Iceland's Bell (9 page)

12

He ran the whole day and all the next night and drank plenty of water, since Tvídægra contains the most lakes in all of Iceland. He continued to avoid the common routes, but tried to take the shortest path he could from Ok to the northern coast. The weather was calm, though the silence was broken at times by the loud screeching of swans; these vile creatures were all over the heath, sometimes in flocks larger than several flocks of sheep. The sun emerged late in the evening, and he ran and ran until his feet gave way. He hadn’t noticed that he was tired but now he fell exhausted onto a lukewarm patch of reddish loam. He slept deeply and evenly the whole day, first facedown, though later rolling over to face the sky, as the sun continued to shine and the ground grew warm. He awoke when the sun was high in the sky. A flock of ravens had gathered around him and the birds were obviously preparing to peck out his eyes since they thought he was helpless or even dead. He was slightly fatigued but not thirsty; on the other hand he regretted not having eaten more shark meat in Húsafell. The heath hadn’t grown any smaller while he slept.

He felt no more light-footed now than he had before he slept. Yesterday he’d looked over the entire heath, but now it seemed endless. The northern part of the country constantly moved farther away the farther he walked.

Suddenly three bearded men with creels full of trout rode up before him. The lead rider was a wealthy farmer from Borgarfjörður on his way back from a fishing trip on Arnarvatnsheiði. They dismounted and the man from Borgarfjörður asked Jón Hreggviðsson who he was and whether he had supernatural powers. At first his two servants didn’t dare come any closer, but Jón Hreggviðsson wept and kissed all three of them. He said that he was a beggar from the north and was supposed to have been branded for thievery south in Biskupstungur, but had managed to escape. Tears streamed down his face as he wept and prayed aloud to God and begged the men to pity him in the name of the Holy Trinity. They gave him a bite to eat. After slaking his hunger he started reciting prayers of thanksgiving, but the farmer said:

“Aw, shut up, Jón Hreggviðsson.”

Jón Hreggviðsson immediately stopped both crying and reciting prayers, looked up at the men, and asked “What?” in amazement.

“Do you think we Borgarfirthians don’t recognize the people we whip?” asked the man. “Stop going on like that—others could hardly have borne themselves better.”

The two servants had risen instinctively to their feet at this newest disclosure. Jón Hreggviðsson followed suit.

“It looks to me that you’d like to try him out, boys, is that right?” asked the farmer.

“Is that the one who killed the hangman from Bessastaðir?” they asked.

“It is,” said the farmer. “He killed the king’s hangman. Now you’ve got the chance to take revenge, boys.”

They looked at each other. Finally one of them said:

“It wouldn’t hurt the king to get himself a new hangman.”

The other added: “And I’m not looking for the job.”

The third one, the farmer himself, settled the matter formally like this: Because their meeting had taken place in the wilderness, where law and justice, in particular God’s Ten Commandments, have no validity, it would be best if they all sat down and had a sip of brennivín. The men sat back down. Jón Hreggviðsson did the same. He was through crying and praying. Instead he looked down at his bare feet—the tattered shoes the woman had given him had worn away— and started to cleanse his cuts with spittle.

Rain clouds gathered to the north shortly after the men from Borgarfjörður left, but the day had been warm. In no time at all the wind whipped around him and a fog rolled in quickly from the north, like a pugnacious army on the march, glowing red throughout like smoke from burning coals, and then darkening until the sun was consumed and the man enclosed. The cloud was dense and so dark that he could hardly see anything. At first he continued on in the direction he thought the fog had come from, but he soon realized that it was standing still. When he ran for the third time into the same waymark, piled up on top of a low, flat rock, he got a good idea of the extent of his plight. He sat beneath the waymark to think the situation over.

He sat for a long time and twilight came over the heath. When he was thoroughly drenched he recited a verse from the
Elder Ballad of
Pontus
and added an extra line: “The Bessastaðir lice on Hreggviðsson will freeze to death tonight,” then he laughed, cursed, stood up and punched himself, sat back down, and pressed his back up against the waymark. He sat there again for a good long time before he thought he saw a rather large mound-shaped object moving slowly toward him over the heath, like a man riding upon a black horse. After watching it for a moment he stood up and stepped off the rock onto the peat, but only halfheartedly, since he wasn’t feeling entirely too pleased with his journey. The closer the shapeless mass came, the larger it grew. Jón Hreggviðsson stood stock-still and thought about calling out to the approaching man, but as soon as he opened his mouth, foreboding gripped him and he said nothing—he stood silently upon the peat, openmouthed, peering through the fog. The heap continued to draw nearer and to grow larger, until it was close enough for him to make out its form through the fog: it was a troll-woman, coming for him. He couldn’t tell whether this was the mother or the daughter of the cleric from Húsafell, but he was certain that she was from the same family. Her face was an ell broad and her teeth were about the same size. She was wearing short breeches, with huge pillars beneath them and loins like a horse that’s been allowed to rest and eat well all summer in preparation for its work in the mountains in the fall. Her fists were clenched at her hips and her elbows stuck out, and the look she gave him could hardly be called cheerful. He was pretty sure that if he tried to run away from this woman, she would promptly drag him back, shove him down and break his back on a rock, tear off his limbs, and gnaw the flesh from his bones. And thus the saga of Jón Hreggviðsson would come to a close.

But as he stood there more strength and daring welled up inside him than he’d ever felt before. It was most like being overcome by a berserk frenzy, and he heard himself say these words:

“Because there are indeed women in Iceland,” he said, “it will now be proven to you, you ugly wench, that there are also men in Iceland!”

In a flash he jumped at the monster and the fight began. The struggle was fierce and lengthy and both of them fought with everything they had. He discovered that although she completely overpowered him, she was neither as supple in her limbs nor as quick in her reactions. They drove each other around the heath, and the earth was torn up beneath their feet. The fight went on for most of the night, with hard shoves and heavy punches, scratching and clawing, until Jón Hreggviðsson got a good grip around Drilla’s waist. He bent back, lifted her into the air, and threw her down onto the heath with a loud thump. He fell and landed on top of her, and the ogress wailed terribly in his ear and cursed him with these words:

“Now exploit the fallen, Jón Hreggviðsson, if you are a man!”

When he finally came to, a wind was blowing from the south, forcing the fog down off the heath. He could see Hrútafjörður, its long and narrow mouth opening into Húnaflói, and the mountains of Strandir looming blue against the horizon. He had a vague feeling that things would turn out better than they’d looked just a short time ago.

He didn’t slacken his pace until he’d come as far north as Strandir; he raced equally over heaths and mountain tracks and lied about his name and business. No one said anything about Dutchmen until he reached Trékyllisvík.

No crime was more severely punished than the crime of trading with Dutch fishermen, which made it incredibly difficult to gain the trust of strangers engaged in such business. When Jón Hreggviðsson asked about the Dutch, people would naturally point at the tanned sails of the banned doggers lying off the coast, and when he explained what he was doing here in the north they said that his case looked pretty much hopeless; the Dutch, they said, never took on men as cargo, apart from the odd child that they bought from the natives for fosterage, as they called it—especially red-haired boys. It wasn’t until the folk in Trékyllisvík knew for certain all the details of Jón Hreggviðsson’s circumstances and had found out exactly what sort of hardened criminal he was that they thought about lending him any sort of assistance. Then one night when the doggers were close to shore one of the farmers rowed the dead man out in his boat to them. The skipper looked disapprovingly at this black-haired beggar who’d been reduced to such poor shape during his stay at Bessastaðir that he wouldn’t even do for shark bait. When the man from Trékyllisvík made the skipper aware that Jón Hreggviðsson had murdered the Danish king’s hangman it didn’t take long for the news to spread over the entire ship. The sailors shouted happily and hugged Jón Hreggviðsson and kissed him and bade him welcome: the Danish king was in the habit of sending his warships up the coast to sink their ships at every opportunity, or else to seize them under suspicion of trade for profit, and because of this the doggermen hated this king most of all men.

They brought the man on board, gave him a line, and let him fish, though the stocky little ship was already well laden. Jón Hreggviðsson didn’t understand a word of their language but when they handed him a tin full to the brim with food he bent over it eagerly and wasted no time emptying it. In the evening they came with a pailful of seawater and set it down in front of him, but since he thought they were making fun of him he took offense and kicked it over. They rushed at him, tied his hands and feet and tore off his clothes, cut off his hair and beard and rubbed something similar to tar onto his head, then poured seawater again and again over the naked man while they laughed and shouted, and two boys in sabots danced a ring around him while another blew on a flute. Jón Hreggviðsson admitted later that right about then he was convinced that it was all over for him. But after working him over like this for a while they untied him and handed him a cloth to dry himself off. Next they handed him underclothes, wadmal breeches, a sweater, and sabots, but no socks, and they stuck a wooden pipe in his mouth and let him smoke. He started singing the
Ballad of Pontus.

On the next day Jón Hreggviðsson awoke to find the ocean’s rim grazing the high summits of the mountains of home—they’d put out to sea. He cursed his country and bade the devil sink it.

Then he continued singing the
Ballad of Pontus.

13

Rotterdam, on the Maas River, is a great market town, etched with canals that the Dutch call grachten. The canals are used as anchorage by huge numbers of fishermen and tradesmen, who enjoy the fact that commerce in Rotterdam is unregulated. The Dutch are free to travel in their ships across the seas and throughout the whole world, each as he pleases, some to buy wares, others to fish, and the whole country is ruled by a single magnificent duke. The harbor was full of ships being fitted out for sea; some were tarred and others stained, and there was scarcely a cockle that wasn’t in what could be called the best of shape—it was obvious what sort of clever and thrifty men inhabited the place.

The skipper asked Jón Hreggviðsson what he was planning to do now that they’d arrived. He mentioned Copenhagen. They tried to make it clear to him with miming gestures that he’d be beheaded if he went there. He fell to his knees and wept and invoked the name of the Danish king and tried in this way to communicate to them that he wanted to gain an audience with His Most Gracious Majesty and plead for mercy. This they could not understand. They’d gotten along extremely well with him on board and wanted to take him with them on their next fishing trip to Iceland, and had hoped that he would quickly learn their language so that he could translate for them when they did business with the Icelanders. He, however, wouldn’t budge.

They asked: “You killed the Danish king’s hangman, didn’t you?”

He said: “I didn’t.”

Then they felt that he’d cheated them: he’d come to them as the enemy of their enemy, the Danish king, and now he pretended to want to go meet with this sourpuss of a king. Some of them said that he should be dragged behind the ship’s keel as ballast or else be forced to run the gamut, but they finally let the matter stand by threatening to kill him if he didn’t leave immediately. He scurried onto land. He was relieved that they hadn’t driven him right out of his pants, sabots, and sweater.

The streets of the town were laid out in peculiar curves not unlike the gaps in worm-chewed timber, and people’s houses were packed closely together, the gables like belts of stone on mountain slopes and the gableheads like peaks. The streets most resembled maggot-infested cesspools, full of people, horses, and carriages, and at first it looked to him like everyone was on the run, as if the town were on fire. He was mesmerized by the horses: they were, next to whales, the largest creatures he had ever seen.

In Holland everyone was either a great aristocrat or at least arrogant, and one could go a long way without seeing anyone beneath the rank of bailiff, if one could reckon them by their clothing: in every direction he looked there were perukes and feathered hats, Spanish collars and Danish shoes, and cloaks so wide that he could have cut from one of them enough clothing for nearly all the destitute children in the parish of Akranes. Some were so stately that they drove in carved and glistening carriages of the most elegant craftsmanship, with windows and damask curtains. Throughout the streets drifted women of high degree, audaciously dressed, and slender ladies bedecked with all sorts of haughty ornamentation: ruffs hanging out over their shoulders and brimmed hats just as broad, wide pleated skirts and high-heeled shoes with golden clasps over the instep; they held their skirts up coyly, showing off their feet.

Jón Hreggviðsson had one silver coin in his purse when he arrived in Holland. Since day was drawing to a close he started to search for lodging. The lanterns that hung over every door cast a gleam onto the half-darkened, twilight streets, and in a narrow lane surrounded by antique houses that seemed to bend toward him he saw a woman standing in a doorway; she had a cheery complexion and a strong voice, and she asked the farmer the news. They started chatting and she invited him in. The way to her abode led through the house, along confined and florid corridors, then through a courtyard where silent cats sat arching their backs and pretending not to notice the others, each on its own doorstep. When they arrived at her room she invited the guest to sit beside her on the bed. She spoke to him excitedly, then took hold of his purse and felt about in it until she found the coin. At this she grew even more excited. She reached in again and again to feel the coin and told him how beautiful it was. Jón Hreggviðsson found the woman’s mannerisms to be comparable to those of the women in Iceland who are considered best in most aspects, but at the same time she was extremely friendly, fleshly and flippant, and a bit musky in the bosom; he was convinced that she was the wife of a priest or a provost here in Rotterdam. Since she was sitting so close to him he thought she might be hard of hearing, so he raised his voice and tried to let her know that he was famished, but she placed a finger on his lips to indicate that he didn’t need to speak so loudly. Then she went to her pantry and brought out cold roasted veal, bread and cheese, and some peculiar, bittersweet red fruits, along with a tankard of wine; he was sure that he’d never enjoyed a better meal. The woman ate with him, and then they had sex. The fishermen at sea had made sure that he did more than his share of the work, allowing him little time for rest, so now after all this luxury he grew incredibly drowsy and fell into a deep sleep alongside the woman in her bed. During the night two ruffians came in and started beating him, and when he jumped up they grabbed him and carried him out and threw him like carrion into the street; and thus disappeared Jón Hreggviðsson’s coin.

He couldn’t make heads or tails of Rotterdam by night. When it grew light he found a road leading out of the place and headed north, hoping that he would find the realm of the Danish king. The countryside reminded him of a potful of porridge: there wasn’t a hill or even a hillock in sight—there were only church steeples and wind-mills afloat here and there. The fields were pasturable, however, and the farmers seemed to be doing well. He saw herds of grazing cows everywhere, hefty livestock, and noticed that the natives didn’t seem to be too inclined toward sheep farming. Most of the farmhouses and barns were in excellent condition, with high timbered walls like the buildings at Bessastaðir, though there were quite a few crofters’ cottages, either clustered together or scattered about, with dirt walls, straw roofs, and hens pecking around outside—this bird clucks like a swan and is unable to fly. Other monstrously sized birds gaggled before men’s doors; they looked like swans but had shorter necks, and they were vicious, ruffling their feathers and attacking strangers with a great screech. He guessed that these were the birds the ancient poems and ballads called geese. The dogs here looked fairly dangerous as well, but luckily most of them were chained. Haymaking and harvesting were in full swing, and the farmer thought it a great sight to see folk transporting their loads home on cattle-drawn wagons, though he did see a few people here and there carrying the hay on their backs. Seawater was diverged into deep lakes and canals throughout the whole land, causing it to resemble a large lung. The canals were filled with flat-bottomed cargo boats drawn by oxen or horses walking along the banks. Some of the boats had roofed houses with windows containing curtains and flowers, and chimneys poking up from the roofs, and smoke wafting up from the chimneys as the womenfolk cooked inside. The men sat out on deck and smoked tobacco while they urged on the beasts and steered the boat, and the children played, and sometimes fat, bare-legged girls could be seen, sunburned and radiant, as well as picturesque women plucking fowl. It looked to Jón Hreggviðsson like a very agreeable way of life.

The roads here were unlike those in Iceland; here they were made by men’s hands, not horses’ hooves, and the wagons drove easily along. He encountered wheeled contraptions of all different shapes and sizes, and great aristocrats riding comfortably in fluttering cloaks, and troops of soldiers with muskets and swords. Whenever he encountered a crossroads Jón Hreggviðsson automatically chose the road that seemed to go farthest north, but the day passed by here differently than in Iceland and in the end he lost track of time—and thereby lost his bearings.

They’d forgotten to throw his sabots out the door after him at the priest’s wife’s, but actually it didn’t matter—he’d run barefoot over Iceland’s hard ground, so why couldn’t he do the same over Holland’s soft ground? On the other hand, he’d been traveling for so long in the calm, dry air that he was starting to feel thirsty, but the muddy canals contained only saltwater. A man who was branding livestock in his farmyard gave him water, and a little later a woman at a well did the same, but both of them gave him fearful looks. He’d passed through so many crossroads by now that he no longer had any clue as to which road led to the realm of the Danish king. He sat down flat on the ground, brushed himself off, and looked questioningly at his feet. One scoundrel who came down the road shouted at him, and another cracked his whip over his head. Two middle-aged farmers drove by in a wagon full of cabbage-stalks, roots, and bundles of hay. Jón Hreggviðsson stood up, walked out in front of them, and asked:

“Where’s Denmark?”

The men stopped and looked at him in surprise, but they obviously weren’t familiar with the country he named.

“Denmark,” he said, and he pointed at the road. “Denmark. Copenhagen.”

The men looked at each other and shook their heads, having heard neither of the country nor the city.

“King Kristján,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “King Kristján.”

The men looked at each other.

It suddenly occurred to Jón Hreggviðsson that he might have misremembered the name of His Most Gracious Majesty, so he corrected himself and said:

“King Friðrik. King Friðrik.”

But the men hadn’t heard of King Kristján or King Friðrik.

He availed himself of more wayfarers but very few of them answered him; most of them started walking faster or spurred on their horses when they saw this black-haired savage approaching. The few who did stop were entirely ignorant of Jón Hreggviðsson’s king. Finally an impressive-looking gentleman came driving up, wearing an ample cassock, a ruff, a peruke, and a tall hat, his blue jowls hanging down around his collar and a prayer book resting upon his potbelly. If this man wasn’t the bishop of Holland himself, then he was at least the provost of the district of Rotterdam, and Jón Hreggviðsson walked out in front of him and started weeping bitterly.

The wayfarer ordered his driver to halt and said a few reproachful but inobstinate words to Jón Hreggviðsson, and the stray traveler got the impression that he wanted to know who he was and why he was walking upon the roads of Holland.

“Iceland,” said Jón Hreggviðsson, drying his tears and pointing at himself: “Iceland.”

The man scratched himself delicately behind one ear, obviously having a difficult time making sense of this, but Jón Hreggviðsson continued.

“Iceland; Gunnar of Hlíðarendi,” he said.

Suddenly the bishop’s eyes widened and his face displayed more than a little panic. He gave Jón Hreggviðsson a consternated look and asked:

“Hekkenfeld?”

Jón Hreggviðsson didn’t know what Hekkenfeld was and tried again with the name of the Danish king, Kristján.

“Christianus,” repeated the honorable gentleman, and his manner relaxed considerably. He understood the matter thusly: although this miscreant had indeed come from Hekkenfeld, he was a Christian. “Jesus Christus,” he added cheerfully, and he nodded his head toward the beggar.

Jón Hreggviðsson was for his own part so pleased with the fact that they’d hit on a name they both knew that he forgot everything he’d been planning to ask and resorted to repeating that name: the name of his landlord, Jesus Christ. Then he signed himself in the name of the Holy Trinity to show that he was a true farmer of Christ, and the gentleman took his purse from his belt, took out a little silver coin and gave it to Jón Hreggviðsson, then ordered his driver to continue.

Near sunset he strolled into a great farmyard that looked to him to be owned by hospitable folk, since it was teeming with wagons, horses, and drivers. Fat, well-dressed travelers walked out onto the flagstones and stroked their potbellies after their meal. Some smoked tobacco from long pipes. One member of a packtrain noticed Jón Hreggviðsson and started gaping at him, and then the others did the same. Jón Hreggviðsson said that he was an Icelander but no one understood. Little by little a mob of people gathered around him and chattered at him in different languages. Finally he decided to try out the words that had done so well for him with the nobleman on the road:

“Hekkenfeld. Jesus Christus.”

Some of them thought he was a heretic and a blasphemer from Welschland* and one invoked Mary and Joseph and shook his fist at him.

Jón Hreggviðsson continued to repeat the words “Jesus Christus Hekkenfeld” and to make the sign of the cross.

More and more people kept joining the group: large-loined housemaids in short skirts and hoods, chefs with leather aprons, stout aristocrats with huge codpieces, ruffs, and ruffled sleeves, wearing feathered hats on top of their perukes—they pushed their way into the innermost ring to see what was happening but found nothing but a foreign beggar committing blasphemy. The meeting was concluded when a certain cavalier wearing a feathered hat, topboots, and a sword pushed his way through the throng, raised his whip, and started thrashing Jón Hreggviðsson, each lash smarter than the next. First he struck the man right across the face and then over the neck and shoulders, until he sunk to his knees and fell forward with his hands covering his face. The massive cavalier ordered the people to get back to work, and only a small portion of them kicked at the fallen man as they walked away. Jón Hreggviðsson came to his senses after the crowd dispersed, and he felt around to see if he was bleeding anywhere, but luckily he was just a bit bruised. Afterward he continued on his way.

In the evening a man and woman who owned a small field gave him something to eat. He gave their child the silver coin since the farmer refused to take it in payment. After eating his fill he went out to the hedge and lay down to go to sleep, since the weather was warm and looked as if it would stay that way. The Dutchman pointed him toward the loft of the cowshed, and the traveler took this as an admonition and slept in the straw during the night. Next morning he was woken by the screeching of a strange bird that flew back and forth before the window, letting its feet hang down as it flew—it had a nest up under a crossbeam. The Dutchman came down and Jón Hreggviðsson went out to the field with him and they harvested grain the whole day. Neither of them spared himself and the Dutchman let him know that he thought him a good man. Jón Hreggviðsson took it sorely that he couldn’t tell the man the story of Gunnar of Hlíðarendi. He harvested grain for two days and on the third learned to use a flail on the threshing floor. He was given enough to eat but when he let them know that he needed money it turned out that the Dutchman was too poor to be able to keep a hired hand, so Jón Hreggviðsson decided to leave. The whole family cried at the thought of losing this two-footed beast of burden. Jón Hreggviðsson cried a bit in return for courtesy’s sake, then kissed the people in farewell. The man gave him sabots, the woman gave him socks, and the child gave him a blue bead, as if it were a pearl.