Transcribed from the 1916 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
THE WAIF WOMAN
by
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
london
chatto & windus
1916
First Edition, October, 1916.
Second Edition, October, 1916.
This unpublished story, preserved among Mrs. Stevenson’s papers, is mentioned by Mr. Balfour in his life of Stevenson. Writing of the fables which Stevenson began before he had left England and “attacked again, and from time to time added to their number” in 1893, Mr. Balfour says: “The reference to Odin [Fable XVII] perhaps is due to his reading of the Sagas, which led him to attempt a tale in the same style, called ‘The Waif Woman.’”
THE WAIF WOMAN
A CUE—FROM A SAGA
This is a tale of Iceland, the isle of stories, and of a thing that befell in the year of the coming there of Christianity.
In the spring of that year a ship sailed from the South Isles to traffic, and fell becalmed inside Snowfellness. The winds had speeded her; she was the first comer of the year; and the fishers drew alongside to hear the news of the south, and eager folk put out in boats to see the merchandise and make prices. From the doors of the hall on Frodis Water, the house folk saw the ship becalmed and the boats about her, coming and