The story of Njal who was burned by clotho123

The story of Njal who was burned

Read The story of Njal who was burned

When she saw the land first it chilled her worse than the icy wind from the north.  This land of ice mounds and boiling mud, of smoking peaks and unquiet water, this land was part of Angband, a part that had survived the wreck or risen again after the sinking of the lands.  Beneath its thin soil and young forests this land still bore the stamp of Morgoth.

It was only when she realised they would drag her from the boat that she would step out upon the shore.  The cold of it struck up through her feet, the cold that was of Morgoth, the cold his smoking mountains never warmed.

It would not take long for her to learn there were other revenants of the past.  Trolls in the hills.  Darker things, that could take on a mortal’s form, a dead mortal’s body, that spread terror through the land.  It would be longer still before she learned the spirit of the people was cleansing the land, little by little, banishing the evil by courage and companionship, farmer’s fields now tilled where Morgoth’s orcs once stalked.

She might have found ways to leave.  It was not the first time Nellas had been taken for a slave since the Ages of Men had begun.  If the mortals were not cruel, she usually allowed it.  An Elda of her years found toil that would shorten the life of a mortal bearable enough (nothing like that she had once endured in Morgoth’s mines) and could influence minds enough to chill any thought of rape.  She could afford to spend a few years this way, until the tide turned, unlike the mortal thralls who had but one life to spend. It meant she did not have to scheme her own survival, or even work too hard to hide what she was.  Not much notice was taken of a slave.

With the land’s memory of Morgoth in her mind, she would have left, would have drawn on her abilities to just slip away, as she would have to do in fifteen years or twenty or whenever it became too obvious she did not age.  She choose not to leave, because of the one who thought he owned her.

The house her captors led her to was long and low, the turf-roof higher than the wood on stone walls, built firm against the air that struck cold even in these late summer days. It stood on a low hillock rising from coastal marshland. Nellas was relieved they had not gone out of sight of the sea

The land around was farmed land but had still a rawness to it, the cultivation a thin covering of wild land, the earth and stones echoed with change that was recent, the hardy farming folk late incomers to the land that Morgoth made.

The woman who came out of the house was stern, broad and iron grey, a brief smile at her sons all the emotion she allowed herself in greeting though her eyes were warm as she looked at them.

The man that followed (and it was typical of him that he had not insisted on being first) was not particularly tall and not young as mortals reckoned it.  His lack of a beard marked him out, but it would be some time before Nellas learned that he did not shave, he simply had no beard.  It would be longer still before she learned he was foresighted, for as much good as that ever did him, which was little.  Yet she knew.  She knew at once that Njal was sprung from the line of her old Lord and Lady and the daughter who left them for a mortal man. Not merely a descendent, for after all there were a great many of those in the world by now and most of them showed it no more than his sons who took her as their slave did.  Njal was one of those in whom through some chance, the heritage was peculiarly strong. And for that reason Nellas knew she would stay with Njal as long as passing time would let her.  He carried with him the echo of Doriath the Fair, the Lost, and she would remain with the echo, as she would never see the land again.  It did not escape her that she missed the land more now it was lost than she had cared for it when it was not, yet with inheritance of that land here in Njal she felt strong enough to remain even with the remembrance of Morgoth in the lands about.

It did not take Nellas long to settle into the rhythms of life at Bergthorsvol.  The work was, as she had expected, hard, although not much less hard for Njal’s own family.  Iceland (the name was well chosen, although Fireland would have fitted almost as well) was not an easy place.  Bergthora, Njal’s wife, ran the household firmly and sternly. As Nellas came to grasp the language they spoke she learned that by local standards the household was prosperous, though not one of the richest.

The man who had dragged her aboard his ship was Skarphedin, oldest son of Njal and Bergthora.  He was a man with the grin of a wolf and the swagger of a tom-cat and many other men walked warily around him. His brothers Grim and Helgi followed where he led.  There were also two daughters of the family, Thorgerd and her husband Ketil lived apart, but Helga’s husband Kari had not been born an Icelander and they lived at Bergthorsvol although he had bought another farm which was managed by servants.  Kari was always with Njal’s sons, he had a liking for finery and in the evening sometimes sang songs of a place called Orkney.

There were two men in the neighbourhood that Njal had raised as his foster sons, and though they had their own homesteads now they were often at Bergthorsvol. Thorhall Asgrimsson would spend many hours talking about the law with Njal, for Njal was well-versed in the laws of Iceland, but Njal had a special warmth for Hoskuld Thrainsson.  Hoskuld was a peaceable man who did not quarrel with others.  Njal had made a good marriage for him and obtained the office of a Godi, which Nellas did not clearly understand but which meant standing and duties.  Hoskuld was well-spoken of by almost everyone, only old Saeunn, who had helped raise Bergthora, shook her head and said it had been a bad day when Njal took Thrain’s son into his house, but she did not say it where Njal could hear her.

Iceland had turned to the new faith a very few years before, which meant little enough to Nellas, as it seemed to her not to affect the conduct of mortals much who they claimed to worship, although she sometimes felt she would have liked to ask her Lady whether Eru, the One, could indeed have had a son.

In the cold months many stories were told in the longhouse.  There were old tales of heroes who fought dragons, and newer ones of men who still lived in Iceland, or had done until very lately.  Some of them were just the tales of feud and killing that mortals seem to like so much.  Others left her wondering if after all she should take steps to leave this land. Those were tales of the trolls that walked in the hills or of the dead that would not stay in their graves.  Not all had been shaped yet into mere stories, tales wrought to while away an evening, during the days at the farm word would at times run round of a neighbour brutally slaughtered by troll hands. These did not chill her as much as the talk of the dead that walked: the drowned men who returned to their old homestead and could not be made to leave, the revenants with burning eyes that broke all the bones in the bodies of those that came too close.  Such tales were often spoken in daylight and hushed whispers. The speakers could not know such creatures were the wights of Morgoth assuming the shape of the dead to torment the living and Nellas lacked the words to tell them.  Such days she would often end up staring at the Sea for reassurance, until ordered back to her work.

The thing that amazed her was that the mortals did not flee.  So brief their lives were, so uncertain their deaths.  So little they remembered or understood of the Dark power. Yet they would not leave this land. They stayed, and they spread, building their frail homesteads, refusing to be driven from the land even when a farm or a valley must be yielded.  It was a kind of valour new to her, and as time passed she found herself turning less often to the Sea and more to the light and fire in the homestead.

Then there were the Sea-faring tales.  There would be many of them in such a land, she had expected that.  It was the westward stories that gripped her, the tales of sailing to a land called Green (although in the stories it sounded more like the Helcaraxë), the tales of sailing still further to lands they called Markland and Vinland.

These lands were not Aman. They could not be the lands that the Lady of Doriath had come from.  The lands of the tales were certainly mortal.  What then of the lands of the Powers?

All roads are now bent… Who had said that? Surely it had been said that elves could still find the straight road, but she was no mariner. If she were to sail on one of the mortal ships would the road become straight?  She had never chosen not to sail, had only ever thought ‘not yet.’

Summers turned.  A white-walled building called a church was erected not far away from Bergthorshvol.  A dead, beached, whale sparked a fight between neighbours.  A tale went round of a mountain troll killed by an outlaw. Njal’s sons went raiding again, and returned again.  And Njal’s daughter Thorgerd came over to see her kin.

Nellas was in the weaving-room with the other farm women.  No-one had ever worried about what they said in front of her, and no-one moved to remove her now.  She had learned things by now about the complex patterns of life in this land, had learned that Thorgerd’s husband, Ketil of Mork, was younger brother to Thrain Sigfusson, who had been killed by Njal’s sons and Kari Solmundarson after a long time of quarrel, and Thrain had been the father of Hoskuld, Njal’s foster son.  Compensation had been paid for Thrain’s killing, but Njal’s decision to foster his son was extraordinary.

“No good!” Saeunn said. “Stupid.  Where blood has been spilled more blood will come.”  No-one had answered.

Thorgerd took her time before saying why she had come, although the men were out in the fields. There were greetings, there was talk of the usual kind: of the sea and the winds and the beasts, of the horse fighting and the troll raids and the latest feud.  Nellas listened and said nothing, no-one thought she would.  Yet she understood the change of voice in which Thorgerd said “Mord Valgardsson has been spending more time than I like at the house of Hoskuld Thrainsson.”

Nellas knew only a little of Mord Valgardsson.  He was a sturdy man with wide-set blue eyes who had some standing in the neighbourhood. There was a tie of some sort between Mord and the house of Njal, but there were not many free households in Iceland that did not have such ties.

“Hoskuld does not speak to Ketil of what has passed between them, but Hildigunn has spoken to me,” said Thorgerd.  Hildigunn, wife of Hoskuld, was a proud woman who had not agreed to the marriage Njal had arranged until Hoskuld had the rank of Godi.  When Hildigunn had visited Bergthorsvol with Hoskuld Nellas had not sensed a woman who would talk idly.  “Mord has told Hoskuld that the sons of Njal plot against him, that they will strike him down, so he will not avenge his father’s death.”

“Mord lies,” said Bergthora.

“I am sure of it, and so I said.  Hoskuld does not trust Mord, and I think will not act on his lies, but if Mord seeks injuries against our houses it will not silence him when Hoskuld proves an unwilling tool.”

“What is it you want then?” said Bergthora.  “It was not I who chose that Hoskuld Thrainsson be fostered in this house.”

“You did not speak against my betrothal to Ketil, brother of Thrain,” said Thorgerd.  “Have a care of Mord, that is all I say to you.  Have care.”

Nellas heard no more spoken of this, but when Mord Valgardsson began to spend more time at Bergthorsvol with the sons of Njal no person said him nay.  Nellas watched as she went about her work.  Still no-one saw her as anything out of the ordinary. She had let her hair grow matted and her face go unwashed.  That was always a good way to make sure others saw nobody important.  Just a slave.  She knew it was not to prevent her overhearing that Mord so often invited Njal’s sons to ride away from the farm with him.

She could not deceive herself.  She had seen the Doom that followed Thingol’s mortal foster son in Doriath long ago, and tracked his steps in pity for his blindness, and blind hope of changing his fate. She had succeeded neither in altering his fate nor in opening his eyes to it.  She should have learned her lesson, yet now she saw the Doom than lurked at this pleasant farmstead, and she cared enough for her master to dread it.

So she knew also that Njal’s sons would be surprised, when she at last stood in front of them, meaning to hide no longer.  Kari was with them, but Mord was not.  She had avoided his presence deliberately. 

 

“Fools!”  That got their attention.  “Blinded fools.  You who listen to lies.  Will you bring doom to this house?”

“What empty talk is this?” It was Grim who replied, scornfully.

“You know,” she said. “You heed words born of malice and they will breed only death.”

“Many things breed death,” said Kari, “You do not say who will die.”

“Death will come to the foolish and the faithless, as it does ever,” said Skarphedin.  “I need no part-witted slavey to know that.”

“Will you work the death of your father?  Do you heed his lessons so little?”

“Our father?” said Helgi. “Our father does not wield sword or axe. This is not matter that he will suffer for.”

“You do not deny there is death in your talk then.  And death brings death, it need not strike by a blade.”

“Have you seen death indeed?” Grim spoke uneasily.

“I know that doom hangs by this house, and it will fall if you act as fools.”

Skarphedin laughed. “Cease your mumblings, they hold no fear for men.  If our father is as wise as others say, he knows his sons must guard against enemies.”

“Hoskuld is not your enemy, and his death will not buy your lives.”

“Words of a want-wit! Well for you that you are, or I might ask what you had been given to speak them.  Go back to your labour and speak not of things of which you know nothing.”

Skarphedin strode away with his normal swagger, the others following him with only the slightest of pauses.  “Death breeds only death!” Nellas called after them but none looked back.

Nellas went slowly down to the sea, and stood for a long while staring westward.  There were no sails.  She had not truly thought there would be.  Yet she stayed there until one of the other women came bustling and scolding down to the shore and ordered her back to the house.

It was not long after that Hoskuld Thrainsson was slaughtered in his own fields by Njal’s sons and Kari their sister’s husband and Mord Valgardsson.  Njal’s sons and Kari came back to the homestead afterwards and told what they had done.

Njal said he would rather that two of his sons were dead and Hoskuld lived.  Skarphedin called that the folly of old age but he did not seem surprised to hear it, nor did his brothers.  There was a silence in the hall before Njal said at last it was not folly but the knowledge that from this death would come his own death and the death of his wife and all his sons.  Not even Skarphedin mocked his father’s foresight.

Hoskuld had been well thought of and there was no doubt his death would not pass lightly from the minds of men.  The man who took the lead among his kin was named Flosi, he was the uncle of Hoskuld’s wife, Hildigunn.  He did not at first take up arms, but rather took the case to the Althing which was a kind of assembly the Icelanders held to make decisions. Athough it was said that Hildigunn, widowed, wanted blood to bring blood, yet Flosi had chosen to ask arbitration, and that might have been respect for Njal, for it was strange how such a peaceable man was so respected in a land of warriors.

Nellas heard the story afterwards, although none of the household men spoke of it in her hearing yet the tale ran through the land and the slaves at Bergthorsvol were not unaware for long.  A great sum had been set as compensation for the killing of Hoskuld Thrainsson, and Njal had agreed to it.  A pile of goods had been made, but when Flosi, Hoskuld’s kinsman came to reckon whether the goods offered were equal to the sum agreed he had found on top a robe that was rich but long, like the dress of a woman.

It must have been hard for Flosi to agree arbitration when the killing was one of the most shocking known in Iceland’s stories.  He must have heard some who called him weak and cowardly for it.  It was not strange perhaps that he called out in anger wanting to know who had placed the robe on the pile.  What was strange was that the tale Nellas heard said Njal himself had laid the robe on the pile, and Njal said nothing, yet Njal was the one man Flosi might have believed meant no insult.  Njal said nothing, and Flosi refused the blood-price.

Summer passed at Bergthorsvol and the killing of Hoskuld was not forgotten.  Neither man-price nor vengeance had followed and knowledge of it hung across the long days and short nights.  Yet only old Saeunn spoke dark forebodings, others seemed merely to wait what would come, as though with no belief it could now be changed.  Skarphedin walked still with his old swagger, but Njal’s other sons seemed less easy and Kari no longer sang of his old home.

Nellas was no different from the rest in this.  She knew that doom would come, it was in the air, in the earth, and in the face of Njal. She was not afraid for her life; it was not her doom that waited.  Yet she dreaded the moment all the same, as she had dreaded in Doriath when Dior the Fair, the proud, had refused the demands made by hands already stained in blood. She had known with a knowledge deeper than words what must come, and she had stayed to witness.  Now again she stayed to see the fate of Dior’s descendent.

Only once did she try to speak to Njal of this.  It was a cool day, the sky without cloud but barely blue more than grey, and Njal was alone looking out to the west.  Nellas came beside him and looked out over the bright sands that stretched beneath sky without clouds.  At last, when she believed he would not rebuke the presence of a slave, she said, “Why do you stay, you who have wisdom and foresight?  Why do you stay when you know, as you must, that Doom comes apace?”

“The Doom comes not to a place.”  Njal did not look at her, and he did not seem surprised by her words.

“No,” said Nellas, “but nor does it come to you.  The blood that called it was not shed by you.”

“Yet it was shed by blood of my blood, the son of my heart slain by sons of my body.  The Doom comes to me, slow or swift it will prove my end. Flight would be no escape.”

He walked back to the house, and Nellas saw Bergthora come out to join him.

The days of summer drew on. These north lands could never seem warm to Nellas, but the days of long sunlight had ever eased her spirits, when in the dark of the long winter nights she felt Morgoth’s malice still on the lands. She was not the only one ill at ease. The old woman, Saeunn, kept nagging about a pile of chickpea wood outside the farmhouse, and a rumour ran around that a man who was not a man had been seen riding across the hills with a flaming torch, which the Icelanders called a witch-ride and an omen.

Then there came an evening when Helgi and Grim, who had been away, returned early, and said they had heard report of Hoskuld’s kinsmen seen riding towards the home of Flosi.  Njal told his household to stay awake all night, and they did.  Njal and his sons and the other men of the household stood outside, in front of the house, and by the light of moon and the stars they saw the men who had come.

Nellas stood in the doorway as Njal said that all should go inside and for once his sons heeded him, although none seemed happy to do so.  She obeyed herself, despite the great fear that held her.  Inside she crouched against a wall, while from the door came shouts and the clash of weapons.  Skarphedin’s voice was raised the loudest; Njal was not one of those who pressed about the door with weapons.

Then came the first smoke and crackle, the first cries of fear from inside.  The house was not blazing yet, but the fire could not be put out. Nellas pressed herself against the wall. There had been fire in Morgoth’s mines, there were always furnaces blazing.

More shouting.  Flosi and his men were shouting for the women and children to come out.  She heard them shouting also for Njal, saying he would not be harmed, but she knew he would not leave, and knew there was nothing anyone there could do to make him. The smoke was thicker now.  Nellas kept her back against the wall and began moving slowly sideways, knowing that she would be lost if she ventured from the wall into the trackless smoke.  There was nothing she could do for Njal except remember him.

She fell into the open space through the door, got to her feet, and walked away from the house. Nobody stopped her.  Others from the house were outside already, huddled in groups, women clutching their children closely.

There was a yell, and she looked in time to see Njal’s son Helgi, who must have run from the house, slice clear through the leg of one of the attackers before a stroke from Flosi sliced off his head.  Nellas crouched, waiting, as she had waited as cries and the clashing of blades tore through the woods of Doriath, waiting again, although this time there was no need for hiding.

Flaming pieces were falling from the house now, as the flames leapt through the roof, and Flosi’s men retreated from the blaze.  Nellas did not turn her eyes and through the smoke she saw a figure that was burning leap down, as though from the rafters inside, and run from the house.  No other seemed to see for the smoke and the darkness, and even her eyes could not tell who had escaped.

They waited until the roof timbers fell in and there was no hope anyone more would come out.  Then Flosi’s men stayed but the women began to leave with their children, some weeping and others silent.  They did not all take the same path, but those who had been servants of Njal went with his daughter Helga to the farm her husband Kari had bought.  Bergthora was not with them, and others were saying she had refused to leave Njal.  Helga had two daughters and her younger son with her, but there was another son named Thord who had not come out of the house although he was both young enough to be a child and old enough to escape alone. Helga had stopped asking if anyone had seen him, by the time they turned away.

The sun was high, when a neighbour came to the farm and told them that he had seen Kari Solmundarson with his hair and clothes burned and a naked sword in his hand.  Nellas knew then it had been Kari she had seen jump from the rafters.  He did not come to the house, nor did his wife expect it, for she knew that Flosi’s men would be keeping watch.  Word came he had gone to a neighbour named Hjalti who had taken the news angrily and assembled men loyal to him.  Kari and Hjalti and others had gone back to the burned farmstead and cleared it and found the bodies of those who had burned underneath and carried them to the new built church.

Njal and Bergthora had been together, with an oxhide cover pulled over them and their young grandson Thord.  The oxhide somehow had not burned and the bodies were not burned either, they must have smothered in the smoke.  Skarphedin had been found caught between a fallen beam and one of the walls, the lower part of his body burned away.  Grim had been lying in the centre of the hall and could be recognised only from his belt buckle.  There were six other bodies found inside, among them the old woman Saeunn who had so often spoken of ill fate ahead.  Those who had seen Njal’s  body said in wonder that he had appeared radiant.  Nellas was not surprised, it was the mark of her Lady’s heritage she had seen from the first.

Those that were left of Njal’s house moved to the house of Asgrim, whose daughter Thorhalla had been the wife of Njal’s son Helgi, for Asgrim was a man with the power to protect them.  Kari was there, and Nellas knew at once that part of him had never left the burning hall. Only once did she catch a few words between husband and wife of the dead son, broken and painful words: I did not know… I could not see… I thought he must have gone out…

Nellas went outside and lowered her head down on her arms.  It had been so long, so very long, since the sack of an unremarkable village in Beleriand by Morgoth’s orcs.  So very long since her last sight of her own kindred, if there had been any still with her in the mines she could not now recall.  There had been those who told her she could see them alive again, if she went West, but what she had seen of those who came from the West had told her that they would not be the family she remembered.

She heard in pieces of the events that followed.  Flosi and the men who had carried out the burning with him had suit brought against them at the Althing.  There had been much anger against the burners, for while to kill men in revenge was a way of life, to set fire to a homestead and burn all those inside was, so she heard, very shocking.  Mord Valgardson brought the prosecution, and although he had had to be taunted into doing so those who returned said it was not his fault that the suit had failed on a point which Nellas did not understand at all.   Fighting had broken out between the two parties at the Althing itself and men had been killed, but at last a kind of peace had been agreed. The burners were all banished from Iceland for three years at the least.  Blood payment was made for most of the dead, though not for Skarphedin whose death was judged to cancel the killing of Hoskuld and not for Thord the son of Kari, because Kari refused to accept any settlement.  He had no right of payment for the other dead who were not his blood-kin, but none doubted it was all the deaths that drove him, not that of his own son alone.

Tales of killings began to come back to the women, killings by Kari and at first a kinsman of Njal named Thorgeir who had also refused to accept settlement was joined with him. Then later Thorgeir rode over to see Helga, Kari’s wife and said that for his part he felt he had shed blood enough and had made settlement with Kari’s goodwill, but Kari would not settle. He had made disposition so that no-one could eject Helga and their children from their property but he would not settle and so long as he would not settle he could not return.

“One of the burners who lives is the husband of my sister,” said Helga when she heard this.”

“That is so,” said Thorgeir, “and Kari has said to me that he will not slay Ketil of Mork for your sister Thorgerd’s sake, and also because he knows him for an honest man.” Indeed Ketil would live on unharmed in the years that followed.

Word came later that Kari had gone abroad because Flosi and other burners had left Iceland.   The rhythm of life on the farm went on. Helga saw to it that needful work was done as it had been before the burning.  The crops grew and were harvested, the stock grazed in the fields. Tales of trolls and revenants were still spoken in hushed voices, but, Nellas thought, new tales were told less often, or perhaps they did not have the horror for her that they once had done. From time to time word would come of the death of another of the burners, sometimes at Kari’s hand and sometimes not.  Flosi was not one of those named.  Seasons passed and Kari’s children ceased to ask when he would return.

Flosi returned to Iceland, having gone as far in his wanderings as a place called Rome, which had some importance to the Christians.  He had paid his compensation and served his banishment and no-one raised hand against him.

Then in wintertime Helga, the daughter of Njal, died after three days of sickness.  The next summer Kari came back to Iceland.

Nellas was carding wool outside when Kari came out and sat down beside her.  She went on with her work and after a time he said, “I am minded to reach an agreement with Flosi.”

“Why say that to me?” said Nellas and went on with her work.

“Because you foresaw what would come and warned us.  Because I would know if you see ill come from this.”

Nellas set the work aside then.  “Why do you intend this, then,” she said.  “And why now?”

“Because I am weary” said Kari.  “Because I have killed enough and more than enough for any one man’s life.  Because more deaths will not bring back the dead.

“And because Flosi, who fired the hall and broke all the customs of the land, is no worse a man than I, who slew one who the sons of Njal should have counted as much their kinsman as they counted me, who stood beside them because I had no other kin.

“There will be no price paid between us, only an end to the killing.  And to seal the agreement I will wed Flosi’s kinswoman Hildigunn, who was the wife of Hoskuld Thrainsson.”

“And does Hildigunn, who was wife of Hoskuld, have any say in this,” said Nellas when she had recovered her breath.

“It would be great folly to wed such a woman as Hildigunn if she were not full willing,” said Kari. “I am no such fool.”

Nellas was silent a while, at last she said.  “I see no ill to come from this, but I cannot say whether ill or good will come, for I cannot see all things.”

“It is enough,” said Kari. “I will wed with Hildigunn and make what peace I may.”  He rose and went back to the house.

Kari could not be an old man as mortals counted it, Nellas thought, for all his hair was grey.  Hildigunn was likely younger.  They might have many years ahead.  She hoped the peace would hold.  How strange that mortals who slew with such swiftness, could still make such a peace as this.  A peace fit for her own folk to look upon and wonder.

The wool was finished. She stood up and looked towards the sea, closer here even than at Bergthorshvol, then she turned back to the hall.  Evening was drawing in and the fire would be bright.  Nellas hoped there would be songs that evening.

With reasonable fortune there should be a good few years left for her yet in Iceland. 

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Chapter End Notes

It is widely accepted there was a man called Njal who was burned in his house in Iceland around the year 1010.  How much similarity the real events had to the events of Njal’s Saga, which was written down long after the death of Njal, there is no way of knowing.  I have stuck very closely to the events of the last part of the Saga, with the obvious exception of inserting Nellas.  That Njal had no beard is stated in the original repeatedly.

According to the Saga the peace that is made at the end of this story lasted.