Curiosities of Olden Times
not particularly gratify the good woman of the house.
Thorgunna was stout and tall, disposed to become fat, with black eyebrows, a head of thick bushy brown hair, and soft eyes. She was not much of a talker, not very merry, and it was her wont to go to church every day before beginning her daily task. Many people took her to be about sixty years old. She worked at the loom every day except in haymaking time, and then she went forth into the fields and stacked the hay she had made. The summer that year was wet, and the hay had not been carried on account of the rain, so that at Frod river farm, by autumn, the crop was only half cut, and the rest was still standing.
One day appeared bright and cloudless, and the farmer, Thorodd, ordered the house to turn out for a general haymaking. The strange lady worked along with the rest, tossing hay till the hour of nones, when a black cloud crossed the sky from the north, and by the time that prayers had been said such a darkness had come on that it was almost impossible to see. The haymakers, at Thorodd's command, raked their hay together into cocks, but Thorgunna, for no assignable reason, left hers spread. It now became so dark that there was no seeing a hand held up before the face, and down came the rain in torrents. It did not last many minutes, and then the sky cleared, and the evening was as bright as had been the morning.
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