chunk: The story is set in Iceland, inside a rough shewn log building with wooden benches along two walls, a wood throne on the third wall, two windows and a single door on the fourth wall.
  Gunlöd, the daughter of Viking leader Thorfinn, stands quietly at an open window, and gazes out over the ocean. Valgerd, her mother, speaks about their shared grief over father Thorfinn's hard and unloving manner. In addition to the family's move from Sweden to Iceland, Gunlöd laments at having been forced to part with her dear childhood friend, the young man Gunnar, who has gone on Crusade in the Holy Land and who she has not seen in years.