The Icelandic connection - 01.03.2018, Blaðsíða 23

Vol. 70 #1
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
21
good-natured fun of religious matters, for
example, in this very well-known verse:
Kainn is Grilled about his Religious
Views:
Kyrrassa tok eg tru
Traust hefir reynst mer su
I florum Jdvi' fae eg aS standa
fyrir na5 heilags anda.
I took the creed of a heifer’s rump,
And I've found that it doesn't fail;
In the gutter floor I have to stand,
For the holy spirit's mercy-grail.
These themes might suggest an answer
to the question: why is it that Kainn touched
the hearts of so many Icelanders? There
is nothing new in stating that Icelandic
society from settlement times till the Second
World War was a farming society, and what
this society appreciated in general, and no
less in poetry, had to do with farmers. And
men. For in those days, most farmers were
naturally men. And what men liked was, of
course, ‘brennivm, of which there was never
enough, and what they found entertaining
was drinking, fighting and womanizing.
Children Will Long Remember
Man eg tvennt sem mer var kennt a Froni,
og minnkun ekki potti J>a;
J>a3 var a3 drekka og fljugast a.
This I was taught that is was alright
Back home and here as it might;
That is to drink and pick a fight.
Poems about women and womanizing
were always entertaining. “Obscene” was
what the sainted Jon Ogmundsson called
poetry about women. In my younger years,
dirty verses were frequently recited wherever
two or more men got together, followed
by loud laughter, thigh-slapping, falling
backwards and tossing back another one. I
suspect that this still goes on. Some might
say that there are no dirty verses to be found
in Kainn’s books. That is no proof that he
never composed any. Salacious poetry had
never been considered appropriate for print.
But like any other poetry, dirty verses can
vary in quality and those that would be
considered closest to being print-worthy
would be the ambiguous ones. That is to
say, something is said in an innocent way,
but can be construed very differently. There
are very few of these ambiguous verses are
in Kainn’s poetry. However, I cannot resist
presenting one here because it fits so well
with the subject of farming and farmers.
This verse is about Magnus Stefansson:
A merarstraeti meyjar na3i hann fundi
og mjog a3 henni kankvfslegur veik;
eins og krummi uppgefinn af sundi
augum votum litur krokasteik.
Hann var ao fala a3 fa a3 setja inn
i fjosi5 hennar gamla klarinn sinn
Shuffling down Mare’s Street, a maid he met
And a fondling gaze on her he turned;
Like a drowning crow, worn out, might set
Its eyes on a piece of meat for which it yearned.
Permission he sought, might he be able
To put his old workhorse in her stable.
(transl. Ingrid Roed)
We don’t need to explain this poem as is
sometimes necessary with some of Iceland’s
ancient literature which is published with a
side-bar of explanations. The poem speaks
for itself. What I find more entertaining
than the double meaning is the surrealistic
simile: “Like a drowning crow, worn out,
might set/ Its eyes on a piece of meat for
which it yearned.” Can you imagine how
Magnus’ eyes leered at the ladies?
Poetry Themes Here and There
Brennivm, women and religion or
ministers: these three, along with the