‘I don’t know its name in your language. We call it a lundi. In flight it flutters its wings like a bat and, in summer, the beak is striped like a rainbow.’
He sounded like Ohthere with his liking for whale blubber, and I tried to recall if this bizarre-sounding bird had been pictured in Carolus’s bestiary. But I could not remember seeing it there.
Ingvar leaned forward and stirred the stew with a stick. ‘In the nesting season I travel to the coast and net the birds in the cliffs. Their flesh keeps well, is nourishing and light to carry, and is ideal for when I am in the mountains.’
‘Is that why you have a fishing net?’ I asked.
‘That net is for a different purpose.’
‘Gorm told me that you can supply him with white gyrfalcons.’
The trapper studied my face, his expression serious. ‘Is that why you have taken the trouble to find me in the mountains?’
‘I came to this country, hoping to buy white gyrfalcons.’
‘Then tomorrow, if the spirits favour us, you may have your wish.’
My tiredness vanished. ‘Tomorrow you will catch a white gyrfalcon?’
‘If the spirits wish,’ he repeated.
‘May I come with you to see how it is done?’
There was a long pause as he considered my request. ‘You are the first person who has taken the trouble to come to find me in the mountains. If you give me your word that you will be quiet and calm and not disturb our quarry, you may come with me.’
It was very like what Vulfard would have said.
Then the trapper took me aback by adding, ‘And it will do no harm that you are a seidrmann.’
‘What do you mean – a “seidrmann”?’ I asked.
‘Your eyes are of different colours. That is the mark of a man who is at ease with the Otherworld.’
*
Ingvar and I set out next morning while it was still dark, leaving Rolf to look after the horses. The trapper had insisted on an early start, saying that we must be in position by the time the gyrfalcons began to hunt. He was carrying the same small sack he had brought down from the mountain the previous day, and once again its contents moved and shifted with a life of its own. The climb up the ridge was a stiff one and I was embarrassed that Ingvar had to stop from time to time so that I could catch up with him. The result was that it was already full daylight by the time we reached a natural ledge some fifteen paces broad on the shoulder of the mountain. It was, according to Ingvar, the ideal site to trap a gyrfalcon. I was gasping for breath and my legs were shaking with fatigue as I stood there gratefully sucking in deep breaths of the clean fresh air, and gazing out to the blue-grey haze on the distant horizon. It was going to be a warm, windless day. Below me rank after rank of hills and ridges fell away to where, beyond view, lay Kaupang and the market. Without knowing quite why, I felt confident that we would add to the number of white animals for the distant caliph in Baghdad.
I turned to speak to Ingvar. He was gone. I was alone on the ledge. For an instant I was close to panic, remembering childhood tales of men who could dissolve themselves into thin air. Then I saw his sack. It lay on the ground at the foot of the rock face, still bulging and moving.
I waited for a few moments and – as unexpectedly as he had vanished – Ingvar reappeared, ducking out from a narrow cleft in the mountainside, its entrance hidden in such deep shadow that it was invisible from where I stood. He carried a couple of long, thin whippy lathes, a coil of stout cord, a ball of light twine and – I was interested to see – a length of the fine-mesh fish net.
He gestured at me to hurry in helping him clear away the pebbles and dust from the level patch where I was standing. When that was done, he hammered two wooden pegs into cracks in the rocky ground, about six feet apart. Lashing the two lathes end to end to make what looked like a long fishing rod, he threaded the rod along one edge of the net. Next he bent the rod into an arc and attached the ends to the two ground pegs. Finally, he fastened down the trailing edge of the net with heavy stones. Belatedly I understood what he was creating. It was a bow net. The wooden hoop would lie flat on the ground until he tugged on the cord and it would swing up and over, dragging up the net and trapping anything beneath it.
In the area where the net would fall, Ingvar now placed two stones, one fist-sized, the other somewhat larger and heavier. He untied the neck to his sack, reached in and pulled out a live pigeon. It flapped and struggled as he tied it by the leg to the larger stone. Weighed down, the protesting bird made short fluttering hops but could not escape. I realized that the pigeon was to be our bait, in the same way that Vulfard had placed fresh leaves in the centre of the pitfall for the aurochs. But Ingvar had a surprise for me. He reached again into the sack, groped around and pulled out a second bird, not a pigeon but a smaller bird, the size of a thrush, pearly grey with a black stripe on its head. This he also placed in the centre of the trap, attached to the smaller stone.
‘Why do you need two birds in the trap?’ I whispered.
‘The gyrfalcon strikes so fast that he can snatch away his prey before the trap is sprung. The smaller bird will provide a warning that a falcon is in the area.’
‘A lookout?’
He nodded. ‘The smaller bird is very watchful, not like the foolish pigeon. We call it the “shrieker”. When it sees a hunting falcon in the sky, it screams and flutters, jumps up and down, trying to escape. Then I know to be ready.’
‘Won’t the falcon strike at the little “shrieker”, as you call it?’
He gave me a patient look. ‘If there was a nice plump pigeon nearby, what would you do?’
He scattered a handful of oats on the ground in front of the two birds and beckoned me to follow him to the hidden cleft. As he retreated into the shelter he laid out two cords: a strong one fastened to the hoop to pull it shut, and the other, no more than a thin line, to the free leg of the pigeon.
The cleft was just wide enough for us to sit side by side, hidden from view but looking out over the captive birds. I remembered Vulfard and my vigil in the forest, waiting for the aurochs. Instead of a forest glade rimmed by oak trees, I was watching over a flat, dusty ledge on which two staked birds pecked at grain.
Ingvar did not take his eyes off the tethered birds. He wound a couple of turns of the stronger cord around his right fist, and held the lighter line with the fingers of his left hand. He reminded me of a fisherman getting ready to strike the hook into the jaws of a pike.
‘For these last two months I have ben watching a gyrfalcon nest nearby,’ he said in a low voice. ‘The birds use the same nest year after year. It’s a family that often produces white birds. This year the chicks hatched much later than usual. That is why I delayed going to Kaupang market. I had to wait until they were old enough to look after themselves.’
‘So that there’s another generation for the future?’
‘Exactly. If I caught a parent too soon, the young would die and I would destroy my livelihood.’
‘What if an eagle swoops down on the bait, not a gyrfalcon?’ I asked.
‘Then the spirits are against me. A gyrfalcon, if it is white, gets a much better price than an eagle, nearly three times more.’
‘Why would anyone pay more for a falcon when an eagle is so much larger and more impressive?’
‘Have you seen how a gyrfalcon hunts?’
I shook my head.
‘There is no finer sight in the entire world. It patrols the land, flying low, until it frightens up its prey. Then it takes up the chase. The gyrfalcon is faster than any other bird. It can twist and turn, strike from above or below, and knock its victim from the sky. By contrast the eagle is a farmyard fowl.’
The floor of our hiding place was bare rock, hard and uneven. My backside, already sore from riding, had gone numb. I feared that I would soon get cramp. I longed to get up and stretch.
All of a sudden the little grey bird in front of us crouched down, pressing itself against the ground. Then it began to hop and flutter, screeching in panic. The pigeon continued to peck greedily at the grain.