Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.03.2009, Síða 11

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Lögberg-Heimskringla • 1. mars 2009 • 11
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A man who charted our course...
Nelson Gerrard
Who is this man? What influence did he have on our lives and why is he about to be designated “a person of
national historic significance?”
Chances are that none of us reading this
newspaper would exist – whether north or south
of the border - had this man not lived and played
a major role in history. The emigrant Iceland-
ers who became our ancestors would have fol-
lowed other paths in life and their fates would
have unfolded differently – for better or worse -
and so on down the line to the present time. It is
highly unlikely that an “Icelandic community”
as we know it would still exist in North Amer-
ica 135 years after settlement – there would be
little if any Icelandic presence in Canada and
certainly no Lögberg-Heimskringla…
Do you recognize his face or know his
name? Learn more about this remarkable vi-
sionary and pioneer in the coming issues of
Lögberg-Heimskringla and find out why a
group of volunteers has undertaken the chal-
lenge of commissioning a life-size bronze
sculpture to commemorate his life.
We all
have to eat
something
Trolls and stories of trolls are among of my favou-rite kinds of stories, be-
cause they are about creatures
that are said to have lived in
Iceland before Christianity
came. Trolls look like humans,
except they are taller and much
stronger; and some of them eat
people, but they also eat salm-
on, sheep and horsemeat. Some
stories talk about trolls that
threw massive rocks a long way
to places whose churches they
disliked whenever the church
bells were ringing.
Trolls can also be found in
Norway. The Norwegian trolls
have tails and pointy ears, and
appear to be some mixture of
human and animal. The trolls
in the story we have here are
night-trolls, as they turn into
rock if the sun shines on them.
Skessusteinn /
Troll woman rock
Close by the farm Kirkjubæ
in Hróarstungu, there are cliffs
that look strange. They are
called Skersl. There is a cave
where a troll woman and troll
man used to live. The troll
man’s name was Þórir, but
the name of the troll woman
is unknown. Every year these
trolls used to charm either the
priest or the shepherd to their
cave, and this continued for
quite a while, or at least until
a priest called Eiríkur came
to Kirkjubæ. Eiríkur prayed
very hard every day, and with
his prayers managed to protect
himself and the shepherd from
the sorcery of the trolls.
One year, on Christmas
Eve, the troll woman began to
worry that she would not be
able to charm either the priest
or the shepherd. She finally
gave up and said to her partner
“Now I have used all my power
to charm the priest or his shep-
herd, but I can’t manage to
because every time I start my
sorcery it feels like a hot spirit
comes against me, and this heat
is just burning every bone in
my body, so I always have to
stop my sorcery. Now you have
to go and find us some food be-
cause we don’t have anything
to eat here in our cave.”
The troll man was not ea-
ger to go, but he got encour-
agement from his troll wife.
He left the cave and went
west, over a ridge that is now
called Þorgeirsás, and walked
to a frozen lake that is now
called Þórisvatn. There, out on
the lake, he made an opening
on the ice and started to fish
through the ice. He caught a
quite a bit of trout.
It was very cold out. When
the troll man decided that he
had caught enough fish to take
home, he tried to stand up but
realized that he was frozen to
the ice and couldn’t stand up.
He struggled and thrashed
about, but he couldn’t break
away from the ice.
Now the troll man fell
asleep on the ice, and after a
while he was dead. Back at the
cave, the troll woman started
to wonder about her troll man,
and she also became extremely
hungry. She ran from the cave,
walking across the ridge as
the troll man had, and after a
while she found him dead on
the lake. She tried for a long
time to revive him, but when
she saw that that was not going
to bring back her troll man she
grabbed all the trout that had
been tied together, threw them
on her back and said ”I hereby
say that after this, nobody will
ever fish anything in this lake.”
These words became true,
because after this nobody has
ever caught a fish in this lake.
The troll woman had just start-
ed heading back to her cave,
and she came on the top of the
ridge. Two things then hap-
pened: the sun came up in east,
and she could hear church bells.
There she became a rock on top
of the ridge, and still today this
rock is now called Skessusteinn
or “The Troll Woman’s Rock.
References.
Íslenskar þjóðsögur og
ævintýri I
Jón Árnason 1961, 147-
148
Björk Bjarnadóttir is an
Icelandic environmental eth-
nologist living in Hollow Water,
MB. She is also a storyteller
and gives talks in schools and
community centres.
ÞJÓÐFRÆÐI
ICELANDIC FOLKLORE
Björk Bjarnadóttir
Hollow Water, MB ILLustRatIon: LesLeY naKonecHnY
The troll lady calcifies on top of her hill. She will remain petrified through many sunsets.
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