The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1963, Blaðsíða 24

22
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
SUMMER 1963
inevitable that belief in supernatural
beings should still persist. No Icelan-
der, no matter how sophisticated, likes
to assert that these things do not exist.
Many legends and superstitions have
grown in this austere country through
the centuries like the many colored
lichens that encrust its fantastic rocks.
One of these beliefs is the subject
of a painting by Jon Stefansson. Where
it hangs in the National Gallery in
Reykjavik, it dominates the room. It
is a picture not easily forgotten, and
after my first visit to Iceland, it haunt-
ed me. I had to see it again and learn
its story.
It represents a partially flayed bull
and a woman. It is night and the
moon’s beams filtering through riven
clouds, light up a wild mountain land-
scape. The animal has just surmounted
a rock and stands, snorting clouds of
bloody steam from distorted nostrils.
Every bared muscle is plainly discern-
able and the thought of that biting air
on the exposed flesh makes one’s own
flesh creep.
The most arresting feature of the ap-
parition are its eyes. They are unfor-
gettable. Not only do they express pain
and terror, but they paralyze the be-
holder with a kind of unfocused, all
encompassing malevolence. .
Beside this creature stands a wo-
man, slender and clad in dark, flow-
ing garments. She is not particularly
beautiful. She seems frozen with
horror. One arm is laid across her
breast, 'the other, bent stiffly at the el-
bow, is upraised in a gesture of repul-
sion. Her attitude resembles very close-
ly that of the various frowning saints
seen in medieval manuscripts. Yet she
rather conveys the impression that she
had expected this monster to material-
ize beside her, at night, on a lonely
mountain.
It seems that there was a belief in
the old days, that when a farmer
slaughtered an animal, he must com-
plete the butchering without interrup-
tion. Should he fail to do so, it was
possible for the creature to rise again.
If it did so, it would become a super-
natural being called a “Thorgeirsboli”,
which would haunt the countryside
and exist indefinitely.
Now, a certain man, who was known
to be a wizard, was in love with a lady
but she would not have him. When he
found that all his efforts in that direc-
tion failed, he resolved on revenge. He
kept watch on the neighboring farms
when the fall butchering was being
done. One day, the young man whom
the lady favored, slaughtered a bul-
lock. Being a wizard, the rejected suit-
or found it no trick at all so to con-
fuse the young man that he (left on
some errand when he had the animal
partly skinned.
Of course the wizard made the ani-
mal rise again and sent it to haunt the
lady.
These apparitions usually overtook
their victims at night and in lonely
places, as can be seen in the picture.
Such hauntings were thought to con-
tinue into the ninth generation of the
afflicted one’s family. Even today, Ice-
landic farmers do not like to leave a
butchering unfinished.
Sylvia K. Beranek is at present study-
ing the Icelandic language under Mr.
Vilhjalimur Bjarnar, Curator of the Fiske
Icelandic Collection at Cornell Univer-
sity, at Ithaca, New York, and teaching
in -the New York State public schools.
She has visited Iceland twice and -hopes
to return there as an exchange teacher.
Her article was inspired by a painting
she saw in Reykjavik, which impressed
her very much. “I am very interested
in the country, its literature and want
to know its people better”, says Miss
I'-eranek. —ED.