Reykjavík Grapevine - feb. 2022, Blaðsíða 7

As odd as it may sound, unlike Greek
mythology, Nordic mythology doesn’t
have one single god representing the
ocean. Rather, four figures are said to
be gods or rulers of the ocean: Mímir,
Ægir, Njör"ur and Nanna.
Although Icelanders usually refer
to Ægir when talking about the ocean,
then he is not technically a god, but a
giant. The only one that is actually a
god/Æsir is Njör"ur (Nanna is also a
goddess). Njör"ur is the god of wind
and is responsible for one of the oldest
sayings in Icelandic, “sá er galli á gjöf
Njar"ar” (the problem with Njör"ur’s
gift). Nobody knows exactly what this
means, but the best guess is it’s fish
related because Njör"ur is also the god
of wind. So, the problem with his gift
is wind, and Icelanders hate the f#$%
wind.
The god of dullness
There aren't many stories about
Njör"ur. Truthfully, he seems to have
been a remarkably dull character. That
is, until the unbelievably cool Jötunn
Ska"i enters the scene. She lived in the
mountains of !rymheimur, the home
of Jötnar. She travelled on skis and
hunted animals with her bow. But then
tragedy hit.
Prickly bastards
Ska"i’s father, !jassi, was killed by the
gods after Loki’s infamous heist of
I"unn, and Ska"i was hell-bent on kill-
ing every last one of those pompous
f$%&ers of Æsir. When she marched
into Valhalla, the Æsir saw that the
only way to make peace with her (and
live) was to pay her off, and one of her
payouts was her choice of husband
from among the Æsir. But, the gods
being prickly little bastards, said that
she could only choose her husband by
looking at their feet.
Nice feet? Think again!
Ska"i, for some reason, agreed to these
weird terms and got busy examining
the gods’ feet. One pair was particu-
larly clean and nice, and Ska"i assumed
these must be the feet of the hottest
god out there, Baldur. But, to her disap-
pointment, the feet belong to Njör"ur.
Of all of the goddamn gods!?
Screaming seagulls and
howling wolves
As you might expect, the marriage was
extremely stormy, as Ska"i couldn’t
sleep in Njör"ur’s home, Nótatún, on
account of the maddening noise from
the ocean and the screaming seagulls,
which the god of the ocean could not,
for some reason, silence. Njör"ur then
agreed to move to !rymheimur, but
he couldn’t sleep there because of the
howling wolves in the mountains. They
finally agreed to split their time at each
place. They would spend nine nights
at Nótatún and nine at !rymheimur.
Finally, Ska"i was fed up with this fine-
footed loser. She demanded a divorce
and ended up marrying a man fitting
to her badass legend, the all-seeing god,
Ó"inn.
7 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 02— 2022

Árn# Margrét
“Akureyri”
Acoustic guitar, voice, and the faintest
of piano are the ingredients in this
fragile number about the unravelling
of love. Árn" Margrét makes the bold
choice of writing a song the chorus of
which is almost indistinguishable from
the verses, but the result is a poem
set to the sparsest of music. It’s no
surprise that the buzz around her is
growing. ASF

Salóme Katrín
“The Other Side”
A%er an initial minute of plaintive
guitar and fragile vocals, this track
drops into a heavy rock explosion of
joy, creating a juxtaposition that is
liberating rather than jarring. This was
apparently the intended e$ect, since
Salóme Katrín describes the song as
“a bedroom party, jumping on the bed
singing into your hairbrush”. ASF
Hugar
“Ævi”
There’s no ‘new year, new me’ rhetoric
from Hugar in this track from their
latest album, ‘Ri%’. Instead we
gratefully receive five-and-a-half
minutes of moody, atmospheric
post-rock greatness. Lose yourself
in the waves of sound, fantasising
that you’re riding across the brutal
Icelandic landscape on horseback. Or,
in my case, imagining that I look super
cool while doing my silly little yoga
routine. JG
NEW MUSIC PICKS
JUST SAYINGS Does the guy hitting on you have grass
in his shoes? Odd, right? Rest assured,
though, that he’s not utterly insane, but
rather into you in a very old fashioned
way.
The saying ‘A" ganga á eftir einhverjum
me" grasi" í skónum’ literally means,
to walk after someone with your shoes
filled with grass. And it means that
the one that has the grass in its shoes
is begging something of you or trying
to win your heart. Now, it’s an unoffi-
cial secret that people actually did this
some centuries ago, although no scholar
really knows why. Some theories are
that it was just a fashion at the time.
Our theory is that it was to kill the smell
of the sweaty feet. It doesn't have to be
complicated. Though describing ritu-
als of the olden days, this saying is very
common in modern Icelandic. VG
First
Catcher in the rye
Grass In Shoes?
He's In Love
With You
GODS OF ICELAND
Superpowers:
Controls the wind, has really
nice feet.
Weaknesses:
Can’t sleep around howling
wolves, can’t silence the seagulls
Modern Analogy:
The depressing film, Marriage
Story
Njör"ur, The Husband With
The Nice Feet
What’s the point of rulin! the ocean if you can’t silence
the sea!ulls?
Words:
Valur Grettisson
Image:
Wikimedia
Commons
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