Paradise Reclaimed Read online

  When Krapi was three years old, Steinar put a halter round his neck to make him easier to catch, and kept him in the herd of work-ponies near the farm. By summer he had grown accustomed to the bridle, and learned to walk beside another pony that was being ridden. Next spring Steinar began to break him in to the saddle, and then to train him to trot. In the long light evenings he would give the colt his lead in gallops over the flats. And if the muffled thunder of hooves reached the farmhouse in the early hours of the morning, one could never be quite sure that everyone inside was sound asleep; it sometimes happened that a little girl would come out in her petticoat with fresh milk in a pail, accompanied by a young bare-legged viking who always went to bed with the axe Battle-Troll* under his pillow.

  “Is there a better horse in the whole place?” the boy would ask.

  “It would probably take some finding,” said his father.

  “Isn’t he quite certainly descended from kelpies?” asked the little girl.

  “I think all horses are more or less fairy creatures,” said her father. “Especially the best ones.”

  “Can he then jump up to heaven, like the horse in the story?” asked the viking.

  “No doubt about it,” said Steinar of Hlíðar, “if God rides horses at all. Quite so.”

  “Will another horse like him ever be born in these parts again?” asked the girl.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” said her father. “One would probably have to wait a while. And it could also be long enough before another little girl is born in these parts who can light up a home as much as my girl does.”

  2

  Great men covet the pony

  It now so happened that Iceland, in a great surge of national awakening, was celebrating the thousandth anniversary of the settlement of the country, and for that reason a festival was to be held the following summer at Þingvellir, on the banks of the Öxará (Axe River). Word also came that King Kristian was expected from Denmark to attend these millennial celebrations, in order to grant the Icelanders their formal independence— which, come to that, they had always considered theirs but had always been denied by the Danes; but from the day that King Kristian stepped ashore, Iceland was to become by constitution a self-governing colony under the Danish crown. This news was welcomed in every farmhouse in the country because it was thought to herald something even better.

  One day early in summer, shortly before the meadows were put to the scythe, a great frenzy seized the dog at Hlíðar in Steinahlíðar. His hackles bristled horribly at the sound of hooves coming from the main track, and he jumped up on to the roof of the farmhouse as he always did on occasions of great moment; and now there was barking such as once was heard in the days of old at the entrance to Gnípahellir.* Soon visitors with many ponies came riding up to Hlíðar in Steinahlíðar, for in these parts, like everywhere else in Iceland, the main track led right through the farmyards. It was always considered a significant event out in the country when Snati jumped up on to the roof, and hearts would beat faster; it was a portent that these were no vagrants on the way.

  It is the story-teller’s privilege to give some account of his heroes before they arrive on the scene. These were two eminent gentlemen who rode into the farmyard with a string of horses and grooms in tow. In charge of this company was Sheriff Benediktsson,* but it is no part of this narrative to examine the reason for his journey; the authorities have many occasions to travel. This sheriff had been little more than two years in office; he was a young man, and had been appointed as soon as he graduated. He was considered a poet by the public, but the more modern-minded in the district who wanted to be in fashion called him an idealist. However, there had never been any idealists in Iceland before now, and older people did not understand the meaning of the word; they reckoned that this sheriff was not cast in the same mould as sheriffs of the past had been, and called him two-faced.

  The other visitor was the agent Björn of Leirur,* who had worked his way up from nothing and early in life had made use of what were considered his superior talents and intelligence to ensure that he would not have to chase sheep and haul cod. As a boy he had gone to the trading-station down at Eyrarbakki for training, and then as a youth had spent a few years with his employers in Denmark; on his return to Iceland he was appointed clerk to the previous sheriff at Hof, and received from him various derelict crofts along the coast with significant names like Bæli (Den), Hnúta (Knuckle) and Svað (Bog). These he joined up into one large estate on which he built an imposing house; then he married for money, and employed many workers. He had long since ceased to be a sheriff’s clerk, of course, but on the other hand he received many business commissions from various other sheriffs, and now travelled the country as an agent for the Scots, buying up ponies and sheep on their behalf for gold, which he usually carried in stout leather bags attached to the pack-saddles. He would buy up wrecked ships along the south coast, sometimes at auctions and sometimes by arrangement with the authorities, and in this way he had amassed a pile of wealth that made the farmers boggle. He was always on the spot when anyone was being forced to sell up through lack of ready money or farming losses or other misfortunes, and by now he had collected a large number of farms up and down the country. Wherever he went he selected good riding-ponies for himself, and paid in gold whatever price was asked. He was a tireless traveller, fearless in the face of hardship or danger, a man who never hesitated to ford the mightiest rivers wherever he came to them, by night or by day—chiefly, perhaps, because his horses were more reliable than most. But although Björn of Leirur was now getting on in years, he had never managed to create sufficient confidence within the district for the farmers themselves to make him their agent; somehow his popularity was the greater and his reputation the rosier the farther he was away from home. Björn of Leirur cultivated Sheriff Benediktsson’s friendship assiduously from the moment he arrived in the district; he gave him horses, cattle and land, and attached himself to him as much as possible. It often came about that Björn happened to be going the same way when the sheriff was travelling the district on official business, and then there was much boisterous talk and uproarious laughter with the farmers and farm-folk; there was seldom much brennivín* on the go on those occasions, but usually the snuff was moistened with cognac.

  Steinar of Hlíðar was pottering about with his dykes, keeping himself busy until the grass should be ready for mowing, adjusting a stone here and a stone there as he felt the eye demanded. He walked over to meet the visitors, as a good farmer should, and greeted the sheriff respectfully; Björn of Leirur, on the other hand, he greeted according to country custom with a kiss.

  “What a hell of a man you are!” said Björn of Leirur, patting him affectionately. “Always adjusting the stones. Always making improvements. Always having fun.”

  The sheriff’s glance was roving along the egg-smooth edges of the stone-work, and he too could not restrain his admiration: “What wonders you could work with stone if you lived in Rome, man, like old Thorvaldsen!”*

  “Oh, it would be an ingratitude to God if I grudged the trouble of finding the right stone for the right niche,” said Steinar. “It just takes a little doing, bless your heart; perhaps there is only the one space in the whole wall where this stone rightly fits. But certainly I have never envied those who can perhaps amuse themselves better than I can. The finest parts of these walls are not my work at all, however; they were done by my great-grandfather, God rest his soul, who rebuilt the whole farm in the last century after the big volcanic eruptions that destroyed every wall in the place. We nineteenth-century folk have neither the eye nor the knack to make walls the way they used to in the past; and besides, time has worked to their advantage by letting the stones bed down the more snugly, with God’s help—and with maybe an occasional helping hand from later generations. Until the next volcanic eruptions, of course.”

  “I have heard that you never say Yes or No, Steinar,” said the sheriff. “I would like to find out if that
is true, some time.”

  Steinar’s laugh was a high-pitched titter. “Bless you, I cannot say I have ever really noticed, my dear fellow,” he replied; as was the custom of all good farmers in Steinahlíðar, he always talked to people of importance as he would to a brother or rather, perhaps, to a pauper of whom one is fond not so much for his worth as because one detects in him a divine personality. “It probably does not make all that much difference in this world whether one says Yes or No, heeheehee; and now come this way, boys, step inside and have a cup of something to drink.”

  “Tell me something about that white colt of yours we were admiring out there,” said Björn of Leirur. “A fine beast; what’s his pedigree?”

  “It would really be better to ask the children,” replied Steinar. “They think he came straight from the creek. Sometimes I think that children, bless them, get much more out of life than we adults do. To tell you the truth, the horse is more or less theirs.”

  The sheriff had not dismounted, but Björn of Leirur was walking at Steinar’s side, leading his pony, as they went up to the farmhouse. The children had come out on to the paved doorstep. Björn of Leirur kissed them and gave them each a silver coin, as was the custom of decent people.

  “Aha! That’s a girl I want for a wife when she grows up,” he said, “and that’s a lad I want for a foreman. But what I was going to say, my dear Steinar, was—what a hell of a man you are to have such a handsome colt! What on earth are you going to do with a horse like that? Aren’t you going to sell him to me?”

  “Oh, it’s a bit early for that while the children still call him a kelpie. I think we should wait until he is just an ordinary horse, the way most other horses are in the end, and the children no longer small.”

  “Quite right,” said the sheriff. “Never sell your children’s fairy-tales. Björn has quite enough toys to play with already; he has had two big shipwrecks since Christmas, to the best of my knowledge—not to mention all the better-class housewives and farmer’s daughters over in the west.”

  “Our new sheriff can sometimes make the quaintest remarks,” said Björn of Leirur. “They say he’s a poet.”

  “Steinar,” said the sheriff, “if you part with that horse, then sell him to me. He is just the sort of horse I need next summer when I ride west to welcome royalty.”

  “I have never known of a single official who didn’t manage to turn a good horse into an old hack within a year,” said Björn of Leirur. “But you know me well, my dear Steinar, and you should know perfectly well that if I ever get hold of a good horse I turn him into an even better one.”

  The sheriff, still in the saddle, lit his pipe and said between puffs, “Yes, you sell them for gold to England where they are blinded and put to work in the coal mines. Happy the horse that becomes an old hack here in Iceland rather than fall into your clutches.”

  “Fear the Lord, children,” said Steinar of Hlíðar.

  “Name your own price,” said Björn of Leirur. “If it’s timber you need for building, just help yourself. I’ve got plenty of copper and iron, and silver just like dirt, of course. Come and have a look in here and see what you can see.”

  He tugged a big leather purse out of his topcoat. Steinar went over and looked inside it.

  “What would my children say if I were to sell our fairy horse for gold?” he said.

  “That’s the spirit!” said the sheriff. “Stand up to him.”

  “If you don’t want gold, I’ll give you a good cow,” said Björn of Leirur. “Two, if you like.”

  “I can’t waste any more damned time hanging around here like this,” said the sheriff.

  “The whole point is, my dear fellow, that when the world ceases to be miraculous in the eyes of our children, then there is very little left,” said Steinar. “Perhaps we should wait for a little while yet.”

  “Ride the white horse out to Leirur whenever you’re in the mood,” said Björn, “and we’ll both take another look at him and have another little chat. I have always enjoyed looking at good horses.”

  “Never ride the white horse out to Leirur,” said the sheriff, “not even if he offers you a cow in exchange. You would go home that night with nothing in your pocket but a couple of cobbler’s needles.”

  “Oh, hold your tongue, sheriff!” said Björn of Leirur. “My good friend Steinar of Hlíðar knows me well enough to know that I never try twice to buy the same horse off anyone. And we can still kiss each other whether you sell me a horse or not.”

  And with that the visitors rode away.

  3

  Romanticism comes to Iceland

  Life in Iceland had not yet grown so romantic that country folk would go for Sunday outings on horseback in summer, on the lines of the forest-trips in Denmark; that came later. In those days it was still considered wicked out in the country to do anything simply because it was enjoyable. More than a century previously the Danish king had abolished by decree all forms of entertainment in Iceland. Dancing was the devil’s work, and had not been performed in Iceland for many generations. It was not considered seemly for young unmarried people to tramp on one another’s toes except at most, perhaps, in order to have illegitimate children. All life had to serve some useful purpose and the glory of God. But the year had its festivities, all the same.

  One of the main festivities was when the lambs were weaned and separated from the ewes; this took place around midsummer, when the sun shone all night long. Man and sheep took part in a night-and-day marathon agreeable to God, and the air vibrated with shrill bleating; for sheep lament in the major. The dogs had their tongues lolling out all day long, and many of them lost their bark. When the lambs had been separated from the ewes for a few days they were finally driven far up into the mountains. It was a wonderful excursion for everyone except the lambs themselves.

  The herding went on all night, for the most part up along the river from ridge to ridge until the highlands opened out, unfamiliar mountains with unfamiliar waters in between and unfamiliar skies mirrored in them. This was the world of the wild geese, and with them the lambs were to share the sweets of the wilderness for the rest of the summer. Here one could feel the cold breath from the glaciers, and Snati the farm-dog started to sneeze.

  A few of the farms in Steinahlíðar always combined forces for this lamb-drive. Women were sometimes allowed to come too; devoted serving-girls had been looking forward to this glorious occasion ever since the previous year, for the monotony of a man’s life was as nothing compared to a woman’s. Some young folk were allowed to come too, down to more or less grown-up children. One of those was the fair-haired boy from Drangar who had just spent a spring season at the fishing down at Þorlákshöfn and had visited Hlíðar in Steinahlíðar on his way home. He lived a few farms away to the east, where some solitary cliffs had parted company with the mountainside and stood aloof. Little Steina, Steinar’s daughter, had been confirmed that year, and to celebrate the fact that she was now a big girl her father had lifted her up on to Krapi’s back without saying a word—and this was something that had never happened before; he assumed that the pony would not bolt with her, since the speed of the company was dictated by the sorrowing lambs.

  Love, as we now call it, had not yet been imported to Iceland. People mated without romance, according to the wordless laws of nature and in conformity with the German pietism of the Danish king. The word love survived in the language, certainly, but only as a relic from a distant unknown age when words meant something quite different from now; perhaps it had been used about horses. But nature got its own way nonetheless, as has been said already; for if a boy and a girl were not given the chance to make eyes at one another under the long German sermons about pietism, or at the sheep-pens where the bleating is the loudest in the world, they could hardly fail to touch one another accidentally when they were binding hay together in the summer. And although only the soliloquy of the soul was permissible, and the nation’s poets could never reveal more of their inner selves
in a poem than to say that they laughed at destiny, people had everything in the right place, one feels, even in those days. By covert sign-language and cryptic talk it was still possible to maintain ordinary natural human life in whole districts. Thus, throughout the lamb-drive, Steinar’s daughter never once looked at the fair-haired boy from Drangar; always she looked in exactly the opposite direction. But she sat her white pony as securely as if she had never ridden any other.

  When they had gone so far into the highlands that Snati had begun to sneeze they came upon a large sunlit lake from which there breathed an eerie coldness. Suddenly the boy rode right up to her side and said, “Weren’t you confirmed this spring?”

  “Yes, I was a year behind. I was to have done it last year, but I would have been a little too young then.”