A thermal hotpot in the rain and meeting the Ancient Mariner

 We had a strange day yesterday which has totally changed my sense of what Iceland is.  And it so easily mightn't have happened at all.  We'd got back from the Westmann Islands (about which I will blog later) and the weather was still horrible with wind and rain and I really wanted to experience a thermal spa.  Grant wasn't having a bar of that, so I went to the local swimming pool which had thermal hot pots, as they are known.
 Iceland is very particular about its swimming pools.  You have to shower naked, paying particular attention to the armpits, groin and feet, according to an explicit poster.  I was a bit hesitant in case there were modesty conventions too - but no - you just had to be super clean.
I shivered my way out in the rain to the outdoor pool and dived in quick - and oh, it was lovely-warm and kind to all the muscles that had been unusually exercised lately by getting in and out of the high van and gasping and wriggling in and out of sleeping bags in the small space we had.  I swam and swam and then hopped out and into the hot pot which was fed by a thermal spring and warmed me to the very core.  My pleasure was extreme and I should have kept it to myself because G was in a mood when I came back to the van and we were all out of balance.  Even the rather good settlement museum didn't sort things and I decided to let G go to the Snorri, the saga writer's centre by himself.  I was tired anyway and curled up in the back of the van with an Icelandic detective story and quickly slept.  When I woke I realised Grant had not come back.  He'd been gone over an hour and when I went to look for him, the Snorri building was closed for the night.  Where had he gone?  Eventually I rang the bell of the Centre and a young man came to the door and I flung up my hands and said "I have lost my husband"
"Ah" he said "Come this way"
The first thing I saw was Grant and a man who turned out to be a National Geographic journalist completely in thrall to a storytelling gentleman of rather remarkable appearance.  He had white hair and a beautiful waxed moustache, also white. He was wearing an old fashioned tailored tweed jacket that reminded me of Sherlock Holmes.  He had in one hand a silver topped cane.  Most extraordinary, though, was the power he was exerting over Grant and the journalist.  He could have been the Ancient Mariner. There was coffee and chocolate raisins on the table.   My arrival broke the spell a bit but I quickly sat down and listened too.  For the next four hours he had us entranced and we learnt so much.  Now and then he pulled a little horn of snuff out of his jacket and made a black line of it on the back of his fisted hand and breathed it in.  He never seemed to get tired.

In the beginning he talked about the gods - Odin whose thirst for knowledge made him pull out one of his eyes and place it so that it could magically see whatever was going on in the whole world.  He told us about Freya "Freya was like a cat on heat" he said.  "Do you know about dwarfs?"  We said no, and he explained they were industrious little beings descended from maggots.  In the beginning they were sort of translucent.  Well they had made an exquisite jewel and Freya wanted it.  "Can I have it?" "No." they said "Can I have it?" "No." they said again.  "What do you want that will make you give it to me?"  "We want you to lie with every single one of us". They said. And next day she wore the jewel.  I shall never quite hear the story of Snow White in the same way again. Could it be that she died when she choked on the apple and the dwarves ministrations were nature taking its course? Not a comfortable thought.

He told us about Iceland's past. The poverty and the routine famines that killed.  How only a quarter of each generation survived.  When Norway decided that Iceland should convert to Christianity there were four provisos that the Icelandic parliament insisted on.  I can only remember three of them at the moment.  The first was shocking.  Despite Christian doctrines Icelanders should continue to be able to expose babies born in autumn and winter so that they died.  "Postnatal abortion" explained our teacher.  There was so little food in winter that the baby would die anyway and probably take the breastfeeding mother with them.  And she could have another one in the spring.  Another proviso was that Icelanders could continue to eat horsemeat which had something to do with virility and the third that I can remember is slightly comical and yet so practical.  People should be able to worship their pagan gods but only as long as no one witnessed them doing it.  Profound dishonour would accrue to anyone seen worshipping them and their families would share the shame.

I can't begin to cover everything he told us in that long storytelling evening but his love and pity for his country shone through, as well as his relish when he came to describing murderous revenges. He rose from his chair with his stick to demonstrate one thrust of the sword or another.  There were cunning ways of getting under chain mail.  And the insults that Icelanders had at their disposal were special, like "Your trousers are full of cowardice!" He was a superlative actor and puffed out his chest and became an English officer who asked an Icelander who had been a prisoner if he could guide him through the shoals to Iceland. The prisoner did, and conferred on the way with fisherman so that he was able to strand the ship and subsequently hijack it. He had not changed his loyalties at all.  Icelanders never do and they are full of tricks.

One thing he said sticks in my mind.  There were not many slaves in Iceland because slave owners were obliged to feed slaves before themselves and so it was not practical in a hungry country to have that obligation.  The principle behind this was that it was just circumstance that made a man a slave or a freeman and circumstances could change at any time. Icelanders have always lived life on the edge and in some ways still do.

Every so often he would say to us "Am I killing you with stories?" but " No way, go on," we said.  "I'm enjoying it too" he said as he took a bit of snuff.

Like the Ancient Mariner's wedding guest we were captive to his narrative and I at least felt it was changing me from a gaping tourist to true traveller who was letting another world run in my veins even if only for a little bit.

Women have a strong presence in the stories and are just as tricky and passionate as the men.  One of the sweetest stories he told us was from Aegil's saga.  Aegil had decided to die after his much loved son was drowned and stopped eating.  His daughter heard about this and came rushing to him and said she wanted to die with him.  "What a good daughter I have" he said and they sat together waiting for death.  He noticed then that his daughter was chewing something and asked her what it was. "Just seaweed" she said "It passes the time" "Give me a bit" he said.  It was salty of course and she said that a bit of water would not break his fast and he said "All right". When two horns were brought in they swallowed them down together. "Ah, we have been betrayed" said the daughter "They gave us milk". And after that Aegil didn't feel like dying any more and moved on from his sorrow.

I must stop now but tomorrow I will blog how he sang to us and how a most extraordinary coincidence became apparent.

PS All the above is remembered and may be a bit jumbled up.  I  will check things when I get back to Australia. If anyone reads this who knows about Icelandic history do please correct me!