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of habit, and so was Bjarni. Didn’t take long for Bjari to get set in this way of doing things, and all the time we were in Norway he was looking forward to getting home to the farm and spending winter with the old man. He’d even got him a present, a set of fancy carved struts for the tapestry canopy behind his chair -apparently, the old boy had always fancied some, reckoned they’d add a touch of class, and Bjarni was able to pick up a set cheap in Norway It was just about ideal, he reckoned: one winter in two away one at home, which meant that he and his dad got as much of each other’s company as they could take without fighting, no more and no less.
    And then Herjolf took it into his head to go to Greenland with Red Eirik.
    We were in Norway, of course, when he made that decision; so the first Bjarni knew of it was when he walked up from the ship, leaving us to unload, and pushed in through the door of the house and found himself faced with a hall full of strangers.
    First off, he couldn’t say a word, just stood there like a maiden oak in a meadow The man who’d bought Herjolf’s place was a southerner - he’d had to clear out of his own district because of some trouble or other - and he didn’t know Bjarni from a bunch of goose feathers. You can imagine how he felt when a big stranger in fancy foreign clothes bursts into his house and stands there with his face open, staring. Soon as he’d got over the first shock of it, he jumped up, snatched his axe off the wall behind him, and hollers out, ‘Who the fuck are you?’
    Well, that’s just plain bad manners, asking a man his name straight out like that, but I guess he reckoned Bjarni wasn’t the sort good manners are due to. Anyhow, Bjarni stares at him a bit more, then laughs down just one side of his face, and says, ‘You’re asking me?’
    ‘I’m asking you,’ the farmer repeats. ‘And what the hell are you doing in my house?’
    ‘Your house?’ Bjarni says; and things could’ve got a bit fraught there, except the farmer took another look at him and saw the foreign clothes and probably remembered what he’d been told by the neighbours.
    ‘Hold on,’ he says. ‘Are you Herjolf’s boy Bjarni?’
    ‘I know perfectly well who lam,’ Bjarni says; but by now the farmer’s got a hold on what’s happening and he explains. He says his name and tells Bjarni his dad’s sold up and moved away
    Takes Bjarni a while to get his head round that. Then he asks: ‘Where’d he go?’
    ‘Greenland,’ the farmer says.
    ‘Oh,’ says Bjarni. ‘Where in fuck’s name is that?’
    Luckily the farmer knows the answer, because he’d asked Herjolf the same question, being curious. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘you sail up north to Snaefellsness. You know where that is?’
    ‘Heard of it,’ Bjarni says.
    ‘From Snaefellsness,’ says the farmer, ‘you keep on going west until you see the Blueshirt glacier, and there you are.
    ‘Right,’ Bjarni says. ‘And how many days would that be?’
    Farmer shrugs. ‘No idea,’ he says. ‘But what your dad told me Red Eirik told him, it’s all pretty straightforward and simple. Due west from Snaefellsness until you see the Blueshirt, you can’t miss it
    Bjarni thinks about things for a while, then he nods his head. ‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘Sorry to have bothered you.’
    ‘No bother at all,’ says the farmer.
    So Bjari sets off back down the hill, and we’re all on the beach unloading the stuff off the ship, the barrels of flour and malt and the cords of timber and other stuff besides.
    ‘You can skip all that,’ Bjarni calls out, ‘and get it all loaded up again. We’re not stopping.’
    We all look at each other. We’re thinking Bjarni’s had a fight with his dad about something, because we’d all seen him in that sort of a mood before, so we know better than to answer back or ask questions if we know what’s good for us. We figure, if Bjarni and Herjolf have fallen out, Bjarni’ll head off down the