I read the Saga of Grettir the Strong around twenty-eight years ago. I was an aspiring strongman with a love of mythology. I’d been injured badly when I was 13, recovered and was still on the up with plenty of hope and ambition. It’s no spoiler to reveal that Grettir wasn’t the easiest to get on with. This, combined with his great physical ability made for challenging circumstances. Well, I can identify with that. Grettir’s great strength declined after fighting one monster too many. Despite still being a formidable specimen, he hankered after the strength he once had. I’d hoped – and still hope – for a different experience in my later years.
In similar mythology Fionn Mac Cumhaill’s son Oisin returned to Ireland from a visit to the Land of the Young. There are various versions, but in the one I like best he’d stopped on the island for a feast as respite from fog and stayed three nights. Back home three hundred years passed. In a series of adventures as an old man, he found everyone else to be weaklings, despite himself much diminished from his prime years. I’m getting older and things hurt when I wake. The inner narrative that castigates for not training harder also criticises not taking recovery seriously. Always some conflict within.
The ongoing work of dealing with storm damage in the woods continued this week. Up and down the ladder like a fiddler’s elbow, sawing, carrying, dragging, piling. I used to be fitter. I thought of Grettir as I took some moments to catch my breath. Is that me now, managing decline?
From the corner of my eye, I sensed movement. The play of light at a distance, the odd deer stalking about. Or a watcher? “Don’t look directly,” but I did and broke the spell. “I saw you,” I said out loud, laughing to myself at the space where nothing was.
A nearby dead tree had its highest branches four or five metres up ready to drop. It became next on my list to be lopped. Leaning on the trunk to remove a thorn from my boot there was movement. I smiled, braced my shoulder against the bark, set my legs into the earth and pushed. It moved a little. I drove forwards again; movement, then resistance before the rotten roots cracked and over it went. I hope the watchers were impressed.
Worrying about what can’t be done is unproductive. I’m maximising what I can do efficiently and make improvements where I find them. Vaguely thinking these thoughts as I piled the deadfall, a large herd of deer ran through the woods at a reasonable distance to avoid me. They disturbed a fox who I saw only fleetingly. The resident young male deer trotted through some minutes behind the pack passing much closer. I shouldn’t be surprised – we meet often enough. He paused to inspect my work. I noted that his antlers were coming on nicely before he sped away. I was a little jealous. I will run again, I mused.
The woods are looking brighter and cleaner. Bluebells are now a purple carpet and the work of organizing deadfall into habitats is paying off. Brambles stretch upwards to snag shins & knees. Presently ferns will uncurl and change the whole vista. Winter storm carnage is over and that big bird of prey circling above me today definitely wasn’t a vulture.
