Reykjavík Grapevine - 15.07.2016, Blaðsíða 68

If you’ve ever stopped along Reyk-
javík’s waterfront to ogle the mag-
nificent mountainess known as
Esja, you’ve probably seen some
little buildings scattered about
her feet. That is Kjalarnes, the
site of the only Saga to take place
within sight of our modern capital
city. It’s even now technically part
of the city of Reykjavík, so this is
the closest thing to a Saga of the
People of Reykjavík that we have.
Amidst a summer of recapping
Sagas taking place as far east as
Russia and west as Canada, we’re
now going to take a quick rest back
at home to explain where Esja gets
her name.
Irelandic Saga
Some Irish guy has pissed off the
king for unexplained (probably
Christian) reasons, so his conven-
tient kinsman/Bishop sends him
(along with a bunch of other Irish
Christians) to Kjalarnes. He prom-
ises that the pagan chieftain of that
region isn’t too much of a dick to
Christians. He’s like, “Take this very
important Christian dirt and put a
Christian church on it,” and they’re
all like, “Sure, whatever.”
Chieftain Helgi Bjóla welcomes
all the Christians and they are
allotted places to live and begin
integrating into society. (Please
allow yourself a moment for a bit-
ter LOL at the irony of medieval Ice-
landic officials actually being kind-
er to asylum seekers of different
faiths and nationalities than those
in 2016. Double-bitter ROFL for the
irony of “The Dublin Regulation.”)
The big, buff Irish dude, An-
dríður, swears the oaths of broth-
erhood with Helgi’s sons. He also
marries a hot and rich Icelander
named Þuríður and they have a
son named Búi. Esja, a wealthy
Irish widow with mad skills in
magic—a rich witch, if you will—
takes him in as her foster son. He’s
naturally peaceable and opts out
from practicing pagan sacrifice.
Fascister than
a speeding slingshot
Unluckily for him, the chieftaincy
has passed on from the compas-
sionate Helgi to his shitty, fas-
cistic son Þorgrímur. His equally
shitty, even more fascistic son
Þorsteinn prosecutes Búi for not
paying his sacrificial dues to the
official religion and sentences
him to full outlawry. When he re-
fuses to leave, these assholes (let’s
just call them UTL for fun) am-
bush him on his way between his
mother and his foster-mother, but
he holds them off with his trusty
slingshot until his mother casts
some kind of spell of darkness to
hide him from his enemies while
he escapes.
When Búi checks the time the
next day, it’s revenge o’ clock on
the dot, so he sneaks up behind
Þorstein while he’s praying and
crushes his skull, burns down his
whole temple, and then goes into
hiding. The sentiment is under-
standable, but lezbehonist, that’s
just excessive. After they search
Esja’s house (without her consent)
and find nothing, Þorgrímur and
his kinsman go to the home of An-
dríður, their own blood-brother.
While his wife screams and offers
money instead, they drag him out
and kill the shit out of him.
Trolls gonna troll
Esja tells Búi that she will not be
able to hide and protect him much
longer, so he sets off for Norway.
The king there is pagan and feeling
pretty salty about Búi burning down
the temple. He says he’ll only let Búi
live if he fetches a board game from
the troll-king in the mountains, so
Búi sets off to do so.
He ends up shacking up with
the troll-princess, who quickly
gives birth to a bearded baby.
That’s right. A motherfucking
baby with a motherfucking beard.
Búi ditches them and returns
the board game to the Norwe-
gian king, who then makes him
fight an evil troll called “the black
man.” (I’ll let that fucked-up-ness
speak for itself.) Upon killing him,
he returns to Iceland to discover
he has an illegitimate child.
Child aside, the family feud is
casually settled now that every-
one has chilled the hell out and
Búi marries Þorgrímur’s daughter
Helga. One day, a twelve-year-old
boy shows up and says, “You’re my
dad!” Búi’s like, “No, I’m not, let’s
wrestle about it.” But the boy wins
because Búi’s legs are magically
whipped out from under him, prob-
ably by the spell of a certain scorned
single-mom-troll somewhere.
Fact: moms gonna protect
their children, with magic if
necessary. Búi dies, which is
probably for the best because
he turned out not to be the most
Christ-like of Christians. Wel-
come to Iceland, and Christian-
ity, and the world.
SHARE: gpv.is/saga13
Morals of the story: 1.Be a
Helgi, not a Þorsteinn, and
definitely not a Þorgrímur.
2. Killing people is bad.
Killing institutions that
kill people, allow people to
be killed, or put people in
danger of being killed, is
good. Burn those mother-
fuckers down—but without
killing anyone.
Episode 13:
Saga of the People
of Kjalarnes
SAGA RECAP
Words GRAYSON DEL FARO
Art INGA MARIA BRYNJARS DÓTTIR
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10 — 2016
68
Q. Hvað gerir þu ef þu villast í islens-
kum skógi? (What do you do if you get
lost in an Icelandic forest?)
A. Stendur upp! (Stand up!)
This is a tired old joke often told to
tourists (it’s even made an appear-
ance in an Icelandic textbook). The
punch line is that there are barely
any trees in Iceland and the ones
that grow in these so-called “for-
ests” are so young that you can eas-
ily see over them.
According to the Iceland Forest
Service, an estimated 25-40% of the
island was covered by trees during
the time of first settlers. The need
for grazing lands led to rapid defor-
estation; fast-forward 1100 years,
and only a pitiful 1.5% of Iceland
remains green.
Organized afforestation began in
1899 in Þingvellir, by three Danes.
Since then, it’s been a diligent work
in progress. Between 2007 and
2009, a record number of six mil-
lion seedlings were planted around
the country. The Icelandic Forest
Service hopes to repopulate 12% of
Iceland with trees by 2100. And per-
haps by then, we’ll finally be able to
retire that overused joke.

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