Eirik the Reds Saga | Page 7

the house, and rested awhile opposite the outer door; and Gudrid
accompanied her; and they looked back towards the outer door, and
Sigrid screamed out aloud. Gudrid said, "We have come forth unwarily,
and thou canst in no wise withstand the cold; let us even go home as
quickly as possible." "It is not safe as matters are," answered Sigrid.
"There is all that crowd of dead people before the door; Thorstein, thy
husband, also, and myself, I recognise among them, and it is a grief

thus to behold." And when this passed away, she said, "Let us now go,
Gudrid; I see the crowd no longer." Thorstein, Eirik's son, had also
disappeared from her sight; he had seemed to have a whip in his hand,
and to wish to smite the ghostly troop. Afterwards they went in, and
before morning came she was dead, and a coffin was prepared for the
body. Now, the same day, the men purposed to go out fishing, and
Thorstein led them to the landing places, and in the early morning he
went to see what they had caught. Then Thorstein, Eirik's son, sent
word to his namesake to come to him, saying that matters at home were
hardly quiet; that the housewife was endeavouring to rise to her feet
and to get under the clothes beside him. And when he was come in she
had risen upon the edge of the bed. Then took he her by the hands and
laid a pole-axe upon her breast. Thorstein, Eirik's son, died near
nightfall. Thorstein, the franklin, begged Gudrid to lie down and sleep,
saying that he would watch over the body during the night. So she did,
and when a little of the night was past, Thorstein, Eirik's son, sat up and
spake, saying he wished Gudrid to be called to him, and that he wished
to speak with her. "God wills," he said, "that this hour be given to me
for my own, and the further completion of my plan." Thorstein, the
franklin, went to find Gudrid, and waked her; begged her to cross
herself, and to ask God for help, and told her what Thorstein, Eirik's
son, had spoken with him; "and he wishes," said he, "to meet with thee.
Thou art obliged to consider what plan thou wilt adopt, because I can in
this issue advise thee in nowise." She answered, "It may be that this,
this wonderful thing, has regard to certain matters, which are
afterwards to be had in memory; and I hope that God's keeping will test
upon me, and I will, with God's grace, undertake the risk and go to him,
and know what he will say, for I shall not be able to escape if harm
must happen to me. I am far from wishing that he should go elsewhere;
I suspect, moreover, that the matter will be a pressing one." Then went
Gudrid and saw Thorstein. He appeared to her as if shedding tears. He
spake in her ear, in a low voice, certain words which she alone might
know; but this he said so that all heard, "That those men would be
blessed who held the true faith, and that all salvation and mercy
accompanied it; and that many, nevertheless, held it lightly." "It is,"
said he, "no good custom which has prevailed here in Greenland since
Christianity came, to bury men in unconsecrated ground with few

religious rites over them. I wish for myself, and for those other men
who have died, to be taken to the church; but for Garth, I wish him to
be burned on a funeral pile as soon as may be, for he is the cause of all
those ghosts which have been among us this winter." He spake to
Gudrid also about her own state, saying that her destiny would be a
great one, and begged her to beware of marrying Greenland men. He
begged her also to pay over their property to the Church and some to
the poor; and then he sank down for the second time.] It had been a
custom in Greenland, after Christianity was brought there, to bury men
in unconsecrated ground on the farms where they died. An upright
stake was placed over a body, and when the priests came afterwards to
the place, then was the stake pulled out, consecrated water poured
therein, and a funeral service held, though it might be long after the
burial. The bodies were removed to the church in Eiriksfjordr, and
funeral services held by the priests. After that died Thorbjorn. The
whole property then went to Gudrid. Eirik received her into his
household, and looked well after her stores.
6. There was a man named Thorfinn Karlsefni, son of Thord Horsehead,
who dwelt in the north