Reading science fiction like it matters since 1989.
Boston: Many Worlds Press, 2014; $24.00 hc; 192 pages
Winner of the Tiptree and Mythopoeic awards for her novel, A Woman of the Iron People (1991), Eleanor Arnason has become one of the most highly respected writers in the field of speculative fiction. She has been a finalist for the Sturgeon, Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards. Known for her fearless exploration of societal norms and values, her fiction takes readers far away in time and space only to bring them face to face with their own, too-comfortable political biases and heteronormative expectations.
Her recent story collections—Ordinary People (2005), Mammoths of the Great Plains (2010), and Big Mama Stories (2013)—have earned critical acclaim both inside and outside the genre. (For instance, The Grammarian’s Five Daughters [1999] was the Minnesota Center for the Book Arts Winter Book for 2007.) In Hidden Folk, Arnason has collected five evocative stories based on Icelandic sagas and folktales: “Glam’s Story,” “Kormak the Lucky”, “The Black School,” “The Puffin Hunter,” and “My Husband Steinn.” Written in Arnason’s bare-bones style, kin to the language of the Icelandic sagas on which they are based, these stories find trolls in Iceland’s bare, rocky bones. Elves, too, inhabit rocky cliffs, but while the trolls live in abject poverty, elves have wealth and beauty. As in Arnason’s previous novels and stories, the links between rich and poor and ecology and technology inform an essential moral message about social justice. Her research is careful: of Icelandic origin herself, she grew up reading the sagas, the first and most famous a collection compiled by Jón Arnasón in the nineteenth century (xiii). Later, she learned Old Norse in graduate school, so that the language of her tales reflects the terseness of the originals. The nature of free will is a recurrent theme, the first two stories describing a world where slavery is an accepted part of life.
“Glam’s Story” is based on a famous episode in the Grettis Saga Ásmundarsonar and describes a home invasion by an undead slave. Glam, an Irish slave working on a “ramshackle” Icelandic farm, is murdered by Thorhall, the lazy, politics-obsessed landholder, for supposedly spending too much time with Thorhall’s wife, Gudrun (3). Thorhall and his poetry-obsessed father, Grim, declaim rather than talk, and Gudrun has no one to talk to except Glam. Unfortunately, Thorhall’s self-absorption keeps him from really knowing either Gudrun or Glam. Gudrun, who narrates the tale, suggests that Glam is killed because he does not take Thorhall’s politics seriously. Since Glam is innocent of wrongdoing, he has reason to refuse to be dead and returns at night to ride the house like a horse until the roof beams crack and sag.
There is something ridiculous about a ghost riding a farmhouse. Arnason’s humor is dry, and her stories come without a laugh track. There are no obvious signs held up to tell readers when to laugh, but smiles and laughter do creep up on those who suddenly find recognition in her description of human foibles. As Brian Attebery explains in his “Reappreciation” of Ring of Swords, “Many of the ... funniest lines fall flat when quoted: their humor is dependent on immediate context and on our knowledge of the character who speaks them.” In Hidden Folk, part of the humor comes through descriptions of the practical stoicism that characterizes the Icelanders. For instance, when Thorhall and his family take refuge at the home of Kalf, a neighbor, Kalf says, “it’s typical of you, Thorhall, to be bothered by ghosts when nobody else is” (9). The implications are that (1) ghosts are real, (2) they’re not a big deal, and (3) it’s just like you to get overwrought about this.
Thorhall hires Grettir, a young outlaw, to get rid of Glam, and eventually Grettir lops Glam’s head off with his sword. The battle becomes the stuff of poetry although the climax of the story as Gudrun tells it is sad rather than satisfying. Grettir with his bitten fingernails and torn cuticles is described as “restless and fidgety” rather than noble and heroic (11). Gudrun concludes that “he could feel peace only when he was engaged in some great struggle” (18). The sagas reveal Grettir to be unlucky and bad-tempered, and Arnason makes him out as a good candidate for modern day ADHD medication.
The name Glam is interesting here because the slave is quiet and attentive rather than glamorous, and there is nothing heroic about his undeath. Arnason routinely takes the glamor out of her stories. In any case, “Glam’s Story” isn’t so much about Glam as it is about poor communication. It begins like a romance: “When I married Thorhall Grimsson, he was a fine-looking fellow, just back from a trading trip and full of stories about the king’s court in Norway.” But the romance quickly deteriorates into jealousy, austerity, and death. Glamour refers to exciting and often illusory romantic attractiveness; Gudrun may have experienced some “glam” initially, but Thorhall provides no happily-ever-after, and the glamor is truncated like a head separated from a body.
“Kormak the Lucky” is, like many of Arnason’s tales, what Ursula K. Le Guin would call “a carrier bag” (168–69). It highlights a series of events in a life rather than following a classical plot structure. The tale is inspired by Egil’s Saga Skallagrimssonar, and, like many of Arnason’s stories, it is a redaction of what it means to be lucky and heroic (166). Kormak is a scar-faced Irish slave owned by Egil, a blind, mean-spirited elderly landholder who was once a Viking hero. One day, Egil decides to throw his treasure away rather than allow anyone else to have it when he dies. Since Egil has no respect for the value of human life, he plans to kill his slaves to keep them from saying what he did with his money. After Egil kills Svart, a skilled worker, Kormak is rescued by light elves who live inside cliff walls near the ledge where he hides from Egil. Since Kormak has some value as a worker, the elves maintain the status quo and simply continue Kormak’s servitude in Elfland until he escapes to Ireland with Svanhild, the elf lord’s daughter. During their journey, they gain the help of a magical iron dog who speaks in poetry, dark elves who operate electric trains, and a self-serving sorcerer named Volund. What is lucky about Kormak is his ability to appreciate beauty and his willingness to try to do the right thing, qualities that separate him from Egil, who is morally and aesthetically blind as well as physically:
the black mountains and green fields seemed lovely to him, also the rushing rivers and the waves that beat against the country’s coast. He could praise the flight of a falcon across the summer sky or the smooth gait of a running horse. At times he was at the edge of speaking poetry. (43)
In an interview on the Fantasy and Science Fiction blog, Arnason explains:
[Kormak] is not a heroic person, but he is a person who stays alive and gets by and takes an interest in life, even though he is living in a brutal world. The Vikings are awful. Egil is awful. The light elves and the fey are awful.
Egil and Volund are genuine epic heroes, and anyone who wants to spend time with them is a fool. (np)
Tricksters play important roles throughout Arnason’s fiction. (This is particularly true in Ring of Swords [1993], “The Woman Who Fooled Death Five Times” [2012], and Big Mama Stories [2013].) “The Black School” is a tricking-the-trickster tale based on the life of Sæmundur Sigfússon, an actual Icelandic cleric who studied in mainland Europe and eventually became famous for his wisdom (166). The rest is Arnason’s creation. In the tale, three young Icelandic men hoping to attend the University of Paris are tricked into attending the devil’s Black School instead. The men have a “just off the boat” ignorance that quickly dissolves once they realize that they are not allowed to leave the underground school: “Your only escape lies with learning!” (77). The rooms are full of books with flames rising from the pages.
The story is best understood as an examination of cognitive theory. As in most college educations, the school offers “received” knowledge through systematic study of classical texts, a process that Mary Field Belenky in Women’s Ways of Knowing calls “listening to the voices of others” (viii). In this case, the books contain actual voices and animations. To succeed in any kind of educational process, students must delay gratification. Sæmundur’s essential practicality guides him to decide to “bide his time and learn what he could” (81). Gradually, the young men’s received knowledge becomes “procedural” knowledge of how to do things. The crux of the tale, however, is in the interaction between Sæmundur’s subjective knowledge (what he feels to be true) and the knowledge he is receiving. It is an evolving process that eventually creates what Belenky calls “constructed knowledge” (essentially wisdom), “where the knower is an intimate part of the known” (Belenky 137). This process is exemplified in how Sæmundur treats the nearly invisible troll servants. When he is told not to thank the providers, Sæmundur is “irked” because it is wrong “to take without giving thanks” (79). In his second year, he learns not to piss on a troll who is cleaning the privy below him and develops a valuable relationship:
“I was told you hated courtesy, and I should never thank you.”
“Lies,” said the voice below him, “Or ignorance. Few of the scholars here bother to learn about those who serve them.”
“In that case, thank you for the food you have served me and my comrades. It could have been better tasting, but it kept us alive. And thank you for the cleaning and mending,”
“You’re welcome,” said the voice. “I’m out of the way now. You can continue pissing.” (83)
After this, the quality of the Icelanders’ food improves, and in the third year their study progresses to sorcery.
An essential part of a college education is being able to doubt and discard questionable information, even when it comes from a supposedly reliable source. Here, the reliable source is Hermes, a fellow scholar. Although Hermes seems to be a helpless cripple who is too disabled to try to graduate, eventually he is revealed to be an angel or perhaps the god of transitions and boundaries himself (93). Hermes is not omniscient, but he does provide some insight into the nature of evil: “greed, meanness, selfishness, and lack of imagination” (89). He explains that the devil has power, but he is not clever: “he cannot lead you into evil. You must choose evil for yourselves” (90). This advice informs Sæmundur’s behavior when later he must trick the trickster to save his friends and keep from being pulled into Hell. In the end, Sæmundur has “woven” together “strands of rational and emotive thought” to create a blended education that integrates ethics of care, justice, and sorcery in his decision making (Belenky 134), and this constructivist thinking allows him to outwit the devil’s continued attempts to get him. Arnason concludes, “The devil did not win. He never does against noble-hearted people, who know how to think problems through and seize advantage of the situation and, most of all, how to make and keep friends” (111).
Whereas the first three tales are set in ancient times, the last two are modern. “The Puffin Hunter” examines a contemporary Iceland where elves are thought to exist but are rarely seen. The theme of isolation versus connection continues. Harald Palsson is a farmer who lives alone on a small farmstead and makes the majority of his income from harvesting puffins for their eggs, meat, and down. His wife has left him and taken the children with her. Harald is witty but a bit “cold at heart” (114–15). Over the years, Harald has distanced himself from the emotional world, and one day when he catches an unusually large puffin in his net, he wrings its neck, even though the puffin has revealed itself to be an elf and promised a reward. Since Harald does not believe that birds can speak, he cannot adjust to the reality of one doing so. His behavior also implies that he does not believe in the promise of anything magical or joyful ever happening to change his grim existence.
The puffin disappears when it is killed and reappears later, “flapping and crashing” around his house in the middle of the night. This creates considerable cognitive dissonance because Harald doesn’t believe in ghosts or that elves have souls; however, he must realign his thinking and solve his haunting problem if he wants to sleep at night and keep the puffin from defecating on his coffee table. What follows is a trip to the elves’ home to reunite a dreaming elf with her puffin spirit. In doing so, he meets folklorist Gudrun Gisladottir, who tells him, “If you are dead, lie down and be quiet. If you are alive, live” (129).
The connection between human responsibility and the environment is a persistent theme in Arnason’s work. “My Husband Steinn,” the final tale, describes the life of Signy, a solitude-loving journalist who finds herself “courted” by Steinn (Stone), a “grotesque,” philandering troll:
“Do you see how big and thick my nose is? Well, my penis is even bigger and thicker. Imagine how it would feel! Imagine the pleasure I can give you!”
It would split her in two, thought Signy. “I need some time to think about your offer.” (136)
With “the biggest full spectrum lamps she can find,” the enterprising Signy is, the next night, able to freeze Steinn in place until the sun comes up and turns him entirely to stone. This, however, is not the end of her problems because a few weeks later, Steinn’s wife, Hrauna, appears and recognizes the remains of her husband. Weeping and wailing, she cries, “What will happen to our children?” (138). Signy responds, “Let me tell you about your husband” (138). What follows is an unlikely sisterhood. “Women ought to stick together, even if they were not the same species” (140).
Signy decides to feed the family because she feels some moral responsibility, all the while deflecting the inquisitiveness of Hrafn, the local policeman. Eventually Signy and Hrauna go to tell the troll queen about a new hydroelectric aluminum plant that endangers the troll community. The moral is reflected in a story Hrauna tells, “Loki and the Apple Corer,” which describes the seductiveness and danger of any new technology. In the end, the trolls decide to leave, and the mild-mannered Hrafn (Raven, in some myths a lightbringer) turns out to be brighter than Signy initially thinks.
Arnason’s thematic structure shows a progression of human error, making amends, and gaining a kind of contextual forgiveness. Her Icelanders are a reticent, skeptical people. Their somewhat rueful stoicism is based on a doggedly realistic practicality that can sometimes mislead them, but the smart ones do their best to accept the magic in the world once it’s been revealed. Correspondingly, they are allowed to profit from experience. Arnason understands the cold, gray days that lead to depression as well as the warm human connections that lead to meaningful lives. Throughout, her characters may show courage, but they do not fit Campbell’s formula of “the hero with a thousand faces.” They are everymen and -women who are more interested in doing their work and feeding their families than in fame and fortune. When out of necessity they commit heroic acts, they do not seek acclamation. Rather, they are just relieved to return to their quiet lives. Arnason has an abiding fondness for antiheroes.
Sandra Lindow lives in Menomonie, Wisconsin.
Works Cited
Arnason, Eleanor. Big Mama Stories. Seattle: Aqueduct Press, 2013.
——. The Hidden Folk. Boston: Many Worlds Press, 2014.
——. Mammoths of the Great Plains. Oakland: PM Press, 2010.
——. Ordinary People. Seattle: Aqueduct, 2005.
——. Ring of Swords. New York: Tor Books, 1993.
——. The Sword Smith. New York: Condor, 1978.
——. “The Woman Who Fooled Death Five Times: A Hwarhath Folk Tale.” Baen. <www.baenebooks.com/chapters/9781597804608/9781597804608___5.htm> Accessed 31 January 2015.
Attebery, Brian. “Ring of Swords: A Reappreciation.” The New York Review of Science Fiction #188 (vol. 16 #8, December 2004). <www.tc.umn.edu/~d-lena/Ring_of_Swords_Arnason.html> Accessed 25 February 2015.
Belenky, Mary Field, with Blythe McVicker Clinchy, Nancy Rule Goldberger, and Jill Mattuck Tarule. Women’s Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1986.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1949.
Le Guin, Ursula K. “The Carrier Bag Theory.” Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places. New York: Harper and Row, 1989.
Mazur, Stephen (“stephenm”). “Interview: Eleanor Arnason on ‘Kormak the Lucky’.” Fantasy and Science Fiction Blog, August 20, 2013. <www.sfsite.com/fsf/blog/2013/08/20/interview-eleanor-arnason-on-kormak-the-lucky/>. Accessed 30 January 2015.
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