Lögberg-Heimskringla - 24.05.1985, Síða 6

6-WINNIPEG, FÖSTUDAGUR 24. MAÍ 1985
The Last
Continued from page 5
after you have received the holy
sacraments!"
She spoke with the ingratiating
tone she used when she read from
the Bible for the sick. But Jon only
became impatient. He shook the axe
in his hand and answered with a
deep and threatening voice.
"Shut your face about the sacra-
ments! To hell with them . . . Do you
perhaps believe that Skarp-Hedin has
taken the sacraments?"
Kristin's face became weak with
sorrow and astonishment and she
hardly dared to look up. She simply
muttered inaudibly as a shudder flew
over the wrinkled face and tears
stood in her eyes. "God forgive you
your sinful words. God forgive
you . . .”
Jon turned around and cast a look
toward the mountains. He dimly saw
their outline. And he saw the sum-
mits rising to the heavens and capped
with an eternal snow that glittered
dazzling white in the sunshine.
Above the shelters and the cliffs the
mountains rose to various shades of
blue dappled with red sun-lit lakes,
and the wind brought a breath of the
cooler.season's fragrance from above.
Jon’s eyes clung to that vision,
blinded and overwhelmed.
"It is fine on the mountains today!"
he sighed.
And slowly he began to walk off
without granting the old woman a
glance.
Kristin’s face displayed an unac-
customed courage, then she ran after
him with a bouncy pace and clung to
his arm with aíl of her might.
"I say you cannot go one more
step," she cried hoarsely, and for a
moment he stopped and looked upon
her with surprise. She stood before
him like a scared dog, but her grasp
was firm.
Then Jon of Mula grew wild with
anger.
He pushed Kristin's shaking body
from him, so forcing her to stumble,
and she fell in a convulsive weeping,
broken down and helpless and meek
with fear . . .
But Jon continued on his way.
"Watch yourself, Store-Kolur, now I
come!” he mumbled. And he con-
tinued with no other thought. He
walked straight and held his head
high, though the bones wobbled
beneath him as though he was drunk.
There was no trace upon Jon's face
of what had taken place. Kristin had
already been forgotten. The wind
took his beard and fluttered it while
the axe's blade gleamed above his
shoulder. His eyes stared continuous-
ly toward the mountains with a
searching aspiration.
The old man paid no attention to
the meadows he walked upon. They
were grown and luxuriant, and
numerous flbcks of sheep and horses
grazed all around him. Before him a
red stallion soughed and ran neighing
over the field in pursuit of a grey
mare. Then the two horses stood on
a hill where their silhouettes stood
stark against the white sky, and the
sun's warm light fell gently upon
them with a blessing, as it did upon
all things living and growing upon
the earth.
But Jon of Mula paid no attention.
He knew and felt only one thing, that
the greatest day of his life was near.
Finally he would struggle with his
mightiest enemy, Store-Kolur, the
most dangerous and largest outlaw of
the mountains.
And Jon willed the Gods a wish to
exercise a great death, just as the
giants he had read about in the sagas
and folk tales had wished.
"He, he, watch yourself Store-
Kolur. Now I come!" he chanted, and
he shook the axe in his hand.
Jon had often roamed about the
mountains with axe in hand to meet
this enemy. But he had previously
found only wasteland and wild
valleys and harsh, lifeless snowlands
where no man had ever set his foot
and nothing living met the eye. A col-
umn of smoke in the distance would
inspire him with hope and entice him
farther and fartþer over mountain
paths. But when hp,pame near, to be
sure, the smoke always proved to be
a steaming sulpher spring or a smok-
ing crater.
He knew that this was sorcery, that
Store-Kolur had the power to make
both himself and his farm invisible
to people. There were many folk
stories that related this fact
thereabouts.
And although he had never
witnessed the following, Jon of Mula
often felt that the area all around him
was f.ull of ogres and sorcerers. Evil
spirits hissed and cried from every
cleft. These, time after time,
penetrated into witchcraft and took
the various forms of cliffs, houses
and strongholds — yes, even of peo-
ple. Then, in the next moment, they
put on the aspect of invisibility once
again . . .
He, too, had tried his hand at all
powers of the black arts. But even so,
he was never to succeed in his at-
tempts to break the sorcery that
reigned over Store-Kolur's mountain.
But today he would succeed!
jThe hidden powers had called him!
Skarp-Hedin had appeared to him in
a dream. Need he doubt any longer?
Skarp-Hedin, the hero of his youth,
after whose weapon he had named
his axe, praised no more than what
his soul could hold . . .
Jon of Mula stood still for a mo-
ment and looked upon his axe. Its
blade flashed a bloodthirsty smile at
him.
"Ja, ja, long have you been thirs-
ty, Rimmugygi, but now you shall
have blood to drink!" he mumbled
and laughed fiendishly so that his
Journey
large yellow teeth were bared.
Then he walked farther and follow-
ed a sheep path which twisted itself
up into the mountains.
But when the path began to rise the
savage strength that Jon felt within
ceased to exist. Suddenly a heaviness
fell upon his spine and neck and a
darkness rose before his eyes. A
mysterious sound piercingly burst his
ears as though he had waded to the
center of a gushing and swift stream-
ing river, and now and then it was as
though wild animals were howling
around him.
Jon's feet would not hold him up
any longer and he dropped himself
upon a stone. He squeezed his
knuckles about the axe and fought
with all of his strength against the
wrestling lethargy that lowered itself
upon him. Then he shut both lids
against the two lances that were
thrust into his eyes.
The lethargy became heavier and
heavier.
A cold paraiyzing hand touched
him from the soles up and he felt the
cold rising higher and higher.
This was surely sorcery . . . this
was Store-Kolur on the go, and the
thought penetrated his being as quick
as lightning. In savage anger, and
with the strongest of all his powers,
he opened his eyes once again.
He now saw everything very clear-
ly. The whole of his homeland lay
open before his gaze and farm after
farm smiled at him with white gables
and glittering glass. The smoke from
the buildings rose redeemingly to the
sky and hung suspended like dim
islands over the blue air.
He saw the people at their work in
the haylands and the fields, and
solitary horsemen hastened over the
road.
And he, Jon of Mula, knew every
person he saw.
A boy in a blue jacket walked soft-
ly behind the hills which lay opposite
the farm called Kambsgard. The boy
peered observantly around himself as
he walked in pursuit of someone or
something, but he had no gun.
Where would he go next?
A-ha, there most certainly must be
a girl on the farm that he would like
to get a try at . . . then the girl came,
walking listlessly down from the
haylands, keeping herself to the
shadows behind the meadow fence.
"Ah, youth, he, he, he. How the
sun shines a blessing today!" he
thought. He could never remember
seeing his homeland more beautiful
than now. It was so ruddy with life's
salvation, and the juice rose in every
blade of grass and each flower, and
the moisture that saturated filled
itself with the slfy.
Jon thought of the words spoken by
Gunnar of Hlidarend: Fair are the
slopes!
Ja, fair are the slopes . . .
The whole of his life had been liv-
ed between these mountains, and the
memories rose and glided for a mo-
ment along with the changing im-
ages, then they deserted and vapish,-,
ed like air bubbles in a river ...
The whole of the world suddenly
became a single flaming ocean that
heaved and threw itself in swirls as
a planet in the making.
Now the flames split themselves
with a terrible roar. Their colors
dispersed and a rainbow of mother of
pearl, the rainbow called Bifrost,
stretched itself to him.
And over the rainbow walked a
Continued on pege S
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