"Saga" - Chapter 15, Part 2
Saga Chapter 15, Part 2
For information about content, rating, A/Ns and disclaimer, see the chapter’s part 1.
An easy companionship evolved between Eoin and Muirenn. They enjoyed being able to speak their own language and their own minds freely again at last, taking comfort in expressing themselves with ease to someone steeped in the same customs, fellow Christians who prayed to the same God and felt the same unease about the traditions and idols of the Norse. Their common fate as well as the sometimes harsh experiences and loneliness they had endured as thralls in a strange country became the foundation of friendship and respect for one another, which made life seem easier for both.
They would laugh together at strange Norse behavior and incomprehensible expectations and their own consequent misfortunes, and make sly little jokes at the expense of their original captors. Though unvoiced, their strong and ambivalent emotions tied to relationships with their respective masters, and their secret but very similar hopes for the future resonated in their talks and in their shared silences, and contributed to forging even tighter bonds of understanding and appreciation between the two.
During the days, Muirenn would continue with her spinning, sitting outside in the sun when the weather allowed, and moving her unwieldy bulk indoors when the afternoons turned chilly. Eoin for his part would help the shepherds look to the lambing. He never stopped enjoying the sight of every little lamb entering the world, each one a perfect God’s miracle of new life, rising on wobbly feet to seek the ewe’s udder and to drink its fill, its tiny tail waggling incessantly with intense delight at such a simple pleasure.
In the evening, after Gerd and Orm had retired to bed, Muirenn and Eoin had the cottage’s only room to themselves. They spoke of many things past and present. Sometimes they merely sat together in comfortable silence in the soft glow from the hearth’s fire.
They talked a little of what moving to Kaupang would entail, and pondered Torgeirr’s plans. Muirenn admitted she didn’t know exactly what he had in mind. He had promised to come greet his son once he’d been born, she said, and she was content to wait till that time to learn what his intentions for them were, and what fate would next have in store. In her current condition she could not have traveled to Kaupang anyway.
Eoin made his best effort every day to curb his impatience, and to still the cry of despair and longing in his heart. His diligent prayers became more earnest and more frequent as he returned to practicing the Monastery’s morning and evening rituals. Muirenn witnessed this respectfully and sometimes knelt down with him, head humbly bent and hands piously folded. She fervently added her own prayers to God’s holy mother for help and protection during her own imminent confinement. Orm muttered discontentedly at this turn of events, and Gerd started ignoring Eoin completely.
One evening in early summer Muirenn felt the first pangs of childbirth. Gerd ordered her to bed, made the men leave the house, set water to boiling and sent Orm for two women from neighboring farmsteads, one of whom was an experienced midwife.
Orm grumbled that he couldn’t see the need for such a large fuss and turn-out for an ambatt’s lying-in, but Gerd reminded him that ambatt or no, it was their master’s child who was about to enter the world. Torgeirr would hardly be pleased if the babe didn’t survive, and that meant taking care of the mother. Orm kept his peace and left to fetch the two women.
Eoin stayed outside the cottage the whole night through, waiting anxiously. He had never been close by during childbirth before. His mother had not born other children than him, and in the monastery there were no women. But he had heard stories in the thrall house at the Elmarsons’ farm to make his blood run cold.
He kneeled in prayer as raw, frantic screams of pain rose shrill into the misty dawn air. It seemed a very long time before the screaming stopped at last, and blessed silence descended. Some little time after, Gerd came out of the cottage, favoring her aching back while politely taking leave of the two women who’d helped with the birthing.
She looked to Orm and Eoin who had both gotten to their feet and stood waiting, and nodded. “A large, strong boy child. The master will surely be pleased. He should be notified. He told us to send for him as soon as it came to this. Have one of the men ride north right away,” she said to Orm. Turning to Eoin, she shrugged and added; “She wants to see you, thrall.”
Eoin ignored her small-minded disdain and entered the cottage reverently. Muirenn lay on the bench, drawn and pale, her long brown hair in a sweat-damp disheveled braid over one shoulder, a tiny bundle with a scrunched-up red and angry little face lying in a basket next to her. A big knife had been stuck into the wall above the bench, protecting mother and child from malevolent powers. Muirenn’s chest rose and fell regularly. As soon as Gerd left her side she had fallen into exhausted, healing sleep.
Eoin tip-toed across the floor to stand looking down on her and the child in the soft light from the smoke vent in the roof and an oil lamp left burning on the table. His heart filled with tenderness and a strong urge to protect them from harm. Both looked so innocent and defenseless in their sleep. They would be equally defenseless when awake, should Torgeirr Haraldson ever go back on his promise to support his ambatt and her son. Eoin had heard thralls talking of the custom of sometimes leaving unwanted or sickly newborns out in the forest, exposed and alone for the wild animals to feed on. Revolting as the practice was, he knew a thrall woman would have no means of stopping it, should her master decide on such a fate for her newborn, or decide to sell the child once it had been weaned.
His left hand sought the cross hidden under his tunic and clutched it fiercely. He pressed his fist and the cross to his chest and bowed his head. Drawing a deep breath, he lifted his right hand and carefully made the sign of the cross over the sleeping Muirenn and her son.
”In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.....”
The room smelled strongly of blood and sweat, smoke and the ale that the child had been washed in before being wrapped, but Eoin was too lost in his own thoughts to notice. He remained standing next to the bench, watching over mother and son for a long time before quietly stepping back into the glaring light of the bright summer day.
---
Einnis Elmarson returned to his property and the building of his farm soon after his sister’s wedding. Those of his men who knew him from before noticed that he was more taciturn and moody than he’d used to be, but he was never unfair, and he worked tirelessly without sparing himself in the efforts to complete the farm buildings.
The work on the site progressed steadily. The thralls cut peat in the nearby bog and hauled it back to the farm, and the other men worked on cutting and shaping the logs and planks that would be needed, and leveling the ground where the new farm houses would go up. Once the actual building work started, Einnis had two master carpenters fetched from the valley to oversee the work, and also hired a wood-carver to embellish the High Seat poles, the main hall’s beams and the closed benches. And so the new farm took shape under the hot summer sun.
Einnis didn’t return to sleeping in the little stone smithy where he’d spent the winter months. Instead he stayed in one of the makeshift sheds the men had erected, sheds that served them well enough in the warmer weather.
The smithy was used for storage for a while, but when the time came for the workers to lay the stonework base for the new main hall, Einnis told them to take down and use the smithy walls. He’d wanted to build a new and more practically located smithy for some time, he said, and the old one’s wood and stone should not be wasted.
Though the men didn’t fully understand the point in razing a perfectly usable little building, they did as ordered. Soon there was nothing left but a dark square of hard-packed earth in the field where the smithy had stood for many years. Weeds, grasses and trailing creepers wasted no time in reclaiming this long lost patch of ground for themselves and for nature.
The Einstad hall, however, was taking shape and rising majestically in its location near the fields, solidly built with fine, strong logs on a foundation that had the smithy’s weather-beaten and smoke-stained stones at its core.
Tbc………
Notes and explanations;
Valle - strained sour milk, commonly used to quench thirst, - once strained it could last for weeks.
Women’s hairdos - Depictions of Viking era women often show them having their hair tied up in a knot at the back of their heads but with the long end dangling down, sort of an advanced ponytail. This picture shows the style: http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/pix/dressing_baby_sketch.jpg
Drop spindle - the common spinning tool. Drop spindle whorls have been found in nearly every woman’s grave from the era, and a perfect example was also present in the Oseberg find. Spinning and weaving were the daily activities of women from nearly every class. Here’s a picture showing a woman using a drop spindle: http://www.ydalir.co.uk/gallery/2005/denbigh/spinning_big.jpg
“The brave and generous”, etc - Torgeirr has chosen another Havamal word of wisdom as his personal motto.
Exposing newborns - this practice was legal under Norse laws. If a child’s father or a thrall woman’s master so decided, and for whatever reason, a newborn could be left out to die without legal repercussions. The practice was frowned upon, but several sagas mention it being actively used. Both in Gunnlaug Ormstunge’s saga and St’. Olaf’s saga one of the chief protagonists barely escape such a fate as newborns.