Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.12.2006, Blaðsíða 20

6_REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE18_006_FICTION REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE18_006_INTERVIEW/RELIGION_7
Brief synopsis
Icelandic poet Sturla Jon Jonsson attends an international
poetry festival in Lithuania - but this is no ordinary poetry trip.
As the poetic ambassador of his country, Sturla Jon shrugs
off his official duties, deciding to become the ambassador to
his own feelings instead.
In Vilnius he meets a female white-Russian poet by the
name of Liliya Boguinskaia, who introduces him to the not-
so-poetic aspects of reality.
Part one, Reykjavík, Bankastræti
It was made of particularly hard-wearing material, one
hundred per cent cotton, which gave the impression, when
touched, of being waxed. And as for the seams – they were
guaranteed for life. Because the finish was similar to that
of some book jackets, like lamination – “you would know
all about that, as a poet” – it was resistant to all moisture,
which made it ideal for the climate of this country, or
whatever country you cared to name; after all, even when
the day greeted you with cloudless skies, you could never
be sure that by the time it had ended dust would be the
only thing to have fallen on you. The colour, too, was one
of its main advantages; it never demanded attention as a
colour, but drew it anyway in the form of silent admiration,
and – “though of course we shouldn’t let ourselves think
that way” – envy. The mere fact of its being made in Italy
was a form of insurance that the sum you paid for it would
go straight into your own pocket, so to speak. And talking of
pockets, this nifty little inside pocket on the right did nothing
to detract from the appeal; it was especially fitted there to
accommodate a mobile phone. Or a packet of cigarettes,
that’s to say if the owner doesn’t use a mobile phone but
belongs instead to that select group of people who still insist
on ruining their health by smoking. Oh, and it was worth
mentioning that in the other inside pocket, intended to hold
a wallet, there was a small, dark-blue velvet bag – one of the
features that made this particular design so unique: a bag
made of velvet – and in this neat little bag, which you closed
by pulling a yellow silk cord, there were two spare buttons
to use in the unlikely event that one of the original buttons
came off and was lost. Of course there wasn’t much risk of
that happening, because, as already mentioned, the stitching
was guaranteed to last a lifetime.
It was with these words – more or less – that the
sales assistant in the gentleman’s outfitters on Bankastræti
described the Aquascutum duster coat to Sturla Jón; the coat
that Sturla had long ago set his heart on and asked to have
reordered for him when it sold out. The assistant had no idea
that it was Sturla Jón who had requested the order since
Sturla hadn’t spoken to this salesman before; he seemed
to be new. So it took him pleasantly by surprise – though
perhaps he should have expected it of a man whose job is
to pay attention to people’s taste in clothes, and thus to
people themselves – that the assistant should recognise him.
But of course it was conceivable that one of his colleagues
had tipped him off when Sturla came into the shop that this
was Sturla Jón, the poet; maybe even adding: the one who
published freedom from freedom.
Sturla had first spotted the coat in the shop back in
February. The weather had been rather too cold at the time
to justify purchasing an unlined duster coat, and he couldn’t
have afforded it then anyway. But when he thought of taking
another look at the coat in June, when his finances were
looking up, the three or four coats that had been there in
February had vanished from the rail; they had been sold.
“There was a man in here the other day who I reckon must
have tried on every suit in the shop,” said the assistant. Sturla
was not sure how to interpret this information. He himself
had not tried anything on yet; perhaps he reminded the
assistant of this man.
“You might know him,” continued the assistant. “I
think he’s a painter or some kind of artist.”
“And did he buy a suit?” asked Sturla.
“I’m in the visual arts line myself,” the assistant chipped
in, making it sound as if he didn’t want the news to get out.
Sturla repeated his question.
“None of the suits were modish enough for him,”
answered the assistant with a smile. “He couldn’t find any
with dried mustard on the lapels.”
For a moment Sturla reflected how unusual it was to
hear a man as young as the one in front of him use the word
modish.
“He had a crusty old stain on the jacket he was wearing,”
continued the latter, and when he added that the man had
an Adolf Hitler moustache and was wearing a yellow shirt,
though one couldn’t immediately tell whether the colour was
original or had been acquired over time, Sturla thought it
had probably been N. Pietur, the artist and improvisational
composer, an old friend of his father’s, and he wondered
if it was appropriate for an assistant in a shop such as this
to gossip about other customers. When the assistant added
that of course it wasn’t just anyone who bought “expensive,
quality apparel like this”, as he put it – meaning the apparel
stocked by the shop – Sturla felt convinced that if anyone
had the right to express an opinion to complete strangers
about the delicate process involved in the relations between
the one who is offering the goods and the one who is faced
with the choice of choosing or rejecting, it should be the
customer, not the salesman. He felt it was uncalled for of
the young assistant to make conversation with a prospective
buyer about his experience of the shop’s other customers,
even if the person in question had put him to considerable
trouble without actually buying anything – and perhaps most
of all for that reason.
Yet despite his thoughtlessness, the assistant was right
in saying that of course not everyone could afford to purchase
the clothing stocked by the shop, least of all the garment
that Sturla had his eye on. Because it was safe to say that
these English coats, made in Italy, were expensive, fiendishly
expensive. But Sturla Jón, who did not as a rule spend much
money on clothes for himself, had at some point many years
ago seen a garment like this, a cross between a duster coat
and mackintosh, and permitted himself the thought that
perhaps he should go a little against the grain and his clothes-
buying habits, and set himself the goal of acquiring such an
overcoat, almost regardless of cost; allowing himself for once
to spend money on a sartorial luxury, something he knew
would give him more pleasure to wear than any of his other
clothes that had cost not a penny more than necessary.
As Sturla announced that he would take the coat, he
realised he had a smile on his face, an innocent smile that
was of course nothing wrong in itself, but he was afraid that
to other people it might look as if he were irrepressibly proud
of himself, like a child or teenager who is about to have his
greatest dream come true. “I’ll take it,” he said decisively,
trying to wipe the smile off his face.
The assistant nodded solemnly, as if he himself had
come to an important decision, and said:
“Good choice.”
Sturla misheard this as “Gotcha”, and stared at the
assistant in mild surprise as the man folded the garment. It
made a crackling noise, not unlike thick paper, due to the
stiffness of the cotton.
“Might there be anything else?” was the assistant’s
reaction to the questioning look in Sturla’s eyes.
“No, thank you,” replied Sturla.
“Right you are,” said the assistant, and they went over
to the cash register which, unlike in most shops, was located
in the middle of the room, by a square pillar. On a table
beside the cash desk stood a shiny coffee machine – from
the same country as the coat – and an artistic arrangement
of white coffee cups.
“Do have an espresso while we’re processing the
transaction,” invited the assistant, unfolding the coat in
order to fold it up again.
Sturla placed one of the white cups under the nozzle
where he knew the coffee was supposed to spurt out and
fumbled at the machine until the salesman came to his
rescue by pressing a small button, the same colour as the
machine, marked with the picture of a coffee cup. While the
coffee was brewing, Sturla took out his wallet and counted
out thirteen five-thousand kronur notes.
“We don’t often see that much cash,” said the man,
and Sturla answered by asking if there was a discount for a
down payment.
“Not if you pay in cash. But there’s a five per cent
discount if you pay by plastic.” The assistant took the notes
from Sturla’s hand, laying the coat on the table beside the
coffee cups. He licked his thumb several times while counting
the notes, and was forced to start over when his attention
was suddenly distracted by Sturla taking off his anorak and
smoothing out the coat in order to slip it on. He put the
notes away in the cash register and smilingly watched the
new customer’s clumsy attempts to struggle into the coat.
Then he handed Sturla a bag branded with the shop’s name
in which to place his anorak – a bag so beautifully produced
that Sturla was momentarily afraid he would have to pay for
it; it was a rich brown colour, made of thick, waxed paper,
with a finish not unlike that of the coat and a handle of
orange cord.
While Sturla was stuffing his anorak into the bag, the
assistant was called away by a colleague; someone was
needed to serve a young couple whom Sturla had noticed
enter the shop, a well-known theatrical pair of whom he
had recently heard his father’s friend, Örn Featherby, talk in
rather slighting terms. It had been in connection with a play
that either she, the wife, or he, the husband, had sold to one
of the two big professional theatre companies in town. While
Sturla was drinking his espresso he watched the couple and
the assistant out of the corner of his eye; they all seemed
to know one another and had immediately launched into a
discussion of something that made them all laugh. Judging by
the husband’s gesticulations the subject of the conversation
was probably some project the couple were currently involved
in. Sturla Jón glanced around, then sneaked his hand into the
white bowl containing light-brown, cylindrical paper packets
of sugar and fished out several. He examined them in his
open palm, counted them, then slipped them into one of his
side pockets.
It had begun to rain when he left the shop. Cold rain,
one level up from sleet. Sturla buttoned up the coat and
reflected on the things the sales assistant had come out with
in connection with the garment and its prospective buyer;
he, that is to say the buyer, Sturla Jón, did not use a mobile
phone but smoked all the more for that. As if to demonstrate
to passers-by that he was precisely the type who didn’t
care to be hassled by phones ringing in the open air but
instead underlined his independence by allowing himself the
forbidden pleasure of smoking, he stopped on the pavement
in Bankastræti after leaving the shop, drew a packet of
Royale from his breast pocket, tapped out a cigarette and
then pushed the packet back into the little inside pocket after
lighting the cigarette – the pocket was so tight that it only
just fitted.
About the author
Bragi Olafsson has long been established as one of Iceland´s
greatest authors and poets. When he published his first volume
of poetry in 1986, he struck a very particular note, which
has since evolved and deepened into that unmmistakable
voice that is his own. He has also inadvertently gained quite
a reputation for himself as a playwright, and his play Belgian
Congo ran at the City Theatre for almost 2 years and enjoyed
great popularity. His novels Time Off (1999), The Pets (2001)
and Party Games (2004) are undoubtedly among the most
original and remarkable Icelandic novels of recent years
The Ambassador An excerpt
By Bragi Ólafsson Translated by Victoria Cribb
Jörmundur Ingi, a real-life modern druid, is
head of the Reykjavikur Goðar, one of two
officially recognized Pagan associations in
Iceland. In his position as Goði, he performs
marriage and funeral services, and spreads
the word of the naturalistic beliefs of an-
cient Iceland. The Grapevine sat down with
Jörmundur Ingi to discuss the influence of
ancient beliefs on Icelandic identity, politics,
and the resurgence of the gods in Reykjavik.
Paganism, in many ways, is a universal
belief system. What makes Icelandic Pa-
ganism unique?
In Icelandic stories, you have tales of what
happens if you disturb the Mother of the
salmon, or the Mother of the flounder, a
fish about ten times bigger than any whale.
She lets you hunt the flounder unless you
get greedy and take too much. Then she will
destroy the ship, because you have become
to greedy. I see the beginning of the Nordic
religion in shamanism. Shamans were sim-
ply very strong personalities who were the
strong leaders who knew about the sun,
the moon, the winds, the changing seasons,
connected to nature. Nature was the enemy
of primitive people – you always needed to
pacify nature.
Where is Paganism most popular in Ice-
land?
Strangely enough it splits exactly in two. In
small, what you would call primitive fishing
communities, and mostly in the Westfjords
where they have been, until recently, sus-
tained by the seals. There, people are Pagan
without being members of any organization,
they just know this is how things are and how
they have always been. It has been passed
down. In Reykjavik, people have been sort of
split off from nature, but only very recently.
Almost until 1970, everyone kid in Reykjavik
was sent out into the country during sum-
mer vacation to work on the farm. Everyone
who was born before then has worked on
a farm, so the connection with the country
was much stronger.
Why are there are two Pagan associa-
tions in Iceland?
There should really be 36 separate groups.
This was, I belive, the object of the three who
united into Ásatru Félag, which was the first
Pagan association in Iceland, in 1972. When
I was leading the group, I tried to organize
this as close to the ancient organization as
possible simply because I thought that noth-
ing has been invented ever since that comes
close to the old Icelandic republic. This was
not accepted by others in the group so we
split up, also there where other issues which
we will not get into. The ancient system was
a mixture of a religious power and very much
of people deciding, because you would have
36 Goðar spread over the country, and if you
didn´t like your representative, you could sim-
ply leave and attach yourself to another one.
It was a very direct democracy.
In Icelandic politics, we see many initia-
tives that seem to exploit Iceland´s natu-
ral environment. How do you interpret
the government´s behavior, specifically
with their policies that have been con-
troversial for Icelanders and foreign
groups alike?
We should do like the ancient people did. We
should be scared of nature. We do know, and
I have pointed out for decades, that there are
no sins. The idea of sin does not exist in Pa-
ganism. You will bear the consequences for
your actions, like karma in India. The price
you pay for overfishing is no fish next year.
The price you pay for overgrazing is no grass
next year. With the whaling issue, I am not
even sure whether I support the decision to
start commercial whaling, but in Iceland we
feel that we have the right to decide this our-
selves. It´s ridiculous to think that the killing
of seven whales this year and 39 next year is
going to ruin the stock of whales. I can state
categorically that there is one wrong thing
in the whole scheme, and that is the whal-
ers that say that “the whales eat our fish, so
we have to kill them.” That is ridiculous. So
right there, that will make my support a little
shaky. Whales cannot deplete the oceans of
fish, but man can because we are not living
in the ocean. We are taking things out of
the ecosytem. I think that human beings not
only have the right to utilize the land like any
other living creature in the world – to graze,
to mine, to fish, even to make dams – but
in reality we are obliged to. So if you don´t
graze, that is also bad. You have to keep the
balance. It is the excessive use which is bad,
and this is when you are making decisions for
the wrong reasons, like the dam at Kárahn-
júkar which will never make any money. They
just crossed their fingers and built the dam
and it hasn´t leaked, at least not yet, but no
one knows what will happen when it is full.
It is too big a risk for a very small gain, so it
is wrong.
So Paganism is the original Green Party?
We would be, as I say, ecological, but in the
sort of way that we should not back away
from everything, ie. no dams, no fishing,
and so on, because if you live in nature with-
out ever touching nature you also upset the
balance. Thirty years ago when you talked
about Paganism as an ecological religion, it
was OK because ecology was not in fashion.
But it sounds corny when you say it today
because it looks like you are trying to cash in
on the ecology trend. There is a good paral-
lel that we are acting ourselves into a corner
where we are so dependent on electricity
and oil and new technology. Science will tell
you that it doesn´t matter because there will
be a new science that will solve all the prob-
lems of the old one. This is basically the same
as what the prophesy of the Sibil in Völuspá
states, except that there will be a crash, a col-
lapse before you can go on.
Do you think Iceland will bear any ill
consequences of its actions?
If you go against nature, nature will revenge.
And you have to explain the word revenge,
or hefna in Icelandic, it means simply to even
things. If you upset the balance, nature will
even things out, there will in other words be
a new balance. Just like the Mother of the
hunting animals, you go too far and you will
pay the price when nature evens it out.
As “Goði,” what does your role as a spir-
itual and ceremonial leader entail?
I am licensed to perform marriages, and we
have funeral services also. They are all based
on old ceremonies. This would probably not
be a very scientific way of doing it, but when
I prepare a ceremony, I go to old law books,
to the sagas, to all sorts of old traditions
which often preserve a great deal of ancient
knowledge. I simply go to my subconscious,
to the things that my grandmothers and
great-grandmothers told me. I am sure I have
forgotten most of it but it is there. I know
that I have succeeded in this because people
say “this is a beautiful ceremony” and so on,
but they also say “it is so Icelandic.”
How does one become a Pagan? Is there
a so-called “sacred” text?
The sacred text would be the Eddic poems,
but Snorri´s Edda is the key to understand-
ing them. If we didn´t have Snorri´s Edda, we
wouldn´t know anything about the Nordic
sagas. We would be walking in the dark. It
is all so vague, but Snorri explains it. To be a
Pagan you must think of all of nature and the
whole world as a balance, and everything is
very close to being stable. This is what peo-
ple, especially people living in cities, have a
little bit of difficulty understanding: preserv-
ing too much is just as bad as destroying too
much. There is no good or evil there, the
good thing is to just have the scales be im-
mobile. When people go too much on what
they consider to be the good side, they will
tip the scales just as much as if they do too
much on the negative side.
Does your organization have a training
center? Do you do any outreach?
No, we are not allowed to do any mission-
ary work. It is our own rule. If you convince
someone that they should change religion,
it doesn´t hold. You may become a member
of that religion on the surface, but it doesn´t
hold. We have spoken at schools, even kin-
dergartens, but we have not had seminars or
courses in Our Way, as Icelandic Paganism is
properly called. We would like to, at least I
would like to. We used to have a huge build-
ing here down by the harbor, but it was sold
after I quit. They plan to build a new one,
and that will start on the first of December.
If you are not actively seeking new mem-
bers, how will interest in Ásatru grow?
It´s a strange thing – it is growing mostly in
Reykjavik, where it would be, in the good
sense of the word, a nationalistic trend. It has
become organized now that there are prob-
ably around 900 people, at least in my old
group. People realize that this is maybe the
best way for the younger people to express
that they are actually Icelandic. One reason
that Paganism is coming up could simply be
because the church is losing ground. The
strata that is underneath is only coming up
when the patina of Christianity is starting to
fade away. This is so much alive in Iceland
that it is not considered strange to be a Pa-
gan. It is such a part of the national identity
that it´s very difficult to define Iceland with-
out mentioning the ancient Paganism.
Nordic Gods Alive in Reykjavik
Text by Greg Bocquet Photo by Skari