“Guðríður’s remarkable story—of a common woman who survived nine years of slavery and returned home, becoming a respected pastor’s wife—is considered to bear witness to a woman of stronger character than most.”[1]
“She is considered to have travelled the road of suffering and the cross, but prevailed to gain a new lease on life and love.”[2]
Mermaids in our stories always return home, unblemished from their time on land. The real kidnapped women do not. Most of them never return; the ones who do are not considered “unblemished,” as Turkish Gudda’s story shows.
I don’t know how God will redeem all of her story, but it is a powerful testimony. Or should I call it a “mermaid tale”?
A Turkish Captive
Guðríður Símonardóttir was the wife of a fisherman on Heimaey, an island off the coast of Iceland. She knew how to read and write,[3] and was the mother of a two year old son. In 1627, pirates from Algiers (led by Dutch captain “Mourat Rais”) pillaged Iceland.[4] Guðríður and her son were among the almost 400 people taken.[5]
Guðríður ended up in the household of the dey, the Ottoman ruler of Algiers and the most important man in the territory.[6] As to her daily life, it’s guess work. She would have been in the harem, since that’s where women were kept.[7] Whether she fulfilled the *other* function of the harem is unclear, but there is speculation that she did.[8] I think it’s quite possible she was taken advantage of, and perhaps she even went willingly so it wouldn’t be violent. As our mermaid tales show, a woman had no choice in the matter…
Freedom!
Somehow, the captives got letters back to their families in Iceland. Guðríður wrote to her husband, “declaring her love for him,”[9] as well as “her loyalty to her faith.”[10] This is crucial. After years in captivity, Guðríður clung to her faith. Despite pressure to convert (if they converted, they were freed), and the trials inherent in slavery, Guðríður clung to Christ. Like the mermaids in our stories, she did not lose sight of her identity. She always sought to return…
Money was raised to ransom the captives, including a donation from the Danish king (Iceland was a Danish territory).[11] Seventy captives were found; of those, only 34 made the journey back to Copenhagen in 1636.[12] Some, like Guðríður, paid part of their way.[13] No children were freed,[14] which means Guðríður’s 11 year old son did not return with her. Like the stories, she had to leave her child behind.
And of the 34, only 19 actually made it back to Iceland after 9 years in captivity.[15]
But before returning, the group wintered in Copenhagen to be “‘reindoctrinated.’”[16] During that time, Guðríður met and fell in love with a young Bible student named Hallgrímur Pétursson.[17] Before long, Guðríður was pregnant. Since Guðríður was still married, this was quite a scandal. It turned out that her husband had died in a storm that year, and so Guðríður and Hallgrímur married quickly.
But Guðríður did not find the rest she longed for in Iceland. Yes, she became the wife of “one of Iceland’s greatest preachers and poets.”[18] But she was always looked on with suspicion, and the gossips labeled her “Turkish Gudda”…
…Freedom?
Stories of the Turkish Raid were collected in the 19th century.[19] Like in Selina’s story, the gossips talked much of “Gudda. They said every time Hallgrímur preached, Guðríður “‘would go outside the church….They said she never really readjusted to life in Iceland….Many people believed she must have converted to Islam…And then, of course, she had been a slave in the dey’s house…[implying sexual promiscuity]’”[20]
“Kinder” sources said she was not “steadfast enough in her beliefs,” and was “bad-tempered and difficult in her domestic partnership with the good psalmist.”[21] They saw her “not as a victim of the Turkish Abductions but as its representative or even its perpetrator.”[22]
This does not seem like freedom to me. It is not the idyllic return of the mermaid. It seems quite the opposite, and it makes me furious that people would say such awful things about a woman who had suffered so greatly.
In the 20th century, Guðríður “was vindicated.”[23] Good. If anyone deserves vindication, Guðríður does. But for a moment, let’s set aside the criticism and analyze the accusations. She may have appeared “bad-tempered” and unsteadfast to some; but there would be psychological reasons for her behavior, and it’s important to understand those before we judge her ourselves.
Gudda’s Struggle
Guðríður would have had PTSD. There would have been moments that took her back to those terrible times, places, and events. She would have struggled with survivor’s guilt. Why her? Why was she able to return when others couldn’t…especially her son? Even worse, no one would have understood PTSD or how to help her.
Guðríður would have expected gossip, known she’d have to hold her head high. She knew they’d talk of how “she’d sampled delights that were unknown in Iceland, that encouraged lasciviousness and wantonness.” She knew people would wonder whether she was really “a Christian after having lived among the harem, worn layers of veils and perhaps been the plaything of some wealthy pasha.”[24]
Facing that would make me “bad-tempered,” too.
She would have struggled against the “why’s” of this world. Why did God allow the raid? Why did God make it so she couldn’t save her son? And why was it so difficult to re-adjust to “normal” life, when this was what she had longed for?
And it would have been difficult for her to sit through a sermon about suffering (or anything else Christian’s so glibly mention), even if it was her husband speaking. What did he know of suffering? What did he know of making the hard choices? How could he possibly preach to her out of a well of un-tried faith when hers had gone through the crucible?
Did any of these self-righteous Christians know anything about their faith at all?
I want to believe she clung to her faith after returning to Iceland; but I can’t help but think it’d be harder to be Christian in Iceland than it was in Algiers.
They treated her like a mermaid, dangerous and condemned. Don’t be like them. Be Christ-like instead.
Sources
[1] “The Long Way Home.” The Official Gateway to Iceland. Accessed April 20, 2018. https://www.iceland.is/the-big-picture/news/the-long-way-home/13449/
[2] Þorsteinn Helgason, The Corsairs’ Longest Voyage: The Turkish Raid in Iceland 1627 (Boston MA: Brill), 8. https://books.google.com/books?id=KHxTDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA7&dq=turkish+gudda&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwioj-r6lMDaAhVl6YMKHTj-AkoQ6AEIOzAD#v=onepage&q=turkish%20gudda&f=false
[3] Pirate Queen 196 and Corsairs’ Longest Voyage, 8
[4] Pirate Queen 192-193
[6] Pirate Queen 195
[7] Ibid., 197.
[8] Pirate Queen 195
[11] Pirate Queen 196
[13] Pirate Queen 196, and “The Long Way Home”
[15] Pirate Queen 196
[16] Ibid., 198.
[17] Pirate Queen 198, and “The Long Way Home”
[18] “The Long Way Home,” also mentioned in Pirate Queen 198-199
[20] Pirate Queen 199
[22] Ibid., 8
[24] Pirate Queen 200
Hi! Great article. Can you tell me how I can find this “Pirate Queen” source you are citing?
Thank you so much! The book is “The Pirate Queen: in Search of Grace O’Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea” by Barbara Sjoholm. You can find it here on amazon, or the ISBN is 978-1-58005-109-5. Each chapter has information on different sea-faring women!