Gudny, when we met her in her laboratory in Saudarkrokur later that evening. “It will be
perfect
He had already gotten permission, he confided to her, to use a backhoe at Glaumbaer. The director of the national Archaeological Heritage Agency, from whom he got his official permits, had said it would be okay.
Those permits, I could see now, were useless.
Sirri’s eyes narrowed. “I see,” she said in English, and John fell silent.
I wrote in my notebook:
No backhoe.
“Isn’t it easily cut with a spade?” Sirri said, putting on her phone headset. She smiled at us and nodded toward the chocolate box, as if to say
enjoy!
Hospitality is a prominent cultural value in Iceland, as important now as it was in the saga days, so I leaned past Gudny and took a couple. Gudny took some, too.
After a rapid conversation in Icelandic, Sirri reported that two or three men could remove the turf in twenty-five hours. Her brother Helgi would arrange it.
“That’s as fast as a backhoe!” John said.
“Yes, I know.” Sirri’s smile was simultaneously smug and patient. “People who know how to do it are as fast as a backhoe. The people are a little bit expensiver, but not much. I like it better not to have a machine on the field. When do you want to start?”
That settled, Sirri went to the refrigerator and brought out a plate of cheese, crackers, and grapes. Gudny and I helped ourselves; John suggested a bit of show-and-tell. He had a movie about his latest remote-sensing device to show them, to explain the new procedure he’d be using that summer. He slipped his laptop out of its case and opened the lid. Nothing. He closed it, opened it, wiggled it. Still nothing.
Sirri took some cheese and crackers.
“Tækni
is good, if it works,” she said, and winked at Gudny and me.
“If I could hook it up to your monitor...,” John said, and Sirri directed him to the computer in the outer office.
I’d seen this movie before. It showed how ground-penetrating radar had located and mapped in colorful 3-D a first-century Roman marketplace and the Emperor Trajan’s eel pond. I excused myself and went to find a window facing east. The weather was astonishingly mild for Iceland in March, and Pastor Gisli, who preached in the Glaumbaer church and worked the farm, had turned out his sheep. They were grazing on top of Gudrid’s house and had cropped the brown grass quite short, but I saw no vague, humped shape of a tumbled longhouse rising from the field. The ground looked quite flat. The sheep milled around the metal hay feeders and the red hay wagon parked in the center of the field, just where Gudrid’s hearth should be.
Sirri came up behind me—the
tækni
was still not working. “There are a lot of elves here,” she said, looking over my shoulder, “and trolls, too.” She was testing me. Coming out of the blue, that comment would have sounded strange to someone unfamiliar with the Icelanders’ love of old stories.
“People always are asking, Do we believe in them?” She laughed. “I give them the benefit of the doubt. The stories are good. A good saga will never die.”
Chapter 3: A Very Stirring Woman
Karlsefni and Gudrid sailed to Iceland the next summer, home to his farm at Reynines. But his mother would not have Gudrid in her house that first winter. In her opinion, Karlsefni had not married well. Though later on she would learn how remarkable a woman Gudrid was...
—The Saga of Eirik the Red
J OHN STEINBERG’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL CREW DESCENDED on the Glaumbaer hayfield in early July 2005 and spent most of a week trying to make the new
tækni
—ground-penetrating radar—work.
The gadget, when it had arrived, looked like a baby-jogger. A sealed plastic box, 18 inches square and fluorescent orange, protected the electronics, which send pulses of microwaves into the ground and pick up their echoes. The box was fixed between two bicycle wheels. A sturdy frame provided a handle and supported the data recorder, its
perfect
He had already gotten permission, he confided to her, to use a backhoe at Glaumbaer. The director of the national Archaeological Heritage Agency, from whom he got his official permits, had said it would be okay.
Those permits, I could see now, were useless.
Sirri’s eyes narrowed. “I see,” she said in English, and John fell silent.
I wrote in my notebook:
No backhoe.
“Isn’t it easily cut with a spade?” Sirri said, putting on her phone headset. She smiled at us and nodded toward the chocolate box, as if to say
enjoy!
Hospitality is a prominent cultural value in Iceland, as important now as it was in the saga days, so I leaned past Gudny and took a couple. Gudny took some, too.
After a rapid conversation in Icelandic, Sirri reported that two or three men could remove the turf in twenty-five hours. Her brother Helgi would arrange it.
“That’s as fast as a backhoe!” John said.
“Yes, I know.” Sirri’s smile was simultaneously smug and patient. “People who know how to do it are as fast as a backhoe. The people are a little bit expensiver, but not much. I like it better not to have a machine on the field. When do you want to start?”
That settled, Sirri went to the refrigerator and brought out a plate of cheese, crackers, and grapes. Gudny and I helped ourselves; John suggested a bit of show-and-tell. He had a movie about his latest remote-sensing device to show them, to explain the new procedure he’d be using that summer. He slipped his laptop out of its case and opened the lid. Nothing. He closed it, opened it, wiggled it. Still nothing.
Sirri took some cheese and crackers.
“Tækni
is good, if it works,” she said, and winked at Gudny and me.
“If I could hook it up to your monitor...,” John said, and Sirri directed him to the computer in the outer office.
I’d seen this movie before. It showed how ground-penetrating radar had located and mapped in colorful 3-D a first-century Roman marketplace and the Emperor Trajan’s eel pond. I excused myself and went to find a window facing east. The weather was astonishingly mild for Iceland in March, and Pastor Gisli, who preached in the Glaumbaer church and worked the farm, had turned out his sheep. They were grazing on top of Gudrid’s house and had cropped the brown grass quite short, but I saw no vague, humped shape of a tumbled longhouse rising from the field. The ground looked quite flat. The sheep milled around the metal hay feeders and the red hay wagon parked in the center of the field, just where Gudrid’s hearth should be.
Sirri came up behind me—the
tækni
was still not working. “There are a lot of elves here,” she said, looking over my shoulder, “and trolls, too.” She was testing me. Coming out of the blue, that comment would have sounded strange to someone unfamiliar with the Icelanders’ love of old stories.
“People always are asking, Do we believe in them?” She laughed. “I give them the benefit of the doubt. The stories are good. A good saga will never die.”
Chapter 3: A Very Stirring Woman
Karlsefni and Gudrid sailed to Iceland the next summer, home to his farm at Reynines. But his mother would not have Gudrid in her house that first winter. In her opinion, Karlsefni had not married well. Though later on she would learn how remarkable a woman Gudrid was...
—The Saga of Eirik the Red
J OHN STEINBERG’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL CREW DESCENDED on the Glaumbaer hayfield in early July 2005 and spent most of a week trying to make the new
tækni
—ground-penetrating radar—work.
The gadget, when it had arrived, looked like a baby-jogger. A sealed plastic box, 18 inches square and fluorescent orange, protected the electronics, which send pulses of microwaves into the ground and pick up their echoes. The box was fixed between two bicycle wheels. A sturdy frame provided a handle and supported the data recorder, its
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