Iceland review - 2007, Side 93

18 ICELAND REVIEW
This departure may be routine for the humans in the cockpit, but for
the horses, they will be the first in their lineages to leave the country. And
they can never come back. Once a horse has left Iceland, century-old
legislation stipulates that the animal may never set hoof on the island again.
Although simply a matter of disease control, it cannot be undone.
Before we seal the hatch I step back out into the rain to observe the
ground crew in their full rain gear loading the horses. The loader guid-
ing the crates into the hold pulls back his rain-slicked hood to nuzzle a
horse pitching his head, trying to calm the animal down. It’s not until
the baggage-slinger’s bags come alive with a quickening pulse and
worried eyes that the rules of engagement change, and then suddenly
his rough hands grow gentle and patient in contact with the smooth,
broad coats of his restless ward. The loader manages to soothe the horse
and pushes the enclosure, a gambrel-roofed box resembling a miniature
silver barn, deeper into the plane’s dark belly.
I keep my eye out for one dark bay in particular. I first met Lykill at
a farm in South Iceland, just outside Selfoss. He is steady and calm on
the lead rope behind his owner, 36-year-old Fjölnir Thorgeirsson, but
as I approach to stroke his muzzle, Lykill grows skittish, drawing his
head up, pinning his ears, and dropping his hind legs as if about to bolt.
“Lykill is a one-person horse,” Fjölnir tells me as a caveat, kneading
Lykill just behind the ears to keep him placid. “He can only trust one
person.” That’s horse sense for you.
Fjölnir thinks he has found Lykill’s match, a 17-year-old Finnish girl
named Katie Brumpton. The chemistry is evidently strong enough for
Katie to put down the millions of ISK it will cost to call this horse her
own. Each animal is issued a passport, which identifies their registration,
pedigree back six generations, and a detailed system of markings and
colorations wherein a veterinarian inspects the horse’s body to locate
swirls in the animal’s fur, the equine fingerprint. Once the animal is
assigned a registration number, the information is imprinted onto a
microchip no larger than a grain of rice, which is inserted under the
skin on the horse’s neck. But more primitive techniques have not been
abandoned. The horse’s number is also clipped into its coat with a pair
of kitchen shears.
The f light to Nyköping is uneventful, so I try to talk to the other
human passenger on the plane, Siggi the horse handler. The thick,
middle-aged man accompanies each cargo f light transporting horses,
just so someone on board knows the fillies from the colts. This has
garnered him the moniker Siggi, the Horse Stewardess among the Iceland-
air cargo staff. The largish, dour man doesn’t find this funny, but despite
himself he is the one who plays mother when the time comes to hand out
the sandwiches and cans of coke. I take this as an invitation to chat, but
my attempts at conversation are all rebuffed with humorless, one-word
answers. Perhaps he only turns on the charm with the horses.