Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.04.2017, Page 54

54 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 06 — 2017
QUIRKY CULTURE
Words: Gabriel Dunsmith
Where Vikings Still Rule
Run for your halberd and prepare to
hack your way to Valhalla: the days of
Viking rule in Iceland are apparently
not over. An Icelandic high court re-
cently handed down a ruling based on
a 13th century book of law known as
Grágás, which aimed to dole out punish-
ment to sheep-stealers and mead-swip-
ers. The case? An injury incurred during
a mixed martial arts (MMA) fight.
When fighter Árni Ísaksson broke
fellow fighter Lárus Óskarsson’s leg,
Lárus sued. A lower court found Árni
and the Mjölnir sports club responsi-
ble, but a high court demurred earlier
this month, according to newspaper
Morgunblaðið. Only Lárus could be
held responsible, the court found. Af-
ter all, Grágás says, “If one participates
willingly and the opponent doesn’t
mean harm to him, he himself must
accept responsibility for the risk he
takes.”
Pissers Beware
The tourists are at it again! Last issue,
we reported on a tourist defecating on
a farmer’s lawn. This time, Morgun-
blaðið reports, police near Akranes
caught four Spanish women squatting
in the parking lot of the Laxárbakki
hotel, casually taking a piss. When
they made to leave, police ordered
them back to their makeshift latrine
and told them to pick up the toilet pa-
per they left behind, which was now
blowing about the parking lot. “Police
were not happy until all the paper had
been picked up,” the law enforcement
squad wrote on Facebook.
Working nights as a security guard at
10-11 isn’t for the faint of heart. Ice-
land’s 24-hour grocery chain sees all
sorts of debauchery and turpitude once
the clock hits midnight, from drunks
slurping slushies by the shampoo
shelf to drug dealers peddling their
wares right outside the door. For for-
mer guard Þórunn Anna Orradóttir,
the supposedly quiet neighborhood of
Laugardalur was forever transformed.
“This old guy was always asking me
out for dinner,” she says. “When I told
him I didn’t want to go out with him,
he said I should be fired.”
But gentlemanly courtship was
only the beginning. Once, a particu-
larly narcotized individual started
running in circles around the store.
When he approached the register
with an armful of energy drinks, his
mumbling was so severe that Þórunn
couldn’t understand a word. She man-
aged to intuit he wanted cigarettes.
Another time, a cluster of men
stood around howling with laughter.
“Is everything okay?” Þórunn asked.
The men passed her a beer and an-
nounced: “We’re fucked on mush-
rooms!”
“You got pretty used to this sort of
shit,” Þórunn says. “This one guy was
always coming by to charge this elec-
tric motorcycle. He was like, ‘Oh, can I
charge this in the store? It’s stolen, so
if the police ask, it’s not mine.’ Then he
traded it for some speed.”
One customer, after griping that
the coffee machine was broken, went
berserk when Þórunn told him he
was actually pressing the wrong but-
ton. He threw Þórunn to the floor and
started choking her friend before a
mixed martial arts fighter pinned him
to the ground.
“After that, I quit,” says Þórunn.
The excessive testosterone, violence
and open displays of physical prowess
could make 10-11 the backdrop for a
contemporary Icelandic saga, but not
necessarily one of which the nation
would be proud.
Words: Gabriel Dunsmith Photo: Þórunn Anna Orradóttir
HOUR OF THE WOLF
CITY SHOT
Stolen Motorcycles
And The Late Night
Wooers of 10-11
Photo: Art Bicnick
West-Iceland