Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.06.2019, Side 12

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12 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • June 15 2019
There was once a young and hopeful fellow who
fell in love with a maiden and betrothed himself
to her, yet she resisted marrying him. This gave
him great heartache, and he wandered about crazy with
anguish.
Once, during his lonely wanderings about the
country, he was startled by a man who came up to him
and greeted him in a familiar manner. So he received
the man’s greeting coldly, insisting that he did not
know him.
However, the stranger was very friendly and kind,
and he said, “I know full well that you are in a sorry
mood – and I know the cause, too. If you will promise
to become my bondsman at the end of this year, I will
persuade the girl to wish to be wed to you no less than
you wish to wed her.”
The young man accepted this offer thankfully, and
they agreed to these terms. After this, the two parted
and the young man went home.
Soon after, he met the girl at church. Strangely
enough, her mind had changes and she was as warmly
in love with the young man as he had been with her.
Now he found himself suspicious, though, thinking this
change of heart insincere, and he received her tokens
of love rather coolly. But at last he was convinced of
her sincerity and it came to pass that he married the
girl, and their marriage turned out a most happy one.
A year passed from the time when the stranger
helped him forward to his marriage and the end of the
promised time approached. The young man became
deeply concerned about who that stranger could have
been, so a month before the annual moving days he
went to the priest, told him all the story, and begged
his advice.
The priest admonished him: “Too late have you
told me this, for that stranger was none other than the
devil himself.”
Now, this disturbed the young farmer greatly and he
begged the priest to come to his aid. The priest gladly
yielded to his request, assembled a crew of workers,
and instructed them scoop out a certain large mound,
leaving the turf untouched while carrying away all the
excavated earth. This done, he pierced a hole through
the top of the mound. This was accomplished as the
moving days arrived.
Now, the priest took a knapsack, which in Iceland is
made of leather in the form of a cylinder with wooden
bottoms and called a sál – or “soul” in the English
tongue – and he removed both bottoms from the sack.
Placing a wooden cross at one end, he fastened the
bag in the hole at the top of the mound, where it stood
upright like a chimney, the wooden cross being in the
lower end.
After this, he said to the farmer, “Wait for the devil
on the mound and make it a condition for him, if he
wills that you should be his bondsman, that he fill the
“soul” with money, without causing loss to anyone, and
that if he be unable to do this, he has lost his bargain.”
Thereupon, the priest left the farmer alone, who did as
he had been told. After a short while, the devil arrived,
looking rather rougher than when they first met.
The young farmer declared, “I forgot, when I last
saw you, to ask a favour of you, which will matter
little to you but is of great importance to me. If you
cannot do as I wish, I cannot possibly go to you to be
your bondsman.” The devil asked what this favour was
and the man replied, “It is to fill that sál with money,
without causing loss to anybody.” The devil viewed
the “soul” with a fiendishly scornful look, and said,
“That’s all? Nothing else? That is no great feat.”
So off he ran, returning some time later dragging
an immense sack after him, full of money and dripping
with seawater, which he poured at once into the “soul.”
But the sál remained as empty as before.
He went off for a second time and brought back
another sack, far larger than the first one, emptied it
into the sál, but the “soul” remained as empty as before.
Off he went for the third time and dragged back
after him a far larger sack than either of the first two,
but when he had poured this into the sál, the “soul”
was as empty as before.
Yet a fourth time, he rushed away in devilish wrath
to get one more money-sack. He brought one back, by
far larger than any of the others. When he had emptied
this into the sál, and the “soul ” remained as empty as
ever. The cunning devil was struck with wonder. As he
left the man and all hope of his bargain behind, he said:
“Late, indeed, will the souls of priests be filled!”
The young farmer was mighty glad for his
deliverance from the fiend. Seeing that he was indebted
to the priest for it, he divided the money equally
between the two of them. After this, the devil never
came near them or their money, and both the farmer
and the priest were rich all the rest of their lives.
A folktale from the collection of Jón Árnason
(1819-1888), Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og ævintýry
(Icelandic Folk Tales and Legends), adapted and
modernized from the translation by George E.J.
Powell and Eiríkur Magnússon.
Late will the souls of priests be filled
Bank forecasts small contraction
this year
vb.is – Íslandsbanki’s Research
Department forecasts the Icelandic
economy will contract by 0.7 percent this
year. It said that a sharp drop in exports
will account for the biggest part of the
contraction. These are among the key
points outlined in the bank’s new national
forecast for the period 2019 to 2021.
“Next year, we anticipate rather
slow economic growth of 1.5 percent,
driven by private consumption and
investment in residential housing and
infrastructure. The growth in 2021
will then be stronger, and we forecast
growth of 2.7 percent, depending on
how much stronger investments in
industries and export are,” states the
forecast.
The bank identified several risk
factors that could lead to the downturn
becoming burdensome. These include
recently signed wage agreements and
a contraction in tourism. Moreover, a
decrease in exports could result in the
weakening of the króna.
“Fortunately, Icelanders have
considerable possibilities to deal with
economic adversity. The most important
thing is that indebtedness in the economy
is generally much more moderate and
healthier than it has been. This applies
to both domestic indebtedness and the
national economy’s balance sheet,” the
forecast said.
Germany’s president pays state visit
to Iceland
eyjan.is – President of Germany
Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his wife,
Elke Budenbender, along with an
entourage, were scheduled to pay a
state visit to Iceland on June 12 and
13. The state visit was to begin on
Wednesday, June 12, with a formal
reception ceremony in Bessastaðir,
followed by a meeting between
President Steinmeier and President of
Iceland Guðni Th. Jóhannesson. The
day was to continue with a luncheon at
the invitation of Prime Minister Katrín
Jakobsdóttir, a visit to Alþingi, and a
meeting with the prime minister. In the
afternoon, the President of Germany
was to open a formal exhibition in
Arbæjarsafn, the Reykjavík City
Museum, to commemorate Germans
who moved to Iceland in the years
after World War II. The first ladies
of the two countries, Eliza Reid and
Elke Budenbender, planned to visit
the Skógarhlíð Coordination Centre
in Reykjavík in the morning and the
prosthetics company Össur in the
afternoon.
Iceland battles antibiotic resistance
Frettablaðið – Iceland plans to be
in the forefront of measures to reduce
the spread of antibiotic resistance. It
also intends to be the first state to ban
distribution of food with antibiotic-
resistant bacteria. Alþingi’s industrial
committee voted on the parliamentary
bill of the Minister of Agriculture
authorizing the import of fresh
meat. The committee recommended
postponement of the entry into force for
two months (until November) to allow
more time to strengthen the monitoring
of imports.
Omens for Iceland’s tourism
mbl.is – All signs point to
Icelandair servicing most flights to
and from Iceland next winter after the
British airline EasyJet dramatically
reduced its planned flights to Iceland
over the winter months and the U.S.
airline Delta decided to quit flying
to Iceland in winter. During the last
three winters, Iceland has been part
of Delta’s scheduled flights. This will
now change and the airline’s website
shows that people can only book flights
to Iceland through October 20, 2019.
Then there will be no Delta flights until
March 3, 2020.
Nasal spray for epilepsy gets
FDA approval
mbl.is – A nasal spray for the
emergency treatment for epilepsy,
which developed from the research of
Professor Sveinbjörn Gizurarson at
the University of Iceland’s Faculty of
Pharmaceutical Sciences, was recently
approved for sale in the United States by
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA). The medicine will now be for
sale there; it is the first pharmaceutical
nasal spray for this disease to reach the
market. It is called Nayzilam.
A statement from the University
of Iceland says that the nasal spray
is intended for emergency treatment
of acute or serial epilepsy. The drug
requires a prescription. Its intended
purpose is to increase the life quality
of epileptics who can self-administer
the drug if they sense an oncoming
seizure. Likewise, families, friends, and
co-workers of an epileptic can easily
administer the drug.
The intellectual property rights for
Nayzilam were immediately protected
with a patent. This resulted in the
U.S. drug development companies
Ikano Therapeutics, Upsher-Smith,
Proximagen, and the pharmaceutical
company UCB, operating in Brussels,
supplying considerable work, necessary
clinical trials, and first registration of
the drug. The FDA approved the drug on
May 17 and it can now go on the market
for U.S. consumers.
Every króna scrutinized
Morgunblaðið – “This is the
right time to scrutinize each króna
and consider ways to do better,” says
Minister of Finance and Economic
Affairs Bjarni Benediktsson. He
was talking about how the Icelandic
government plans to respond to
the foreseeable contraction in the
state treasury’s income. Without all
counterbalancing measures, the state
treasury’s performance may worsen by
up to 35 billion krónur ($376 million
Canadian) this year and the same
amount next year.
The finance minister introduced a
proposed parliamentary resolution to
revise financial estimates for the period
from 2018 to 2022. It lays out diverse
measures, and the minister said that their
scope would be about 10 billion krónur
per year ($107.5 million Canadian).
They include delaying the lowering of
the bank tax for one year. Reassessment
of various expenditure plans is
underway, including the enhancement
of government offices’ grounds and
some adjustment of the development
of the Innovation Fund. Expenditures
for the purchase of a search-and-rescue
helicopter will also change due to the
circumstances. Various reform projects
have aimed at ensuring better allocation
of public funds. All expenditures are
being reassessed and examined for
possible improvements. The minister
said there was a need for a certain
degree of rationalization over the next
several years.
Reprinted with permission from
Icelandic News Briefs, published by
KOM PR.
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