Read "Independent People" by Halldor Laxness online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
ON the following day the bride was brought home on Blesi. The foal, unaccustomed to the burden of a rider, was restive and apt to lash out with its hoofs, so Bjartur had to lead it all the way. In a sack slung over his shoulder he carried his wife's bedding, while two bags tied across the pommel contained a few wedding presents, among them a pan and a ladle that kept up a continual jangling, scaring the foal so that it shied incessantly and would have bolted had not Bjartur been hanging on to the reins like an anchor. Titla padded along in the rear, carelessly nosing this and that as dogs are wont to do in the fragrance of spring, but watchful enough, every time the foal shied, to rush madly at its hoofs and make it and its rider more frightened still. What with cursing the dog and the horse, the man had little breath for anything else, so there was no conversation on the way up the ridge.
When they reached Gunnvor's cairn, however, the bride, Rosa, wished to dismount. She wanted to add a stone to Gunnvor's tomb, because she thought it would keep ill luck away. Gunnvor demands a stone, she keeps account of all those who cross the ridge.