A short story inspired by the Laxdæla Saga

The patter of rainwater droned against the distant rumble of ice. Not a shadow disturbed the nave of the little seaside chapel save two figures, man and woman, illumined by a little candle.

“Mother, I know you sometimes cry to the songs of the midnight bells. Sister told me that she oft prayed together with you, two shadows kneeled on the salt-crusted floorboards a few feet away. You insisted on building this church, even after our trading ship capsized off the south shore, drowning my stepfather and most of the timber, too. But by now your ways are too well known to me. You, Gudrun, are perhaps the most determined of all the women of Laxadal. So often have I wondered about your other three husbands, how they came to be worthy of your hand, and their particulars.”

The son paused, awaiting some reply. Then, as if seized by a sudden spark of spirit, asked, “Will you tell me something, Mother, that I’m curious to know? Which man did you love the most?

You tell me little about your first husband. I remember, whenever we asked about his stories before bedtime, your eyes flashed with a pale flicker of some kind of distant struggle. Sister later told me of his unkindness to you, but I could never sense how the most hard-headed of men might cause you pain. Or rather, how his love-seeking was not cut short in your usual, forthright way. But regarding him I have nothing more to ask, for he is nothing but a few gold rings and a headdress in my memory.”

Gudrun tilted her head and closed her eyes. Her face tightened under the soft light of the candles, as if she had finally recalled something she had longed to forget. There was the soft trickle of a stream, the sound of people clamoring and muttering. In her dream she felt that a large, bejeweled headdress was placed upon her head, that she was pacing rather quickly beside the quick waters, feet leaving impressions in the sand. “O, the way she sparkles!” Gudrun heard them say. But she felt trapped and weighed down; all the masses of silks and gold bore down on her determined head and made her stumble. The more she swayed, the more they cheered. In an instant the blood rushed to her cheeks and she flung the headdress away and into the rushing waters. Jewels gleaming, silks rippling in water, the gold lace flashing like a head of golden hair.

Then she saw him in that stream, half-limp from the fatigue of struggling. Though he loomed above his executioners like a bear amid wolves, all the spirit was gone from his fair-haired face. She saw a whirl of blades, heard him roar and yelp. Then he was struggling like a piece of waterlogged cloth, dragged down, down into the depths until all that was left of her first husband was the tattered shirt she had woven for him, stained with deep crimson and trodden with mud. She felt little remorse for that brute of a man. She smiled.

Her son continued on with his questions, hardly disturbed by any of this. It was dark, after all. The first stars peeked over the Breidafjord, twinkling above the waves.

“It was said that the second man was skilled in law. That the nerves in his left arm were severed by the attack of his previous wife, blinded by grief and jealousy. It was said that you pulled the strings in his divorce, and married him soon after. Was it true, then, that it was fate which wanted him dead? You look down at the mentioning of his name, and rub your hands together, as if waiting for something that was so long gone that even you cannot remember. He was your second husband, and you spent a year together before he was drowned and you became pregnant. But wasn’t the sea calm that night?”

Gudrun chuckled, smoothed her shawl, and nodded a little, milky eyes twinkling like the stars behind her.

“Of my own father, I have no qualms. Bolli is perhaps the second-most suitable match in all of Iceland. I was brought to the world the winter his blood spattered onto your shawl. He and his half-brother Kjartan, the latter of whom I have been taught to hate. Time has made me wiser now than in youth, and of Father’s life and works I know enough. Yes, Father was a well-mannered and valiant man. It was an honor to avenge him. But Mother, what of Kjartan have you withheld from me? From rumors I hear that Kjartan Olafsson was the most esteemed man in the whole country. Tell me, Mother. Why did Father draw his sword upon the brother he loved most dear? Was it true that you loved Kjartan more than Father himself? Was it true, Mother, that you asked for his hand in secret? And when he declined, his head?”

Her eyes now had a far-away look to them. Gudrun lifted her head, her throat bobbed, and she clenched her fists. Bolli, the young protégée from the farmstead in the West, firm-chested and radiant from youth. Bolli the King of Norway’s emissary, dressed in a robe of crimson and white, a silver sword gleaming at his thigh, auburn hair shimmering. With his heart full of fiery rage. Bolli, arms wound tight around the neck of his brother Kjartan, both men with wounds gaping, with blood rushing like strands of ribbon down their brows. And it was then that Gudrun felt something snap deep in her chest, and a bitter, bitter liquid seep into her mouth. All those memories then went by in a flash. She remembered Bolli’s warmth, the smell of sweet wine and woodsmoke on his lips. With her husband’s ship barely on the horizon, Gudrun saw herself lying in that tent, Kjartan beside her, murmuring the language of love. Time swept past and she now saw Bolli’s face, red with the shame of dishonor as he clenched his fists at her hints and prompts. Kjartan, he murmured, that twig-bellied rogue. He scrambled for his sword and stormed into the open air. She saw herself sneak a smile of satisfaction. Gudrun suddenly felt sick.

At last she felt the smell of incense and moss, saw a young lady nestled between two fresh graves. One for her husband and one for her lover, her dearest friend. And how she wept, that young widow, clawing at her hands as if to strip away all the crusted blood that was never there.

The toll of the midnight bells was deep and sonorous. Speak, they whispered, speak and be free. Seizing the sleeves of her dress, she opened her mouth and began.

“Well. I should start from the beginning. Thorvald was a brutish kind of man . . . I do not want to speak any more of him. Soon afterward I was wedded to Thord, the law-speaker and the wisest of them all. Then came your own father, Bolli, the most powerful chieftain Laxadal has ever seen. His death cast a dark shadow. All you heard of Kjartan and that feud . . . I cannot remember. My last husband, your stepfather Thorkel, was drowned by a storm. That is all. “

Her son huffed and sighed, ran a hand through his auburn hair.

“But then, dearest Mother. You have yet to answer whom you loved the most.”

Then Gudrun became very, very quiet.

“You press me hard on this point, my son. If I wished to say this to anyone, you would be the one I would choose.”

She paused a little. The very walls seemed to hold in their breath.

“I was worst to the one I loved best.”

Here ends the saga.

*Author’s Note: The Saga of the People of Laxardalr, or the Laxdæla Saga, is a sweeping view of the families in the Laxadal region of Iceland following five generations of love, feud, and grief. The story centers around the love triangle between Kjartan, Bolli, and Gudrun. As a young Viking-Age mother, Gudrun raises her son to avenge his father’s slaying, but she dies a Christian anchoress in a completely different ethical world. This piece attempts to encapsulate the last moments of the saga, when the heroine Gudrun, now old and weak, converses with her son about her youthful times, and unravels her final epiphany.