The Icelandic connection - 01.03.2018, Qupperneq 27

Vol. 70 #1
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
25
might be measured) and who was born in
Canada, was a master of making fun of and
using ‘West-Icelandic’. He composed this
good poem about the hunting trip:
Winnipeg Icelander which begins like
this:
Eg for on l' Main Street med fimm dala cheque
Og forty-eight riffil mer kaupti
Og ride ut a country med farmara fekk,
Svo fresh ut i brushin eg hlaupti.
En ]ra sa eg moose, uti i marshi pad la,
0 my eina sticku eg brjotti!
La for {rad a galop, not good anyhow,
Var gone, Jregar loksins eg skjotti
(Editor’s note: poem is in bad-grammar
Icelandic, Icelandicized English words and
is impossible to translate)
There are many verses in which Kainn
uses ‘West-Icelandic’. We do not need
many examples, but I will mention one
which he calls I Danslok:
Hasttu ad dansa og gaetni gleym,
griptu „chanc-id, madur!
Taktu kvensu og toltu heim.
,,Tell your friends to do the same”.
At The End of the Dance
Stop dancing and forget all care,
Grab your chance, man, while it’s there!
Take the chick home, don’t be lame,
“Tell your friends to do the same”
(transl. Ingrid Roed)
Or the verse he calls Hefnargjofin
(Revenge Gift), that deals with his
favourite theme, brennivin:
Hvenaer skal eg laera svona ad lifa,
ad lifid verdi mer ei hefndargjof;
enn ma drottin skuld hja K.N skrifa,
ja, skyldi eg eiga ad fylla ‘drunkard’s’grof?
Nu er 'eg'veikur eftir {retta ‘spree’,
og ‘it is plenty good enough for me’.
When will I ever learn how to live
So life doesn’t take its revenge on me;
Still the Lord K.N.’s debt will not forgive.
Is a drunkard’s grave the sure end I see?
Now I am growing sick of this spree
and it is plenty good enough for me.
(transl. Ingrid Roed)
And the unforgettable entertaining
turn-about of the poem by Longfellow,
The Arrow and the Song. In Longfellow’s
poem the poet shoots the arrow into the
air and out of sight and he does not see
where it lands. Then he whispers a poem
into its wake and again does not know
where it goes. A long time later he finds
the arrow stuck in a tree and the poem,
from beginning to end, in the heart of his
friend.
This is completely turned around
in Kainn’s poem, Orin og Ljodid (The
Arrow and the Verse):
Upp i loftid or eg skaut,
og einhvern fjandann burt hun Jraut,
en hrafn sem sat a harri grein,
Helt {rad vaeri „aeroplane".
A eftir henni litid ljod
um loftid sendi eg beina slod;
og hrafn, sem uti a haugi sat,
med horkubrogdum eygt {rad gat.
En or og ljod eg aftur fann
og aldrei Jreim fundi gleyma kann;
a husgangsrolti hitti eg ljod,
f hjarta vinar orin stod.
The Arrow and the Verse
I shot an arrow into the air,
Some devil took it who knows where.
But Raven sitting high in a tree
Thought: looks like an “aeroplane” to me.
Next a little verse I sent
Straight skyward; who knows where it went.