Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.10.2006, Blaðsíða 4

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Dear Editor:
I received my Lögberg-
Heimskringla this morning and
discovered my grandmother’s
story about a fylgja.
Two things I must correct
and perhaps explain better.
My grandmother’s name was
Margaret Egilson, not Eyjolf-
son. (I realize speaking on the
telephone can distort speech
— I should have tried to spell
it for you.) She was the daugh-
ter of Guðmundur Egilson
and Katrin Magnúsdóttir from
Þykkvibær, on the south coast
of Iceland. They homesteaded
first at Akra, ND, then in the
Elfros/Foam Lake area of Sas-
katchewan. They moved to
Winnipegosis and farmed on
Red Deer Point for many years
before returning to live their
last years at Wynyard, SK.
My grandmother married
Hannes Anderson (Arnason),
son of Skuli Árnason and Sig-
ríður Erlendsdóttir, both of
Iceland, and early pioneers
at Gimli (1876) and Argyle
(1881). Margaret and Hannes
farmed at Wynyard, SK.
Thank you for printing the
fylgja story. I am enclosing my
poem of fylgjur which perhaps
you will print in a literary issue
— I have more I may send.
David, may I mention
again how much I enjoy your
Lögberg-Heimskringla. Just
one complaint, and this lies
with those advertising coming
events. As you see, I received
the September 15 issue today,
the 21st, sometimes it arrives
much later, thus I miss out on
a few things that would have
been of particular interest to
me. I encourage everyone to
advertise coming events well
in advance to counteract slow
postal service and the fact that
the paper comes out every two
weeks instead of weekly.
Thinking of you, I am
Yours respectfully,
Donna L. Skardal
Baldur, MB
Fylgjur
Often during daily tasks,
faces gone drift before me
like ancient Icelandic fylgjur.
They smile and laugh and
clutch my heart in knots
of wistful yearning.
I miss them, yet wherever
distant roads will lead,
knowledge that they follow
near shall warm me.
Thank you for your clari-
fication, and my apologies for
the error in identifying your
grandmother.
As for the events listed in
the Calendar of Events, we do
our best to list them as early as
possible. While I am sometimes
able to get information well in
advance, we are very depen-
dent on people or groups send-
ing us the information about
their events.
I encourage anyone who
has an event coming up to send
whatever they can as early as
possible — even if it is just a
date, place and a brief descrip-
tion. We can always add “more
info TBA” and update the list-
ing when details are hammered
out.
—Ed.
* * *
Dear Editor:
I want to comment on the
September 15 issue, and the
picture on page four. I was sur-
prised to see a picture of my
mother. My cousin Bernie has
identified grandfather Halldor
Eastman, but in front of him, at
his right shoulder, is my mother
Anna Eastman Sigvaldason. At
afi’s left, in the back row, is Val-
di Benediktsson, and fifth from
left in the back row is, I think,
Thordis Eyolfson Thompson,
Dr. S. O. Thompson’s wife.
Fifth from the left in the
front row is her sister Villa
Eyolfson. A lot of people will
be able to identify this picture.
I think it’s the Riverton Dis-
trict Choir of that time, and I
remember afi having that pic-
ture.
The other thing I wanted to
comment on is the article about
the Johnsons of Wynyard. I find
it so fascinating that there were
so many Jón Jónssons emigrat-
ing from Iceland and I wonder if
our eminent researcher Nelson
Gerrard could do some more
study on that one, because afi’s
family name, when they came
from Iceland, was Jónsson,
therefore his father was Jón
Jónsson and they changed their
name to Austmann/Eastman;
and I know that the Normans in
Piney were Johnson, and I just
wonder how many more there
were?
Sincerely,
Margaret (Sigvaldason)
Jackson
Caledon, ON
* * *
Dear Editor:
Regarding the photo on
page 5, “Do you know these
people?” in Lögberg-Heim-
skringla No. 17, September 1,
I was both very delighted and
surprised to see a picture of
my mother, Margaret Guðrún,
and my afi, Guðmundur Mag-
nússon. Many of my preschool
days were spent at his home in
Framnes, MB. I still go through
my scrapbook and read the
many poems he wrote to me.
Vertu sæll,
Vilborg Bjornsson
Guelph, ON
* * *
Bernie Taupin may know a lot more about Ice-landic food than you
think.
Before the rise of the Inter-
net and the liberating ease with
which we can Google anything,
there was a phenomenon in
which people heard songs but
misunderstood the lyrics. Not
just in a taken-out-of-context,
Jim-Morrison-is-speaking-to-
me way, but in an I-can’t-be-
lieve-what-I-just-heard way.
One example is in Jimi
Hendrix’s “Purple Haze”:
“’Scuse me while I kiss the
sky” became, to some, “’Scuse
me while I kiss this guy,” re-
sulting in either confusion, a
life-changing revelation, or
confirmation that Jimi was fond
of mind-altering substances.
And yet, if you’ve ever
experienced this, particularly
with a song you like and can’t
get out of your head, you know
that often you’ll just make
sense of the strange words and
think the song is about some-
thing that may have nothing
to do with its original lyrics.
(This is, of course, with the
caveat that pop songs are es-
sentially meaningless — most
of them can’t even tell a whole
story of boy-meets-girl, boy-
loses-girl.)
I think this phenomenon
is how my siblings and I start-
ed picking up Icelandic and
French (and maybe English).
For example, when it was
time to go to bed, our lan-
gamma would sometimes say
to us, góða nótt and sofðu rótt
— essentially, “good night,
sleep tight.” But I think we
all thought she was saying
“go the note” and “sow the
rote,” which, even to kids ac-
customed to Dr. Seuss books,
are pretty weird things for your
great-grandmother to say.
But like a misheard lyric, we
knew the context of the phrase,
even if not the meaning: “sow
the rote” is something you say
at bedtime. You could go your
whole life, among people who
speak Icelandic, and if you had
mastered the pronunciation
and context for those phrases,
no one would ever question
your usage.
So if misheard Icelandic
words can seem like weird but
grammatically plausible Eng-
lishg, the flipside of that is,
can misheard English become
plausible Icelandic?
The reason I started think-
ing about this is because of a
song I heard many times grow-
ing up — Elton John’s “Honky
Cat,” which is about a country
hick struggling to be accepted
first in the big city and then
again when he returns home.
The more I hear this song
as an adult, having learned
Icelandic (and since I have no
idea what a “honky cat” is), I
can’t help but hear Elton sing-
ing about hangikjöt. The cho-
rus sort of works:
They said get back hangikjöt
Better get back to the woods
Well I quit those days and my
redneck ways
And oh the change is gonna
do me good...
Maybe he’s saying the rich
folk in town don’t like cured
lamb meat, exclaiming, “geez,
get that hangikjöt away from
me!” (If you think I’m beat-
ing a mildly funny joke to
death, listen to that song and
see whether you can hear him
saying anything other than
hangikjöt.)
Let’s face it, it’s just as
likely that lyricist Bernie Tau-
pin knew what he was writing,
but Elton didn’t, so when the
latter asked the former, “what’s
this weird word, mate?” Bernie
supplied the pronunciation —
but Elton misheard it and came
up with “Honky Cat.”
Unlikely? Maybe. But give
that song another listen, and
tell me I’m wrong.
David Jón Fuller
Managing Editor
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Heimskringla stofnað 14. janúar 1886
Lögberg stofnað 9. september 1888
Sameinuð 1959
4 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • 15 October 2006
Elton John and hangikjöt