The Sagas of the Icelanders (111 page)

2
Now in the morning everyone got up. The king went to the chapel and heard Mass. After that they sat down to eat. The king was not terribly cheerful.

He addressed his men, ‘Did anybody go alone to the privy last night?’

Thorstein came forth and fell down before the king, admitting that he had disobeyed his order.

The king replied, ‘It was not such a serious offence against me, but you prove what is said about you Icelanders – that you are very stubborn. But did anything happen?’

Thorstein then told the whole story.

The king asked, ‘What good did you think his crying would do you?’

‘I want to tell you that, my lord. I thought that since you had warned all of us not to go out there alone, and since the devil showed up, that we would not leave the place unharmed. But I reckoned that you would wake up when he cried out, my lord, and I knew I would be helped if you found out about it.’

‘Indeed it happened,’ said the king, ‘that I woke up to the sound, and I knew what was going on. I had the bell rung because I knew that nothing else could help you. But weren’t you frightened when the demon began to scream?’

Thorstein answered, ‘I don’t know what it means to be frightened, my lord.’

‘Was there no fear in your heart?’ asked the king.

‘I wouldn’t say so,’ Thorstein replied, ‘because when I heard the last cry a shiver nearly ran down my spine.’

The king replied, ‘You will now receive your nickname and be called Thorstein Shiver from now on. Here is a sword I’d like to give you in honour of the occasion.’

Thorstein thanked him.

It is said that Thorstein was made one of King Olaf’s men and stayed with him thereafter until he fell on Olaf’s longship The Serpent alongside the king’s other champions.

Translated by
ANTHONY MAXWELL

1
There was a man named Audun. His family came from the West Fjords, and he had little money. He sailed abroad from the fjords under the supervision of a good farmer named Thorstein and the skipper Thorir, who had been staying with Thorstein that winter. Audun had been living there too, working for Thorstein in exchange for provisions and passage abroad. Audun put most of what money he had away for his mother before he boarded the ship. It was intended to pay for three years’ food and lodging.

They set sail, their journey went well and Audun spent the following winter with Thorir, who owned a farm in More.

The next summer they travelled to Greenland and spent the winter there.

It is mentioned that Audun bought a bear there, a great treasure for which he traded everything he owned.

The following summer they sailed back to Norway. They had a good voyage, and Audun had his bear with him. He planned to travel south to Denmark to meet King Svein and give him the animal.

Now when he arrived in the south of the country where the king was staying, he left the ship, leading the bear behind him, and rented a room. King Harald was soon told that a bear, a great treasure owned by an Icelandic man, had arrived there. The king immediately sent men to summon him, and when Audun appeared before the king he greeted him.

The king returned his greeting and asked, ‘Do you have a great treasure of a bear?’

He answered that he did have a bear.

The king asked, ‘Would you sell me the animal for the same price you paid for it?’

He answered, ‘I do not want to do that, my lord.’

‘Would you then,’ the king asked, ‘let me give you double what you paid? That would be fairer, if you have traded everything you own for it.’

‘I do not want to do that, my lord,’ he answered.

The king asked, ‘Will you give it to me, then?’

He answered, ‘No, my lord.’

The king asked, ‘What will you do with it, then?’

‘Go,’ he answered, ‘to Denmark and give it to King Svein.’

King Harald said, ‘Are you so ignorant that you have not heard about the enmity between our countries, or do you reckon your luck so great that you can go with treasures where others cannot travel safely, even though they do so of necessity?’

Audun answered, ‘My lord, that is in your power. But I will not agree to do anything other than what I have intended.’

The king then said, ‘Why not go ahead, then, and go your way as you please? But come to see me when you return and tell me how King Svein has rewarded you for the bear. It may well be that you are a fortunate man.’

‘I promise to do that,’ said Audun.

He then travelled south along the coast and east into Vik, and from there on to Denmark. But by then all of his travel money was spent, and he was forced to beg for food, both for himself and for the bear.

He met a steward of the king named Aki and asked him for provisions for himself and the bear.

‘I plan,’ he said, ‘to give the bear to King Svein.’

Aki told him that he would sell him provisions if he wanted, but Audun replied that he had no money to pay for them.

‘I want, nevertheless,’ he said, ‘to find a way to take the bear to the king.’

‘I will give you the provisions you need to reach the king, but in exchange I want to own half of the bear. You should consider the fact that the bear will die if you do not have the money for all the food you need. Then you will not have any bear at all.’

And when Audun had thought about what the steward had proposed, he found it reasonable. So they agreed that he would sell Aki half of the bear, and that the king should be the judge of the whole arrangement later.

Now both of them were to go to see the king together. So they went to see the king and stood there before his table. The king pondered over who this man, whom he did not know, might be.

He asked Audun, ‘Who are you?’

He answered, ‘I am an Icelandic man, my lord, and I have just come from Greenland and Norway. I wanted to give you this bear. I gave everything I owned for it, but I have made a blunder, for I now own only half of the bear.’

He then told the king what had taken place between the steward Aki and himself.

The king asked, ‘Is what he says true, Aki?’

‘It is true,’ Aki replied.

The king asked, ‘Did you think it appropriate, given the fact that I have made you a powerful man, to impede and hinder a man from bringing me a treasure that he has given all his possessions to buy, when King Harald thought it advisable to give him safe conduct, even though he is our enemy? Now consider how fair this was on your part. Why, you deserve to be killed! I am not going to go that far, but you will leave the country immediately and never be caught in my eyesight again. But you, Audun, I will thank as if you had given me the entire bear. And please do stay.’

He accepted that and remained with King Svein for a while.

2
After some time had passed, Audun said to the king, ‘I am now eager to leave here, my lord.’

The king answered, hesitatingly somewhat, ‘Where do you plan to go, if you do not care to remain here with us?’

He replied, ‘I want to make a pilgrimage to Rome.’

‘If your plan had not been so noble,’ the king replied, ‘your eagerness to leave here would have displeased me.’

The king then gave him a very great deal of silver, and he travelled south with a group of pilgrims. The king made all the arrangements for his journey and asked him to come to see him when he returned.

Audun then went his way until he arrived in Rome. When he had stayed there as long as he wished, he headed back. But on the way he fell terribly ill and lost a great deal of weight. All of the money the king had given him for the journey was used up, so he was reduced to vagrancy and had to beg for food. He grew bald and was quite miserable.

He arrived back in Denmark at Easter and went to where the king was staying, yet he did not dare show himself in public. He waited in a wing of the church and planned to meet the king as he walked to church that evening. But when he saw the king and his men all dressed up, he could not bring himself to appear before them.

When the king went to feast in the hall, Audun was fed outside as is the custom with pilgrims while they still bear their staff and scrip.

Now that evening when the king went to Vespers, Audun planned to talk with him. But as much as he had hesitated before, he did so even more now when the king’s men were drunk.

As they walked back inside, the king noticed a man who seemed not to have the courage to approach him.

So when his men had gone inside, the king turned and said, ‘Let him come forward now, he who wishes to speak with me. I have a suspicion that you must be the man.’

Then Audun came forward and fell down at the king’s feet, but the king scarcely recognized him. As soon as the king realized who he was, though, he took Audun’s hand and welcomed him.

‘You have changed much,’ he said, ‘since we last met’, and he led him inside.

Now when the king’s men saw him, they laughed at him.

But the king said, ‘You have no cause to laugh, for he has better provided for his soul than you have.’

The king then had a bath prepared for him and gave him clothing, and Audun remained there with him.

3
It is told that sometime during the spring, the king invited Audun to remain with him permanently and told him he would make him his cup-bearer and honour him highly.

Audun said, ‘God reward you, my lord, for all the honour you would bestow upon me, but as a matter of fact I am thinking of sailing to Iceland.’

The king replied, ‘That seems an odd choice.’

Audun said, ‘I cannot live with the fact, my lord, that I am held in honour here with you, while my mother is a vagrant in Iceland. For the provisions I left for her before I sailed from Iceland will now be exhausted.’

The king replied, ‘That was well and nobly put, and you will turn out to be a fortunate man. That reason alone could make your leaving here acceptable to me. Stay with me now until a ship is prepared.’

And so he did.

One late spring day King Svein walked down to the docks where men were preparing ships to sail to various countries: to the Baltic and Saxony,
to Sweden and Norway. He and Audun came upon a beautiful ship that was being outfitted.

The king asked, ‘How do you like this ship, Audun?’

He answered, ‘Very well, my lord.’

The king said, ‘I want to give you this ship as repayment for the bear.’

He thanked him for the gift as best he could.

After a while, when the ship was ready, King Svein said to Audun, ‘Now you wish to leave, and I am not going to hinder you. But I have heard that your country is poorly provided with harbours, and that in many places there is only open coastline, which is dangerous for ships. Now, say you are shipwrecked, and you lose your ship and goods. Then you will have little to show that you have met King Svein and given him a treasure.’

The king then gave him a leather pouch full of silver, ‘so that you won’t be left entirely penniless if you are shipwrecked, if you manage to hold on to this.

‘It could still happen,’ the king continued, ‘that you lose this too. Little good it would do you then that you have met King Svein and given him a treasure.’

The king then drew a ring off his arm, gave it to Audun and said, ‘Even if things turn out so badly that you are shipwrecked and you lose this money, you will not be penniless if you make it ashore, for many survive shipwrecks wearing gold. And it will still be evident that you have met King Svein, if you hold on to the arm-ring.

‘I would advise you, though,’ he said, ‘not to give the arm-ring away unless you feel you must repay a very great favour done you by a noble man. Then give that man the arm-ring, for it would befit men of high standing to accept it. Now farewell!’

4
Audun then set sail and arrived in Norway, where he had his cargo carried ashore. This was a greater chore than it had been the last time he was in Norway. He then went to see King Harald to keep the promise he had made him before he sailed to Denmark.

He greeted the king warmly.

King Harald returned his greeting and said, ‘Sit down and drink with us.’

And so he did.

King Harald then asked, ‘How did King Svein reward you for the bear?’

Audun replied, ‘By accepting the gift from me.’

The king said, ‘Why, I would have done that! What else did he give you for it?’

Audun replied, ‘He gave me silver so that I could make a pilgrimage.’

Then King Harald said, ‘King Svein gives many men silver for pilgrimages and for other things, even when they do not bring him treasures. Now what else did he give you?’

‘He offered,’ Audun replied, ‘to make me his cup-bearer and to bestow high honours upon me.’

‘A nice gesture,’ said the king, ‘but surely he gave you something more?’

Audun replied, ‘He gave me a knorr with goods most highly desired here in Norway.’

‘Graciously done,’ said the king, ‘and I would have rewarded you likewise Did he give you anything else?’

Audun replied, ‘He gave me a leather pouch full of silver and said that I would not be penniless even if my ship were wrecked off the coast of Iceland.’

The king said, ‘Splendid! Even I would not have done that. I’d have considered myself free from obligation after giving you the ship. Did he give you anything else?’

‘He did indeed give me more, my lord,’ Audun said. ‘He gave me the arm-ring that I wear on my arm and told me that all my money could be lost, but that I still would not be penniless if I had the ring. He told me not to give it to anyone unless I felt obliged to repay a noble man so dearly that I would be willing to part with it. And I have now found that man, for you had the power to deprive me of both the bear and my life, yet you let me travel in peace to a place where others could not go.’

The king warmly accepted the gift and gave Audun fine gifts in return before they parted.

Audun set aside his money for the journey to Iceland and travelled there early that summer. He was considered an exceedingly fortunate man.

Thorstein Gyduson is descended from this man Audun.

Translated by
ANTHONY MAXWELL
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