From the Loom of the Dead

by Elia W. Peattie

　　

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WHEN Urda Bjarnason tells a tale allthe men stop their talking to listen,for they know her to be wisewith the wisdom of the old people,and that she has more learning than can begot even from the great schools at Reykjavik.She is especially prized by them here in thisnew country where the Icelandmen are settled-- this America, so new in letters, where thepeople speak foolishly and write unthinkingbooks. So the men who know that it is givento the mothers of earth to be very wise, stoptheir six part singing, or their jangles aboutthe free-thinkers, and give attentive ear whenUrda Bjarnason lights her pipe and begins hertale.She is very old. Her daughters and sonsare all dead, but her granddaughter, who ismost respectable, and the cousin of a physician,says that Urda is twenty-four and ahundred, and there are others who say thatshe is older still. She watches all that theIceland people do in the new land; she knowsabout the building of the five villages on theNorth Dakota plain, and of the founding ofthe churches and the schools, and the tillingof the wheat farms. She notes with suspicionthe actions of the women who bringhome webs of cloth from the store, instead ofspinning them as their mothers did beforethem; and she shakes her head at the wiveswho run to the village grocery store everyfortnight, imitating the wasteful Americanwomen, who throw butter in the fire fasterthan it can be turned from the churn.She watches yet other things. All winterlong the white snows reach across the gentlyrolling plains as far as the eye can behold.In the morning she sees them tinted pink atthe east; at noon she notes golden lightsflashing across them; when the sky is gray --which is not often -- she notes that they growas ashen as a face with the death shadow on it.Sometimes they glitter with silver-like tips ofocean waves. But at these things she looksonly casually. It is when the blue shadowsdance on the snow that she leaves her cornerbehind the iron stove, and stands before thewindow, resting her two hands on the stoutbar of her cane, and gazing out across thewaste with eyes which age has restored afterfour decades of decrepitude.The young Icelandmen say:"Mother, it is the clouds hurrying acrossthe sky that make the dance of the shadows.""There are no clouds," she replies, andpoints to the jewel-like blue of the archingsky."It is the drifting air," explains FridrikHalldersson, he who has been in the Northernseas. "As the wind buffets the air, itlooks blue against the white of the snow.'Tis the air that makes the dancing shadows."But Urda shakes her head, and points withher dried finger, and those who stand besideher see figures moving, and airy shapes, andcontortions of strange things, such as are seenin a beryl stone."But Urda Bjarnason," says Ingeborg Christianson,the pert young wife with the blueeyedtwins, "why is it we see these thingsonly when we stand beside you and you helpus to the sight?""Because," says the mother, with a steelblueflash of her old eyes, "having eyes yewill not see!" Then the men laugh. Theylike to hear Ingeborg worsted. For did shenot jilt two men from Gardar, and one fromMountain, and another from Winnipeg?Not even Ingeborg can deny that MotherUrda tells true things."To-day," says Urda, standing by the littlewindow and watching the dance of the shadows,"a child breathed thrice on a farm at theWest, and then it died."The next week at the church gathering,when all the sledges stopped at the house ofUrda's granddaughter, they said it was so --that John Christianson's wife Margaret neverheard the voice of her son, but that hebreathed thrice in his nurse's arms and died."Three sledges run over the snow towardMilton," says Urda; "all are laden with wheat,and in one is a stranger. He has with hima strange engine, but its purpose I do notknow."Six hours later the drivers of three emptysledges stop at the house."We have been to Milton with wheat," theysay, "and Christian Johnson here, carried aphotographer from St. Paul."Now it stands to reason that the farmerslike to amuse themselves through the silentand white winters. And they prefer above allthings to talk or to listen, as has been thefashion of their race for a thousand years.Among all the story-tellers there is none likeUrda, for she is the daughter and the granddaughterand the great-granddaughter of storytellers.It is given to her to talk, as it isgiven to John Thorlaksson to sing -- he whosings so as his sledge flies over the snow atnight, that the people come out in the bitterair from their doors to listen, and the dogsput up their noses and howl, not liking music.In the little cabin of Peter Christianson, thehusband of Urda's granddaughter, it sometimeshappens that twenty men will gatherabout the stove. They hang their bear-skincoats on the wall, put their fur gauntletsunderneath the stove, where they will keepwarm, and then stretch their stout, felt-coveredlegs to the wood fire. The room is fetid;the coffee steams eternally on the stove; andfrom her chair in the warmest corner Urdaspeaks out to the listening men, who shaketheir heads with joy as they hear the pure oldIcelandic flow in sweet rhythm from betweenher lips. Among the many, many tales shetells is that of the dead weaver, and she tellsit in the simplest language in all the world --language so simple that even great scholarscould find no simpler, and the childrencrawling on the floor can understand."Jon and Loa lived with their father andmother far to the north of the Island of Fire,and when the children looked from their windowsthey saw only wild scaurs and jaggedlava rocks, and a distant, deep gleam of thesea. They caught the shine of the sea throughan eye-shaped opening in the rocks, and allthe long night of winter it gleamed up at them,like the eye of a dead witch. But when itsparkled and began to laugh, the childrendanced about the hut and sang, for they knewthe bright summer time was at hand. Thentheir father fished, and their mother was gay.But it is true that even in the winter and thedarkness they were happy, for they made fishingnets and baskets and cloth together, --Jon and Loa and their father and mother, --and the children were taught to read in thebooks, and were told the sagas, and giveninstruction in the part singing."They did not know there was such a thingas sorrow in the world, for no one had evermentioned it to them. But one day theirmother died. Then they had to learn how tokeep the fire on the hearth, and to smoke thefish, and make the black coffee. And alsothey had to learn how to live when there issorrow at the heart."They wept together at night for lack oftheir mother's kisses, and in the morning theywere loath to rise because they could not seeher face. The dead cold eye of the seawatching them from among the lava rocksmade them afraid, so they hung a shawl overthe window to keep it out. And the house,try as they would, did not look clean andcheerful as it had used to do when theirmother sang and worked about it."One day, when a mist rested over the eyeof the sea, like that which one beholds onthe eyes of the blind, a greater sorrow cameto them, for a stepmother crossed the threshold.She looked at Jon and Loa, and madecomplaint to their father that they were stillvery small and not likely to be of much use.After that they had to rise earlier than ever,and to work as only those who have theirgrowth should work, till their hearts crackedfor weariness and shame. They had notmuch to eat, for their stepmother said shewould trust to the gratitude of no otherwoman's child, and that she believed in layingup against old age. So she put the fewcoins that came to the house in a strong box,and bought little food. Neither did she buythe children clothes, though those which theirdear mother had made for them were so wornthat the warp stood apart from the woof, andthere were holes at the elbows and littlewarmth to be found in them anywhere."Moreover, the quilts on their beds weretoo short for their growing length, so thatat night either their purple feet or theirthin shoulders were uncovered, and theywept for the cold, and in the morning, whenthey crept into the larger room to buildthe fire, they were so stiff they could notstand straight, and there was pain at theirjoints."The wife scolded all the time, and herbrow was like a storm sweeping down fromthe Northwest. There was no peace to behad in the house. The children might notrepeat to each other the sagas their motherhad taught them, nor try their part singing,nor make little doll cradles of rushes. Alwaysthey had to work, always they were scolded,always their clothes grew thinner."'Stepmother,' cried Loa one day, -- shewhom her mother had called the little bird,-- 'we are a-cold because of our rags. Ourmother would have woven blue cloth for usand made it into garments.'"'Your mother is where she will weave nocloth!' said the stepmother, and she laughedmany times."All in the cold and still of that night, thestepmother wakened, and she knew not why.She sat up in her bed, and knew not why.She knew not why, and she looked into theroom, and there, by the light of a burningfish's tail -- 'twas such a light the folk used inthose days -- was a woman, weaving. She hadno loom, and shuttle she had none. All withher hands she wove a wondrous cloth. Stoopingand bending, rising and swaying withmotions beautiful as those the NorthernLights make in a midwinter sky, she wove acloth. The warp was blue and mystical tosee, the woof was white, and shone with itswhiteness, so that of all the webs the stepmotherhad ever seen, she had seen none liketo this."Yet the sight delighted her not, for beyondthe drifting web, and beyond the weaver shesaw the room and furniture -- aye, saw themthrough the body of the weaver and the driftingof the cloth. Then she knew -- as thehaunted are made to know -- that 'twas themother of the children come to show her shecould still weave cloth. The heart of thestepmother was cold as ice, yet she could notmove to waken her husband at her side, forher hands were as fixed as if they werecrossed on her dead breast. The voice in herwas silent, and her tongue stood to the roofof her mouth."After a time the wraith of the deadmother moved toward her -- the wraith of theweaver moved her way -- and round and abouther body was wound the shining cloth.Wherever it touched the body of the stepmother,it was as hateful to her as the touchof a monster out of sea-slime, so that her fleshcrept away from it, and her senses swooned."In the early morning she awoke to thevoices of the children, whispering in theinner room as they dressed with half-frozenfingers. Still about her was the hateful, beautifulweb, filling her soul with loathing andwith fear. She thought she saw the task setfor her, and when the children crept in tolight the fire -- very purple and thin weretheir little bodies, and the rags hung fromthem -- she arose and held out the shiningcloth, and cried:"'Here is the web your mother wove foryou. I will make it into garments!' Buteven as she spoke the cloth faded and fellinto nothingness, and the children cried:"'Stepmother, you have the fever!'"And then:"'Stepmother, what makes the strange lightin the room?'"That day the stepmother was too weak torise from her bed, and the children thoughtshe must be going to die, for she did notscold as they cleared the house and braidedtheir baskets, and she did not frown at them,but looked at them with wistful eyes."By fall of night she was as weary as if shehad wept all the day, and so she slept. Butagain she was awakened and knew not why.And again she sat up in her bed and knewnot why. And again, not knowing why, shelooked and saw a woman weaving cloth. Allthat had happened the night before happenedthis night. Then, when the morning came,and the children crept in shivering from theirbeds, she arose and dressed herself, and fromher strong box she took coins, and bade herhusband go with her to the town."So that night a web of cloth, woven byone of the best weavers in all Iceland, was inthe house; and on the beds of the childrenwere blankets of lamb's wool, soft to the touchand fair to the eye. After that the childrenslept warm and were at peace; for now, whenthey told the sagas their mother had taughtthem, or tried their part songs as they sattogether on their bench, the stepmother wassilent. For she feared to chide, lest sheshould wake at night, not knowing why, andsee the mother's wraith."

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