we were there on the spot and none of us knew where we were or how to find it again, I thought it’d make good sense to take the opportunity while it was there. But when someone suggested it, Bjarni got quite uptight about it, and told us to come about and keep going till we saw the blue glacier. Until then, he said, we could forget all about going ashore.
That didn’t go down too well. I remember there was a man called Einar Teeth - called him that because he didn’t have any, and that’s Northern humour for ,you - and he’d been sat quite close to me all the way from Iceland. He hadn’t said hardly a word, only got up from his place when something needed doing or someone needed to get past; just stayed quite still, like a good horse being shod. But when Bjari said that, Einar jumped up and started yelling and creating, about how he’d joined up to trade sheepskins in Norway, not drift around the edge of the world looking for Bjari’s old man, who was dead anyway because there wasn’t any such place as Greenland, so his ship must be at the bottom of the sea right now, and served the old fool right.
‘Shut up, Teeth,’ Bjarni said quietly ‘You aren’t helping.’
But Teeth carried on ranting, and it was a laugh because you could only make out one word in five he said, and one or two of us started sniggering, and that just made him madder still. ‘I’m telling you,’ said Teeth, ‘this whole thing’s a bloody disaster, trying to find a place that nobody’s ever been to before, nobody’s ever heard of, except it’s out west of Snaefellsness and there’s a glacier. What kind of a damn fool does that? It’s only a miracle and the mercy of our Heavenly Father we aren’t drowned already, and since He’s seen fit to bring us to this place, which looks a damn good place to me and a hell of a lot better than home into the bargain; then isn’t it just sinfully ungrateful to say no, we’re not stopping here, we aren’t even going ashore to take on wood and water, because I want to get to Greenland and see my old man? That’s spitting in the face of His mercy, and there’s no end of evil going to come of that. Only I don’t reckon on drowning out there in the fog, which is no way for a grown man to die, so you just give me an axe and a bag of flour, and I’ll swim ashore and let you go to hell your own sweet way
Bjarni sighed, like Teeth was the dog you never could teach not to slit under the benches; then he jumped off the foredeck, skipped over the hold on the tops of three beer barrels, lighted on the rear deck and punched old Teeth in the gut so hard we could all hear a rib go. Of course, Teeth sat down in a hurry and sort of cuddled there, hugging himself with his mouth open and no sound coming out, and Bjari looked round, all slow and careful, and said, ‘Anyone else?’
Well, there were one or two of us could’ve-given Bjarni a hard time, particularly all ganged up on him, but somehow nobody seemed to be in the mood. It was like Bjarni had won the argument, and so it’d be pointless just going over the same ground again. Also, we didn’t need to go ashore for anything, except a walk and a stretch; we had fourteen barrels of flour in the hold, and beer, and charcoal, and even if the food and the beer ran out, you don’t die starving or parching on a ship, when the sea’s full of fish and the sky’s full of rain. Bjarni was right on that score. He was thinking, he had a good wind behind him and for the moment he was clear of the fog, but we were right at the end of the sailing season, God only knew what the weather was going to do. Bloody fools we’d look if we loafed around on this island two or three days and then got caught in blizzards or ice. Of course, Bjari could’ve said all that instead of scatting Einar’s ribs in, but it’d have taken longer and the outcome would’ve been the same, so never mind.
So we set off again, leaving this island with all the trees on the port
That didn’t go down too well. I remember there was a man called Einar Teeth - called him that because he didn’t have any, and that’s Northern humour for ,you - and he’d been sat quite close to me all the way from Iceland. He hadn’t said hardly a word, only got up from his place when something needed doing or someone needed to get past; just stayed quite still, like a good horse being shod. But when Bjari said that, Einar jumped up and started yelling and creating, about how he’d joined up to trade sheepskins in Norway, not drift around the edge of the world looking for Bjari’s old man, who was dead anyway because there wasn’t any such place as Greenland, so his ship must be at the bottom of the sea right now, and served the old fool right.
‘Shut up, Teeth,’ Bjarni said quietly ‘You aren’t helping.’
But Teeth carried on ranting, and it was a laugh because you could only make out one word in five he said, and one or two of us started sniggering, and that just made him madder still. ‘I’m telling you,’ said Teeth, ‘this whole thing’s a bloody disaster, trying to find a place that nobody’s ever been to before, nobody’s ever heard of, except it’s out west of Snaefellsness and there’s a glacier. What kind of a damn fool does that? It’s only a miracle and the mercy of our Heavenly Father we aren’t drowned already, and since He’s seen fit to bring us to this place, which looks a damn good place to me and a hell of a lot better than home into the bargain; then isn’t it just sinfully ungrateful to say no, we’re not stopping here, we aren’t even going ashore to take on wood and water, because I want to get to Greenland and see my old man? That’s spitting in the face of His mercy, and there’s no end of evil going to come of that. Only I don’t reckon on drowning out there in the fog, which is no way for a grown man to die, so you just give me an axe and a bag of flour, and I’ll swim ashore and let you go to hell your own sweet way
Bjarni sighed, like Teeth was the dog you never could teach not to slit under the benches; then he jumped off the foredeck, skipped over the hold on the tops of three beer barrels, lighted on the rear deck and punched old Teeth in the gut so hard we could all hear a rib go. Of course, Teeth sat down in a hurry and sort of cuddled there, hugging himself with his mouth open and no sound coming out, and Bjari looked round, all slow and careful, and said, ‘Anyone else?’
Well, there were one or two of us could’ve-given Bjarni a hard time, particularly all ganged up on him, but somehow nobody seemed to be in the mood. It was like Bjarni had won the argument, and so it’d be pointless just going over the same ground again. Also, we didn’t need to go ashore for anything, except a walk and a stretch; we had fourteen barrels of flour in the hold, and beer, and charcoal, and even if the food and the beer ran out, you don’t die starving or parching on a ship, when the sea’s full of fish and the sky’s full of rain. Bjarni was right on that score. He was thinking, he had a good wind behind him and for the moment he was clear of the fog, but we were right at the end of the sailing season, God only knew what the weather was going to do. Bloody fools we’d look if we loafed around on this island two or three days and then got caught in blizzards or ice. Of course, Bjari could’ve said all that instead of scatting Einar’s ribs in, but it’d have taken longer and the outcome would’ve been the same, so never mind.
So we set off again, leaving this island with all the trees on the port
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