Plögg
Polishing Saber by Darragha Foster
,,Dedication
For Thordur Bjorn Sigurdsson, who helped me understand the importance of holding Iceland’s wilderness areas sacred. And for the pilot who pierced my ear with a straight pin in a four-seat puddle jumper, over the Arctic Circle, Grimsey, Iceland, in 1979.
This tale is a compilation of Icelandic folk legends, actual historical events and sheer flights of fantasy on my part. I hope the Hidden Folk don’t mind too much.
--Darragha
Prologue
Gisli cursed under his breath at the opening of the clay tomb found buried in a niche in the cliffs by an eiderdown gatherer. It was a remarkable find. One with dire consequences. He had long rued the day; he’d wished for it never to come. He had thought the item well-hidden. He had been entrusted to preserve it as a reminder of the great war between the Hidden Folk and the witches; it stood as a silent memorial in hopes that such wickedness would never live to serve and control humankind again.
The Old Ones, Gisli included, had grown complacent and even arrogant and vain thinking that they had ridden the world of men and women from the fabric of evil.
The moment the warm hand of the down gatherer touched the clay sarcophagus, Gisli awoke from his long sleep and he realized his dreams of a secure homeland were false and misleading. The ever vigilant, but rarely combatant Hidden Folk, called him to action. He was responsible, thereby he was charged to put right the situation.
He, himself, had sealed the baked earthen box and witnessed in silence as volunteer Hidden Folk transported it and hid it deep inside the basalt of Grimsey. They had sacrificed their lives to the sea after that last great act to protect the secret. Only Gisli remained--and he went into deep hibernation.
Four hundred years passed. Time, tide, wind, and rain had eroded just enough of the crypt to make it the perfect place for eider ducks to nest and leave behind their soft, highly sought-after down.
The man who found the box didn't know what it was--but knew enough to phone the Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft in Hólmavík, a small fishing village in the western fjords. It was no coincidence that said museum had been founded so far off the beaten track. It had been built upon the epicenter of witchcraft in Iceland; in the lands sacred to the Hidden Folk.
In the lands coveted by developers.
The curator was a man of great cunning and abilities--some of which ran toward being quite unethical and unholy. Gisli had followed the man’s career in vivid nightmares, and feared him.
The box was hoisted from the cliffs and laid out on the grassy expanse overlooking the bluffs. A tent was erected. Outlined in black against the off-white heavy canvas of the tent, Gisli watched the curator’s shadow quiver as the lid was lifted from the box. It was a devil’s dance. The curator writhed like a serpent ready to mate entranced by the scent of a female.
Gisli’s stomach heaved and he vomited. The curator made his guts churn with rage. The man’s sadistic penchant for items of macabre significance preceded him. He would know exactly what had been unearthed. He could read the runes, recognize the spells. He was a man who would break sacred seals without stopping to consider his actions. The curator had once excavated the grave of a Catholic priest at the site of Iceland’s first church. Make that graves, plural, of a Catholic priest, singular. When Protestantism swept Iceland, that last medieval Catholic priest was beheaded. Adding insult to grievous injury, his head and body were buried separately, in unmarked sites outside the churchyard.
The curator hadn’t considered the consequences then, either. He made a spectacle of his find and subsequent reburial of the priest in a new crypt. His fascination with dead things frightened some, and intrigued others. Most were simply embarrassed that a learned man would seek out sensationalism and greedily disturb the spirits of the land for publicity or profit.
Gisli choked as a photographer's flash popped. The canvas tent brightened with each snap, like caged lightning. Each flash heightened Gisli’s rage, fear, anxiety.
The curator had opened an Old Icelandic Pandora's Box. Only Hope would not remain no matter how quickly the box was closed. Hope lay in one place only. In the utter destruction of the treasure.
A collective gasp rang through the tent, echoing to the perch where Gisli sat with his gyrfalcon brethren. A shifter, he could hide in plain sight as a gull, a tern, a puffin, or as the mighty raptor, gyrfalcon. An ancient being of vampiric origin, he didn't need to see with his eyes to discern the activity inside the tent. He could smell the foul odor of death and taste it on the air. Nábrók, the heinous dead man's trousers, wrought in human flesh and emblazon with staves of great power, had been found.
And now comes a witch to claim them, Gisli thought. And now comes the battle for Iceland. "
http://www.liquidsilverbooks.com/authors/darragha.htm
,,Dedication
For Thordur Bjorn Sigurdsson, who helped me understand the importance of holding Iceland’s wilderness areas sacred. And for the pilot who pierced my ear with a straight pin in a four-seat puddle jumper, over the Arctic Circle, Grimsey, Iceland, in 1979.
This tale is a compilation of Icelandic folk legends, actual historical events and sheer flights of fantasy on my part. I hope the Hidden Folk don’t mind too much.
--Darragha
Prologue
Gisli cursed under his breath at the opening of the clay tomb found buried in a niche in the cliffs by an eiderdown gatherer. It was a remarkable find. One with dire consequences. He had long rued the day; he’d wished for it never to come. He had thought the item well-hidden. He had been entrusted to preserve it as a reminder of the great war between the Hidden Folk and the witches; it stood as a silent memorial in hopes that such wickedness would never live to serve and control humankind again.
The Old Ones, Gisli included, had grown complacent and even arrogant and vain thinking that they had ridden the world of men and women from the fabric of evil.
The moment the warm hand of the down gatherer touched the clay sarcophagus, Gisli awoke from his long sleep and he realized his dreams of a secure homeland were false and misleading. The ever vigilant, but rarely combatant Hidden Folk, called him to action. He was responsible, thereby he was charged to put right the situation.
He, himself, had sealed the baked earthen box and witnessed in silence as volunteer Hidden Folk transported it and hid it deep inside the basalt of Grimsey. They had sacrificed their lives to the sea after that last great act to protect the secret. Only Gisli remained--and he went into deep hibernation.
Four hundred years passed. Time, tide, wind, and rain had eroded just enough of the crypt to make it the perfect place for eider ducks to nest and leave behind their soft, highly sought-after down.
The man who found the box didn't know what it was--but knew enough to phone the Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft in Hólmavík, a small fishing village in the western fjords. It was no coincidence that said museum had been founded so far off the beaten track. It had been built upon the epicenter of witchcraft in Iceland; in the lands sacred to the Hidden Folk.
In the lands coveted by developers.
The curator was a man of great cunning and abilities--some of which ran toward being quite unethical and unholy. Gisli had followed the man’s career in vivid nightmares, and feared him.
The box was hoisted from the cliffs and laid out on the grassy expanse overlooking the bluffs. A tent was erected. Outlined in black against the off-white heavy canvas of the tent, Gisli watched the curator’s shadow quiver as the lid was lifted from the box. It was a devil’s dance. The curator writhed like a serpent ready to mate entranced by the scent of a female.
Gisli’s stomach heaved and he vomited. The curator made his guts churn with rage. The man’s sadistic penchant for items of macabre significance preceded him. He would know exactly what had been unearthed. He could read the runes, recognize the spells. He was a man who would break sacred seals without stopping to consider his actions. The curator had once excavated the grave of a Catholic priest at the site of Iceland’s first church. Make that graves, plural, of a Catholic priest, singular. When Protestantism swept Iceland, that last medieval Catholic priest was beheaded. Adding insult to grievous injury, his head and body were buried separately, in unmarked sites outside the churchyard.
The curator hadn’t considered the consequences then, either. He made a spectacle of his find and subsequent reburial of the priest in a new crypt. His fascination with dead things frightened some, and intrigued others. Most were simply embarrassed that a learned man would seek out sensationalism and greedily disturb the spirits of the land for publicity or profit.
Gisli choked as a photographer's flash popped. The canvas tent brightened with each snap, like caged lightning. Each flash heightened Gisli’s rage, fear, anxiety.
The curator had opened an Old Icelandic Pandora's Box. Only Hope would not remain no matter how quickly the box was closed. Hope lay in one place only. In the utter destruction of the treasure.
A collective gasp rang through the tent, echoing to the perch where Gisli sat with his gyrfalcon brethren. A shifter, he could hide in plain sight as a gull, a tern, a puffin, or as the mighty raptor, gyrfalcon. An ancient being of vampiric origin, he didn't need to see with his eyes to discern the activity inside the tent. He could smell the foul odor of death and taste it on the air. Nábrók, the heinous dead man's trousers, wrought in human flesh and emblazon with staves of great power, had been found.
And now comes a witch to claim them, Gisli thought. And now comes the battle for Iceland. "
http://www.liquidsilverbooks.com/authors/darragha.htm
Labels: fólk sem tileinkar mér verk sín
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