The divine conspiracy is no great engine with goose-greased parts turning over smoothly. It is a drunken tarantella in a cosmic town square where the dancers frequently forget what they are doing and wander off drunkenly, bumping into things, before purpose is recollected.
And, like ants at their labors in the town common, those who do the world's work will, too frequently, enjoy the sudden, unpredictable strike of an inebriant's flashing hoof.
1. Skogafjordur, Andoray
Drums muttered like a clutch of old ladies gossiping. Their job in the ritual was to keep the children out from under foot while their parents watched the old folks manage the funeral. Night gathered. Torches came to life. Old Trygg thrust his brand into the bonfires. Starting from the left end of the line. Flames rose in defiance of the night. Horns called from the heights overlooking either shore of the Skogafjord. Horns called back from watchtowers inland.
A great man was about to go to sea for the last time.
Singer Briga stood at me cold water's edge, singing his song to the sea, reminding the tide that it was time to ebb.
The sea knew its part. Each wavelet fell a little farther short of Briga's bare toes.
Pulla the Priest waved to young men knee-deep in the chill water.
The drums shifted their beat. Erief Erealsson's own long-ship crew, last of the great sturlanger, pushed the ship out onto the dark tide.
A breeze caught the simple red-and-white-striped sail. A breathless silence overcame the celebrants. There could have been no better omen than that breeze, which would carry the ship down the fjord on the breast of the tide.