Odinn's Child by Tim Severin Page A

half-kneeling beside Gudrid with my head on her lap. 'Don't worry,' I told Gudrid, trying to console her. 'Everything will be all right now. You will not die from the plague. Nor will Thorstein the Black. Only old Amundi is going to die, and Sverting, who was with me in the boat this afternoon. That's all the people who were with Gardi last night in the yard.'
    She put her hand under my chin, and gently turned my face so she could look into my eyes. 'How do you know?' she said softly.
    'Because I saw them too, just as Grimhild did, all of them were there with Gardi and his whip. Last night, in the yard,' I answered.
'I see,' said Gudrid, and let her hand fall as she looked away.
    I was too confused and frightened to make any sense of what was happening. I had never intended to tell anyone that I too had seen the group of fetches in the darkness of the farmyard. It was something which I did not understand. If I could see them, what did it mean about me and my responses to the spirit world? I had heard the rumours about my real mother Thorgunna and the ominous circumstances of her death. Would I see her fetch next? It was a terrifying prospect. But had I glanced up and seen Gudrid's expression when I made my confession, I would have been reassured. I would have realised that Gudrid too had seen the not-yet-dead, and that she had the gift of seidr, far more than me.

    SIX

    S EVEN-YEAR-OLDS are remarkably quick to adapt. Naturally enough, the farm workers at Lyusfjord refused to spend the winter cooped up in a building where such supernatural events had occurred, so our household moved back to Brattahlid, and within days I was back into the normal routines of childhood, playing with the other children. There were more of them than there had been at Lyusfjord so our games were more complicated and rowdy. I was smaller in stature than most of my contemporaries, but I made up for my lack of brawn with clever invention and quickness of thought. I also found I had a talent for mimicry and an imagination more vivid than most of my friends. So in our group I was the one who tended to invent new games or embellish the existing games with variants. When spring came and the days lengthened, we children moved out of doors to play the more boisterous games that the adults had forbidden indoors during the winter months. Most of our games involved a lot of play-acting with loud shouts, makeshift wooden shields and blunt wood swords. It was only natural that one we invented was based on my uncle Thorvald's voyage. Of course Thorvald's heroic death was a central feature of the make-believe. The oldest, strongest boy - his name was Hrafn as I remember — would play the leading role, staggering around the yard, clutching his armpit dramatically and
    pretending to pull out an arrow. 'The Skraelings have shot me,' he would yell. 'I'm dying. I will never see home again, but die a warrior's death in a far land.' Then he would spin round, throw out his arms and drop in fake death on the dirt and the rest of us would pretend to pile up a cairn of stones around his body. My own contribution came when we all boarded an imaginary boat and rowed and sailed along the unknown coast. I invented a great whirlpool which nearly sucked us down and a slimy sea monster whose tentacles tried to drag us overboard. My friends pretended to scan the beaches and called out what they saw — ravening wolves, huge bears, dragon-snakes and so forth. One day I created for them a monster-man who, I said, was grimacing at us from the beach. He was a troll with just one foot and that as big as a large dish. He was bounding along the strand, taking great leaps to keep pace with us and — to demonstrate - I left my companions to one side, and hopped along, both feet together until I was out of breath and gave up the pretence.

    It was a harmless bit of play-acting, which was to draw attention to me in a way that I could never have anticipated.
    The following day I got a really