Free Paradise Reclaimed by Halldór Laxness Page B

“And all these precious stones?”
    “And what secrets do we have, Daddy?” said the girl.
    “Why did God create the world with compartments for silver and gold and precious stones, my children?” asked their father. “And with so many secret compartments as well? Was it because He had so much ready money that He did not know where to keep it all? Or was it because He Himself had something on His conscience which He had to hide away in holes?”
    “Daddy,” said the young girl, staring spellbound at the closed casket, “who’s going to open up the casket when we are dead and no one remembers the poem any more?”
    The news of this masterpiece of carpentry spread far and wide, and many whose journeys took them near Hlíðar knocked on the door to ask if they could feast their eyes on this phenomenon. Others travelled miles for this specific purpose. And many offered large sums of money for the casket.
    Late that summer, Steinar made it known that he was going to travel to Denmark to visit his Krapi, and that he was going as the guest of King Kristian Wilhelmsson of Denmark. He made his preparations to the best of his ability. A renowned seamstress from another district made up a suit for him of blue homespun, and he ordered a pair of topboots from Eyrarbakki. He left home in the middle of the night without saying goodbye to his children; but before he went he looked at them for a moment as they slept. Steinar was 48 years old when he undertook this journey.
    His son Víkingur had just been confirmed, and his daughter Steina was almost sixteen. And although the departure of this home-loving farmer gave his family cause for tears, there was consolation in their pride at having a father whom foreign kings wished to have at their side, just as in the sagas. His wife wiped away her tears on the corner of her apron and said to her neighbours: “It is not surprising that kings should send for my Steinar. What a wonderfully peaceful world it would be abroad if there were more like him there. I’m quite sure there will be God’s heaven on earth when men like my Steinar can influence kings.”
    These were Steinar’s circumstances when he set off on his journey: as was said before, the land he farmed was his own, inherited from his father. The farm was worth twelve hundreds according to the old system of valuation, whereby one hundred was equivalent to the price of a cow. He owed no man anything, because in those days farmers had no credit, nor was there any money available for lending. If any farmer got into difficulties, he just had to sell up. Steinar owned thirty milch-ewes and a dozen nonmilkers, two cows and a year-old heifer, and five work-ponies which for the most part fended for themselves. The cow has always been the people’s bread and butter in Iceland, and the sheep their ready cash. In modern terms, the income from one sheep is equivalent to two days’ pay for a labourer, but in those days there were no wage-earning labourers. Of thirty sheep on a farm, ten were required for maintaining the stock; thus, Steinar only had the income from twenty sheep for his ready cash, or in other words the equivalent of forty days’ pay for his year’s expenditure. With this income he bought rye-meal and barley and other necessities from the store at Eyrarbakki, two days’ journey away; this was the largest trading concern in the Danish overseas empire, and customers came to it from many hundred of kilometres away. A few old ewes were slaughtered every year for meat, and clothes were home-made from waste wool. Shoes were also made at home, from untanned hide dipped in alum, and it was always impressed on the children that they must not put too much strain on the shoes by treading hard on the ground. Fish and dulse were bought from the littoral crofters in exchange for mutton, and sometimes, when provisions were low, Steinar would himself go and spend a fishing-season at Þorlákshöfn in an open boat. With any luck he