The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.2003, Side 27

Vol. 58 #1
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
25
outlaw. “The Danes forced him to leave.
Banishment is not the same as emigration!”
“That may be true,” Petur answered.
“But now Jon wants all of Iceland to follow
him. What do you think of that?”
For writing his poem of independence,
“Islandingabragur,” Jon had been jailed by
the Danes. Now he was in North America;
according to the letter they’d received sev-
eral months earlier, he’d successfully peti-
tioned President Grant to allow a group of
Icelanders to survey Alaska for the purpose
of determining whether the territory
would make a suitable site for a New
Iceland. And not a mere colony either: Jon
had proposed that the entire population of
Iceland be transported to Alaska.
“Jon’s plan is misguided,” Pall said. “I
don’t think it will work. You cannot sim-
ply sail a culture across an ocean. When
Norwegians settled Iceland, they were no
longer Norwegians. They became some-
thing else - Icelanders! And when the
Icelanders settled Greenland, they could no
longer be called Icelanders. They became
Greenlanders. If the Icelanders go to
America, they will become Americans. The
culture of a people is tied to their home-
land. Can you separate the mind and heart
from the body?”
“A fine metaphor,” Petur replied. “But
no metaphor has ever filled a hungry stom-
ach.”
"I don’t see your name on any ship’s
waiting list.”
“By the grace of God, my family isn’t
starving.” Petur glanced around the room
as if to reassure himself. “Nor am I advo-
cating emigration. I’m simply saying you
cannot fault people for seeking a better
life.”
“And I’m simply saying that the only
better life we will find must be created
here.”
The room filled with the thrum of the
spinning wheel, the click of knitting nee-
dles. Oli bristled with impatience.
“Now let’s turn our attention to a real
utlagi,” Pall said. “Eirik the Red.” And
finally, finally, he began to read.
In the middle of the tenth century
Eirik the Red was banished from Norway
for some killings and so fled to Iceland. But
soon he was banished from Iceland, too,
for a few more killings, and set off to start
a settlement of his own on an island he
named Greenland. (People would be
tempted to go there, he reasoned, if he gave
it an attractive name.) His next plan was to
begin a settlement in North America,
which the Norse knew as Vinland, but on
the way to board the ship he fell from his
horse: a bad omen. He was too old, he
decided, for any more voyages, so his son
Leif Eiriksson lead the venture on his own.
Leif stayed in Vinland only long enough to
gather grapes and timber. It was a man
named Karlsefni who made the first real
attempt to settle Vinland.
All of this Oli knew, and by heart; he
wished Pall would skip directly to the
exciting parts: the battles with the
skradings. It was these natives, with their
spears and skin-boats, who drove the
Norse from Vinland for good. Leaning up
against the bookshelf, head propped on his
knees, Oli dozed while he waited for the
saga to catch up with him. Astride their
stocky Icelandic horses he and his Uncle
Jon and the American President Ulysses S.
Grant were fording a river in Alaska.
Skraelings appeared and began shooting at
them from their skin-boats. A rain of
spears clattered onto his head - and sud-
denly Oli was awake, throwing up his arms
to protect himself. Not spears - books! An
avalanche of books that nearly buried him.
It was only when the floor steadied again
that he realized it had been shaking.
“Jardskjalfti!” Afi cried, rushing to
pull Oli from the pile of books.
Earthquake.
The spinning wheel had toppled over, a
coffee cup jumped off the table and shat-
tered, Magnus cried for the next half hour,
and Oli grew a lump the size of a small
potato on the back of his head. That was
the extent of Askja’s damage, for now.
There was a time in Iceland when
women known as volvas dressed in
catskins, chanted themselves into trances,
and gazed far into the future. If Oli had
lived in such a time and come upon such a
volva, she might have told him this: that in
three months Askja will erupt again, and