Oraefi. Ófeigur Sigurðsson

in Mávabyggðir, I later said to my professor in the Nordic Studies Department at the University of Vienna. I read up on local knowledge, I groped around in the books in the library of the Nordic Studies Department, in one source or other I stumbled on the fact that, despite the name, no gulls live in Mávabyggðir, and I had trouble believing it, there must formerly have been some avian settlers who gave rise to the place name, in the 18th century Travelogue of Eggert and Bjarni, which the library had in Danish, German, French, and English, I found out that there had still been gulls living at Mávabyggðir back then, and I also read about wild sheep, how there were two strains still alive in Iceland, in Núpsstaðarskógar and far out on the glacier at Mávabyggðir. I felt a burning need to study the history and the meanings of the place name Mávabyggðir, I would defend my doctoral thesis on this, resolve all the uncertainty, go to Iceland and climb Fingurbjörg and investigate Mávabyggðir deep inside the glacier, taking samples of rocks and soil, looking into the relationship of folklore and place names, and also conduct, if it warranted space in the thesis, a comparative grammatical study of mountain place names in Öræfi and Týrol, using the teachings of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure as a guiding light. My professor at the Nordic Studies Department jumped head height with joy when I brought him the topic, Bernharður said on his sickbed in Freysnes, wrote Dr. Lassi.

      So far I had been considered eccentric for having Iceland on the brain: a certain shame has afflicted Nordic Studies since the Nazi era; the field has been cursed since that time. Now, though, interest has re-arisen around the world, mainly in medieval Icelandic literature and Nordic mythology, although these topics are not absolutely the foundation of the State like they were the last time they were in fashion. I was always fond of Burnt-Njal’s Saga in my classes in the Nordic Studies Department; my father had the Halldór Laxness edition of the story in Icelandic, featuring large, beautiful pictures that enchanted me; he had given me it in German, Die Saga vom Weisen Njal (1978), when he became aware of my interest through National Geographic. I became obsessed with Suðurland, I pored over the map, I dreamt dreams about Flosi, the ruler of Svínafell, I dreamt dreams about Flosi’s dream when the giant Járngrímur appeared to him and said that poisonous serpents would rise up, how he enumerated all those who were doomed, except in my dream he named the names of the classmates who teased me, I told them that they would all die and I believe that has for the most part come to pass. I felt connected to Flosi from Svínafell, how he was sucked into a scenario that he did not understand and how he responded by putting on traveling pants, a sort of medieval leggings, and headed off on foot from Svínafell across the lava and sand and glacial lakes for several hundreds of miles—my professor in Nordic Studies was astonished at this and danced with joy and fury and went pirouetting down the columned hall, up until now Flosi has been a villain! ha ha ha! said the professor, Flosi who went on the journey to torch the dwelling at Bergþórshvol, burning up Njal and his wife and family and many other people, Flosi’s an arsonist and villain! the professor retorted and laughed loudly and rolled around the room, but I maintained Flosi was human, perhaps all too human, he goes along with or rather gets caught up in the plot and acts against his better judgment, he is forced to bow before customs and habits that actually displease him, he is out of keeping with his time, under the yoke of civilization, I said to my professor who now had stopped dancing and giggling and was stood bent over the pages on the big lectern, the time still hasn’t come for a Nietzschean interpretation of ancient Icelandic literature, he said, nor Freudian neither … Flosi is by nature a chieftain, a bellwether, I said, that makes him an empath …Well, said the professor, have it your way. So I went and wrote a master’s thesis about the place names in Burnt-Njal’s Saga.

      I wanted to wend my way onto the glacier, standing down on the plain near the Visitor Center in Skaftafell and looking at the mountains and glaciers towering over the country, this beautiful monster that could destroy everything at any moment, I went out on the sand, watching from there; I pored over the map in my trunk, stored the place names in my memory, went out and matched the map to the territory; the glaciers had retreated drastically in the hundred years since Captain Koch measured Öræfi in 1903. I had read that the way up to Mávabyggðir is to follow the so-called moraine streaks in the glacier that originate at Mávabyggðir and reach down to the plains, known as the Mávabyggðarönd, although they are really a belt of rocks which the advancing glacier ferries from the mountains down to the lowlands; you can establish the direction of glacial movement using these streaks. There was no hope left and I knew I had to study my maps well to orient myself better for the trip.

      Hafrafell is a hideous mountain, I said to Snorri’s-Edda when I re-entered the trunk and pored over the map, Bernharður said, and the author of this report can agree with that, Dr. Lassi wrote, having subsequently gone on a journey to hunt the wild sheep with the farmers in Öræfi, as discussed in greater detail later in this report. Hafrafell separates Skaftafellsjökull and Svínafellsjökull, but until almost the middle of the previous century the glaciers proceeded together in front of Hafrafell and sealed off the mountain, creating a very good highland pasture, which is still the reality, but the glaciers have now retreated to such an extent that Hafrafell protrudes into the country, surrounded by moraine; sky-high, sheer, rough-edged, like a rusty knife thrust out of the glacier. In Hafrafell there is a treasure trove of place names for you to investigate, said Snorri’s-Edda, because animals have gone about there since the settlement. I go on the livestock round-up there every autumn and am beginning to know it a bit; it’s impossible if no one knows place names, for then shepherding is pointless and hopeless.

      We opened the trunk up and gazed out at Hafrafell. Evil rocks, for sure, said Snorri’s-Edda, impassable, up there on the mountain ridges are pillars known as the Upper Men and the Front Men because they seem like people standing there, visible far and wide, the key characteristic of Hafrafell, some people call them the Upper and Lower Men but that is not right, it’s Upper and Front Men, although the front men are below the upper men. I tried to note down everything Snorri’s-Edda said, looking at the mountain and the map and scribbling, there is also Illagil, or Evil Gully, and Einstigir, the Narrow Stair, and Stóraskarð, the Great Chasm, and Langagil, Long Gully, you need to know that when herding in the round-up, if you want to send someone somewhere quick then everyone needs to know what direction to go in, there’s Grjótdal, the Stony Valley, and in Grjótdal the extremely high cliffs are called Svarthamrar, Sheer Black, they face westward, under which is Ból, the Shaft: once, two youths of around twenty from Svínafell went hunting animals one winter, one of them plunged from the precipitous cliff, falling hundreds of meters, but he landed in a snowdrift which was piled high; he escaped with a shattered foot, but there was too little daylight left to get help from home at Svínafell and the boy was not equipped to lay out in the frost overnight so the story goes that his companion took him on his back and carried him all the way to Svínafell, what’s more the Svínafellers are as strong as giants, said Snorri’s-Edda, said Bernharður, wrote Dr. Lassi, sweaty and barely keeping up. First you think: why would animals live on this mountain where there’s nothing but scree and stones, after all, on the way to the mountain there are many grassy slopes, for example, one that’s simply called Torfur, or The Turf, on the east side of the mountain and not visible from here, then there’s Meingil, where a man once plunged to his death when his staff broke, he fell all the way down the glacier, then there are also the grassy Kviar and Rák over there, where the path goes up from Svarthamradal and over to Svarthamra, from where the boy fell, further in, the place name opposite to the west is Fauskagljúfur …What is fauskur? I asked, I don’t know the word. It’s rotten wood, said Snorri’s-Edda, sometimes they say about old men that they are fauskar if they are somewhat stiff and formal, in Fauskagljúfur they have unearthed the remains of an ancient forest. High up between the Upper and Front Men lies Fles, there are awe-inspiring views from there and you are among giant-settlements, Fles is springy turf, it’s good pasture so the sheep seek it out. Far away from Skeiðarársandur, Hafrafell seems small, a tuff protruding from Öræfajökull, but when you get nearer Hafrafell appears impossible and untouchable, all cut up by precipitous ravines which are rightly called Illuklettar, the Evil Rocks, it is impassable, starvation and a death sentence await you there, no one does go there, you can see from here that transverse from Illuklettar there’s a mysterious X, a symbol marked