Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.04.2017, Page 6

NEWS Iceland has a national church.
This brings with it certain laws that
many, if not most, Icelanders con-
sider to be a bit outdated. One of
these laws concerns what one may
not do during certain Christian
holidays; for example, it is illegal to
hold “bingo, lotteries, dance con-
certs and other gatherings” during
the Easter holidays and Christmas.
In defiance of this, the skeptic society
Vantrú has traditionally held bingo
tournaments at Austurvöllur, the public
square in front of Parliament. This year,
the Young Pirates held their own event.
Not to be outdone by Vantrú, who also
participated in the event,
the Young Pirates also of-
fered beer, and encour-
aged others to bring their
own alcohol as well. This
event was held up at their
headquarters in Síðamula.
The law itself dates
back at least as far as
1926, but received a more
recent update in 1997. In
this version of the law,
plenty of other stuff is banned during
Easter, too. For example, it is actually
illegal to operate a gas station over
Easter holidays, or to have your res-
taurant or hotel open during this time.
Anyone who ventured out during Eas-
ter can attest that the Pirates weren’t
alone in flouting this law, which, we
emphasise, is never actually enforced.
“It’s all well and good to have le-
gally protected holidays,” the Young
Pirates wrote in an announcement of
the event. “There’s noth-
ing wrong with having
one on Easter, but to tell
people that they can’t get
together and have fun on
Good Friday is like say-
ing you can’t eat during
Ramadan. We believe the
time has come to change
Icelandic laws about holi-
days, let people have fun,
play bingo, and things
o f t h i s n a t u r e o n h o l i d a y s .”
As with years past during Good
Friday bingo blowouts, no arrests
were made for breaking religious law.
As can be seen from the pho-
tos, a great time was had by all.
Inner Workings
It’s Sunday, you’re
hungover, and your
head is killing you.
Time to pop down to
the shops and buy
some Paracetamol,
right? Tough luck,
buster! You’re going
to need to find a
pharmacy, and good
luck finding one open
on a Sunday.
Fact is, the only
thing close to
medicine you will ever
found sold in regular
shops in Iceland are
vitamins, and they
don’t really count.
Painkillers are only
sold in pharmacies.
This is due to
Icelandic law, which
classifies painkillers
as medicine, which
only pharmacies are
allowed to sell.
All is not lost,
however. Some
shops sell “hangover
remedies,” albeit with
dubious ingredients.
If all you want are
general painkillers,
there are some
pharmacies open
after hours, including
some that are open
24 hours. They’re just
not really easy to find.
As such, no, you’re
not completely out of
options if you happen
to need a painkiller
outside of business
hours. And you could
always stock up
ahead of time. But
the ability to trundle
down to the corner
store and get some
Bayer is yet another
thing missing in
Iceland. PF
Young Pirates
Defy Good Friday
Religious Laws
Beer, stand-up and bingo—not on
the Lord’s Day in Iceland!
A: What a lot of newcomers to
Iceland may notice, when lis-
tening to Icelanders speak with
each other, is that they will
sometimes say “Já” while inhal-
ing. This quirk of speech, known
as the innsog, is done to denote
emphasis of agreement, or to
encourage the speaker to keep
talking.
This is a natural speech pat-
tern to all Icelanders. So natural,
in fact, that Icelanders we spoke
to were frankly surprised to
learn that many foreigners find
this curious. But where did the
innsog come from, exactly?
It turns out: we don’t know.
We asked several Icelandic lin-
guists, specialists in the lan-
guage and its history who have
spent years studying its every
minutiae, and none of them
knew the origins of innsog or
when it arrived in Iceland. How-
ever, we did some digging of our
own, and discovered clues that
gave rise to speculations.
The innsog, it turns out, is
not native to Iceland. It’s known
in linguistics as the “ingressive
sound” and can be found, in fact,
in northern Germany, across
Scandinavia, in parts of Ireland,
and even in the Maritimes of
Canada. Moreover, it is also done
with local variants of “yes” and
done for the same reasons. This
could mean—and we are not an-
thropologists—that the innsog
migrated across these areas.
However, we have no idea
from whence the innsog came,
nor when it arrived in Iceland.
As such, it may remain a mys-
tery, until such time as a linguist
or anthropologist reading this
shoots us an email to clarify the
matter.
ASK AN…
Expert
Q: “Where did inhaling
while saying “Já” come
from?”
Words:
Paul Fontaine
Photos:
Supplied by
the Pirate Party /
Sara Óskarsson
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“It is illegal to
hold ‘bingo,
lotteries, dance
concerts and
other gather-
ings’ during the
Easter holidays”
Aspirin In
Stores
WHAT'S MISSING IN ICELAND
First 6The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 06 — 2017
Still illegal during Easter holidays
More ha-ha than yarrrr
Gunnar Hrafn illegally downloading
some jokes to the crowd
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