Chapter XIV The Vale of Shadows
A Turning-point in Grettir’s Life—The Farm in the Valley—The haunted Sheep-walks—A strange-looking Fellow—“Here is my Hand”—Glam keeps Faith—Glam is missing—Following the Red Track—The Ghost of Glam—Glam’s Successor—Thorgaut is Missing—From Bad to Worse—Fate of the old Serving-man—Thorhall’s Perplexity—Grettir offers Aid
We have come now to an incident which formed a turning-point in Grettir’s life. It is a very mysterious and inexplicable story, not one that can be put aside as we have that of his fight in the tomb with Karr the Old. This is a story even more gruesome. It relates to an event that so shook Grettir’s nerves that he never after could endure to be alone in the dark, and would risk all kinds of dangers to escape solitude. How much of truth lies under this strange narrative we cannot now say, but that something really did take place is certain from the effect it had on Grettir ever after.
The richest valley for grass in all this quarter of Iceland, and the most peopled, is the Waterdale. On the east rises a mountain ridge of precipitous basaltic cliffs, down which leap waterfalls from the snows above. The river that flows through this valley is fed by two main streams that unite at the farm called Tongue. The stream on the east rises a long way inland in a mass of lava, and flows through a valley so narrow and so gloomy that it goes by the name of the Valley of Shadows. The high ranges of moor and waste to the south shut off the southern sun, and the lofty banks of mountain to east and west so close it in that it gets no sun morning or evening.
A little way up this valley—not far, and not where it is most gloomy—are now the scanty ruins of a farm called Thorhall’s-stead. Above this the valley so contracts and the hills are so steep that it is only with great difficulty that a horse can be led along. This I know very well; for in crossing an avalanche slide my horse and I were almost precipitated into the torrent below. Further up the valley stands a tongue of high land with a waterfall on one side and the ravine on the other, and here at one time some robbers had their fortress who were the terror of the neighbourhood. No trace of their fortress remains at present, but it was to find this place that I explored the valley.
In the farm that is now but a heap of ruins lived a bonder named Thorhall and his wife. He was not a man of much consideration in the district, for he was planted on cold, poor land, and his wealth was but small. Moreover, he had no servants; and the reason was that his sheep-walks were haunted.
Not a herdsman would remain with him. He offered high wages, he threatened, he entreated, all in vain. One shepherd after another left his service, and things came to such a pass that he determined to have the advice of the law-man or chief judge at the next annual assize.
He saddled his horses and rode to Thingvalla. Skapti was the name of the judge then, a man with a long head, and deemed the best of men for giving counsel. Thorhall told him his trouble.
“I can help you,” said Skapti. “There is a shepherd who has been with me, a rude, strange man, but afraid of neither man nor hobgoblin, and strong as a bull; but he is not very clear in his intellect.”
“That does not matter,” said Thorhall, “so long as he can mind sheep.”
“You may trust him for that,” said Skapti. “He is a Swede, and his name is Glam.”
Towards the end of the assize two gray horses belonging to Thorhall slipped their hobbles and strayed; so, as he had no serving-man, he went after them himself, and on his way met a strange-looking fellow, driving before him an ass laden with faggots. The man was tall and stalwart; his face attracted Torhall’s attention, for the eyes were ashen gray and staring. The powerful jaw was furnished with white protruding teeth, and about his low brow hung bunches of coarse wolf-gray hair.
“Pray, what are you called?” asked Thorhall, for he suspected that this was the man Skapti had spoken about.
“Glam, at your service.”
“Do you like your present duties—wood-cutting?” asked the farmer.
“No, I do not. I am properly a shepherd.”
“Then, will you come with me? Skapti has spoken of you and offered you to me.”
“What are the drawbacks to your service?” asked Glam cautiously.
“None, save that my sheep-walks are haunted.”
“Oh! is that all? Ghosts won’t scare me. Here is my hand. I will come to you before winter.”
They separated, and soon after the farmer found his horses; they had got into a little wood, and were nibbling the willow tops. He went home, having thanked Skapti.
Summer passed, then autumn, and nothing further was heard of Glam. The winter storms began to bluster up the valley from the cold Polar Sea, driving the flying snowflakes and heaping them in drifts at every turn of the vale. Ice formed in the shallows of the river, and the streams which in summer trickled down the sides were now turned to icicles. I was there the very end of June, and then the whole of the mountain flank to the west was covered with frozen streams spread like a net of icicle over the black and red striped bare rock.
One gusty night a violent blow at the door startled all in the farm. In another moment Glam, tall and wild, stood in the hall glowering out of his gray staring eyes, his hair matted with frost, his teeth rattling and snapping with cold, his face blood-red in the glare of the fire that glowed in the centre of the hall.
He was well received by Thorhall, but the housewife did not like the man’s looks, and did not welcome him with much heartiness. Time passed, and the shepherd was on the moors every day with the flock; his loud and deep-toned voice was often borne down on the wind as he shouted to the sheep, driving them to fold. His presence always produced a chill in the house, and when he spoke it sent a thrill through the women, who did not like him.
Christmas-eve was raw and windy; masses of gray vapour rolled up from the Arctic Ocean, and hung in piles about the mountain tops. Now and then a scud of frozen fog, covering bar and beam with feathery hoar-frost, swept up the glen. As the day declined snow began to fall in large flakes.
When the wind lulled there could be heard the shout of Glam high up on the hillside. Darkness closed in, and with the darkness the snow fell thicker. There was a church then at Thorhall’s farm; there is none there now, since the valley has been abandoned from its cold and ill name.
The lights were kindled in the church, and every snowflake as it sailed down past the open door burned like a golden feather in the light.
When the service was over, and the farmer and his party returned to the house, Glam had not come home. This was strange; as he could not live abroad in the cold, and the sheep would also require shelter. Thorhall was uneasy and proposed a search, but no one would go with him; and no wonder, it was not a night for a dog to be out in, and the tracks would all be buried in snow. So the family sat up all night listening, trembling and anxious.
Day broke at last faintly in the south over the great white masses of mountains. Now a party was formed to search for the missing man. A sharp climb brought them to the top of the moor above Tongue. Here and there a sheep was found shivering under a rock or half buried in a snowdrift, but of Glam—not a sign.
Presently the whole party was called together about a spot on the hilltop where the snow was trampled and kicked about, and it was clear that some desperate struggle had taken place there. There the snow was also dabbled with frozen blood. A red track led further up the mountain side, and the searchers were following it when a boy uttered a shriek of fear. In looking behind a rock he had come on the corpse of the shepherd lying on its back with the arms extended. The body was taken up and carried to the edge of the gorge, and was there buried under a pile of stones, heaped over it to the height of about six feet. How Glam had died, by whom killed, no one knew, nor could they make a guess.
Two nights after this one of the thralls who had gone for the cows burst into the hall with a face blank from terror; he staggered to a seat and fainted. On recovering his senses, in a broken voice he assured those who were round him that he had seen Glam walking past him, with huge strides, as he left the stable door. The shepherd had turned his head and looked at him fixedly from his great gray staring eyes. On the following day a stable lad was found in a fit under a wall, and he never after recovered his senses. It was thought he must have seen something that had scared him. Next, some of the women, declared that they had seen Glam looking in on them through a window of the dairy. In the dusk Thorhall himself met the dead man, who stood and glowered at him, but made no attempt to injure his master, and uttered not a word. The haunting did not end thus. Nightly a heavy tread was heard round the house, and a hand groping along the walls, and sometimes a hand came in at the windows, a great coarse hand, that in the red light from the fire seemed as though steeped in blood.
When the spring came round the disturbances lessened, and as the sun obtained full power, ceased altogether.
During the course of the summer a Norwegian vessel came into the fiord; Thorhall went on board and found there a man named Thorgaut, who had come out in search of work. Thorhall engaged him as a shepherd, but not without honestly telling him his trouble, and what there was uncanny about his sheep-walks, and how Glam had fared. The man did not regard this, he laughed, and promised to be with Thorhall at the appointed season.
Accordingly he arrived in autumn, and he soon established himself as a favourite in the house; he romped with the children, helped his fellow-servants, and was as much liked as his predecessor had been detested. He was such a merry careless fellow that he did not think anything of the risks that lay before him, and joked about them.
When winter set in strange sights and sounds began to alarm the folk at the farm, but Thorgaut was not troubled; he slept too soundly at night to be disturbed by the heavy tread round the house.
On the day before Yule, as was his wont, Thorgaut drove out the sheep to pasture. Thorhall was uneasy. He said to him: “I pray you be careful, and do not go near the barrow under which Glam was laid.”
“Don’t fear for me,” laughed Thorgaut, “I shall be back in time for supper, and shall attend you to church.”
Night settled in, but no Thorgaut arrived. There was little mirth at table when the supper was brought in. All were anxious and fearful.
The wind was cold and wetting. Blocks of ice were driving about in the bay, grinding against each other, and the sound could be heard far up the valley. Aloft, the aurora flames were lighting up the heavens with an arch of fire. Again this Christmas night the dwellers in the farm sat up and did not go to bed, waiting for the return of Thorgaut, but he did not arrive.
Next morning he was sought, and was found lying dead across the barrow of Glam, with his spine and one leg and one arm broken. He was brought home and laid in the churchyard.
Matters now rapidly became worse. Outbuildings were broken into of a night, and their woodwork was rent and shattered; the house door was violently shaken, and great pieces of it were torn away; the gables of the house were also pulled furiously to and fro.
Now it fell out that one morning the only man who remained in the service of the family went out early. Not another servant dared to remain in the place, and this man remained because he had been with Thorhall and with his father, and he could not make up his mind to desert his master in his need. About an hour after he had gone out Thorhall’s wife took her milking cans and went to the cow-house that she might milk the cows, as she had now not a maid in the house, and had to do everything herself. On reaching the door of the cow-house she heard a terrible sound from within, the bellowing of the cattle, and the deep bell-notes of an unearthly voice. She was so frightened that she dropped her pails and ran back to the house and called her husband. Thorhall was in bed, but he rose instantly, caught up a weapon, and hastened to the cow-house.
On opening the door he found all the cattle loose and goring each other. Slung across the stone that separated their stalls was the old serving-man, perfectly dead, with his back broken. He had, apparently, been tossed by the cows, and had fallen on this stone backwards.
Neither Thorhall nor his wife explained his death in this way; they thought that Glam must have been there, have driven the cattle wild, and that just as he had broken the back of Thorgaut, so had he now broken that of the poor old serving-man.
It was impossible for the bonder to remain longer in that place; he and his wife therefore removed down to Tongue, which lies at the junction of the two rivers, and there things were quiet. There he was hospitably received by Jokull. Thorhall was able to persuade some of his runaway servants to come back to him, but no man all that winter would go near the moor where was the barrow of the shepherd Glam.
Not till the summer returned, and the sun had dispelled the darkness, did Thorhall venture back to the Vale of Shadows. In the meanwhile his daughter’s health had given way under the repeated alarms of the winter; she became paler every day; with the autumn flowers she faded, and was laid in the churchyard before the first snowflakes fell. What was Thorhall to do through the winter? He knew that it was not possible for him to secure servants if he remained on his own farm; besides, he did not know what loss might come to his stock. Then, he could not spend the whole winter at Tongue, for that was another bonder’s house, and though the farmer there had kindly received him and entertained him for three months the winter before, he could not ask him to give him houseroom to himself, his cattle, and servants for a whole long winter.
So he was in the greatest possible perplexity what to do. Help came to him from an unexpected quarter.
Grettir had heard the story of the hauntings, and he rode to Thorhall’s farm and asked if he might be accommodated there for the night. He said that it was his great desire to encounter Glam.
Thorhall was surprised, but not exactly pleased, for he thought that the family at Biarg would attribute the wrong to him were anything to happen to Grettir.
Grettir put his horse into the stable, and retired for the night to one of the beds in the hall and slept soundly.