INTRODUCTION

This dream is a vignette from a novel-length saga. For the whole story, see The Laxdale Saga at the Icelandic Saga Database. English translation 1880, Muriel A. C. Press, from the original 'Laxdæla saga'. ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW NOW: Herdis is in her early teens, living with her grandmother Gudrun while her dad Bolli is on a voyage. Their family's famous, but tumultuous; Gudrun lost four husbands in a row.

HERDIS'S DREAM

Gudrun took much to heart the death of [her fourth husband] Thorkell, yet bore her bereavement bravely. She became very religious; the first woman in Iceland who knew the Psalter by heart. She would spend long time in the church at nights saying her prayers, and Herdis her granddaughter always went with her at night. Gudrun loved Herdis very much.

It is told that one night the maiden Herdis dreamed that a woman came to her who was dressed in a woven cloak, and coifed in a head cloth, but Herdis did not think the woman pleasant to look at.

The woman said "Tell your grandmother that I am displeased with her, for she creeps about over me every night, and lets fall down upon me drops so hot that I am burning all over from them. My reason for letting you know this is, that I like you somewhat better, though there is something uncanny hovering about you too. However, I could get on with you if I did not feel there was so much more amiss with Gudrun."

Then Herdis awoke and told Gudrun her dream. Gudrun thought the apparition was of good omen. Next morning Gudrun had planks taken up from the church floor where she was wont to kneel on the hassock, and she had the earth dug up, and they found blue and evil-looking bones, a round brooch, and a wizard's wand, and men thought they knew then that a tomb of some sorceress must have been there; so the bones were taken to a place far away where people were least likely to be passing.

NOTES

This dream-anecdote says a lot about Norse attitudes toward...

• AGE and GENDER: in mainland medieval society, children, especially girls, were not much listened to. I've found few pre-Renaissance dreams by boys, and none by girls except in these Icelandic sagas! Herdis's name and tale survived because, like Gudrun as a girl, she was taken seriously by adults. The rest of Europe saw the Vikings as savages--but these "backward" Icelanders, though definitely patriarchal, consistently see women and children as people.
• GOOD, EVIL, and SUPERSTITION: elsewhere in early Christendom, a girl who admits she's haunted by a witch or sorceress might face exorcism... or much worse. Herdis and her grandma are matter-of-fact, treating their ghost as a dead woman who understandably wants some peace and quiet.
• HUMOR: the ghost finds Herdis spooky, though not as spooky as Gudrun! As far as the ghost is concerned, Gudrun is haunting her with those burning drops (candlewax or tears? Which hurts worse, fire or regret?)
• AURAS: Even necromancers sometimes gag, and Gudrun's luck really stinks! It may not be a curse that offends the ghost, but how Gudrun radiates grief and remorse. Or this witch may simply be uncomfortable around other women with strong mojo! Both Gudrun and Herdis, after all, have psychic dreams; it runs in the family.
• ESTHETICS: for those who reject a literal reading of the passage, I'll point out it comes near the end of the Laxdale Saga, bringing the tale full circle from Gudrun's evidence of precocity and second sight in a time of feuds and murder, to her granddaughter's similar talents two generations later, in a more peaceful, forgiving age. This troubled ghost laid to rest personifies the transformation of Gudrun and her whole quarreling clan; it presages Iceland's rise out of feudalism.

  On the other hand, Herdis is not fiction. She was real; her descendants are traceable. The sagas admire economical sketching of character, and listeners relished "character defined by a deed"--or a word. This vignette certainly fits! Herdis stays cool where many adults (medieval or modern) would panic. My guess is that this was the family story about Herdis--placed to good effect by the poet, but as true as the rest of the saga. Too many descendants would object! And the skald composing the Laxdale Saga did NOT want them objecting. Not that clan. You really, really, don't want that.

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