Aasgrim follows Snorri Goði - Andreas Bloch
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Today, we have something a little different and a little aside from the Clavijo storyline. Quite a lot aside actually, it's a Halloween mini episode.
It is not a story of medieval travel exactly, but it is certainly medieval enough, concerns, at least at the outset, a traveller, and is of course a story. So we’re not in totally unfamiliar territory here.
With past Halloween specials I’ve concentrated on stories of ghosts and with last year’s on those of Walter Map, starring demons, faeries, and the Wild Hunt. This time, the source I’m using is a bit outside my usual material. It is called, if my pronunciation is at all accurate, Eyrbyggja, an Icelandic saga that can be translated as The Saga of the People of Eyri. It combines some really interesting historical aspects, such as a newly Christianized Iceland, with plot elements that are, to the modern reader, very much the spooky stuff of Halloween.
Hello and welcome. My name is Devon, and this is Human Circus: Journeys in the Medieval World, the podcast that covers medieval history through the stories of its travellers. And this is the part of the episode where I tell you that the podcast does have the Patreon, and that starting from $1 a month, let’s say ¼ of a fancy coffee, you can support both me and my project and listen to the podcast early, ad-free, and with extended endings.
And now, to the story.
In my telling, I’ll be relying on the saga in its Judy Quinn translation with occasional reference to the adaptation by Andrew Joynes.
Our story is set long ago, in the summer when Christianity first was taken up as law in Iceland at the Althing. That summer when the weather was not very dry. When Thorodd had built a church on his farm at Froda, though there was no priest to care for it. There were so few Christian priests in Iceland at that time.
It begins with an arrival, the arrival of a ship that reached land at the western peninsula of Snaefellsnes. The ship had come from Dublin and aboard it were Irish and Hebridean men, and some from Norway. For much of that summer, the new arrivals waited at the village of Rif, hoping for a good wind that would take them on the fjord to trading opportunities further east.
Among those who had come was a woman named Thorgunna. Perhaps six decades in age, she was a large woman, both tall and stout, with narrow eyes and dark brows, and of this particular arrival there was a great deal of talk among the locals. It was said of her that she had brought with her some very fine things that were not readily found there in Iceland, and this made people curious. This made Thurid curious.
Thurid was the mistress of the house at Froda, and a woman who liked such fine things very, very much and was known to show them off. She sought out Thorgunna and asked her, did she have any women’s finery that was especially nice, for if did, then she would like to buy it.
To this Thorgunna replied that she had clothing nice enough that she could wear it with pride at feasts and other occasions but none of it for sale.
Well then, said Thurid, could she at least see it, for she enjoyed looking at such things almost as much as wearing them.
Thorgunna agreed, and showed to her guest works of cloth that Thurid thought nice enough and by every evidence well made, but nothing too extravagant. Still, Thorgunna again rejected her offer to buy them, so she tried another approach. She invited the traveller to come and stay with her at Froda. Once she had Thorgunna in her home, she thought to herself, she’d have what she wanted from her in the end.
“I like that idea well enough,” Thorgunna responded, “but I must tell you that I am not eager to pay for my keep while still able to work. I do not mind hard labour so long as it isn’t in the wet. But I myself will decide what I will pay you from the money that I have.”
It was a blunt speech, not just to our ears, but to Thurid’s too. Even so, Thurid still wanted the traveller as her guest, even under those terms. So with both parties in agreement, Thorgunna’s luggage was unloaded from the ship and brought to Froda, where she and her travel chests were soon settled in and a bed given to her in the inner part of the hall.
There, she unpacked her things and brought out bedclothes of great beauty, finely worked sheets and silks, along with a canopy and bed curtains of such obvious quality that none who saw them had ever seen their equal.
Again, Thurid was most interested in buying what she saw, but again Thorgunna had no interest in selling.
“I am not going to lie in straw to feed your pride,” she said. “Even if you are well bred and carry yourself well.”
Thurid was understandably annoyed by this answer, but she did not raise the topic again.
As summer turned to autumn, Thorgunna settled into life at Froda. When the weather allowed, she worked at the hay with a special rake she had made that no other was allowed to use, for she was very particular. Otherwise, she worked at weaving. She attended church each morning and was well-mannered enough, but showed neither cheer nor much inclination to talk. Thorir Wood-leg and his wife Thorgrima the sorceress, who had also come to live at Froda, did not like her much. She didn’t like them much either. Only with Kjartan, the son of Thurid and the farmer Thorodd, did she seem to get along.
You could say the trouble started when Thorgunna came to Froda, or when she met Thurid, or maybe that moment when someone had said to Thurid that there was a woman who’d just arrived by ship and she had very fine things. You could say it really started one day in the fall, a good drying day when the sky was clear and still and almost half the hay was already dry.
Thorodd the farmer was up early that day, providing direction for the work to be done. Some were given the task of carting and stacking, and to the women was given that of drying, with Thorgunna herself responsible for hay enough to feed a cow through the entire winter.
The work progressed well enough, but that afternoon a dark cloud troubled the sky to the north and soon was seen to be speeding toward the farm. Thorodd told everyone to rake up the hay immediately, but Thorgunna ignored him. She just continued turning it, with a great deal of energy but no sign that she might ever rake it up.
The cloud bore down on the farm and soon darkened the sky so that those outside at Froda could scarcely see beyond the meadow. They could hardly see their own hands. Rain fell then in a torrent, soaking the hay, and as the cloud passed, it became clear that it had been no ordinary rain. It was not just water that now drenched the farm but blood. With the cloud’s disappearance, the weather was good enough for the blood to dry, and in most of the hay it did. Not in Thorgunna’s though. No matter how long it was left, that hay would not dry, and neither did that rake of hers. Both remained stubbornly sodden with gore.
It was, as any could see, an absolutely appalling omen. Thorgunna knew it well enough for what it was. She took herself to bed, and sensing the approach of death, called upon Thorodd to make known her wishes as to her body and belongings.
To Skalholt in the south, she herself was to be taken. There, she thought, would be found the land’s most distinguished church. To its priests were to go her golden ring, and for any remaining funeral costs Thorodd should take from her things what was necessary.
To his wife, Thurid, she left her purple cloak. A sacrifice, she said, ever blunt, to Thurid’s greed, and one by which she hoped to ensure that the rest of her effects might be seen to as she pleased. As to those, as to her bedclothes, her hangings, and furniture, they were to be burned, not, she made clear, because she begrudged another owning them but to avert the evil that the bloody rain had indicated, and which she foresaw if her will in this matter was not followed.
Thorgunna died soon after, as she had thought she would, and Thorodd the farmer prepared to follow her last wishes just as he’d promised to. He could hardly do otherwise given the extraordinary nature of her death.
The corpse was made ready to be taken to the church, and the coffin constructed that would hold it. But then, when Thorodd had the bedclothes and furnishings brought out and piled high, in preparation to be burnt, his wife objected.
“It upsets me,” she said, “for things of such value to be burned and wasted so.”
And even when Thorodd had pointed out the dead woman’s wishes and their implications, Thurid would not give up. Thorgunna’s final wishes had been driven by nothing but spite and envy, she argued, and could be safely ignored.
Her husband was less certain of that, but he eventually allowed himself to be persuaded. Thorodd burned the mattress while she made off with the finest sheets, quilts, and hangings. Neither felt entirely content with what they’d done, but they went ahead with the rest of the arrangements. They had Thorgunna’s body wrapped in linens and laid in the coffin. They had horses brought out, and they called upon men to take the body on its final journey.
The way for the corpse-takers was unpleasant. It followed roads south across boglands, the body turning over now and then as it was jostled about in its box. There was a deep river to be forded and a storm that lashed them with rain. Finally, with night falling and a crossing ahead that they could not manage in darkness, they came at last to a farmstead where they sought shelter. But they found no hospitality there, no welcome or even an offer of food. Grimly, they installed the corpse in one of the outbuildings and they themselves lay down hungry and wet in the hall.
That night, a great noise was heard to come from the kitchen storerooms, a clattering as if some particularly clumsy thief were there arranging a meal for themselves. The sounds brought those who lived there running, and then the corpse bearers too.
What they saw was a tall, naked woman busy with the work of bringing out food. What they saw terrified them enough that they would go no closer to her. The corpse-carriers knew at once that this was Thorgunna. They watched the dead woman arrange things as she wanted and then followed her out into the hall where she set the table.
“By the time we leave,” the coffin bearers said, turning to their inhospitable hosts, “you might have paid a higher price than you expected for not welcoming us in the first place.”
This was clearly a culture in which hospitality was critically important, and in which the appearance of the walking dead in the kitchen could immediately be read as resulting from a severe break with the expected norms of guest and host. And the farmers saw it the same way, offering up whatever food or other hospitality their visitors might desire. As they did this, Thorgunna left the room, evidently satisfied.
Behind her, the farmers looked to cleanse their home with holy water, and their guests settled in comfortably. They put their damp clothes by the fire and took up dry ones. And then they sat at the table, perfectly content with the food set there for them, even if it were done so by a dead woman. They passed the rest of the night in comfort, untroubled by either their hosts or by the corpse that travelled with them.
Thorgunna would not need to make a repeat appearance, not there that night, and not further on down the road. The corpse-bearers wouldn’t need to worry about hospitality on the rest of their trip. The story of what had happened prepared the way nicely, and wherever they stopped, it was invariably felt best to provide for them rather than chance another ghostly appearance in the night.
They reached Skalholt without further incident. They presented Thorgunna and her gifts to the priests there and saw her buried without issue. They returned safely to Froda with every reason to believe that the strangeness was now behind them. But at Froda there were indications that this was not the case.
On the night that the coffin-bearers returned, everyone was gathered in the fire room. In those days, it was customary to have such a place, and in the evening, people would sit in front of the fire for a time before dinner. So it was on that night.
As they sat there, they became aware of the shape of a half-moon that had appeared on the wall. They followed it with their eyes as it moved slowly about the room like the arc of the sun.
“What does it mean?” Thorodd asked Thorir Wood-leg, for surely such a thing must mean something, and Thorir thought so too.
“A weird-moon,” he said, “and one that will be followed by a death here at Froda.”
For the rest of the week, the same half-moon appeared every evening, just as it had on that first night by the fire. And the people waited, worried I’m sure that after Thorir’s words they would be the one to die.
It was not death that came to Froda, not at first. It was only the shepherd coming inside one day a little out of sorts. He spoke few words, and in what little he had to say he was unusually ill-tempered with others or else talking to himself. It was thought that perhaps he was under some kind of spell.
Two weeks into winter, the shepherd went to bed and didn’t wake up. His body was found in the morning and buried at the church. At Froda, the people might have breathed a sigh of relief that the moon omen had not been for them. But such relief would have been too soon.
One night, when Thorir returned to house, he saw a figure in the doorway blocking his path. It was the shepherd of course. Thorir tried to get past the dead man, but he was hurled back against the door and badly beaten. He was able to make his way to his bed, but he was left bruised and broken by the attack. He became ill, and soon died and was buried. After that, Thorir Wood-leg and the shepherd were often seen together, and everyone there at Froda lived in terror of the risen dead.
One of Thorodd’s farm hands was next to be affected, laying ill in bed for three nights before death. Then another fell. There were six all around the same time. Clawing and tearing was heard from the room where the dried fish was stored, but when it was investigated, no animal or intruder was found, no cause that made any sense, no break from the onslaught.
As Yule approached, Thorodd took six men away by boat to collect dried fish, and that night, there was a new apparition at Froda. A seal’s head rose up from the fireplace. There was an attempt made to club it down, first by a housecarl and then by one of Thorodd’s men, but it just reared higher, more of the seal emerging with every blow. Thorodd’s man collapsed unconscious. The others were paralyzed. It was only the boy Kjartan who was able to act, to step forward with a great hammer and drive the seal into the floor as if it were a nail, only that same Kjartan who Thorgunna had cared for.
When Thorodd’s boat washed ashore, the dried fish was recovered but no bodies. A funeral feast was arranged for the missing men. That was when the bodies showed up.
On the first night of that feast, as Thurid and Kjartan and their neighbours drank the Yule ale in celebration, Thorodd and his drowned companions came trooping wetly through the hall and settled in to dry before the fire. Their appearance was not at first unwelcome, for there were still non-Christian beliefs among these people, faith that such a thing meant the dead had been well-received by their goddess of the sea.
But then the dead came back the next night and the following one too. They came back every night of the feast, and then, with the festivities over and the guests all gone home, they came again. And they brought company. This time, Thorir Wood-leg and the six who’d been buried around the same time joined Thorodd and the six who’d sunk with him, the new arrivals shedding dirt as the others had shed water. The people of Froda abandoned the room and went without fire that cold, winter night. They went without light and heating stones.
The next night, the fire was set in another room, only for the living to be driven from that one too. And the night after that, it was Kjartan’s idea to set fires in two separate spaces, but the outcome was much the same, with the drowned dead occupying the one room, the buried the other, and still no warmth set aside for the living.
So it went all through the Yule season, with the people of Froda left half-frozen, miserable, and terrified. And if that weren’t enough, they were soon beset by disease with the victims joining the dead in their nightly vigil at the fire. Of 30 servants of the house, 18 died and another 5 fled in horror. 7 only were left to serve those few who remained, and now Thurid herself had the same illness and seemed set to share the same fate.
The situation was grim. There was every likelihood that Froda would have to be abandoned, or else that its inhabitants would fall one by one, either to the revenants or to illness until in any case none were left there alive. With his father already among the dead, it fell to Kjartan to do something about it, and for help in this matter he went to seek advice from his uncle on his mother’s side, a prominent figure in the Icelandic sagas by the name of Snorri Goði. Fortunately for Kjartan and for the rest at Froda, Snorri had an idea, perhaps not the one you’d expect, but a fascinating combination of the new Christianity and the old common law. What Snorri prescribed for the sickness at Froda were judicial measures and to oversee and sanctify them a priest.
Kjartan and the priest returned to Froda to hold the ceremony of the door-doom. They summoned those present and their neighbours outside the gates to bear witness, and Kjartan went inside to right a wrong. He marched in among all the assembled dead and took up a burning branch. Then he ordered that Thorgunna’s belongings which his mother had preserved be brought out, and he set them alight, just as Thorgunna had willed before her death.
Now the dead were called upon, and one by one the case was brought against them and sentence passed. One by one they left, saying they had stayed longer than they ought to or that they had stayed as long as it had been peaceful. Finally, it was the turn of Thorodd himself to be sentenced, and when it was declared he spoke with regret.
“I think there’s little peace to be had here, so we will all move along.”
With the risen dead filing off down the road, the priest went to work in the house, bringing sacred relics and consecrated water to every corner of Froda. He sang prayers and celebrated mass there the next day.
Thurid soon began to recover and was soon entirely well, though the same could not be said of all those who had suffered from the choices she and her husband had made when they had ignored the wishes of their guest, Thorgunna, when she’d stayed with them the summer before.
Kjartan took on new servants at Froda, and just as Thurid had, the place recovered. He lived there for a long time and became, the saga tells us, a great champion. He would figure further in the Saga of the People of Eyri, but we will not be following him.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this Halloween mini episode. I’ll be back soon with a new episode on Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo.