On the Cold Coasts

about such things, who had been with child ten times but had only two daughters alive, Ragna and little Kristin, who had just turned seven. Two miscarriages; four children had passed before they could walk, all from sickness of the lungs; and the first and last had been stillborn. Those two had not been christened, but her firstborn, who had never drawn the breath of life, a tiny boy with a crop of dark hair and balled fists, had been buried in consecrated earth. The Greenlanders were not as heartless as the Icelanders, who refused to allow those who were not christened to be buried in a churchyard, just like they did with those who took their own lives. They would never rest in peace. He was buried beneath the wall of the church of Hvalsey in Greenland, next to his father, brother, and three sisters, the same church in which Sigridur had been given in marriage to Thorsteinn Olafsson twelve years before.

    At long last it seemed as if the red pebble of relief was starting to work its magic and ease the birthing, though not until the midwife had also bound a vellum leaf from Vita of St. Margaret to the girl’s thigh. With joint effort the women were able to get her onto the floor when the contractions came with increasing frequency, and then the pushing began. Ragna was barely able to stand and fell, heavy and exhausted, onto her knees, like a helpless beached whale. Her mother crossed herself when she saw the thick rivulets of blood that streamed down the girl’s thighs. A maroon-colored puddle formed on the wooden floor, and the pungent smell of iron filled the air.
    “Holy Mary, Mother of God, help us,” Sigridur moaned, distraught, knowing that the worst thing of all had happened: the girl was torn on the inside and the baby was not out yet. From the corner of her eye, she saw the angel of death standing in the dusky corner of the room with that familiar look of sorrow. Ragna screamed with renewed energy and pain, and a head with black hair appeared between her legs. One shoulder emerged, and then the other, the child so broad-shouldered and large that the two women had never seen anything like it; surely this was the Lord’s penalty for fornication during Easter. The same instant as her son slid into this world in a torrent of blood, darkness bestowed its mercy on Ragna, and everything vanished.
    The midwife recited all the incantations that she knew for stopping blood flow in a singsong voice, burning incense all the while. “Cease blood red that I see flowing, blood burning, blood turning, blood halting, the flood halted when the Savior died, hold back thy blood of death…”
    Yet although the incantations worked and the flow of blood from the uterus slowed and finally stopped completely, it seemed clear that Ragna would not live. No one could lose so much blood and still survive. Father Pall anointed her and gave her the final sacrament while there was still a tiny fluttering spirit within her chest; it was safest that way.
    Her mother spent the entire night on her knees in the church and prayed, adjured blessed Margaret, blessed Thorlak, blessed Mary, Mother of God, yes all the saints with churches throughout north Iceland, to let her daughter live. In Sigridur Bjornsdottir’s forty winters on this earth, the angel of death had followed her every step. It had snatched one infant after another away from her during the fifteen years that she had lived in Greenland, and when the Great Plague raged in Iceland, her immediate family was all afflicted. Her parents and siblings coughed up blood and gave up the ghost within a few days. She was the only survivor from the lineage of Bjorn the Rich Brynjolfsson from Akrar in Blonduhlid, and she had not even known about her bereavement and related wealth until two years later when Thorsteinn came from Iceland bearing news of all the land, tenants, and livestock that now belonged to her alone. In addition to Thorleiksstadir, Mosagrund, and Vaglar, which had been her dowry at the age of fifteen, she was now the owner of the Akrar lands, as well as the farms of Brekkur, Grof, Gegnisholl, Vellir, Reykir on Reykjastrond, Dadastadir, both of the Grund lands, and four sections of land in Laxardalur Valley. Of course she alone now also bore all the obligations and taxes that accompanied this vast inheritance, as well as responsibility for the livestock and tenant farmers.
    The previous spring God had given her Ragna, who was born healthy and likely to live. In the fall,