Reykjavík Grapevine - 29.07.2016, Page 68

I know we’re all pretty sick of trolls
in 2016, but trolls were way fun-
nier in 1260. So this recap is gonna
revisit a character from last is-
sue’s recap, The Saga of the People
of Kjalarnes. While much of the
accuracy of most events described
in the sagas is dubious at best, the
majority of the characters in them
were actually real people. Because
of this, many of the Sagas feature
mentions of or cameos from char-
acters from other Sagas and from
Icelandic history. However, only
few of them have direct sequels,
which is why we’re going to pick
up where we left off in the last is-
sue with this special little nugget
called The Tale of Jökull Búason.

Búason Crusoe
If you remember, The Saga of the
People of Kjalarnes ended with
Búi being killed by his illegitimate
12-year-old half-troll son with
some magical assistance from the
spurned mother, Princess of the
Norwegian trolls. Historical fact.
Not dubious at all. So Jökull, the
son, flees the scene in shame and
takes to the sea. Unfortunately,
his ship catches a bad wind and
ends up getting wrecked on a mys-
terious coast months later.
Jökull leaves his surviving
shipmates on a rock off the coast
and swims to shore, where he con-
veniently finds an abandoned hall
with a fire already burning. He
fetches his shipmates, including
his bestie Ulfur, and they settle
into the hall. When he goes to the
shore to look for washed-up sup-
plies, he sees two troll women there.

Beach bodies
Now this is one of the biggest
points of confusion in the Sagas:
trolls vs. giants (and what exactly
the fuck they are). Many Sagas
use the words interchangeably
but describe these beings in vari-
ous ways. Fríður, Jökull’s mother
and a troll, is described as one of
the most beautiful maidens in the
world, while these two troll maid-
ens are described as hags, having
frowning faces, big noses, and lips
that hang down to their tits. They
also wear cloaks made of skin.
Such distinctions as these have
been filed into the “eternal mys-
teries” folder by medieval scholars
and the “didn’t notice/don’t give a
shit/nobody does” folder by nor-
mal people.
So anyway, they know who
Jökull is and decide to force him to
marry one of them or else they’ll
kill him, so he chops one of their
heads off and beats the other one
down into the sand. She then
agrees to help him. She tells him
that her name is Gnípa, she is the
youngest of seven but wants her
family inheritance, and that they
are in Öllumlengrifjörður, (liter-
ally “Longer-than-anything-fjord”
and genuinely one of the largest
fjord systems on the planet) in
Greenland.
Jökull and Ulfur meet with
Gnípa the next day. She says her
brothers have gone to attack the
men in the hall, so she leaves to
help. Jökull and Ulfur promptly
and brutally slaughter her sisters
and parents, then also her broth-
ers when they come home. It turns
out Gnípa saved many of Jökull’s
men from her brother’s attack so
they allow her to live with them.

Beachelorette party
One day, she tells Jökull of
Skrámur, King of the Greenlan-
dic trolls, and his hunk of a son
Grímnir, whom she totally wants
to troll-bone. That’s probably even
freakier than it sounds. So she
sneaks him into their feast using
a magic invisibility ring, which he
uses to kill off all the trolls as they
are drunkenly brawling. When
only Grímnir is left, he reveals
himself and says he may either
marry Gnípa or die, so Grímnir’s
like, “Sure, I guess.”
Then it turns out that Skrámur
had held Hvítserkur and Marsibil,
the Prince and Princess of the
Saracens, captive for five years. So
naturally Jökull uses the thank-
you-boat built for him by Grímnir
and Gnípa to sail the kidnapping
victims back to the land of the Sar-
acens, where he marries Marsibil
and becomes king of the Saracens
(roughly all of the Middle East).
Hvítserkur marries the Princess
of Bláland (literally “Blackland”
and roughly WTfuckingF) and ev-
eryone lives happily ever after.
SHARE: gpv.is/saga14
Morals of the story: The moral of the story
is less an Icelandic fantasy than the actual
American dream: if you’re born into a family
rich enough to trade favors with other rich
people, you too can become even more un-
godly rich on other people’s oil money!
S01E14:
The Tale of
Jökull Búason
SAGA RECAP
Words
GRAYSON
DEL FARO
Art
INGA MARIA
BRYNJARS DÓTTIR
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10 — 2016
68
PHOTOS
Slut Walk 2016
Photos HREFNA BJÖRG GYLFADÓTTIR
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