Viktor Ingolfsson - The Flatey Enigma

On their way to the pastures, Grimur lectured Kjartan on cattle breeding in Flatey, both now and in the future. The problem today was the shortage of good breeding bulls. No bullocks had been bred on Flatey for quite some years now, and bulls had to be brought in from the inner isles. Transporting them in little boats could be a tricky business, although they generally managed to do it without any mishaps. The bull just needed a bit of time to recover after the sea journey before he could be of any service to the cows.

“The farmers are thinking of pooling together to buy some good bullocks on the mainland this summer. No harm in improving the stock a bit,” said Grimur.

The cows expected to be rounded up and waited mooing by the gate to the pastures. Thormodur Krakur had already collected his two, although Gudjon of Radagerdi’s cows were still grazing.

“We’ll take them all with us,” said Grimur. “We take it in turns to collect them, my brother-in-law Gudjon and I.”

On the way home, they crossed the Ystakot clan on the road. Valdi was pushing an old wheelbarrow, and as they drew closer, they saw that it contained a dead sheep. Its angular head dangled over the rim of the wheelbarrow, and its gray wool was completely drenched and smudged in sand and seaweed. Valdi gave way to the cows that filed down the road and then put the wheelbarrow down when the men met.

“Grimur,” said Valdi, taking out his pipe.

“Yes, Valdi?” said Grimur, pausing.

“Listen to me. I remember now why I didn’t write it into my book when the mail boat sailed south on September the fourth last year. And you should have remembered why, too.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, because on that day I took the mail boat myself over to Brjansl?kur to meet my wife, Thora. So I wasn’t on the island when the boat sailed back south that day. I asked Dad to keep an eye on who was traveling on the boat, but of course he forgot to and didn’t write anything down.”

“Oh,” said Grimur. “And why should I have remembered that you went to the mainland?”

Valdi lit his pipe with a match and answered: “When I came back a week later, all of the fuel had been stolen from my boat. I reported it, don’t you remember?”

“Yes.” Grimur looked apologetically at Kjartan. “I remember that now. I never found the thief.”

Valdi stuck his notebook back into his pocket, picked up the wheelbarrow, and with his smoldering pipe clenched between his teeth, walked off without saying good-bye. Little Nonni and Jon Ferdinand walked after him.

“Oh, we’re always in such a rush,” they heard the old man muttering.

“Those were memorable days,” Grimur said, once the family was out of earshot. “Valdi went over to the mainland to collect his wife, Thora, from her roadworks job, but she categorically refused to come home with him. She can’t take them anymore. She could just about put up with it when the old lady, Valdi’s mother, was still alive. She was a wonderful person and good to everyone, but after she died the men turned into semi-ogres. You can’t expect a young woman to live with that. Valdi, of course, was completely crushed when he came back with no woman, and he felt ashamed in front of everyone. He hit the bottle in the end and was drunk for days. To be honest, I didn’t take that fuel theft story very seriously, but it’s obviously still bugging him.”

“What are they doing with the carcass of that sheep?” Kjartan asked.

“Sigurbjorn of Svalbardi lost that sheep and two lambs on a skerry in the high tide on Monday,” Grimur answered. “The sheep was washed ashore in Sund this morning. That’s one of the disadvantages of farming on an island; so many ewes get lost in the sea. In one high tide many years ago, a hundred sheep were lost in Eyjahreppur. That was a lot of damage for small farms to have sustain.”

“But what will they do with it?” Kjartan asked again, glancing toward the men over his shoulder.

“They’re allowed to keep the carcass. They’re going to make some sea stew with it,” Grimur answered.

Kjartan wasn’t sure he had heard right. “Sea stew?”

“Yeah. They boil the meat and the fat. It’ll be well salted and tender after marinating in the sea and can taste quite good. There aren’t many people around who’ll do this kind of thing, but it makes a big difference to the Ystakot men.”

Question thirteen: Drank from the keel. First letter. Egill, Ragnar’s son, fought against the Wends on ships. At the end of the battle, Egill jumped onto the Wends’ ship and axed the chieftain, dealing him a deadly blow. After that the Wends fled. Egill asked his servant to fetch him a drink. The servant answered, “There has been so much commotion on the ship today. The barrels are all broken and the drink has flowed down to the keel.”

Egill said, “But I must have a drink.”

The servant answered, “Please don’t, sire. Most of it is blood and bodily fluids.”

Egill stood up and removed the helmet from his head and dipped it into the keel and had three large drinks. After this Egill came to be known as Blood Egill. The answer is “Blood Egill,” and the first letter is b.

He said, “Here the guest just wrote ‘Egill,’ and the first letter is e.”

The couple in Radagerdi sat playing chess in the kitchen when they heard Benny coming in late at night. It was warm and cozy by the stove, and the scent of coffee wafted in the air.

“Is there anything to eat?” he asked.

“There are boiled puffin breasts in the larder,” his mother Hildur answered.

“Were you hanging out with that guy from Reykjavik?” Gudjon, the farmer, asked when Benny reappeared with the puffin breast, which he had sliced and was feeding to himself with a penknife.

“Yeah, I’d had enough. He wouldn’t share any of his rum. He drank it all himself.”

“You’re too young to be boozing with a grown-up man, Benny dear,” said his mother.

“I’m not too young just to have a taste. There’s never any fun around here,” Benny said before disappearing from the kitchen. They heard him going up to the loft and turning on his transistor radio.

“I think that boy’s going to move away from us if we continue living here,” said Hildur. “He would have left ages ago if he didn’t have that crush on little Hafdis in Svalbardi.”

Gudjon nodded and moved the bishop two squares on the chessboard.

They were silent a moment as they focused on the game. Finally Gudjon said, “Hogni, the teacher, mentioned that he’s interested in buying the house if we move. He’s tired of living in the school.”

Hildur answered him, after giving it some thought: “If we sell the house, we could settle our debt with the co-op and maybe cover our trip to Stykkisholmur, but not a lot more than that. Check!”

“Check? Hmm, we’d also get something for our land. Sigurbjorn could do with more grassland. He has some money in the savings bank to pay for that. If we could rent land on the mainland, we could take the cattle and sheep with us. Otherwise, we could slaughter the livestock to pay off the co-op debt.”

Gudjon hid his king behind his rook.

“But what if we don’t get any land?” said Hildur.

Gudjon smiled reassuringly. “You’re pretty good at filleting fish, and I can do some manual labor. And I can always take the boat out to sea and fish if I can fix the engine.”

“It won’t be easy to go away and leave all our friends behind,” said Hildur, moving her knight.

“We can come here in the spring and work for the other farmers. But we can’t hang around here in the winter without a bigger farm.”

“Do you really think Hogni can buy the house?”

“Yes, yes. He can also take out a loan,” said Gudjon, moving his bishop.