I was surprised at how easily the rhythms of that long-ago night came back, how drenched through it was with all things Norwegian, complete of itself and needing no adapting. Julia was a good listener. It began to rain. Julia found the windshield wipers and the headlights. I settled back and, in my mother’s words, told her how Tors had hired a man named Glam as winter shepherd.
Glam was a master of herding: the sheep seemed terrified of him, and all he had to do was call out in his terrible hoarse voice and they huddled at his direction. One night, while Glam was out with the sheep, the snow flurries became a blizzard. No man could step forth and live. That night, Lisbet had strange dreams of dark shapes battling in the snow on the fjellside.
In the morning the family woke to find that Glam had not returned. They walked up the mountain and found him in a bloody, levelled place. His skin was mottled and bloated, as though he had been dead a long, long time. Huge tracks, the size of barrel hoops, filled with frozen blood, led off to a deep and narrow gully. “Troll tracks,” said Astrid. She peered into the gully, looked at the blood, and said, “Nothing, not even a troll, could have survived that.”
They tried to move Glam’s body, but it was as if his bones had turned to stone and he would not shift. In the end they covered him with stones where he lay.
Three days later, Lisbet woke in the middle of the night and ran to her mother. “Glam walks in my dreams!” The next morning, they found a dog—or what was left of a dog—on the stoop.
Astrid went to Tors. “Glam is not easy in his grave. You must burn him, husband.”
But upon toiling up the mountain with faggots and tallow, and heaving aside the stones, they found nothing. Astrid said, “The troll lives in his bones and walks abroad wearing his skin, even under the sun.”
And as the nights grew longer, Glam spread terror: running on the rooftops until the beams buckled, rolling great boulders down the fjell, crushing the spirit of men and driving cattle mad.
Now, it happened that at this time, a ship came into the fjord and Grettir the Strong, who was tired of adventuring in foreign lands, heard of Tors of Torsgaard and his dead shepherd, Glam. He went to Torsgaard and saw Kari milking the cow, saw how her sandy hair turned to gold in a shaft of rare winter sunshine, and agreed to stay and deal with Glam, for he was curiously unwilling to leave Kari Torsdottir to the anger of the troll.
On the eve of his first night, Astrid gave him a plan.
And so, as the sun went down that evening, Tors found himself strangely sleepy and he snored. Astrid directed Grettir to pick up her husband and bundle him into the bed at the far end of the hall, away from the passage that led to the door. Then she dressed Lisbet in her warmest clothes, and the two of them stole out to hide in the barn. Then there was only Kari and Grettir. They stood opposite each other by the hearth. Grettir, forgetting himself in his fear for her, took her by the hand. “It’s not too late to hide with your mother and sister.”
“You will need me,” she said. “We must bring Glam inside.”
When the embers began to die, Kari lay down on the wall-bed by the inglenook. Grettir wrapped himself like a sausage in an old, heavy fur cloak and settled himself on the wall bench opposite Kari’s bed. In front of the bench was a bench beam, a huge ancient thing set into the floor when the farm was built. He set his feet against it and straightened his legs so he was firmly braced between the beam and the wall. And then they waited.
Sudden as an avalanche, something leapt onto the roof and thundered about, driving down with its heels, until the new beam buckled and splintered and the roof almost fell in. Glam. The walls shook and Glam jumped down, and the earth trembled as he strode to the door. A sharp creak as he laid his huge horny hand on the door and suddenly it was ripped away, lintel and all, and moonlight briefly lit the hearthroom before Glam blocked out all light as he thrust his huge head through. The whites of his strange eyes gleamed like sickly oysters, and Grettir felt his heart fail him.
“Glam,” said Kari. “If you want me, I will come with you, but I must have a bearskin to lie on. Bring that old cloak on the bench by the fire. I’ll wait for you outside.”
Glam strode over to the sausage-shaped bundle of fur and tried to pick it up with one hand. Grettir was braced and ready. He made no sound and the fur did not move. Glam pulled harder, but Grettir braced his feet more firmly. Glam grunted, and laid two hands on the bundle, and now a titanic struggle began. Grettir was dragged towards the door. Finally, with a furious wriggle, he eeled around in Glam’s grip until his back was to the awful face and bull-like chest. He dug his heels against the threshold stone and with a strength that was equal parts fear, determination and desperation he leaned in towards the last breath of warm, indoor air. As Glam hauled backwards with all his might, so, too, did Grettir thrust backwards, and his last strength and the inhuman force of Glam’s heave hurled them both outside. Glam, with Grettir still clutched to his breast, landed spine down across a rock. The loud crack of his backbone parting would live in Grettir’s mind for the rest of his days. And then Glam spoke, hoarse and horrible in his ear.
“You will live, Grettir the Strong, but you will never be the same. You will always look into the dark and see my face, hear my voice, and know I will come for you. You may kill me, but I will live on in your mind.” And the troll laughed, dark and full of wickedness. At the laugh, Grettir sprang to his feet, pulled free his sword, and swung. Glam’s head, like some vile rock, rolled free, and Grettir did not laugh, but wept.
They burnt Glam right there, outside the hall. And then they burnt the ashes. And when the ashes were cold they were gathered in the torn cloak and wrapped tight, and Astrid saw to it that it was thrown into a chasm, and huge boulders hurtled down on top of it.
Torsgaard celebrated all day and into the evening, but eventually the fire dwindled and the torches were doused. Everyone slept. In the middle of the night, Kari was woken up by a strange noise, like a child crying. It was Grettir, trying to light a torch and rocking back and forth. “He will come for me. He will come for me.”
“He is dead, beloved.”
“I am all alone and he will come for me!”
“You will never be alone again.” But he would not hear her, he just rocked and rocked, back and forth.
And the story goes that though Kari stayed by his side every living minute and married him not long after, his fear grew worse and he began to rock back and forth and light torches even in the daytime. In the end, they say he ran out, barking mad, and Kari was left without a husband and the hall at Torsgaard gradually declined. No flowers ever grew in the chasm where they had thrown Glam’s ashes.
“Kids around here must have strange dreams,” Julia said finally. “So the moral of the story is that the troll will always get you in the end.”
“Even if you think you’ve won. Just like the land itself.” I peered through the rain, which seemed to be easing. “We’re in Oppland now.”
“It certainly looks like troll country.”
Just to prove her wrong, the rain stopped, and above and ahead wind thinned the clouds, sending them fleeing in tatters over the endless coarse grass and wildflowers. “The road gets narrower here.”
“Your turn to drive.”
We stopped the car and got out. The air was as cool and fresh as dew-laden grass. Julia stretched by the left-hand side of the road and I put my arms around her from behind. I kissed the back of her neck and she rested against me and we looked out over the uplands. A perfect rainbow arched over the undulating ground.