Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.06.2017, Page 60

60 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 09 — 2017
Quite an unnerving thought
Perhaps it’s a familiar problem:
your brother acquires two fero-
cious fighters as a gift from a
foreign potentate, then palms
them off on you when they prove
brash, obstinate, and unmanage-
able. Soon enough, one of them
is hitting on your daughter and
demanding her hand in mar-
riage. A timeless conundrum.
Such is the situation that Styrr
Þorgrímsson, a landowner in
Snæfellsnes, finds himself in in
the 13th century Eyrbyggja Saga.
At the end of a visit to Nor-
way, Styrr’s brother Vermundur
returns to Iceland with Halli and
Leiknir, two berserkers—fierce
warriors known for their superhu-
man battle rages—from the court
of Earl Hákon. Although Hákon
warns Vermundur not to defy the
berserkers’ demands, Vermundur
doesn’t get the memo and refuses
to find Halli a wife. When they
grow increasingly disobedient,
Vermundur foists the berserk-
ers on Styrr and before long Halli
starts making moves on Styrr’s
daughter and asks to marry her.
Sure enough, Styrr does what
any concerned father would do
and plots to gruesomely murder
Halli and Leiknir and dispose of
their bodies in a rugged, volcanic
wasteland. Styrr promises his
daughter’s hand if the berserkers
clear a path through the lava field
that separates his homestead
from that of his neighbour—a
herculean task which the brawny
berserkers only manage to com-
plete after exerting every ounce
of energy they have. Styrr invites
them to unwind in his bathhouse
after such superhuman toil, but
promptly locks them in, steams
them almost to death, and kills
them as they try to escape. Fi-
nally, he buries their bodies in
a deep pit alongside the path
they’d wrought in the lava field.

The Stunning
Now called Berserkjahraun (Ber-
serkers’ Lava) after the hapless
warriors, the lava field covers a
stretch of land between the mod-
ern-day towns of Stykkishólmur
and Grundarfjörður. A dirt road
runs through the volcanic waste,
affording a stunning tour of the
colourful landscape: green moss
grows over jagged grey crags and
craters and bright red hills crum-
ble into rough, porous rocks. An
old footpath runs through one
portion of the lava field and a
rectangular cairn rests beside it.
Called Berserkjagata (Berserkers’
Path) and Berserkjadys (Berserk-
ers’ Cairn), these sites purport-
edly confirm the saga’s narra-
tive about the berserkers’ fates.
But, the sagas, as semi-historical
medieval accounts of an even
further past, often provide fan-
ciful explanations for mundane
relics in the Icelandic landscape:
the medieval author may have
known the path and determined
that only a berserker could have
broken through the uny ield-
i ng rock of Berserk ja h raun.
Whatever the case, the moral
of the story is clear and eminently
relatable: don’t accept stubborn,
murderous retainers as gifts
from earls overseas, but if you
do, find a novel way to off them
and dispose of them in a pictur-
esque, if forbidding, landscape.
Berserkjahraun
Where to bury your daughter’s suitors

Words: Eli Petzold Illustration: Lóa Hlín Hjálmtýsdóttir
SAGA SPOTS
A marbendill lives on the ocean
floor and is never seen above the
surface unless caught by fish-
ermen, as shall be recounted
presently. The scabrous, cream-
coloured limestone Millepora
polymorpha, which is found on
the ocean floor and often wash-
es up on shore, is said to be the
handiwork of a marbendill. The
belief in these creatures is an old
one, as evidenced by the Book of
Settlements and the Saga of Half
and his Heroes. Men have quite
often caught a marbendill, usually
by capturing it alive and hauling
it onto their boat. Some of these
were carrying fishhooks and a
fishing net. There are also tales
of them having been found dead,
cast up on the shore or in the belly
of a shark. When caught alive, they
will try to escape back to their
realm. They are taciturn and have
little fondness for men.
Source: Jón Árnason, Íslenzkar
þjóðsögur og ævintýri I, p. 125-126.
MONSTER OF THE MONTH
Marbendill - Seaman
Art: Arngrímur Sigurðsson
Taken from 'The Museum of Hidden Beings' by Arngrímur Sigurðsson. Buy the book at gpv.is/dulbk
THE HOME
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