LANDNAMA

I have been reading in _Landnama Book_ the records of the settlement

of Iceland and can now realise how lately in our history it is that

the world has become small. At the beginning of the last century

it was roughly of the size which it had been at the end of the last

millennium. It then took seven days to sail from Norway to Iceland,

and if it was foggy, or blew hard, you were likely not to hit it off

at all, but to fetch up at Cape Wharf in Greenland. It was some

such accident, in fact, which discovered Iceland to the Norwegians.

Gardhere was on a voyage to the Isle of Man "to get in the inheritance

of his wife's father," by methods no doubt as summary as efficacious.

But "as he was sailing through Pentland frith a gale broke his

moorings and he was driven west into the sea." He made land in

Iceland, and presently went home with a good report of it. He may

have been the actual first discoverer, but he had rival claimants, as

Columbus did after him. There was Naddodh the Viking, driven ashore

from the Faroes. He called the island Snowland because he saw little

else. Nevertheless, says his historian, "he praised the land much."

Such was the beginning of colonisation in Thule. It was accidental,

and took place in A.D. 871.

But those who intended to settle there had to devise a better way of

reaching it than that of aiming at somewhere else and being caught in

a storm. What should you do when you had no compass? One way, perhaps

as good as any, was Floki Wilgerdsson's. "He made ready a great

sacrifice and hallowed three ravens who were to tell him the way." It

was a near thing though. The first raven flew back into the bows; the

second went up into the air, but then came aboard again. "The third

flew forth from the bows to the quarter where they found the land."

It was then very cold. They saw a frith full of sea-ice--enough for

Floki. He called the country Iceland, and the name has stuck. They

stayed out the spring and summer, then sailed back to Norway, of

divided minds concerning the adventure. "Floki spoke evil of the

country; but Herolf told the best and the worst of it; and Thorolf

said that butter dripped out of every blade of grass there." He was

a poet and his figure clove to him. "Therefore he was called Butter

Thorolf."

The first real settlers were two sworn brethren, Ingolf and Leif. They

went because they had made their own country too hot to hold them,

having in fact slain men in heaps. This had been on a lady's account,

Helga daughter of Erne. They had gone a-warring with Earl Atle's three

sons, and been very friendly until they made a feast afterwards for

the young men. At that feast one of the Earl's sons "made a vow to get

Helga, Erne's daughter, to wife, and to own no other woman." The vow

was not liked by anybody; and it was not, perhaps, the most delicate

way of putting it. Leif in particular "turned red," having a mind

to her himself. These things led to battle, and the Earl's son was

killed. Then the sworn brethren thought they had best go to Iceland,

and they did; but Leif took Helga with him. They left their country

for their country's good, and for their own good, too.

Having found your asylum, how did you choose the exact quarter

in which to settle? The popular way was that adopted by the sworn

brethren. "As soon as Ingolf saw land, he pitched his porch-pillars

overboard to get an omen, saying as he did so, that he would settle

where the pillars should come ashore." That was his plan. If it wasn't

porch-pillars it was the pillars of your high seat. Either might be

the nucleus of your house; both sets were sacred things, heirlooms,

symbols of your worth. You never left them behind when you flitted.

Another plan, and a good one, was to leave the site to Heaven.

Thorolf, son of Ernolf Whaledriver, did that. He was a great

sacrificer, and put his trust in Thor. He had Thor carven on his

porch-pillars, and cast them overboard off Broadfrith, saying as

he did so, "that Thor should go ashore where he wished Thorolf to

settle." He vowed also to hallow the whole intake to Thor and call it

after him. The porch-pillars went ashore upon a ness which is called

Thorsness to this day, as the site of the shrine Thorolf built is

still called Templestead. Thorolf was a very pious colonist. "He had

so great faith in the mountain that stood upon the ness that he

called it Holyfell;" and he gave out that no man should look upon it

unwashed. It should be sanctuary also for man and beast, a hill of

refuge. "It was the faith of Thorolf and all his kin that they should

all die into this hill." I hope that they did so, but _Landnama Book_

doesn't say.

There were few, if any, Christians among these fine people. King Olaf

and his masterful ways with the heathen were yet to come. And those

who took on the new religion took it lightly. They cast it, like an

outer garment, over shoulders still snug in the livery of Frey and

Thor. It was not allowed to interfere with their customs, which were

free, or their manners, which were hearty. Glum, son of Thorkel, son

of Kettle Black, "took Christendom when he was old. He was wont thus

to pray before the Cross, 'Good for ever to the old! Good for ever

to the young.'" That seems to have been all his prayer, which was

comprehensive enough. But there are older and more obstinate garments

than religions. Illugi the Red and Holm-Starri "exchanged lands and

wives with all their stock." But the plan miscarried, for Sigrid, who

was Illugi's wife, "hanged herself in the Temple because she would not

change husbands." The compliment was greater than Illugi deserved.

With the world as large as it was in those spacious days there was

room for strange things to happen. Here is the experience of Grim,

son of Ingiald. "He used to row out to fish in the winter with his

thralls, and his son used to be with him. When the boy began to grow

cold they wrapt him in a sealskin bag and pulled it up to his neck.

Grim pulled up a merman. And when he came up Grim said, 'Do thou tell

us our life and how long we shall live, or else thou shalt never

see thy home again.' 'It is of little worth to you to know this,' he

answered,' though it is to the boy in the sealskin bag, for thou shalt

be dead ere the spring come, but thy son shall take up his abode and

take land in settlement where thy mare Skalm shall lie down under the

pack.' They got no more words out of him. But later in the winter Grim

died, and he is buried there." So much for Grim. His widow took her

son forth to Broadfrith, and all that summer Skalm never lay down.

Next year they were on Borgfrith, "and Skalm went on till they came

off the heath south to Borgfrith, where two red sand-dunes were, and

there she lay down under the pack below the outermost sand-well."

There the son of Grim set up his rest. There will nevermore be room in

the world for things like that, but it is pleasant to know of them,

"WORKS AND DAYS"

Some time or another, Apollo my helper, I would choose to write a new

_Works and Days_ wherein the land-lore of our own Boeotia should be

recorded and enshrined for a season. There should be less practice

than Tusser gives you, less art than the _Georgics_, but rather more

of each than Hesiod finds occasion for. Though it is long since I read

the _Georgics_, I seem to remember that the poem was overloaded

with spicy merchandise. You might die of it in aromatic pain. As for

Tusser, certainly he is the complete Elizabethan farmer; sooner than

leave anything out he will say it twice; sooner than say it twice, he

will say it three times. Nevertheless he was a good farmer; as poet,

his itch to be quaint and anxiety to find a rhyme combine to make him

difficult. He writes like Old Moore:

Strong yoke for a hog, with a twitcher and rings,

With tar in a tarpot, for dangerous things;

A sheep-mark, a tar-kettle, little or mitch,

Two pottles of tar to a pottle of pitch.

"Mitch" is a desperate rhyme, but nothing to Tusser. He gives you a

league or more of that; all the same, I don't doubt he was a better

farmer than Virgil. More of him anon.

Hesiod also was a better farmer than Virgil, and a poet into the

bargain, though the Mantuan had him there. He prefers terseness to

eloquence, is on the dry side, and avoids ornament as if he was a

Quaker. Such adjectives as he allows himself are Homer's, well-worn

and familiar. The sea is _atrugetos_, Zeus _hypsibremetès_, the earth

_polyboteirè_, the hawk _tanysipteros_, and so on. They have no more

effect upon you than the egg-and-dart mouldings on your cornices. His

own tropes are more curious than beautiful, but I cannot deny

their charm. The spring, with him, is always _gray_--[Greek: polion

ear]--which is exact for the moment when the breaking leaf-buds are no

more than a mist over the woodlands. You shall begin your harvesting--

When the House-carrier shuns the Pleiades,

And climbs the stalks to get a little ease.

The House-carrier is the snail, of course; and he shuns the heat of

the ground, not the Pleiades. Here again is a maxim deeply involved in

language:

When 'tis a god's high feast let not your knife

Cut off the withered from the quick with life,

Upon the five-brancht stock--

or, in other words, never cut your finger-nails on a holy day.

Hesiod, by birth an Æolian, was by settlement a Boeotian. He lived and

farmed his own land on the slopes of Helikon, under the governance of

the lords of Thespiæ, whoever they were. I have been to Thespiæ, and

certify that there are no lords there now. I saw little but fleas and

dogs of incredible savagery, where once were the precinct and shrine

of Eros with a famous statue of the god by Praxiteles. It is not far

from the Valley of the Muses, where or whereabouts those fair ladies

met with Hesiod, and, as we are told in the Theogony, plucked him a

rod of olive, a thing of wonder,

And breath'd in me a voice divine and clear

To sing the things that shall be, are, and were.

Also they told him to sing of the blessed gods,

But ever of themselves both first and last,

and he obeyed them. When he won a tripod at Chalkis, in a singing

contest, he dedicated it to his patronesses,

There where they first instilled clear song in me.

So he was a grateful poet, which is very unusual.

In _Works and Days_ he sang of what he knew best, the country round,

and sang it as a poet should who was also a shrewd farmer and thrifty

husbandman. It is full of the love of earth and of the ways of them

who lie closest in her bosom; but it is full of the wisdom, too,

which such men win from their mother, and are not at all unwilling to

impart. There is a good deal of Polonius in Hesiod, who addresses his

_Works and Days_ to his brother Perses, a bad lot. Perses in fact had

diddled him out of his patrimony, or part of it, by bribing the

judges at Thespiæ; and the poet, who doesn't mince matters, loses

no opportunity of telling him what he thinks of him. Indeed, one of

Hesiod's reasons for instructing him in good farming was that thereby

he might perhaps prevent him from spunging on his relations. So

the injured bard got a sad, exalted pleasure out of his griefs, and

something back, too, in his quiet way.

After a glance at the golden and other past ages he gets to work with

a charming passage:

Whenas the Pleiads, Atlas' daughters, rise

Begin your harvest; when they hide their eyes,

Then plow. For forty nights and forty days

They are shrouded; then, as the year rounds, they raise

Their shining heads what time unto the stone

You lay your sickle's edge--

and that is your time for harvesting. But you must work hard; for the

law of the plains, of the seaboard, and of the upland dales is the

same:

You who Demeter's gifts will win good cheap

Strip you to plow and sow, and strip to reap--

and if you in particular, Perses, will do that, perhaps you won't need

to go begging at other men's houses as you have begged at Hesiod's.

But he gives you warning that you will get no more out of him--than

advice.

The Pleiades, however, don't set till November, and before that there

is October to be considered, the season of the rains. Get you into

the woods in October and cut for your needs. And what might these

be? Well, a mortar to pound your grain in, and a pestle to pound it

withal; an axle for your wain, a beetle to break the clods. Then, for

your plows, look out for a plow-tree of holm-oak: that is the best

wood for them. Make two plows in case of accident, one all of a piece

([Greek: autogyon]), one jointed and dowelled. The pole should be

of laurel or elm; the share must be oak. The [Greek: guês] is the

plow-tree, and it is not always easy to find one ready-made--but get

one if you can.

Two oxen then, each one a nine year bull,

Whose strength is not yet spent, the best to pull,

Which will not fight i' the furrow, break the plow

And leave your work undone. To drive them now

Get a smart man of forty, fed to rights

With a four-quartered loaf of eight full bites:

That's one to work, and drive the furrow plim,

Too old to gape at mates, or mates at him.

That precise loaf, with just that much bitage, is the staple in

Boeotia to-day; but the [Greek: aizêos] of forty will not so readily

be found. Elsewhere in his poem Hesiod recommends something more in

accord with modern practice:

Your house, your ox, your woman you must have;

For she must drive the plow--not wife but slave.

The terms are synonymous in Greece to-day.

Plowing time is when you hear the crane in the clouds overhead. Be

beforehand with your cattle.

When year by year high in the clouds the crane

Calls in the plow-time and the month of rain,

Take care to feed your oxen in the byre;

For easy 'tis to beg, but hard to hire.

That is in Tusser's vein, and no doubt comes naturally to rustic

aphorists. A man may plow in the spring, too; and if Zeus should

happen to send rain on the third day, after the cuckoo's first call,

"As much as hides an ox-hoof, and no more," he may do as well as the

autumn-tiller. In any case don't forget your prayers when you begin

plowing:

You who in hand first the plow-handles feel,

Or on the ox's flank lay the first weal,

Pray Chthonian Zeus and chaste Demeter bless

The grain you sow with heart and heaviness.

Now for your vines. First, for the pruning, note this:

When, from the solstice sixty days being fled,

Arcturus leaves the holy Ocean's bed

And, shining, burns the twilight; when that shrill

Child of Pandion opens first her bill--

Before she twitters, prune your vines! 'Tis best.

No reasons at all: simply "[Greek: ôs gar ameinon]." That is like

Homer. The stars continue their signals. Vintage time is when Orion

and Sirius are come to mid-heaven, and rosy-fingered Dawn sees

Arcturus. Then--

Cut your grape clusters off and bring to hive;

Show ten days to the sun, ten nights; for five

Cover them up; the sixth day draw all off--

That is the way of it, Perses, and much profit to you in my learning,

you scamp.

Scattered up and down these frosty but kindly old pages are scraps of

wisdom on all kinds of subjects--for life is Hesiod's theme as well

as agriculture. He will tell you under what star to go to sea, if

sail you must; but better not seafare at all. However, if you will go,

choose fifty days after the summer solstice. That is the right time,

the only pretty swim-time. If you must venture out in the spring, let

it be when you see leaves on the fig-tree top as large as the print of

a crow's foot--but even so the thing is desperate.

For me, I praise it not, nor like at all--

'Tis a snatcht thing--mischief is bound to fall.

Then there's marriage, certainly the greatest venture of all. Don't

think of it until you are rising thirty, anyhow. And as for _her_:

Let her be four years woman, and no more;

In her fifth year take her, and shut the door

Till she is yours, enured to your good laws.

Take her from near at hand and give no cause

That neighbours find your wedding stuff for mirth:

Than a good wife no better thing on earth;

Than a bad one, what worse? Pot of desire,

That roasts her husband up without a fire!

That would make her sixteen or thereabouts. Poor child! But neither

Homer, nor Hesiod, nor any Greek I ever read had any mercy on women.

Hesiod in more than one page lets you know what he thinks about them.

It comes hardly from one who in the _Eoioe_(if those apostrophes are

his) was to hymn the great women of history and myth; but there, I

think, spoke the courtier Hesiod, and not the husbandman.

Lastly come a mort of things which you must not do. Here are some--for

some must be omitted from the decorous page:

Let not your twelve-year-old presume to sit

On things not to be moved. That's bad. His wit

Will never harden; nor let a twelve-month child.

Let no man wash in water that's defiled

By women washing in it. Bitter price

You pay for that in time. Burnt sacrifice

Mock not, lest Heaven be angry ... So do you

That men talk not against you. Talk's a brew

Mischievous, heady, easy raised, whose sting

Is ill to bear, and not by physicking

Voided. Talk never dies once set a-working--

Indeed, in talk a kind of god is lurking.

I regret to record the manner of death of the mainly pleasant old

country poet, still more the supposed cause of it--but it may not

be true. The Oracle at Delphi, which it seems he consulted after his

triumph at Chalkis, warned him that he would come by his end in the

grove of Nemean Zeus. He took pains, therefore, to avoid Nemea in his

travels, and chose to stay for a while at OEnoë in Lokris, "where,"

says Mr. Evelyn-White, his editor in the _Loeb Library_, "he was

entertained by Amphiphanes and Ganyktor, sons of Phegeus." But you

never knew when the Oracle would have you, or where. OEnoë was also

sacred to Nemean Zeus, "and the poet, suspected by his hosts of having

seduced their sister, was murdered there. His body, cast into the sea,

was brought to shore by dolphins, and buried at OEnoë; at a later

date his bones were removed to Orchomenos." An unhappy ending for

the instructor of Perses! But it may not be true. To be sure, these

poets--I can only say that to me it sounds improbable, and so, I take

it, it sounded to Alkæus of Messene, who wrote this epigram upon his

dust:

When, in the Lokrian grove dead Hesiod lay,

The Nymphs with water washt the stains away.

From their own well they fetcht it, and heapt high

The Mound. Then certain goatherds, being by,

Poured milk and yellow honey on the grave,

Minding the Muses' honey which he gave

Living, that old man stored with poesy.

That, surely, bespeaks a happier end to Hesiod. It is an epitaph that

any poet might desire.