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GLAMSIGHT
1
This
is a story told of Grettir
the
Icelander, of how he became
uncertain.
He was a rough man, brief,
reckless
and sneering. His face was
broad
and
much freckled, hair like greasy flame.
He
was stronger than any man known
in
the jokulls and dales, and a great
disliker
of work, fond of lousy
tricks,
his mouth full of growling slander.
Yet
he heard good account of himself
for
his hard fights, and his fame pleased him.
Blood
would seldom seem blood to his eyes,
they
said. Nothing put terror in
him.
He
had fought with the barrow’s nightmare
and
rescued the gold hidden wrongly
in
the dirty bowels of the dark:
which
was to him like a clue dug deep
in
his own dark, a clue that his truth
lay
in his ugly strength, and that the weak
could
inherit the wall they went to.
He
had slain twelve berserks, suicide
thieves
from the iceports who came to rape
once
where they guested. He paid
them well.
He
had fought the ice-bear in its cave.
He
had killed his detractors. He
was
famous
and trusted his luck. He
knew
what
he knew: he saw cold and clearly:
his
strength scowled at the ice-ridden world
and
he needed no friend but his sword.
2
And
the story goes of how Thorhall,
a
farmer, had fields that were haunted,
he
could hire no workman to go there.
Skepti
the lawman said, ‘Some evil’s
there
then. I shall send you a
shepherd
called
Glam, a big man, useful enough,
although
not to many men’s fancy.’
There
was truth in that. For Glam was big
and
uncouth to look at, his eyes grey
and
glaring, his hair like a wolf’s.
Glam
said he would mind sheep that winter:
‘So
long as I come as I want to,
since
I have an evil mind in me
when
I don’t have my way.’
Thorhall then
told
him his land was haunted. But
Glam
said
spirits like that did not shake him.
Life
with the lost dead seemed less irksome
to
him than with certain men living.
3
In
the winter the farmer took Glam.
None
of the farm people could stand him,
and
the wife least of all.
But he watched
the
sheep, brought them in with no trouble.
His
voice was mean, husky, he meant it,
and
the beasts would dodge in together
for
safety when he hacked with his call.
At
Yule Eve early he pressed for food;
he
would not fast and damn church fooling.
It
was better when they were heathen.
He
went to his sheep.
But the weather
was
bad, air like sick breath from the sky’s
rotten
lungs. Men felt the shadow
snow
but
could not see it. There was
a great
smothering
noise, worse as the day shortened.
Men
heard Glam out early at morning
but
got less of him as the day went.
By
evening a blizzard was raging
and
Glam had not returned.
Next
morning
they
found the sheep scattered, beaten down
in
the clefts. The farm men
cordoned up
to
a level of snow trodden down
as
if with gigantic cask-lids: stones
uprooted,
earth mauled up black, the hill
wounded
worse than mind wanted to see.
Glam
lay some distance off, on his back,
dead
and as blue as hell.
There was blood
in
the snow. Men guessed Glam
had bettered
the
ghost; hoped now the horror over.
Next
day they piled thick stones on the corpse
near
a ghyll, for they could not move it.
4
But
Glam was not quiet. He had mixed
his
nature with the uncarnal cold.
Folk
thought they saw him, men were struck dumb,
frozen
in the dark. Minds went
snow-blind.
Glam
at night rode the roofs, broke them in.
He
walked night and day, men dared not go
out
up the valley. The daring
fled.
Only
in summertime when the sun
was
kindliest did the bad thing cease.
But
at the next Yuletide a new shepherd
was
dead at Glam’s cairn, his neck broken,
every
bone in him split.
There was, too,
a
tormenting force in the cowshed,
high
throatings of terror as
cattle
gored
one another. On a
stall-edge
lay
a cattleman, his back broken.
5
And
the story tells how Grettir heard
of
the trouble Glam caused that valley.
Grettir
said he was sure he should go
and
see Thorhall’s farm. ‘Trouble
is near
our
own door when inside a neighbour’s.’
he
said, with a turning yawn.
He rode
to
Thorhall-stead. He was made
welcome.
But
in his first night there, while he slept,
his
new horse was bloodily hurtled
to
the stable’s end, all its skull smashed.
‘I
must have no less for a good horse,’
said
he, ‘than a good sight of this Glam.’
6
Men
went back to their sleep; Grettir kept
all
his clothes on. He lay on
his seat
against
the farmer’s lock-bed, and had
a
drugget cloak around him, one skirt
under
his feet, the other under
his
head, so he could peep through the gap,
his
heels jutting hard on the footbeam.
The
wrecked door had been half boarded up,
though
across the void hall the panels
were,
above and below, still splintered.
The
beds had been torn out, made useless.
The
interior was a shambles,
and
a small reed light burned through the night.
When
a third part of the darkness was gone,
Grettir
woke to hoarse hissing and thumps
like
hammers driven out of the sky;
and
something was up on the hall roof,
riding
its heels through the thatch, shaking
the
rafters loose from their hold. Then
it
stumped
round to the door.
Grettir saw Glam
stretch
in his head, a ghastly hulk face,
thick-cut,
like a thing seen in fever.
Through
the half-wrecked door Glam moved slowly.
He
unfolded under the high roof
that
sucked in the cold negative stars.
His
eyes bulged along the hall, his arms
on
the tie-beam. Grettir lay
quiet.
Glam,
seeing the bundle that lay there,
murmured
up the hall and gripped fiercely
at
the wrapper’s edge. Grettir
set foot
on
the beam and held still. Glam
tugged hard
but
the heap still lay solid. He
pulled
with
both hands so prodigiously then
that
he dragged Grettir up, and they tore
the
drugget between them.
Glam wondered
what
energy halted before him.
And,
while he was muddled with thought,
Grettir
darted in under his hands,
gripped
round his middle and bowed his spine
back
to the uttermost. But
Glam’s hands
clenched
Grettir’s face, gouging like stones
and
forcing his arms to unhug him.
They
fell amongst the benches. Struts
broke,
planks
split the air, planks were demolished
like
seven-year-rotted wood.
And Glam
was
keen to get out. Through
every move
Grettir
clung to him, buttressed his legs
against
anything solid left, yet
was
drawn foot by foot to the doorway.
Sweat
smeared Grettir’s eyes; shortage of breath
made
his head dizzy. Yet an
instinct
made
him see that however hard Glam
was
to equal indoors, he would be
harder
outside for certain. So he
tugged
with tied, clenched mind against going
into
the snow. With a panic lift
he
drove his head in at Glam’s breastbone;
fixed
his feet in wild desperation
against
the half-sunken step. Yet
Glam
swerved
round, his back catching the doorcase
and
ripping the roof there half open,
ripping
frozen thatch from split rafters,
so
that he fell on his back out of doors,
dragging
Grettir face-down across him.
Hard
moonlight lay on the snow. Clouds
whipped
the
face of the moon, then left it clean.
Glam
stared at the moon. Grettir
says that
apparition
unmanned him more than
any
he saw.
His soul shrank in him
when
he saw the vacant perspective
of
the moon in Glam’s eyes. He
could not
draw
his short sword, but lay pretty well
between
hell and home.
Glam
sneered: ‘Grettir,
you
will win no good from this struggle.
You’ll
have a mere half-man left in you
who’ll
smear with curse this night he knew me.
Do,
do not, it will all be evil,
for
from now on your luck is corrupt
like
a slimy whale stranded in you
that
diseases fight for. You
will hear
little
brag of yourself in Iceland’s
talking.
Whenever the year’s death comes
your
eyes will swallow my eyes; you will
lose
yourself in meaningless murders.
Your
name will smell bad like an outcast’s.’
His
eyes fell from Grettir, who hacked off
his
head, and laid it between his thighs.
7
Thorhall
was stirred deeply that Grettir
had
rid his fields of their defilement.
They
burnt Glam to cold coals, raked his ash
into
an animal’s skin, dug it
down
deep where there were no sheep pastures.
Thorhall
gave Grettir good horse and clothes.
Grettir,
telling him the night’s story,
said
he’s never had such a trial
and
knew he could not face one again.
He
said his temper was worse than before,
for
it always seemed now to his eyes
things
were worse than they were.
But the change
that
was hardest for him to suffer
was
he feared to go into the dark
and
he disliked being alone now.
It
is said that when Glam gives Glamsight
to
men, they see things not as they are.
Alan
Marshfield
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