Ralf drained his tankard and wiped his beard with his sleeve. He leaned forward and the din of the longhouse subsided. He waited until he had their undivided attention. They watched him expectantly, listening intently. For most of them, it had been a long dreary winter, and they were restless and eager for action. The inactivity and tedium of the frozen months had rendered them lethargic, and they needed something to snap them out of their state of boredom. This could be the moment.
Massive, with long red hair and matching beard, piercing blue eyes, and a perpetual scowl, Ralf was the undisputed leader of this small cluster of humanity perched precariously on the northernmost tip of the large island now known as Newfoundland, two thousand miles from the homeland they had left four years earlier. Outside, ice pellets battered the longhouse, but in the sweltering dimness of its crowded interior, sweat glinted on Ralf ’s high forehead and flickering light from the oil lantern projected and distorted his shadow on the peat wall behind him.
Kjersti was as anxious as the others to hear what her husband would say. Swollen in her seventh month of pregnancy, she knew that her condition would have little or no bearing on his decision, yet hoped, futilely perhaps, that he would at least take it into consideration. If he and the others went away now, they might be gone for a long time, perhaps months or even longer, and she wanted him to be here with her when their child was born. Woman’s foolishness, she conceded, but such were her thoughts nevertheless. Perhaps he would wait a while, just a few more weeks.
Her wish was not to be.
“It’s time,” Ralf told them. Anticipation rippled through the room. “We leave in a fortnight,” he continued, “as soon as we can get the knarr ready.”
The voyage had been talked about for months, although many of the details entailed in such a venture had scarcely been mentioned. Ralf would articulate these in due course, and the others were just as happy to leave them to him. All that was important to them was the date of their departure and their destination. They were rovers, and the sedentary existence of the past three years had made them uneasy. Weeks of debate had centred on which direction they would take, with some favouring going south along the east coast of the strange new land, while others promoted the idea of sailing westward again. Their purpose was to seek a suitable location for a second settlement or the relocation of their present site, somewhere a little warmer and a little more forgiving than here, where the winter winds blew incessantly and fog sometimes shrouded the land for weeks on end.
“We’ll take a crew of seven, including myself,” Ralf told them. “Gunnar and Kjell, of course, and Kai. Ambjorg, too, and two others. Bjoern and Andor, I think they’d be best. The rest of you will be needed here.
“In case the skraelings come,” he added.
Both elation and disappointment filled the longhouse. Every man there wanted desperately to be included in the venture, yet knew full well that they all couldn’t go. Ralf had spoken, and argue as they might, those not named knew there was little likelihood of getting him to change his mind.
One person in particular felt the disappointment more keenly than anyone else. Despite being rebuffed on a number of previous requests, Peder still held the hope of being among the chosen few who would go when the time came.
“I want to come, too,” he pleaded. “I can do a man’s work, and I’m not really needed here all that much.”
“Peder, Peder, what am I to do with you?” Ralf ’s strong hands gripped the boy’s shoulders. “Three times you’ve asked me, and three times I’ve told you no. You’re too young. Your turn will come, but not yet.
“Besides,” he continued, “You’re more important here than you think. I’ll be counting on you while I’m away.”
Ralf ’s words did little to diminish the boy’s disappointment. Since the voyage of exploration had first arisen, Peder’s thoughts had been dominated by the desire to be a part of it. Nothing else mattered. The prospect of venturing off where no one had ever gone before thrilled him, and his obsession had grown with each passing day. The boy’s dream was now crushed.
The ensuing days, charged with renewed energy and sense of purpose, saw the knarr’s canvas unrolled and spread out upon the ground to be scrutinized for defects. The vessel’s riggings were inspected, repaired, and replaced where necessary, and boiled pitch was applied to its hull. Innumerable other repairs, both small and major, were performed under the careful eye of Kjell, the carpenter, to make the knarr ready for the voyage ahead. Two years of being beached and neglected had taken its toll, and much work was needed to restore the vessel to its previous seaworthy condition.
Finally, two days later than Ralf had hoped, the knarr was ready. The wind was right and the day fair. With supplies for an extended journey stored on board and the seven seafarers at their positions, the vessel, with its big black sail unfurled, slowly navigated the narrow channel toward the open sea, picking up speed as it moved away from the land. Those left behind watched. Some waved and cheered. Some, Kjersti among them, felt sadness. Ralf ’s child kicked inside her, within weeks, perhaps days, of being born.
Ralf and his crew sailed southward, skirting the shoreline, exploring the numerous bays and coves, noting specific areas of interest for further investigation on their homeward journey. They took on fresh water whenever they needed it from some of the great flowing rivers they happened upon. The fine weather held, although the nights were still very cold and the morning sun invariably took an hour or more to thaw the ice that had formed overnight on the knarr’s riggings and gunwales.
On the second morning out of port, none other than Peder emerged from his hiding place among the knarr’s cargo – a stowaway. His desire to be part of this expedition had overwhelmed his fear. He reasoned that Ralf would not turn back just to take him back home. They might put him ashore to make his own way home or, at worst, throw him overboard into the sea. He hoped they would let him continue on with them.
Now exposed, he waited for Ralf ’s reaction, his young body tense and defiant.
Ralf, as Peder had feared, exploded into violent rage. Only the gentle interjections of Kjell, the carpenter, saved the boy from a serious beating – or worse. The leader, thus checked, vented his great anger instead through an expletive-laced tirade against the youth, some of it directed at Kjell as well. The crew, having experienced Ralf ’s violent temper before, kept their distance and maintained their silence. Gradually, Ralf brought himself under control until eventually he seemed to find some humour in the situation. He threw his head back and laughed uproariously.
“Peder, you young devil,” he said. “There’s not much I can do about you now but make you work your fingers to the bone. ’Ere long you’ll be begging me to take you home.”
Thus, Peder found himself a member of the expedition, albeit of untenable standing. He vowed to himself that in the coming days he would make Ralf come to see him as a worthy addition to his crew.
The next two days went well from Peder’s point of view, although he gave Ralf as wide a berth as the confines of the knarr would allow. Ralf himself seemed to have put the episode behind him. In fact, Ralf was beginning to feel apprehensive. He couldn’t pinpoint the cause of his uneasiness. Perhaps it was the fact that they had completed several days of uneventful and leisurely exploration of the ragged coastline. Such a long period of tranquility was rare.
Late that afternoon Ralf decided to go ashore. The beach, at least half a mile long, with glistening sand and a rushing river flowing into the sea, beckoned him. It held interesting possibilities for the relocation of their present settlement. He decided they would spend the night there. He guided the knarr slowly toward the beach until its keel grated softly against the soft sand. Leaving only Bjoern on board, he and the others waded the final few feet to the shore.
No sooner had they reached the sand than a horde of screaming assailants descended upon them, brandishing fearsome weapons of all types.
“Skraelings!” yelled Ralf. “Go back, go back.”
But it was too late. Their attackers were upon them instantly. Peder, the last one to leave the knarr, saw Kai pirouette and fall to the sand, multiple arrows protruding from his body. He watched as Gunnar fell under a torrent of axes. A little farther up the beach Ralf was trying vainly to fend off a pack of attackers, swinging wildly with his great fists even as his life’s blood flowed from his body. To Peder it all seemed to be happening in slow motion, violent images frozen in time.
In just minutes they were all dead, their mutilated bodies strewn about the beach, their blood discolouring the sand and the waters of the nearby shoreline. Only Peder, and perhaps Bjoern on the knarr, remained alive.
Peder now awaited his certain doom.
Two men grabbed him and screamed at him. A third raised his ax to deliver the fatal blow. Despite his terror, Peder did not look away. His Viking soul compelled him to look into the eyes of his slayer even to the moment of death.
But the blow did not fall. A fourth attacker stayed the arm of Peder’s would-be executioner. An argument ensued among the four. Loud guttural utterances and menacing gestures punctuated the discussion. At one point the fourth man grabbed Peder’s long red hair and gestured violently.
Finally, the four reached some type of agreement, and Peder’s life was spared. He was led away as a captive of the feared skraelings.
Days later he was led into the skraeling encampment where he was immediately surrounded, an object of great fascination. Hands poked and prodded him, examining him all over as the people tried to satisfy their curiosity about this strange young man with the white skin, blue eyes, and flaming red hair – attributes all in stark contrast to their own dark features. It was his hair that seemed to interest them the most, and they took turns running their hands through it, tugging at it, smelling it, and in some cases licking it to see if the colour was fast or perhaps applied like the red ochre that many of them wore on their own faces and bodies. Most of them were relatively gentle, although one or two attempted to manhandle him until they were deterred by a sharp reprimand from one of the elders, whom Peder assumed was the leader of the tribe. Children howled and hooted as they whirled and danced around him. One woman touched his face softly and Peder recognized a hint of compassion in her eyes. Although the skraelings had known of the existence of white warriors in the area to the north of them, this was the first time any of them had actually seen such a creature in the flesh. This one didn’t seem as fearsome as they had envisaged. He was young, though, and perhaps not yet hardened into the brutal ways of adulthood.
His first few days in the encampment were a blur of misery and activity totally foreign to him. He was given over to the women, where he was expected to help with womanly work – cooking, curing animal hides, gathering fuel, cleaning, and a multitude of other tasks. For hours on end he was made to chew on caribou skins until they were soft and supple enough to satisfy the women. His teeth ached and bled, and the residue from the fresh hides stuck in his throat and kept him constantly nauseated.
His initial efforts were invariably met with laughter and hoots of derision. Gradually, though, as he learned to do the work better, and as the weeks passed, he was left increasingly alone. The novelty of his presence in the encampment was wearing off, and his days and nights no longer found him the object of ridicule.
Aside from a scattered slight cuffing or swipe with the hand, Peder was not seriously mistreated, and he somehow managed to get enough food to stay alive. He often felt cold and wet, for some days still brought bitterly cold temperatures and hard rains. Although he was grateful for being left in peace much of the time, he was often lonely and sad. At times, he even harboured a longing to talk with the people. Now accustomed to their ways and manner of living, he could see that they were not quite the savages he had always thought them to be.
The woman who had caressed his cheek the day he arrived came to see him now and again. She sometimes brought him a morsel of food, and on one occasion, a garment of caribou skin. When he shed his own tattered and threadbare clothing and put it on, the soft hide felt comfortable against his flesh. Her visits cheered him.
A boy not much older than himself also established a relationship of sorts with Peder. The skraeling youth had, at first, been hostile toward Peder and had threatened him with fierce scowls and menacing gestures. Peder stood his ground, however, and refused to flinch or give way to the threats, until finally the young skraeling turned abruptly on his heel and left. Successive appearances followed the same pattern, and, although the skraeling’s visits were rooted in intimidation and belligerence, Peder began to look forward to them. A least they provided a departure from the monotony of his meagre existence.
Then one day Peder’s adversary, having completed his usual charade, thumped his own chest with his fists and uttered the word “Asbut.” He did it repeatedly, enunciating the word each time until Peder grasped the notion that the skraeling was telling him his name, whereupon he pounded his own chest and said, “Peder,” repeatedly, until the skraeling nodded. Unable to understand another word of each other’s languages, they now knew each other by name, and a fledging friendship began.
They spent time together nearly every day, sometimes just a few minutes, other times for hours at a time, talking to each other through gestures. One afternoon Asbut came and entered into a long and heated discussion with the women. He then took Peder by the arm and led him away.
Asbut led Peder through the woods to the nearby river whose roaring waters he had heard in the distance but never seen. There, Asbut pointed out the hundreds of salmon lining the bottom of a shallow pool, so densely packed they rested in layers above and below each other, pausing there before continuing their migration upstream to their spawning grounds. He positioned Peder next to the still waters of the pool, indicating that he was to stay there while he himself splashed about trying to drive the fish toward Peder. When Asbut used his hands to flip salmon from the water toward Peder, the young Viking readily understood that he was supposed to catch them, kill them, and place them on the grassy spot behind him.
An hour later they had landed a large number of the sleek silver fish which they then brought back to the encampment. Because of the salmon’s great size, they could carry only two or three at a time.
The salmon remained in the pool for five more days before continuing their journey upstream. During that time Asbut and Peder landed many, many more, a valuable contribution to the overall welfare of the encampment. The salmon, when cured, smoked, and cached, would be a staple of their winter food supply.
The catching of the salmon also resulted in a big change for Peder. He was transferred from the supervision of the women into Asbut’s mamateek, where he ate with Asbut and his family, slept with them, shared their work, learned some of their language, and in almost every respect functioned as a family member. He had been adopted.
He now lived in a man’s world, no longer expected to do womanly tasks. He hunted with the men and went with them on their excursions. He wrestled with the other young men of the encampment and raced against them, often besting them at their own games. He had, in the space of a few short months, adapted to the skraeling way of life and found a degree of happiness and contentment he would never have thought possible when he was first captured.
But when he went to sleep at night he still dreamed the dreams of a Viking, of being in the longhouse with the mingled smells of sweat, ale, and peat, of listening to the ribaldry and laughter of Ralf and the others as they gathered at the end of the day to tell their stories. The face of his mother, Agata, the seamstress, still hovered over him as he slept. Despite his growing attachment to Asbut and the others, the thought of escaping was ever-present.
Autumn approached and the days grew shorter and colder. Then one day, Eduit, the chieftain, announced that it was time to begin preparations for the annual caribou hunt. Several days were spent organizing the event, until early one morning six canoes, each carrying four men, set out from the encampment and paddled northward – twenty-four hunters in all, Peder among them.
A full day of hard travel brought them to the deer fences. These were structures of rocks, sticks and fallen trees several miles long, toward which hunters would drive caribou from the migrating herds. Then they would try to turn them and force them to run alongside the fence until the fleeing animals were forced into narrow passes where other hunters were waiting to kill them with lances and arrows. This ancient device had been erected by Asbut’s ancestors and had traditionally enabled his people to harvest large numbers of caribou. The annual caribou hunt was vital to the encampment’s continued survival. The meat was the most essential part of their winter diet, and the hides and bones were essential for their clothing, tools, and shelter.
Peder, seeing the deer fences for the first time, could not visualize how the operation would unfold. Asbut had explained to him through gestures and drawings in the sand that they would be hunting caribou, but that was all he knew. He would simply have to stay alert, watch the others, and follow their lead.
Having beached their canoes, some of the group, including Peder, proceeded eastward until they were a considerable distance away from the fence. There they concealed themselves to wait until the caribou herd arrived. The others positioned themselves along the passes at the southern end of the fence, to wait there until the animals were driven toward them. The waiting period could be as short as a day or two or extend into weeks. Some years the caribou did not come at all. A failed hunt meant a winter of hardship and starvation.
On the fifth day the caribou came. The hunters waited in position until the major portion of the herd was between them and the fence. Then they emerged to race en masse toward the herd, screaming, striking their noise makers, and brandishing weapons to make themselves as terrifying as possible, striving to frighten the animals and force them toward the fence, and then turn them to the south where the other hunters waited. Peder followed in the rear, trying his best to emulate the others.
Pandemonium ensued – pounding hooves, snorting and bellowing animals, screaming men, dust, flying ground cover. Amid all the noise and confusion, Peder suddenly realized that this was his opportunity to escape – perhaps the only chance he might ever have. He was already several miles north of the encampment and, with a river to take him even farther north, he knew he could probably travel far before nightfall. That is, if the hunters didn’t miss him. He was willing to gamble that they were all so intently focused on the hunt that his departure would go unnoticed.
He ran a short distance behind the others before veering off, running low, his heart beating wildly in his chest. He was committed now; there was no turning back. If he was seen now it would all be over.
When he reached the canoes he looked back over his shoulder and saw that no one was following him. Indeed, the distance between him and the others was widening rapidly as the hunters chased the caribou toward the passes. He pushed one of the canoes into the water. It was much heavier than he had expected and required considerable effort to move it. He paddled the craft into mid-stream where the water flowed faster, and took one last look back to make sure he hadn’t been spotted. Then, paddling furiously and trying to keep the canoe straight, he let the river take him northward. Somewhere to the north were his own people, what was left of them, and he hoped that if he kept going north he would eventually find them.
He paddled all day until nightfall forced him to beach the canoe and go ashore. He made himself a bed of boughs and leaves. He was tired and cold, but sleep would not come, for his thoughts were racing with excitement and the worry that he must put as much distance between himself and the others as quickly as possible. He rested fitfully for several hours, listening to the night noises before he finally drifted off to sleep.
When he awoke in the morning, stiff and sore from his previous day’s exertions, the sun was already high in the sky. Panic gripped him. He had overslept and lost much valuable time. He grabbed several handfuls of partridgeberries from along the riverbank and stuffed them into his mouth. It was the first food he had eaten in almost two full days. He pushed the canoe back into the water and braced himself for another day of hard paddling.
Peder spent that day and most of the next following the river, paddling and steering the canoe to avoid rocks and tree snags. Occasionally, to conserve his strength, he let the current carry him along while he rested. He went ashore a few times to search for berries or anything else he could find to eat. At one point, using his hands, he caught three small brook trout and ate them raw.
Early one morning he came to the falls. He’d heard the thunder and felt the quickening current long before he arrived. The falls were very high and steep, and Peder realized there was no way he could skirt them and continue his journey by canoe. From here on he would have to travel on foot.
He climbed a high ridge to try to get his bearings. Off to the east he saw the ocean, and instinctively understood that if he simply followed the coastline he must eventually reach the settlement of his people. Confident in his ability to find his way home, he set out.
The shortened days of autumn brought with them cooler temperatures which dropped even more sharply after sunset. At night, cold and uncomfortable despite several hours of arduous slogging, Peder gathered boughs around him and settled in. The branches of fir and spruce managed to take the edge off the cold somewhat. Yet, clad only in his deerskin, he still felt chilled and slept very little.
He was hungry as well. The handfuls of partridgeberries he had found along the way were not enough to satisfy his hunger and lay heavy on his stomach. And to make matters worse, his feet were raw and blistered from his long walk.
When he stirred in the morning, stiff, sore, still cold, and facing the prospect of another day of hard travel, he was tempted to settle back into the boughs and stay there. He knew, however, that to do so would only delay his progress. Steeling himself for what he had to do, he arose.
With his thoughts now focused fully on his destination, he no longer worried about the skraelings on his trail. Indeed, in retrospect, he wondered if they had even bothered to search for him at all, if they would have broken off from the hunt just to follow him. The hunt, so essential to their survival, was infinitely more important than a captive like him. Indeed, the loss of one of their canoes would have been considered far more serious.
The birch, aspens, and alders were beginning to shed their leaves, and the wilderness was ablaze with their reds, oranges, and yellows. This signal that winter was looming was not lost on Peder and instilled in him an even greater sense of urgency. He kept a constant lookout for food, finding scattered patches of partridgeberries and, in one instance, a small patch of blueberries in a sheltered area not yet touched by frost.
Much of the land he faced was open barrens, and he was able to make relatively good progress. The forests that sometimes confronted him were much more difficult, so he tried to skirt them, veering constantly toward the coastline, where he was often forced to traverse the headlands or pick his way along the rocky coastline itself.
Progress over the next few days was slow, painstaking slogging on feet that were so raw and sore he could scarcely put them to the ground. Sharp hunger gnawed constantly at the pit of his stomach, and his body was battered by the bitter winds that blew relentlessly. Peder knew he was growing weaker by the day. Unable to find the nourishment his body needed for the arduous task he had undertaken, he sometimes despaired of ever reaching his destination. Still, every step brought him that much closer to the settlement and his people, and this knowledge gave him the perseverance to keep plodding onward.
On the ninth day, late in the afternoon, he found himself on a high rise overlooking a beach, and he realized that it was the beach where the massacre of Ralf and the others had taken place. He scanned it for signs of their bodies, but scavengers or tides, or both, had done their work well, and there was no evidence that such a terrible event had ever unfolded there. There was no sign of the knarr either. He wondered if Bjoern had survived the attack and sailed it away. Or had he too been killed and the knarr taken away by the tides? Still, he felt heartened by the sight of the beach, for it confirmed his position and he knew that the settlement lay just a few more days away.
Thus encouraged, he set forth again. Three days later, by now extremely weak and at times light-headed and disoriented, Peder saw in the distance a headland that looked familiar to him. Behind it, he knew, was the settlement. He was almost home. One more day, two at the most. He knew he could make it now.
When he finally approached the settlement he felt tears coursing down his face. Unseemly behaviour for a Norseman, he knew, and he tried to stem them before anybody saw him. He was home, that was all that mattered.
Yet, even from a distance, he sensed that something was wrong. It was too quiet. No smoke rose from the longhouse and there was no sign of activity. The place was deserted.
The door of the longhouse hung awry on broken hinges, and when he entered the building it was cold and damp – and empty. He saw that the place where he had always slept had been taken over by mice. Their litter and droppings indicated that they had been there for some time.
He didn’t know what to do. Where had his people gone? Would they ever be coming back? Had Bjoern, the man left on the knarr when Ralf and the others had gone ashore, somehow escaped and managed to bring the knarr back here by himself? Had he then taken the others away?
Overwhelmed with despair, Peder felt helpless. He let himself succumb to the desire to simply slip to the floor and drift off into oblivion.
The night passed, and morning found him alone on the dirt floor of the longhouse. The sun was well overhead before he stirred to face the day, beset by abject hopelessness. The flame which had brought him this far had been extinguished. Finally hunger forced him to rise, and he searched the settlement. In the small garden where his mother and some of the other women had always planted a few vegetables, he found a handful of small potatoes and a few partially eaten out turnips. These paltry remnants were the gleanings of the main crop that his people must have taken with them when they left. It wasn’t much but it might keep him alive for a few more days.
Nourished by the potatoes and turnips, he felt a little stronger. He spent the rest of the day wandering aimlessly around the settlement, discovering that his people had taken everything of value with them. He found only a small piece of sail canvas which he thought he might use to cover himself to help ward off the cold at night. Late in the afternoon he gathered boughs and sticks and erected a rough shelter a short distance from the longhouse. He could not abide another night alone in the longhouse. He feared that the ghosts of Ralf and the others would grant him no peace.
The next five days saw him scavenging for food and scanning the ocean for the presence of a large black sail. He’d eaten the few vegetables he had found, and most of the berries had, by then, withered with the cold temperatures and fallen to the ground. His main source of food now was the small trout that populated the little stream that ran through the settlement. He found it very difficult to catch them with only his hands, and he ate them raw, especially savouring the roe he found inside them.
In those five days Peder’s strength gradually returned to the point where he no longer felt exhausted and faint most of the time. The blisters on his feet had healed and hardened, and he could walk again without pain. Yet, notwithstanding these improvements, he had finally come to accept the reality that he was all alone – perhaps the only human being for hundreds of miles around – and that without the others and the cooperative effort that had enabled the settlement to survive in this harsh land, he would surely die. He could not survive a winter alone.
On the morning of the sixth day, he opened his eyes. During the night he had dreamed about his mother. Her smiling face had watched over him, and her gentle hands had caressed his cheeks as they had done when he was a small child. He awoke resolute and uplifted. The instinct of survival had been rekindled. Peder knew what he had to do.
He faced south and steeled himself for another journey. With only the piece of sail canvas, he set forth once again – to retrace the steps that had brought him here. With the snow season looming, he knew he had to make haste. Without hesitation, he took the first step on his second trek, an undertaking that would prove to be infinitely harder and longer than the first.
Fifteen days into his journey, eight days after passing the beach of the massacre again, his strength began to fail, and for every hour he walked, he rested and slept threefold. He was constantly cold, even with both the sail canvas and his deerskin covering his body. At night he thought that he would surely freeze to death, and awoke several mornings to find the ground dusted with light snow or covered with hoar frost. His only food now was small trout from the brooks and streams he passed along the way. The berries that had sustained him for so long had since dried up. He was slowly dying on his feet, and each step forward was extremely painful.
On the twentieth day, he stopped and knelt to drink from a small pool. The face that looked back at him from the clear water was not his own. The gaunt haggard look, the haunted eyes, the sunken cheeks, the tangle of long red hair, and the red stubble covering the face were those of a stranger. He looked at his hands and saw, for the first time, that they were mere talons. He rolled up his sleeves and saw that his arms were like sticks. He felt his legs, and they were just as skeletal.
Peder knew that he could go no farther that day. He would rest here and try again tomorrow – if he could. He crawled into the shelter of a nearby copse of stunted spruce, covered himself with the sail canvas, and within minutes was fast asleep.
When he awoke hours later it was dark, and small snowflakes were falling gently from the night sky. As exhausted as he was, the events that had ensued in the seven months following his capture were vivid in his mind. How far had he come? He had long since lost track of the days. He wondered where his mother was. Was she still alive somewhere? He thought of Ralf and the others, Kjell, Bjoern, Gunner. Lastly, he thought of Asbut, his adopted brother, the skraeling boy who had transcended fear and hatred to befriend him.
Then, as he was drifting back to sleep, he thought he smelled smoke. He wasn’t certain, and waited. Again the hint of wood smoke passed his nostrils, faint but unmistakable this time. It meant people, undoubtedly skraelings. Maybe Asbut’s own tribe.
When Peder awoke the next morning, snow lay heavy on the ground. Sleep had done little to restore his strength, and he lay stiff, cold and sore in his shelter, still utterly exhausted. For an hour he tried to move, but couldn’t summon the strength to rise to his feet. The smell of smoke still lingered in the morning air, and he knew that if he could only rise he might be able to track it to its origin. Finally, by sheer power of will, he managed to get to his feet and take his first tentative step.
Three hours later he arrived at the encampment. They all stood motionless, even the children, watching him in silence as he staggered into the clearing. He stumbled toward Asbut’s mamateek, willing himself to remain conscious and stay on his feet for a few more minutes. Asbut waited there, as still as the others.
Finally Peder faced Asbut, close enough to touch him. He leaned forward until he rested his forehead against Asbut’s. “Brother,” he said.
He started to fall. Strong hands grabbed him, hands that were compassionate and caring – hands of forgiveness.
Then, before he lost consciousness, he whispered, “Peder is home. Peder is skraeling now.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In 1960, Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad and his wife Anne Stine Ingstad, an archaeologist, discovered the remains of a small Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula. It was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1978. Archaeologists have determined that the settlement dates from around 1000 AD. L’Anse aux Meadows has been authenticated as the only known Norse site in North America. This is the setting for the fictional story “The Skraeling.” Information in the story is based on Joseph R. Smallwood’s Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador (St. John’s: Newfoundland Book Publishers Limited, 1967, 1981) and The Dictionary of Newfoundland English, edited by G. M. Story, W. J. Kirwin, and J. D. A. Widdowson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982).
5 Skraeling is the ancient Norse term for the aboriginal people (Dorset) of Greenland with whom the Vikings would have undoubtedly come in contact. During their stay in Newfoundland, the Vikings applied this same term to the aboriginal people they found to be living there, most likely the Beothuk or their predecessors.