Ingolf told them that they had come here to look at the land, and intended to settle here.
His words aroused a movement and disturbance among the monks, and their leader gave him to understand plainly that the land was sanctified and reserved by God for Christian men; no heathen had ever settled here, nor ever could. Every kind of misfortune would strike them if they migrated hither, unless they first let themselves be baptized and went over to the Christian faith. Ingolf answered them quietly that they must grant him that it would ill become him to be less faithful to his gods than they were to theirs. The monk answered that heathen did not trust in gods but in idols. Ingolf answered that the Ases had hitherto protected him and his family. Then bidding them farewell, he went off, followed by Leif and his men. They saw the monks sprinkling with water the places where they had trod. Then Ingolf smiled and Leif laughed aloud. The monks sprinkled even the waves which had licked the heathen's boat.
When Ingolf and Leif returned, they were able to quiet Hallveig and Helga with the news that they were peaceful and harmless people who inhabited the little island. Their only weapon was a little water in a cup! After that they called the island "Monks' Island." When the autumn came with cold and sleet the sworn brothers already sat warm in their turf-house. Before the dwelling Ingolf had caused to be built a smaller edifice, where he set up small, roughly carved wooden images of Odin and Thor. And when the time for the autumn sacrificial feast was come, he offered them an ox (they must share the offering as best they could), and had a little feast.
Leif held aloof from all things of that sort. During the twenty-four hours of the feast, he went out catching birds by day and slept quietly in his bed by night. In his lonely wanderings the brown leaves of the autumn rustled round his feet and spoke to him. Leif did not think much about catching birds. He enjoyed being alone with the mountains and the blue sky. Wherever he met a family of grouse who held faithfully together he let them go. He only aimed at solitary birds, caught them round the neck with a practised fling of his light line, and drew them to himself with one sweep through the air.
Ingolf's sacrificial feast and all his devotion to the gods was a continually recurring trial to Leif's brotherly feeling. He could not reconcile himself to Ingolf's constant and devoted adherence to the worship of these ugly wooden idols. Time after time he was obliged, in order to control his rising displeasure, to remind himself that Ingolf never interfered in his beliefs and thoughts concerning the gods, and therefore had a right to expect the same from him. But in his heart Leif scorned and despised Ingolf's gods, and it was inevitable that some of this violent antipathy should sometimes glance on his brother.
Singularly enough, on the other hand, Leif did not take it at all ill that Helga held fast to her own and her fathers' faith, without its being clear to him that he possessed in that, as it were, a proof of her steadfastness. He did not at all wish that Helga should forsake her gods to follow him in his want of faith and contempt for them. The day that she did so would have given a severe blow to Leif's happiness. So and no otherwise was his nature.
The winter came with hard frost but without much snow. The weather for ski-ing, which Ingolf and Leif were waiting for in order to show Hallveig and Helga a little of the country south of the Svanefjords, did not come. Their disappointment was, however, mitigated by the fact that their sheep and goats could, contrary to expectation, go out and get their food the whole of the winter, with the exception of a few stormy days. The brothers came to the conclusion that it was a land where relatively few people might possess many sheep. They also noticed that sheep and goats both in winter and summer went up to the mountains and did not remain below in the luxuriant pastures. It was evident that the grass they grazed among the stones upon the apparently barren mountains must be of peculiar strength, for the sheep's bodies remained stout and their wool white.
The goats had found some holes in the mountain near the house. There they remained at night, took refuge there in bad weather, and were comfortable.
In spite of the short days and long nights and the great solitude the winter proved by no means long. Neither the brothers nor Hallveig nor Helga felt the solitude oppressive; it brought them into closer intimacy with each other in a way that no summer days could have done. They sat round the fire, busy with their little occupations, and talked cheerfully and confidentially together. Ingolf and Leif carved wood, Hallveig and Helga spun yarn and dyed it in different shades of heather-colour, made mittens and handkerchiefs, or artistically woven bands of it.