The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.2003, Síða 24

22
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 58 #1
deep cracks formed by the footsteps of a
ferocious troll. From the top Oli could
command a dazzling view over the river
valley toward the mountains and the fjords
beyond, or glance dizzingly down to the
turf-roofed buildings of Brekka itself. The
farm consisted of five small wooden struc-
tures built in a row, sandwiched together
by thick columns of stone and connected
by an earthen passageway running along
the back. Each building was faced with a
pair of six-paned windows; every other one
had its own front door. In summer, tall
grasses and wildflowers topped the roofs;
in winter, lids of snow. Compared to some
of the farms Oli had visited in the district,
hovels constructed of earth and stone,
damp as caves, Brekka was well-to-do, but
it was certainly not grand.
A grand farm was Valjajofstadir, the
home of Oli’s father’s parents, further
south along the river. Valjrjofstadir was a
highly religious household, with much
singing of hymns in the evenings. The ser-
mons of Oli’s grandfather, minister of the
ValJajofstaSir church, made Oli’s brain feel
like a handful of uncarded wool, spongy
and formless. The truth was that by the age
of eleven Oli had taken to avoiding religion
as much as possible. He reasoned that the
less he thought about God, the less God
would think about him, and since he was a
moody child prone to mischief, often in
trouble, he believed it best not to call divine
attention to himself. There were plenty of
people right there on earth to scold him
(his father, constantly; the servants, fre-
quently; his mother, rarely), without call-
Rev. Stefan Jonasson
ARBORG UNITARIAN CHURCH
GIMLI UNITARIAN CHURCH
9 Rowand Avenue
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3J 2N4
Telephone: (204) 889-4746
E-mail: sjonasson@uua.org
ing down the wrath of God.
For despite his father’s certainty that
he would become a minister - and, increas-
ingly, in spite of it - Oli had other plans,
having early shown signs of the fate his
grandmother predicted for him. There was
nothing he loved more than the feel of a
good rhyme rolling off his tongue, frisky as
two lambs butting heads on a summer
morning, tangy as the skyr the servant
Forbjorg prepared from sheep’s milk, or
gloomy as dark clouds smothering the
peaks of distant mountains. Of course,
there was nothing to prevent a priest from
writing poetry. Many did. But Oli wanted
simply to be a farmer and a poet, in the tra-
dition of his mother’s people. And here lay
the secret of Brekka’s charm for Oli:
Brekka was the place to be for a boy who
aspired to making the verse.
First of all there was Oli’s afi, his
mother’s father - the Bragi of Oli’s would-
be namesake. Long ago, before his grandfa-
ther’s back hunched over like a tuft of lava
and his knees buckled when mounting a
horse, before his moss green eyes crinkled
into slits, Bragi had been a nmamadur, one
of the last. A nmamadur was a “rhyming
man,” an itinerant poet, a travelling enter-
tainer who wandered the district chanting
the ancient rfmur, poems sung in eerie
tunes, in exchange for a meal or even a cup
of coffee. In addition to his fame as a rfma-
ma_ur, Bragi had also earned distinction as
a talandiskald, a “talking skald.” A talan-
diskald had the remarkable ability to com-
pose verse off the tip of his tongue, an art
Bragi practiced still. Oli heard him once
challenge his wife to a contest:
Komdu til ad kvedast a
Let’s exchange verses,
kerling ef |au getur,
Old lady, if you can,
lattu ganga ljodaskra
Let flow a catalogue of poems
lengst I allan vetur.
All through the winter.
Then there was Bragi’s son Pall, his
mother’s favourite brother and the greatest
living poet of Northeast Iceland. Uncle
Pall’s work had even been published in