Normandy, owing to the fact that the area was settled by Norwegians. Hrólf the Walker was Rúðu-Earl, the Earl based in Rúðu, which the French call Rouen; he defended France against an invasion of Danish Vikings, and from Hrólf the Expeditionary descend Norman earls and all the English kings—so Hrollaugur’s brother is a French national hero, the ancestor of the British royal family …
Hold on, what’s that the little punk is muttering, interrupting our scholarship? It’s about that horny hussy he met in Skaftafell? Horny-Edda, the park ranger, I think she’s hanging about down here still in the dining room, feeling like it’s her duty to watch over him—but I will not allow people to press on in here, teeming with bacteria and filth, who knows where their fingers have been, visits must be controlled, remember Dr. Semmelweis! But the little hornbud will get to meet her eunuch, we don’t stand in the way of love, isn’t that so, my Interpreter? … no matter how trashy she is … oh, what glory to be a lesbian!
I arrived in Skaftafell by bus from Reykjavík on Friday 11th April, Bernharður said, Dr. Lassi wrote in her report, the air was relatively cool and a warm sun shone that day in Öræfi. I wheeled my trunk to one edge of the campsite, which was largely empty; I had plenty of space. I was having a very impressionable day, and when she came by to charge me for the night on the campsite, I was immediately brought outside myself, transported by the uncontrollable beauty confronting me, and I don’t know if I’ve yet fully returned to myself, I feel like I’m still out in the other world into which that beauty cast me, where I want to be, unleaving: there is love, everything there transcends explanation, everything becomes feeling, everything is muteness, deafness, sightless, I hardly knew whether I was in this world or another, I was intoxicated, absolutely beside myself and yet right up close to the core of my being; how remarkable that when a person is outside themselves they also become the very kernel of their own existence. I looked at the ground so it wouldn’t be quite so obvious to her how desperate I was, desperate because of something immaterial, an emptiness which came upon me, and she came to me and I felt a stinging, tingling sensation amplify in my stomach, I had no time to recover or gather myself, I ran a comb through my shock of hair, she was asking for my payment and the evening sun was on her face, Hvannadalshnúkur in the background, her cheeks flushed and glowing in the spring scents, nature come to life, she is the beauty within beauty, I thought, and I dived into my trunk, hunting for money to pay her—I invited the park ranger inside my trunk for caraway liquor while she waited, so she wasn’t standing there shivering, the weather cold though the sun shone, and she agreed, she said there was no need to hurry, there wasn’t that much to do this early in spring, I let the way she spoke go to my head, her voice ever so slightly broken, husky, seductive, I said I had been introduced to this liquor the previous day and was taken with it, I love caraway, said the park ranger, she introduced herself as Edda, I do not know what came over me, maybe it was a fear of science, I don’t know, my heart raged violently in my ribs like a caged mink, like a mink driven crazy by cruelty, like a mink which wants to bite the farmer in the throat and kill all birds and destroy the Icelandic ecosystem! … I introduced myself and there was this abominable burning in my chest and I began to tremble, succumbing to spasms, tugging at anything I could reach, this always happens when I’m infatuated, surely she has a boyfriend called Snorri or something, I thought, you cannot touch her, you must not think about it, I said to myself, unless she touches you first, first, I have to stop trembling, my teeth need to stop clattering so I can talk, I was looking for my money but I had no idea what I was doing, I was going to split asunder with all this emotion, I could not keep myself together, my rift plates were transverse, I myself was the glowing magma and I was running in all directions, the kernel that is missing from the upper atmosphere … Edda blushed and smiled, she is a Nordic beauty with perfect teeth, I thought, though I did not want to think it, a fine-figured bird, I was on fire with infatuation and death, charm gusted off her, I had invited her into the trunk and she had accepted. My penis is getting hard, I said, and she began to laugh. That night we lay together in the trunk and I fervently longed for the new day to never come, wishing I could stay in her arms until the destruction of the earth.
Kindly fetch the strumpet if he is so infatuated with her, Dr. Lassi told the Interpreter, it’ll help with his recovery. The eunuch doesn’t lack an erotic sensibility! We also have to allow some damn visits since we have transformed the hotel into a hospital … then we can change the hotel in Freysnes into a research center, too, because this is the site of an ancient farmstead and I am planning to finish the report while we wait for the amputee and his paramour … it’s just as good to have a visitor now as at a later time … it makes sense to let Edda be the first to tackle him today, he seems obsessed with her, he is always mentioning her in his delirium, she clearly occupies a place in his heart, remind me to have a section in the report about love, I tend to forget it and go directly to the erotic.
In the trunk, Edda got all steamed up, breathing excitedly. I had not been with a woman for quite some time and was worried I wouldn’t measure up, wouldn’t be able to perform adequately, to lick her up until she was all done, I couldn’t quell my thoughts, relax, said Edda, sensing my tension, telling me to be calm, I lay on my stomach and she massaged me, massaged my tremors away, I tried to plot out my moves, the techniques I should use, but that terrified me, the park ranger told me to relax, enjoy it, enjoy it, said Edda, just to hear her speaking those words in that voluptuous voice, it was like all the liquid had been wrung from my brain and sucked out of my head, down my spine to spit out my penis—all the burdens, the despair and anxiety, the evident embarrassment. Contentment flourished in my heart and joy filled my breast with its perfumed fragrance; in my mind I began to cartwheel up Mávabyggðir where I threw myself into a hidden crevasse to wait out a happy death worshipping the marvelous monstress Horny-Edda and all the world’s goddesses! … Sorrow gets stored up in the scrotum, Edda said, lying in the trunk, as does joy. After a brief moment, something took shape in my body, a feeling deep inside me that resembled swamplight; it slowly grew into a veil of mist, will-of-the-wisp enveloping me, then the fire broke out again and momentarily lit up the trunk from within, and then came the pyroclastic flow and so did I, utterly … ash and gravel … Edda spent the night with me in the trunk, but I woke her with my mouth’s caresses and she sighed loudly as she came out of her dream, she asked me to come inside her at once, I slipped my penis in and kissed her firm breasts and in response her nipples hardened and reddened, I nibbled at her nipples, Bernharður was saying, I nibbled at her nipples, he kept repeating, I nibbled at her nipples! That’s what he’s shouting, the Interpreter said … please stop, said Dr. Lassi, go on … Edda’s body tremored in response and she wrapped her legs around me, I thrust deep into her and she sighed so loud it rang out in the night’s silence across the Skaftafell campsite, she yelled yes, she screamed, she orgasmed and began to cry, we held each other tight, lying in a still embrace; some mysterious barrier, some dam inside me, had weakened, I felt I could no longer be as objective as I once had been, no longer a body; instead, I’d become subjective, a spirit, I felt I’d touched some ancient ecstasy, had left my body, up to now I’d been a bound manuscript but I’d become oral folklore … Ek em súbjektíf, I said to Edda, and tremblingly clutched for the caraway liquor, serving us drinks in two cups. She clinked my glass and said: better than prayer. I shook so much Brennivín slopped from the shot glass and Edda had to tip my head back and pour it down my throat. I was trembling all over and shaking, spitting the liquor out my nostrils—but then I swiftly calmed, my emotions bursting out so that I felt like I’d vanished into her wonderful being, disappeared from my own being, become the core of myself, I shook with fear, the slightest movement sent electric currents streaming through my mind, we locked eyes and I found security and beauty and terrific sexiness in her sensual eyes, she was so sturdy and compact, soft and firm, we were in thought and then she was on top of me, I was worried whether she was satisfied, she shook herself and groaned softly, then the sighs increased until finally the violent shaking overtook the trunk once again … we fell asleep wrapped around each other. Mávabyggðir could wait.
After resting, satisfied, I found myself brimming with a great store of ideas and noted them frantically in my notebook through the night while Edda slept. I lacked
