Tim Severin - Odinn's Child

The year following my birth was the year that the Althing, the

general assembly of Icelanders, chose to adopt Christianity as their religion, a decision which led to much dissension as I shall later have reason to describe. So, having been born on the cusp of the new millennium, I was named as a pagan at a time when the tide of the White Christ was beginning its inexorable rise. Like Cnut, the king in England whom I later served as an apprentice court poet, I soon knew that a rising tide is unstoppable, but I resolved that I would try to keep my head above it.

My mother had no intention of keeping me around her a moment longer than necessary. She proceeded to carry out her plans with a massive certainty, even with a squawling baby in tow. The money that Leif had given her meant that she was able to pay for a wet nurse and, within three months of my birth, she began to look around for an opportunity to leave Birsay and move on to Iceland.

She arrived in the early winter, and the trading ship which brought her dropped anchor off Snaefellsness, the long promontory which projects from Iceland's west coast. Most of the crew were from the Orkneys and Ireland and they had no particular family links among the Icelanders to determine their final port of call, so the crew decided to wait in the anchorage until news of their arrival had spread among the farmers of the region, then shift to the ripest harbour for trading to begin. Iceland has always been a country starved of foreign luxuries. There is not a single town or decent-sized village on the whole vast island, or a proper market. Its people are stock herders who set up their homesteads around the fringes of that rugged land wherever there was pasture for their cattle. In summer they send their herds inland to the high meadows, and in winter bring them back to their byres next to the house and feed them hay. Their own food is mostly gruel, sour milk and curds, with meat or fish or bird flesh when they can get it. It is a basic life. They dress in simple homespun clothes and, though they are excellent craftsmen, they lack the raw materials to work. With no forests on the island, their ships are mostly imported ready built from Norway. Little wonder that the Icelanders tend to join viking expeditions and loot the luxuries they do not have at home. Their viking raids also provide a channel for their chronic pugnacity, which otherwise turns inward and leads to those deadly quarrels and bloody feuds which I was to find it impossible to avoid.

Here I feel that I should try to clear up a misunderstanding among outsiders over what is meant by 'viking'. I have heard it said, for example, that the description is applied to men who come from the viks, the creeks and inlets of the north country, particularly of Norway. But this is incorrect. When the Norse people call someone a vikingr because he goes viking they mean a person who goes to sea to fight or harry, perhaps as a warrior on an expedition, perhaps as an outright brigand. Victims of such raids would readily translate the word as 'pirate', and indeed some Norse do see their vikingr in this light. Most Norsemen, however, regard those who go viking in a more positive light. In their eyes a vikingr is a bold fellow who sets out to make his fortune, takes his chance as a sea raider, and hopes to come home with great wealth and the honour which he has won by his personal bravery and audacity.

The arrival of a trading ship at Snaefellsness — moored in the little anchorage at Rif — was just the sort of news which spread rapidly among these rural farmers. Many of them made plans to row out to the anchored ship, hoping to be the first to look over the cargo in her hold and make an offer to buy or barter for the choicest items. They quickly brought back word that a mysterious and apparently rich woman from Orkney was aboard the ship, though nothing was said about her babe in arms. Naturally, among the farmers' wives along the coast this was a subject of great curiosity. What was her destination? Did she dress in a new fashion? Was she related to anyone in Iceland? What were her intentions? The person who took it upon herself to answer these riddles was almost as formidable as my mother - Thurid Barkadottir, wife of a well-to-do farmer, Thorodd Skattkaupandi, and half-sister to one of the most influential and devious men in Iceland, Snorri Godi, a man so supple that he was managing to be a follower of Thor and the White Christ at the same time and who, more than once, was to shape the course of my life. Indeed it was Snorri who many years later told me of the relationship between Thurid Barkadottir and my mother, how it began with a confrontation, developed into a wary truce and ended in events that became part of local folk memory and scandal.

Thurid's extravagant taste was known to everyone in the area of Frodriver, close by Rif, where she and Thorodd ran their large farm. She was an extremely vain woman who liked to dress as showily as possible. She had a large wardrobe and an eye-catching collection of jewellery, which she did not hesitate to display to her neighbours. Under the pretence of being a good housekeeper, she was the sort of woman who likes to acquire costly furnishings for her house — the best available wall hangings, the handsomest tableware and so forth — and invite as many guests as possible to show them off. In short, she was a self-centred, ostentatious woman who considered herself a cut above her neighbours. Being half-sister to Snorri Godi was another encouragement for her to preen herself. Snorri was one of the leading men of the region, indeed in the whole of Iceland. His family were among the earliest settlers and he exercised the powers of a godi, a local chieftain-by-election, though in Snorri's case the title was hereditary in all but name. His farmlands were large and well favoured, which made him a rich man, and they contained also the site of an important temple to the God Thor. Thurid felt that, with such illustrious and powerful kin, she was not bound by normal conventions. She was notorious for her long-running affair with a neighbouring farmer — Bjorn Breidvikingakappi. Indeed it was confidently rumoured that Bjorn was father to one of Thurid's sons. But Thurid ignored the local gossip, and in this respect, as in several others, there was a marked resemblance between the two women who now met on the deck of the trading ship — Thurid and my mother.

My mother came off best. Thurid clambered aboard from the small rowing boat which had brought her out to the ship. Scrambling up the side of a vessel from a small rowing boat usually places the newcomer at a temporary disadvantage. The newcomer pauses to catch breath, straightens up, finds something to hold on to so as not to topple back overboard or into the ship, and then looks around. Thurid was disconcerted to find my mother sitting impassively on a large chest on the stern deck, regarding her with flat disinterest as she balanced unsteadily on the edge of the vessel. Thorgunna made no effort to come forward to greet her or to help. My mother's lack of response piqued Thurid, and as soon as she had composed herself she came straight to the point and made the mistake of treating my mother as an itinerant pedlar.

'I would like to see your wares,' she announced. 'If you have anything decent to sell, I would consider paying you a good price.'

My mother's calm expression scarcely changed. She rose to her full height, giving Thurid ample time to note the expensive cloth of her well-cut cloak of scarlet and the fine Irish enamelwork on the brooch.

'I'm not in the business of buying and selling,' she replied coolly, 'but you are welcome to see some of my wardrobe if that would be of interest here in Iceland.' Her disdain implied that the Icelandic women were out of touch with current fashion.

My mother then stepped aside and opened the chest on which she had been sitting. She riffled through a high-quality selection of bodices and embroidered skirts, a couple of very fine wool cloaks, some lengths of silk, and several pairs of elegant leather slippers -though it must be admitted that they were not dainty, my mother's feet being exceptionally large. The colours and quality of the garments — my mother particularly liked dark blues and a carmine red made from an expensive dye — put to shame the more drab clothing which Thurid was wearing. Thurid's eyes lit up. She was not so much jealous of my mother's wardrobe as covetous. She would have loved to obtain some of it for herself, and no one else on Iceland, particularly in the locality of Frodriver, was going to get the chance to buy it.