Oraefi. Ófeigur Sigurðsson

called a pyroclastic flow, or gusthlaup, sparkling clouds of poison together with masses of staggeringly hot air rushing down the mountain slopes in the first hours of the eruption, burning everything in an instant, damaging anything living. Oxygen was used up; flesh burnt away. Exactly what happened to Pompeii in ancient times happened to Hérað in 1362 … a gusthlaup …The Province became Öræfi—the Wasteland … violent fires melted the glacier and ice water ran down the mountain across the plains carrying burning sludge … Legend has it that a lone shepherd on Svínafell heard a crack, then another crack and then said he would not wait for the third crack but rushed boldly up to that part of Svínafell known as Flosihellir, the place he kept his swine, a hairy boar, broad-shouldered and with human intelligence; the boar discovered a cave where large truffle mushrooms grew, and the storm spewed over the countryside and water and mud flowed over everything and over half the mountain and up to the cave, gray and discomforting; the shepherd and his boar alone survived the disaster, gobbling up the truffles in Flosihellir for six months straight, making them quite dyspeptic. When people later investigated the region, they saw that everything on the mountain had burned up and a meter-thick layer of toxic ash lay over it; a lizard-green haze hovered still, and in it long worms swam, the Annals say, the steam debilitated the searchers’ pupils so they saw everything upside down and contrary to what anyone else saw; this continued for a long time, and what was gray and black seemed friendly and green. Butter drips from every blade of grass, the new settlers said, as a new beauty sprang up.

      What is it exactly that happens in a gusthlaup, Interpreter? Dr. Lassi asked the interpreter, it is incomprehensible to me, yet Dr. Lassi did not wait for a response, dashing onward in her writing, Interpreter constantly running to fetch books and sources and maps all throughout the hotel … Here it is! shouted Dr. Lassi and papers and documents swirl up in the air …The sources say a gusthlaup results from an explosion in a crater, some resistance is required causing the debris to storm down the side of the volcano, not straight up in the air … but what is the gust? Interpreter … ! What do we make of the gust!? Ask those Tvísker brothers about the gust … no, here it is, there’s an article in Skaftfellingur about it, let us see … gust is basically lahar fire-cloud, what the French scientists call nuées ardentes, that’s the gust in gusthlaup, a plume of smoke and mud, heavy with a burning eruption of gravel and fiery gas, and the gust—the flow—descended the mountain on its fatal journey, destroying everything before it, all the buildings in the Province, all the people and all living creatures, laying waste the whole area in an instant. No one had time to flee, no one knew what was coming and no one knew what had happened, everything became petrified, cast in molds in an instant as ash and friable pumice fell over everything, covering the dead in a dusty veil. Everything lay motionless for fifty years—and then a new settlement began! Dr. Lassi said aloud at the same time as she wrote it in her report.

      Who originally settled Öræfi!? Dr. Lassi asked the Interpreter, that must be in my report, my Interpreter, I was even thinking that it would be neat to start the report with it, what do you think? … Isn’t that neat? …Wasn’t it Ingólfur Arnarson!? I’ll be damned, that’s ideal! Dr. Lassi enthused, how exceedingly elegant that the report begin with the first settler in Iceland. This report of mine will appear in countless magazines and be translated into many languages, Dr. Lassi remarked to the Interpreter; it will garner international attention. Ingólf landed at the place which is now called Ingólf’s Head … that’s how a report like this should start, my dear Interpreter, said Dr. Lassi, how does Landnámabók put it? Where is Landnámabók, The Book of the Settlement, when one needs it? Back home up on a shelf! What use is it there? Surely there’s not a copy in the hotel? It should be here at the hotel, every hotel should have Landnámabók in the bedroom drawers and not the Bible, for Landnámabók is the Icelandic Bible … from now on I will always travel with Landnámabók on me! Dr. Lassi said, it is simply common sense! And good mental health, Interpreter … a damn powerful opening for this report! … But Ingólf the settler did not settle in Öræfi, and it wasn’t called Öræfi at the time, it wasn’t called anything, as far as is known, Dr. Lassi wrote, unless some Irish hermit called the area something. Ingólf stayed here one or two winters, along with his retinue; he had thrown his chieftain’s pillars overboard, as was the custom, and ordered his servants to find where the columns had come ashore. It was beautiful to look out upon what is now Öræfi, for the province was blessed in its weather, woods flourished and tall grasses and people weren’t in favor of going to find the columns, they wanted to stay in the region, and the area was soon given its distinguished name, Hérað, because butter dripped from every blade here where there’s now sand and desolation, where once there was a little glacier and enchanting valley a sinister glacier crawls its desolating way. Back then, seals slept calmly on the shore amid the driftwood; out on the promontory there was an abundance of birds and eggs, fish in the sea, trout in the rivers and water. The Province was paradise, and so there was some disappointment when the pillars were discovered at Reykjavík, though the warm hot springs somewhat enticed the sensualists among them. It’s an unfortunate thing, said Karli, Ingólf’s slave, traversing a bountiful region merely to build on an inhospitable headland; in Reykjavík cold winds blow, it’s all bare gravel and naked ridges and insistent drizzle. This stubborn settler’s household lamented leaving the area, which was still nameless, regretted adhering to the high pillar tradition, giving their fate to the roll of a dice—what sort of nonsense this religious idiot believes, the slaves muttered among themselves, not understanding their chieftain’s actions; the slaves got angry with the gods and the gods got immediately angry back at them, their anger a thousand-fold—and so a curse has lain on the land and its inhabitants ever since, the region scattered widely with supernatural spirits, harbingers of the gods’ anger, the scourge of men; horrors often bombarded the country, settlements were destroyed time and again by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and floods, especially in the South, close to Ingólf’s original settlement. But Ingólf’s steadfastness saved his progeny from a cruel fate: he followed the gods’ will, abandoned the fertile slopes and fair ground at the foot of the glacier and took the sparse, unprotected land near Reykjavík, Dr. Lassi wrote, cribbing generously from her sources, not giving the slightest thought to quotation marks, because in 1362 Öræfajökull annihilated Hérað. Believe you me, serfs, I chose to leave Norway, said Ingólf. Don’t talk to us about choice, said the slave Karli, you can shove your pillars you know where. Ingólf settled up at Arnarhvoll from where he looked sadly across the fjord; he did not feel like beating the slave. Go, then, Ingólf said to Karli, take a maid as a servant, go settle some land, build a farm, multiply, go fish for happiness with greed’s leaky net—but never return to me unless you are ready to die.

      Should we have built a settlement on the cliff in Hérað? Ingólf asked his wife, Hallveig, at Arnarhvol, the area was certainly beautiful to look upon, but the pillars came ashore here in Reykjavík, here where there are hot springs, clean water, fish in the lakes and birds on the cliffs, a perfect harbor, fjords and green islands and spectacular views, the gods wanted this, I could not have imagined that before as we put to sea, we must make ourselves a settlement here, never return to Norway, here we will thrive in peace. So who took the land in Hérað? It will be interesting to see … Now, dear Interpreter, Dr. Lassi said, fetch me someone who knows all about the Skaftafell district, one of those Tvísker brothers, most likely Sigurður, he is such a knowledgeable guy, I can feel my report flourishing, I can sense the material simmering inside me, from settlement to present day, I just need to vent it, to give it form, this could even become a whole book, and a book entirely unlike anything anyone has ever written in Iceland, a medical history of Bernharður with biographical overtones yet mostly about the wound to his thigh and the amputation; a medical history with a biographical element but all wrapped up in national lore, even, my darling, global sensibilities, yes, yes indeed, I see it all flashing clearly before me, this book will not become irrelevant, the way books do because they are so homogeneous these days, only ever about someone, any one thing you could sum up in one sentence, as writers do when they’re asked what their book is about, What’s your book about? they’re asked, it’s about this, the authors answer, sure of their facts, but when I get asked what my book is about I’m going to answer with a single word: everything, everything, it is a global report about an individual and