Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.10.2016, Blaðsíða 60

Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.10.2016, Blaðsíða 60
Listen up because I am about to re- cap the saga on which your favorite, wildly inaccurate History Channel drama series, 'Vikings', is based. And yes, it is literally called the Saga of Ragnar Shaggy-Britches. It is one of few sagas that is basi- cally a sequel to another saga, one of the very best, so you may want to refresh your memory of Völsunga Saga and the most boss-ass bitch in the Middle Ages, Brynhildur. Tits and Áslaug Remember how warrior princess Brynhildur and dragon-slayer Sigurður randomly had a baby? Well after they died, Brynhil- dur’s foster-dad whisks Áslaug, their daughter, away for her own safety. Unluckily for them both, he is murdered in his sleep by some shitty peasants who raise the girl as their daughter/servant. Meanwhile, some guy named Ragnar is the son of a Danish king. He’s big and strong and whatever. He get his nickname by commissioning some weird shag- gy pants and cape, which he dips in tar and wears as armor to kill a giant snake, because obviously shaggy tar-pants are snake-re- pellent. Duh. By killing this giant snake, he wins himself a shitload of money and also a smokin’ hot wife with whom he has two chil- dren before she gets sick and ran- domly goes tits-up. He is on the rebound when his crew discovers a babely peasant girl. They’re supposed to be mak- ing bread but they burn it because they can’t take their eyes off dat ass(laug). He requests she come to meet him, but because dudes can totally suck balls at communica- tion, he says he wants her to come neither hungry nor full, neither clothed nor naked, neither alone nor with someone. She craftily eats one leek, wraps herself in fishnet, and heads out with a dog. He is wooed by her brains and beauty and wants her to come with him immediately. She’s like “Nah, come back later, bro.” So he comes back weeks later and they get hella married. To bone or not to bone? Ragnar wants to have fuck pronto but Áslaug has her mother’s gift of future-sight and says no because if they don’t wait three days then their child will be born without bones. Ragnar “disregards her.” I wish I had to explain that this is a barbaric, medieval form of sexual assault but unfortunately, this is pretty much what still happens to- day because apparently the average male’s attitude toward women’s bodily autonomy has not changed in over 1500 years. Grim, huh? So they have one boneless son, Ívar, and another four normal-boned sons. Ragnar’s two sons from his first marriage get killed in a battle with an evil cow owned by the King of Sweden. Áslaug is having trouble convincing her sons to avenge her not-sons until the three-year-old son speaks a poem about he and his mother setting off to take on the Swedish king. The thought of a mother and toddler versus a bovine demon and the armies of Sweden gets the other brothers on board. Ragnar is away at this time, so Áslaug leads them to Sweden. The cow has a magic bellow that causes opposing armies to attack their own men, probably something like “STOP HITTING YOURSELF STOP HITTING YOURSELF STOP HIT- TING YOURSELF.” Apparently the trade-off for bonelessness is the ability to change your weight at will, so Ívar makes himself light as a stone so his brothers can throw him across the field. When he lands, he’s as heavy as a boulder and this kills the cow, allowing them to win the war and tell the King of Sweden to fuck right off. Motherfuckin’ snakes in a motherfuckin’ pit Instead of being proud of his weird- ass family’s success in Sweden, Rag- nar is thrown into a fit of jealousy over their new fame. Because he’s a big baby manchild, he ignores his wife’s voice of reason, trying to con- quer England with only two ships and getting his shit-for-brains captured. He refuses to reveal his identity to King Ælla, who has him stripped and thrown into a pit of snakes until he talks. While in the pit, Ragnar man- ages to recite a 29-stanza poem about his own gloriousness but refuses to frankly state his name. As the God of Alanis Morissette would have it, the man famous for his snake-proof pants gets his na- ked ass bit to death by snakes. His sons are all sad and shit, so Ívar orchestrates some dope treachery and has the king killed by infiltrat- ing his ranks. Then he becomes the King of England, Áslaug lives to a ripe old age, and all the brothers rule their own kingdoms except the one who ends up getting burned to death on a pile of severed heads. Morals of the story: 1. Do not underestimate people with dis- abilities. They are probably more resourceful than you. 2. Rapists deserve to be thrown naked into a pit of snakes. Can we bring that back, please? SHARE: gpv.is/sag16 Saga of Ragnar Shaggy-BritchesSAGA RECAP Words GRAYSON DEL FARO Art INGA MARÍA BRYNJARSDÓTTIR The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 16 — 2016 60 “See the Northern Lights” is an item that commonly appears on bucket lists. Lucky for Icelanders, the country is in a prime viewing spot for these lights, as it snuggles up against the Arctic Circle where they tend to appear. Though the “season” is typically described as spanning from Sep- tember to April (since there’s 24 hours of daylight during the sum- mer), the Aurora Borealis can be and has been spotted around the country throughout the year. As we transition into fall, there’s been a recent flurry of cosmic activity and the city of Reykjavík even turned off the street lamps in the evening so that people could enjoy the spec- tacle without the interference of light pollution. The Icelandic word for the Northern Lights is “Norðurljós,” which literally means “northerly lights.” It is a pretty literal transla- tion, and in this case the alternate English name has a more interest- ing origin—“Aurora,” the Roman Goddess of dawn, and “Borealis,” the Greek name for the north wind. They are a sight to be seen, but the cause of these auroras are far from romantic. They are a result of par- ticles from a solar flare bumping into other particles in the Earth’s atmosphere. Depending on the speed and altitude of the collision, the chemicals will produce differ- ent colours: green, white, and sometimes even red or blue. Basi- cally it’s all just a glorified, Insta- gram-friendly chemical reaction. What is a little romantic though, is that it takes 40 hours for the so- lar particles to travel to Earth and create those heavenly reactions. So when you’re looking at the North- ern Lights, you’re actually looking into the past. Every Single Word in Icelandic (http://everysingleword.is) is a pic- tographic exploration of the Icelan- dic language. I find an interesting compound word, then deconstruct and illustrate it as icons. The goal is to express how Icelandic can be deadpan literal and unexpectedly poetic at the same time. 1 6 -1 4 4 0 - H V ÍT A H Ú S IÐ / S ÍA G E T Y O U R D E S I G N E R B R A N D S T A X F R E E A T K E F L A V I K A I R P O R T The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 16 — 2016 60 Light It Up WORDS OF INTEREST SAGA RECAP Words & Art EUNSAN HUH
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