Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.02.2017, Page 60

So some dude named Oddi, who
is a good at astronomy but shitty
at poetry, eats a bunch of psyche-
delic mushrooms and trips some
craaazy shit. Technically, he is on a
“fishing expedition” and “dreams”
it but we’ve all told our parents
that, right? Right? So he dreams
he’s back at home and in his dream,
a guy comes to stay with him and
recites the following saga. So,
drugs or no drugs, this little ditty
is unusual for not being called a
saga or tale, but a dream. So this is
actually a tale containing a saga in
a dream, which totally sounds like
shroomy nonsense to me. And just
wait. It actually gets trippier.

I have a dream
Unfortunately it’s not a dream
of equality or peace, it’s a dream
about Sweden. That sounds like
a joke about feminism, but it
isn’t. Not yet. Sweden was basi-
cally ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ in the
middle ages—like, kooky illiterate
hillbillies at best, murderous mu-
tants at worst. More on this later.
So in the saga in the dream, there
are some Swedish nobility. There
is Geirviður, who excels at his as-
signed gender role and then there
is Hlégunnur. She has no interest
in “ladylike pastimes.” She wears
armor, carries weapons, and kills
any shitbag who disagrees with
her. Her father is ashamed of her
and is happy when she decides to
go off raiding.
Geirviður inherits his father’s
kingdom at a young age. When he
is twelve, he sets off to challenge
two assholes who are living in
the woods, robbing the shit out of
anyone who passes through. When
he declares this, the official court
poet, Dagfinnur, says he will the
join the king on his quest. Now shit
gets real. When Dagfinnur is men-
tioned in the dream, Oddi’s point
of view shifts from his dream-self
listening to the saga being told to
that of Dagfinnur. So Oddi is now
experiencing the life of the char-
acter in the saga being told in his
dream. So this has to be ‘Inception’,
the literary magnificence of Virgin-
ia Woolf in a previous life, or some
fucking really good mushrooms.

He was a poet
So when they arrive to tackle the
outlaws, Dagfinnur offers the king
two very helpful services. He can
either help fight, which he knows
nothing about, he’s probably weak
as a baby, or he can watch from a
safe distance and therefore live to
describe to others the king’s brutal
death. The king chooses the latter,
but manages to kill the outlaws
anyway. Dagfinnur recites a poem.
There was much rejoicing. Yay.
They find a house full of the all
the stolen goods and offer them
back to their owners, but they all
The Dream
of Star-Oddi
Words
GRAYSON
DEL FARO
Illustration
INGA MARÍA
SAGA RECAP
donate their goods to the king,
which is really fucking stupid be-
cause he’s already the king and
doesn’t need their peasant money.
But of course he takes it anyway.
Hlégunnur’s dad dies, meaning his
land comes under Geirviður’s pos-
session, so she sends some shield-
maidens to warn him that she’s the
boss-ass bitch of that land and he
better be prepared to fight for it.
He’s like, “Oh no you isn’t.”
As they head into battle, Dag-
finnur leans down to tie his shoe
and suddenly wakes up as Oddi
again. He goes outside and looks at
the stars, which sounds very much
like something someone on drugs
would do, and remembers the poem
from the dream. Something like:
Kings are so rich
Robbers are the worst
This poem doesn’t even rhyme
Go, Sweden!
Then he goes back inside and keeps
tripping. He’s suddenly Dagfinnur
finishing tying his shoe at the bat-
tle in the saga in the dream.

He totally did know it
though
So Hlégunnur is there but now I
guess she has a wolf head, which
she uses to bite off the heads of
the opposing army. What did I say
about murderous mutant Swedes?
Cue joke about feminism: Remem-
ber those “ladylike pastimes” she
wasn’t into? In a modern context,
maybe we can read this she-wolf
thing as a metaphor for not shav-
ing her vag. Except women proba-
bly weren’t expected to do that back
then, which means that in some
small ways medieval women were
actually less oppressed than many
women now.
Anyway, they kill her and win
the battle and whatever. Then Oddi
“awakes” and remembers more of
the poem, which he admits is shitty
because he wrote it in his “sleep”:
Hairy ladies are scary
I made a rhyme this time
Two, even!
Sweden, yeah!
SHARE:
gpv.is/sag02
WHERE WAS IT SHOT?
The OA
Iceland has become a go-to for
film and TV location scouts over
recent years, from ‘Interstellar’’s
ice planet, to Tom Cruise sci-fi
vehicle ‘Oblivion’, to the opening
sequence of ‘Rogue One’. It also
popped up recently in the divisive
ten-part Netflix fantasy/drama
series ‘The OA’, which slipped out
in December, immediately set-
ting social media blazing with plot
theories and polarised opinions.
It’s the story of missing blind girl
who reappears suddenly having
mysteriously regained her sight.
Slight spoiler alert: the show in-
cludes a series of dreamlike depic-
tions of near death experiences,
one of which sees the protagonist
wandering through a strangely
shimmering Icelandic lavascape.
It was shot on the south coast, in
the undulating lava fields near
Kirkjubæjarklaustur. If you hap-
pen to find the exact spot, send us
a reenactment photo to letters@
grapevine.is to claim a free Grape-
vine t-shirt. JR
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 02 — 2017
58
Moral of the story: It’s not like the ladies
like hacking through your 70s porn bush to
find your dick, either, gentlemen. So why
don’t we just let other people do with their
special hairs whatever they like, okay?