gudrid wanted to get Grimhild across to the privy as fast as possible, then bring her back into the warmth. But

Grimhild stood rigid. Her arm was tense and trembling along my shoulders, and the hair rose on the back of my neck.

'Come on,' urged Gudrid, 'we can't stand out here in this cold. It will only make your fever worse.'

But Grimhild would not move. 'I can see Gardi,' she whispered in horror. 'He's over there by the door and he has a whip in his hand.' Gudrid tried to coax Grimhild to take a step forward. But Grimhild was petrified. 'Gardi is standing there, not five paces away,' she muttered with panic in her voice. 'He's using the whip to flog several of the farmhands, and near him I can see your husband. I can see myself in the group as well. How can I be there and yet here, and what about Thorstein? We all look so grey and strange,' She was about to faint.

'Here, let me take you back inside, out of the cold,' said Gudrid, half-lifting the delirious woman so that the three of us could turn in our tracks and stumble back into the main hall. We helped Grimhild into the bed closet, which had been turned into a makeshift sanatorium. My uncle Thorstein was already lying there. Fever-struck for the past week he had been shivering and slipping into occasional bouts of delirium.

Grimhild died the same night, and by dawn the farm carpenter was already planing the boards for her coffin. Our burial customs were very brusque. Under normal circumstances a wealthy farmer or his wife, particularly if they followed the Old Ways, might merit a funeral feast and be interred under a small burial mound on some prominent spot like a hillside or favourite beach. But in times of plague no one bothered with such niceties. People believed that the sooner the corpses were got out of the house and put underground, the quicker their wandering spirits would vacate the premises. Even the Christians received short shrift. They were buried in a hastily dug grave, a stake was driven into the ground above the corpse's heart, and when a priest next visited the settlement a few prayers were said, the stake was wrenched out and a bowl of holy water was emptied down the hole. Occasionally a small gravestone was erected, but not often.

That same morning Grimhild's husband went about the day-to-day chores of the farm as if nothing had happened. It was his way of coping with the shock of his wife's sudden death. He told four farmhands to go to the landing place where we kept our small boats and be ready to do a day's fishing. Trying to make myself useful and not wanting to stay in the same house as Grimhild's corpse, I accompanied the men as they headed to the beach to begin preparing the nets and fishing lines. We had loaded up the fishing gear into the two small skiffs, and were just about to push off for the fishing grounds when a runner came stumbling down from the farmhouse. In a lather of sweat and fear, he told Thorstein the Black to come quickly, something very odd was happening in the sick room. Thorstein dropped the sculls he was about to put into the boat and ran, clumping back up the narrow track to the farm. The rest of us stood there and stared at one another.