Tímarit Máls og menningar - 01.02.2015, Page 94

94 TMM 2015 · 1
Árni Blandon Einarsson
Ted Hughes og Ísland
Síðla í júlímánuði árið 1979 komu Ted Hughes og sonur hans til Íslands og
skemmtu sér við að veiða á stöng. Þeir gistu í Reykjavík hjá Thor Vilhjálms-
syni og óku hringveginn um landið og eftir þessa ferð skrifaði Hughes til
Daniels Weissbort:1
Archaic out-of-this-world feeling – no wild animals (only escaped mink and foxes,
and imported reindeer, none of which are ever seen), no insects except midges and
about one tiny moth, and a red sea-rock tiny mite. Only five species of fish. No
sparrows, starling general small twitterers and babblers. Only terns (visitors from
the Antarctic) puffins, gulls (not many) and skuas. And curlews and plovers. Many
hundred kinds of duck, but confined to a few spots. So the effect is not just desolate,
so much as vacant – deserted, blasted and cursed. The folk are odd – unsmiling,
funless, somewhat hostile. My friend Thor is an anomaly – real jovial Viking. The
rest seem to be a cross between the most downtrodden Irish and the meanest Scots.
In fact by blood they are evidently closer to the British Isles than to Scandinavia, and
they look it. But we caught plenty of gigantic fish in spectacular places.2
Hughes skrifaði Eric White,3 og lýsti þá ekki Íslandi sem ,deserted, blasted
and cursed‘ heldur ,terrible‘; þar átti hann við ,terrible‘ í sinni upprunalegu
merkingu orðsins (ógnarlegt, eitthvað sem vekur skelfingu).
Ted Hughes
Noel Chanan ©
Hallberg Hallmundsson