Under the Glacier Read Online Free PDF

the cliff—forty fathoms high in many places, at least sixty in some. These coal-black cliffs looked as if they were snow-covered, so crowded were the white birds sitting there in the dusk. On a ledge no larger than a man’s palm lived many families. It is a kittiwake colony.
    Even at midnight a kittiwake colony is seldom quiet at this time of year, at least not for long. Although they all seem to have said their prayers, suddenly someone breaks the silence in a shrill falsetto like a fire alarm. Sometimes the voice is sharp and pained, like the yelp of a dog wakened by its tail being trodden on; sometimes as when an infant starts screaming in terror out of the depths of slumber, roused by some wordless dream that at the very worst was caused by a touch of heart-burn. The kittiwake colony is wide awake at once and joins in for a while, until they all agree to say their prayers again and wait for the next reveille. The undersigned had meant to get a little warmth into his body, but it only adds to the shivers to listen to the bleating of birds on a raw night early in spring.

5
     
    The Story of Hnallþóra and the Fairy Ram
     
    The time is 0000, midnight. Upon my word, isn’t that some kind of coffee smell wafting towards me out of the house! Inside, the table had been covered with a cloth and laid with a variety of cakes of many shapes and colours; I think I’m safe to say that there were hundreds of them, set out on nearly twenty plates. To cap it all, the woman brought in three war-cakes, so called because they became fashionable during the war, each about twenty centimetres in diameter and about six to eight centimetres thick. Finally the woman brought in coffee and switched on the light, a naked 15-watt bulb that hung by a flex from the ceiling.
    Woman, apologetically: I’m going to light this thing anyway, even though we don’t go in much for that sort of thing in this house. It was forced onto pastor Jón a year or two back when every farm was connected up in accordance with the new regulations, whether people wanted to have it or not.
    The undersigned wasn’t very sure at first what the “this” was that couldn’t be mentioned by name. Gradually it dawned on me that the woman was talking about electricity.
    Embi: It’s quite unnecessary to switch on the electricity for my sake. A candle will do.
    Woman: That’s hardly good enough for bishops.
    However, the upshot was that the woman switched off the light with the unmentionable name and lit a candle; this was actually far more festive than the naked 15-watt bulb. The woman poured the visitor a cup of coffee and invited him to help himself, then took up position by the door with a stern expression on her face. The coffee had a mouldy taste, and truth to tell I was paralysed by the sight of these innumerable cakes arrayed around such awful coffee. I felt that the woman was watching over me in the same spirit of duty as when one is making sure that animals are eating the fodder they’ve been given.
    She is a woman of dignity, but taciturn; perhaps she yearns for eternal silence and feels uncomfortable in body and soul if anyone addresses her first; it’s better to tread warily. Perhaps there was just a small railing around her, like a statue in a square. A cleanly woman. Not much over sixty. Thickset, rather clumsy.
    Embi: Perhaps the pastor has gone to bed?
    Woman: That I do not know.
    Embi: Excuse me, but aren’t you the pastor’s wife?
    Woman: I’ve not been so considered hitherto.
    Embi: Never before have I seen so many cakes all at once. Did you make all these cakes?
    Woman: Who else, indeed? That’s why they call me Hnallþóra (Pestle-Thóra) hereabouts.
    Embi: An unusual name.
    Miss Hnallþóra: I suppose the folk here think I wield the pestle in the mortar rather vigorously.
    Embi: A very entertaining notion, certainly.
    Miss Hnallþóra: There’s a lot of envy around here, you know. The madams with their mixing machines say things about my