Iceland's Bell by Halldór Laxness Page B

Dutch—that was the only crime that had been exposed, anyway—he’d traded with them for several years and made a good profit. In the winter his wife wove woolen clothing for the fishermen, and in the summer he brought them butter and cheese, calves, lambs, and children. In return he received good quality flour, ropes and cord, pig iron, hooks, tobacco, cloth kerchiefs, red wine, and corn liquor—and gold ducats for children. “Children,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.
    “Yes—one ducat for a girl, two ducats for a boy,” said Guttormur Guttormsson.
    Sometime during the last hundred years it had become fashionable for the people of the Eastfjörds to sell children to the Dutch, with the result that the rate of infanticide was much lower in that region than elsewhere in the country. Guttormur Guttormsson had sold them two children, a seven-year-old boy and a fair-haired girl of five years.
    “So all you’ve got is three ducats,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.
    “How many ducats do you have?” said Guttormur Guttormsson.
    “Two,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “I’ve got two ducats at home in Rein on Akranes—two living ducats that look up at me.”
    “What did you give for them?” asked the Easterner.
    “If you think that I got them with bait, then you’ve missed the point, pal,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.
    The man’s papers said that he was a master craftsman, and in just a short time he was dragged up from the dungeon and sent to the Þrælakista to be put to some use while awaiting transport to Bremerholm, so Jón Hreggviðsson neither saw nor heard more of this outstanding man.
    A new companion, however, joined him during the last months of winter and remained for some time. This was a sorcerer from the Westfjörds, Jón Þeófílusson by name. He was a rather lanky man in his forties who’d been living with his middle-aged sister in a little cottage in a valley. He’d had little to do with women, mostly because of his lack of sheep, so he’d tried to remedy both shortages by resorting to sorcery, which was frequently in fashion in the Westfjörds, though with disproportionate results. Another man who was a successful sheep farmer had won the heart of a priest’s daughter in whom Jón Þeófílusson also had an interest, and Jón had tried to conjure up a sending* against this man. But his skills as a sorcerer were so awkward that the sending entered the priest’s cow and killed it. A while later one of his rival’s colts died in a waterhole that appeared out of nowhere. Jón Þeófílusson was taken into custody, and found in his possession were the signs of the Blusterer and the Corpse’s Breeches. While the case was being investigated his rival’s brother fell ill and died. The devil, whom the sorcerer called Pokur, appeared to this man on his deathbed and testified that Jón Þeófílusson had pledged himself in exchange for the brother’s ailment as well as for the previous mishaps involving the cow and the horse. The man swore an oath to the truth of this apparition on his dying day, and thus the devil himself had become the chief witness in the case against Jón Þeófílusson, and his testimony sealed the man’s fate.
    Jón Þeófílusson was considerably apprehensive about being burned and spoke often about it in whispers. He said he would rather be beheaded.
    “Why did they bring you here to the south? Why don’t they burn you out west, you rascal?” said Jón Hreggviðsson.
    “The men of Þorskafjörður refused to give them brushwood,” said the man.
    “That’s news to me if they have enough extra firewood here in the south to use on anyone from another quarter,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “You should ask to be beheaded with me, preferably on this chopping block here, because I’m sure that there’s not a better chopping block to be found in the whole country. I killed a lot of time when I was bored this winter by trying out my neck in its groove.”
    “All winter I’ve prayed to