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Updated: April 30, 2025
He stood for home; he stood for Halldis and Orme who had loved her well; and he stood for the days when no heavy fate hung between her and the blue sky. He stood to her as to us the song of a lark may stand, when we are shut up within the walls of a town. She would have married him gladly, but for the Fate; but she no longer thought of him as a lover.
Then she fairly wailed: "I might have been so happy I might have been!" till it was pity to hear her. Presently she took out her token and showed it to Halldis. "That is all I have of Einar's," she said. Halldis said that she had the girdle he had given her. "Yes," she said, "but this has his teeth-marks in it."
The last night at home, so she fondly called Iceland, was spent with Orme and Halldis, to whose kindness she thawed at last. She cried upon Halldis's broad bosom, and revealed herself. "You see how it is with me now," she said. "If I never meet him again I shall never love another man. And I see no way of meeting him and so I must be wretched."
I made a great mistake when I left her in your charge precisely to avoid what you have brought upon me. Now she shall come home, where she can be valued at the worth of her name and person. That is what I have to say to you, Orme." With that he had looked Orme straight in the face, and there had been no more to urge. Einar heard it from Orme, but it was Halldis who told Gudrid the news.
Halldis kept well with the priest, but on certain nights of the year on the night they called The Mother Night, for instance she was restless, and used to go to the door and stand there looking out at the moonlight, as if she would be off with the others if she dared. That, too, was what plenty other women at Erne Pillar were doing; but none of them went. The priest saw to it.
Then she sat up on Halldis's lap and looked shyly at her, saying, "I am going to ask you something." "Ask, my child." "If it should happen ever that I come home again, and want to see Einar, will you give him this from me? He will know then what to do." Halldis promised. "He is mostly here every year," she said. "But there's no saying how it may find him."
The two only came together in the same song when it was a case of a giant with a woman for his wife, or a Valkyr with a man for her husband. These cases, it seems, had often occurred. They were exciting and ended in tears but not often in marriage as well. She went to Mass first of all with Halldis, but afterwards, as often as not, she went alone. Halldis had plenty to do at home.
I am vexed that we should have fallen upon a heathen house, and much more that you should have lent yourself to its wicked customs." Gudrid excused herself. "I couldn't help myself. They are kind people. It would have been ungracious. And I did know the songs. How could I have said I did not?" "And who taught you such songs?" "Halldis sang them," she said; "I learnt them of her."
Orme was there from Erne Pillar, and Halldis was with him. Good Halldis embraced Gudrid, kissed her on both cheeks, and held her closely, very ready to revive memories. "And what have you to say to it? And how will you face the hardships of the strange land?" Gudrid was very guarded in her answers. "I shall like to see Greenland," she said; "we used to talk about it at Erne Pillar."
"I am not a sorceress, and know nothing of magic, but Halldis my foster-mother taught me some songs which she said were Ward-locks and charms." Heriolf clapped his hands, and Thorberg smiled and said, "I believed thee wise when I saw thee first. And now perhaps it is for me to kiss thy hands, or even for the most of this company, for thou art timely as well as wise." But Gudrid looked troubled.
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