Nordland Night: Matgrass

There was a lightly dressed girl down on the wharf when the trawler chugged into Sørviken, and Mekkel Johanna immediately recognised her.

But with all her faculties, she could not understand what was the matter was with Beret; she was standing, passively staring at the low tide mark in the early morning, when scores of the day’s chores were waiting for her attention.

There was no smoke from the chimney, so she hadn’t taken the time to light the fire in the stove and put on the coffee pot, even though she had asked her to set the coffee table and make it cozy in the parlour when they returned from their trip.

And Gurine? Of course that sloth lay asleep.

But when the dory had landed, and Mekkel Johanna as well as the others heard what Beret had to say, their agitation cooled.

Yesterday evening, after the trawler disappeared behind Klubbenesset, Gurine took her knitting and wandered on her way to receive the cattle when they came from the mark. The cows and goats had gone into the summer barn by themselves and each stood in its own stall, licking salt, when Beret came to help with the milking. But Gurine was not there. She put down the buckets and took the animals and tethered them. Then she walked up the cattle road until she could see the whole area. The crowberries were beginning to ripen in the sun up there, and Gurine was obsessed with berries.

But there was no Gurine to see. And no one answered her calling.

She went back to the barn and did the milking by herself.

But when the milk was strained, and all the evening grooming was finished, and Gurine had not yet arrived, she began to be afraid that she might have had an accident. She closed the doors and left, to look for her.

And she tramped the mark until about three before she found her.

But perhaps it would have been better if she had never found her, Beret lamented, utterly exhausted by fatigue and fear.

“Where did you find her?” Marius asked, before any of the others managed to find their voices.

“I found her on the other side of Oxhaugen mound. She was wandering in a circle and didn’t even sense I was talking to her. Oh God! Come and help her. I think she’s walking on matgrass.”¹

“Come with me, fellows!” cried Rubert Rubertsa, running up the sea road.

The others ran after him.

At the bridge of the barn the fellow stopped and stared uncertainly.

“If its our chickens you want, I’ll go and fetch you a black hen,” said Mekkel Aronsa, who had grown breathless from running up the hill.

The fellow nodded.

“Don’t take the chicken hen, take the other one!” Mekkel Johanna called after him, and Mekkel Aronste did as he was told; he came out with a charcoal-black hen under his tunic.

“Make sure she doesn’t fly away from you,” Rubert Rubertsa admonished him, and went by foot past the summer barn, up the cattle road to Okshaugen with the whole company after him.

The shoulder of the mountain shaded from the morning sun, so the mound lay in the shadow, and the ground was gray with dew. Gurine trotted around in circles, in a spot no bigger than Mekkel Aronsa’s turnip patch. The heather was trodden down and black from all her trotting. She was bare-headed, and her face was as pale as death, and her hair hung loose down her back.

“Gurine, don’t be afraid, I’m coming to you right now this moment, to carry you home!” cried Marius.

But Rubert Rubertsa grabbed his arm.

“You stay where you are; I think I can get her out of the matgrass,” he said sternly.

But Marius was like a horse ready to gallop, and he jerked his arm free.

“I can’t stand here and watch she I care for wander into death,” he sobbed.

“It may be death, if you do not do as I say,” hissed the fellow. He took and cut off a small rowan, and whittled an arrow from the stump. Then he scratched some aspects into the wood.

“Come now with the hen.” He looked at Mekkel Aronsa. And with his back to the others he cut off its head and turned the arrow in the stream of blood. As if on command, each man stood next to his woman, ready to hold on, if any of them lost control.

But that wasn’t necessary. Quietly, they stood and stared, first at old Rubert and then at she who trotted endlessly, not realizing that folk were standing right next to her.

Mekkel Aronste took and put the dead hen well under his tunic, and buttoned up, while Rubert Rubertsa went with the bloody arrow to the trampled ring that Gurine had made. Suddenly the sun rose above the shoulder of rock and shone on the girl. She had bloody foam around her mouth and her legs were trembling.

But then Marius forgot everything except she for whom he had a heart. With a leap he was inside the ring, taking her by the arm as if she were a small child. He carried her to the others, and stood holding her.

“The child! The poor innocent child!” comforted Ellen Lorentse, wiping away the bloody foam from around Gurine’s mouth, who was hiding her face in Marius’s neck.

But Mekkel Johanna took Kari Aronste in one arm and Rebekah from Sneisa in the other. “Come on, let’s go home,” she said. I asked Beret to set the coffee table in the parlour, and make it cozy, and now we all need something to strengthen us. And no one refused her.

Down by the summer barn were a few peat tarns. There Rubert Rubertsa and Mekkel Aronsa stopped, to wash the blood off their hands and clothes; and there they buried the dead hen, while the others went on.

“Am I not getting heavy for you, Marius?” whispered Gurine.

“How you talk! Don’t you know that I shall carry you in my arms all my life?” Marius whisprered back, stroking her hair with his mouth.

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1. Matgrass, Nardus stricta is called villstrå (wild straw) or finnskjegg (Finn-beard) in Norwegian. An old superstition says that it can bewitch you. This superstition became a metaphor; someone acting strangely was figuratively walking on matgrass. ↩