Reykjavík Grapevine - 25.08.2017, Side 60

Every Thursday in June, July
and August at 3pm.

This 90 min. walk is at an easy
pace and starts at Reykjavík
City Library in Tryggvagata 15.

Tickets are 1500 ISK, avail.
at tix.is and at the library.
Free for children under 18.

FOR THE EARLY BIRDS
At 2pm every Thursday we
screen Spirits of Iceland,
a film on Icelandic folklore in
the library's 5th floor screening
room, free of charge.
Dark Deeds
in Reykjavík
A Literary Walking Tour
www.borgarbokasafn.is
literature@reykjavik.is
Tel. 411-6100
Join us for
a fun introduction
to Icelandic
crime
fiction
and more...
ghouls
ghost
stories
WWW.HANDKNIT.IS
• Skólavör›ustígur 19 tel.: (+354) 552 1890
• Borgartún 31 tel.: (+354) 562 1890
60 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 15 — 2017
Words: Paul Fontaine
Illustration: Elín Elísabet
This story begins back in Novem-
ber, 1784. A box of sixteen was
fleeing a severe volcanic eruption
in south Iceland, dressed in rags,
contending with a snowstorm
raging outside. He knocked on the
door of a farmer’s cottage, asking
for shelter, and was turned away.
This was considered very bad
manners back then, and so when
the boy ended up drowning in a
tidal pool, he did the natural
thing: he came back to haunt the
farmer in his new form, Rusty the
Brown One. Don’t let the snicker-
worthy name fool you. Rusty was
the wrong ghost to fuck with.
Rusty didn’t just go after the
farmer. He went after his entire
family, generation after genera-
tion, breaking up marriages, de-
stroying farm equipment, killing
sheep. Then he started attacking
random travellers.
As if things couldn’t get any
worse, a young girl who died the
same way some years later joined
Rusty in ghost form, so they went
on attacking travelers together.
Inexplicably, one of the people they
killed later rose again as a ghost
and joined them— kind of like the
Icelandic ghost equivalent of get-
ting jumped into a gang.
Rusty supposedly still walks
today, so if you travel south, be-
ware the Brown One.
Story: Courtesy of Icelandic Wonders
GHOST STORIES
Rusty The
Really
Unfriendly
Ghost
Rusty was a really vindictive kind of guy.
Although we at Grapevine can be
cynical about art, life and the pur-
pose of everything—some people
even think we are disrespectful or
flat out rude about these things—
there is one guy we deeply respect.
The sculptor Einar Jónsson has
carved the Icelandic soul into rocks,
metal and plaster, and his work is
absolutely stunning in every re-
spect. The self image of Icelanders
is found in his dramatic statues,
such as the one of Leifur Heppni,
which stands in front of Hallgrím-
skirkja, or the ones portraying an-
cient folkloric material. Through
his beautiful statues, Einar cap-
tures what looks like a complicated
dialogue with the old gods.
Einar was born in 1874 and in
his youth, it quickly became clear
that he was not like the other sultry
farmers, who could only remember
a verse or two from the Icelandic
Sagas—he was more poetic than
that. At the time there was no tradi-
tion of sculpture in Iceland, which
is no surprise for a nation that lived
in turf houses until the middle of
the 20th century.
The Icelandic government re-
alised that the artist was on the
next level, so they sponsored him to
go Denmark and Italy to learn his
craft. He came back 20 years later
and struck a deal with the govern-
ment. In exchange for a home and
a workshop, he would donate all his
work to the Icelandic nation. This is
perhaps one of the most important
cultural negotiations this coun-
try ever made. Einar’s workshop is
now a museum in Skólvörðuholt,
near Hallgrímskirkja. And to this
day, in the summertime, people
still go to the park, drink a beer or
two, and play with they’re children,
surrounded by the mind-bending,
towering statues of a true genius.
REYKJAVÍK OF YORE
A Towering Artist
Words: Valur Grettissom
Photo by Reykjavík Museum of Photography
Photo by Art Bicnick