HANS-PETER STEINER
HANS-PETER LOOKED around the table. In his best imagination he couldn’t have imagined this night. He couldn’t have imagined that Margo would have agreed to come with him to Sweden.
He couldn’t have imagined how pleasant and fun the ride from Stuttgart to Malmö would be.
And he couldn’t have imagined how well she would get along with his old friends Kai and Bridget Lundgren.
Kai was a professor at Lund University where he was the lead archeologist at the dig. They had met at the winter meeting of the Viking Society of Northern Research ten years before.
Together they had proposed the documentary to BBC. Together they were working on a book. And now together they were having a roast chicken meal prepared by Bridget, Kai’s wife, a professional translator and writer with her own reputation.
“I hope the rain stops for you.” Bridget offered a chicken leg to Hans-Peter. They had eaten together enough to know that Hans-Peter was a dark meat person where she and Kai were light.
Before Hans-Peter could take the plate, Bridget grabbed it to add potatoes and peas.
“We can move up some of the interviews if not,” Hans-Peter said.
“You might have been better to wait until the sun stays until it doesn’t set so early,” Bridget served Kai then herself.
“Finn was free now,” Hans-Peter said. Finn Macdonald was a stereotype of either an Irishman or Scot with his red hair and beard. His mother was Irish, his father Scottish. Both professors had worked with him before and respected his work as a director.
“I asked him to join us tonight, but he said he need to set up the indoor shots,” Kai said. “Be prepared for a great desert, Chocolate Sticky Cake, which I bought at the bageri. Karl, the baker, and I went to school together. He was my neighbor and a real artist working in flour, sugar.”
The four left the table and went to the living room. Although the furniture was simple and clean cut, the walls were all filled with bookshelves.
Bridget was right about the cake. First, they talked as a foursome then the men switched to talk of the next few days shooting. Bridget and Margo fell into a conversation about their work.
Bridget brought out four beers in four glass mugs on a tray. “This is Sweden’s best beer.”
Hans-Peter glanced over at his ex-wife’s face and felt relief that she seemed to be enjoying herself. Normally when she was relaxed, she would pull her legs under herself, an impossibility with a cast.
His worries that Margo would be bored were put to rest. In an attempt to include her, he said, “I should tell you about Margo’s cursed ring.”
“I don’t really believe in curses,” Margo said.
“It’s a family ring handed down through her late mother to the youngest daughter. Every time she wears it something bad happens. Not big things, little things like a flat tire or an appliance breaking down.” Or the last time she wore it. . . ” Hans-Peter let the pause speak for itself and he pointed to Margo’s crutches and cast “. . . she tripped. It was during her exhibition.”
“But I fell so gracefully. Maybe it helped with sales. Anyway, it has to be coincidences,” Margo said. “I never knew my great-grandmother and why would she put a curse on future granddaughters?”
Kai took a drink of his beer. “Even if I don’t believe either, almost all societies have some form of curse which can be a simple swear of damn you or include some deity that people think is real and who will do bad things to those they want to curse.”
Hans-Peter remembered when they were first married Margo would whisper when they were going home after an evening with his colleagues, “I can’t stand all this Viking, Viking, Viking stuff.” Now sitting with this kind, generous, intelligent couple, she looked as if she were having a good time. A shiver of contentment ran through his body. It surprised him. No, it amazed him.
Kai stood up to light the fire in the ceramic stove which was already filled with logs and rolled paper. With minutes the slight chill disappeared.
He sat and leaned forward with his hands on his knees. “I don’t believe in curses either, but they do appear in our literature, our sagas. They make a great story on a cool night after a good meal. Let me tell you a story of an ancient curse.”
“Once upon a time,” Kai began. Sagas don’t really start like that, but it makes the story better. It’s a leftover from our childhood when we expect the once upon a time opening. That once upon a time could have been in the 10th century although some scholars say 13th.”
Bridget rolled her eyes. “Is that the one I translated five years ago?”
“One and the same.”
It’s about an Icelandic named Thorleifr. Boy was he wealthy.
Margo couldn’t resist. “Okay, how did they measure wealth in the 10th century?”
Kai didn’t seem to mind the interruption. “I suppose by the size and number of homes, many of which were underground. Or number of goats? Not in cryptocurrency like the current U.S. President. Maybe a subject for a future doctoral dissertation. I’ll suggest it to the next student I mentor. Maybe you could suggest it to one of yours H-P.”
Hans-Peter just shrugged.
Kai took a deep breath and continued.
Some sources say that his mother gave birth to him and his twin brother while she was tending to sheep.
“Maybe his wealth was in sheep.” Kai took another sip of beer.
When Thorleifr was still young he went to Norway. Big mistake. Maybe he wasn’t diplomatic enough because he pissed off Jarl Hákon.
Hans-Peter could see how much Kai was enjoying telling the story.
It may have been trading rights. No different than countries fighting over treaties today. “Margo, Jarl means of the nobility or king. Jarl Hákon was also called Hákon The Bad.”
Whatever Thorleifr did to annoy Hákon, be it trading rights or something else the jarl burned Thorleifr’s ships and killed his men. Luckily Thorfeifr escaped to Denmark where he became a skald.
Before Kai could mansplain to Margo she said, “I know that skald means poet.”
After several years and looking very different he returned to Norway. He was welcomed as a skald into Hákon’s court.
Kai leaned forward. “This is where it becomes interesting.”
Thorfleifr offers to recite poetry for Hákon, who accepts. Instead, he throws insult after insult at the Jarl.
Kai lowers his voice to a whisper.
The lights go out, but when they come on again, the Jarl is scratching all over his body as if fleas have attacked him. Worse, he had lost his hair.”
“I guess, Margo, the curse on your ring wasn’t as powerful as Thorfleilf’s poetry.”
“Thank goodness,” Margo laughed.
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