Trafika Europe 14 - Italian Piazza

THE SAGA OF REDHEAD By Lawrence Millman (A Tale)

for Lene Zachariassen

anno domini 1434

In Sudurnes lived a chieftain named Sveinwhose father was Keti l Cod-Breath, a whale hunter celebrated in many rhymes, and whose great-grandfather was the famous outlaw Thornier Hairybreeks, celebrated in even more rhymes. Already a few rhymes had been composed about Svein himself, though he was sti l l a young man. This Svein took to wife a woman named Gudrun, whose people only avalanches and the thrashing sea seemed to celebrate. Whi le sti l l in their youth, both her sisters were buried by rocksl ides, the one sister near Sudurnes, the other near Hel lnar. Her three drowned uncles made a practice of drying themselves before the fami ly hearth. They were men with skul ls for faces — skul ls with salt-widened eyeholes and strands of kelp hanging from their necks. Gudrun saw her dead uncles more than a few times, but after the first time her thoughts began taking the darkest of turns. Any sign or omen she would read as some fresh disaster for her fami ly. A few days after Gudrun got with chi ld, black rains 207