Trafika Europe 14 - Italian Piazza

Lawrence Millman

“Who is Gudrun Magnusdottir?” asked the Kjalarnes priest. “Some sort of sorceress?” “They say she is the mother of the whale…” “The mother of the whale? Have I heard you correctly, my friend? What would our good Bishop Gudmundur say if he heard you spouting such nonsense?” “I wouldn’t have bel ieved the story myself if I hadn’t heard it from Heimar, son of Snorri , and a very rel iable man. He says the whale wi l l do no harm to any boat on which this woman is a passenger. Rival fishing crews have even taken to vying with one another for her use. For her part, she only wants to be near him whom she thinks is her son, however loathsome his manner.” So it was that the two priests journeyed to Sudurnes. There they met with Gudrun, now a half-demented crone who spent most of her time arguing geneal- ogies with her dead uncles. She was at first unwi l l ing to let herself be instal led in a boat on the fjord. For only that morning she had read her drowning in the fl ight of an Arctic tern, and she did not wish to drown just yet. “You wi l l not drown, woman,” the priests told her, “for God and Jesus Christ rule the seas, and they wi l l not al low it.” “No, my son rules the seas,” the old woman stated with a certain degree of pride.

220