From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjon Page A

life. For had he not so inadvertently led me and Sigga together, and had we not had him to thank for our meeting, she would never have been persuaded to allow me to go north to the Snjáfjöll coast to help him lay the ghost. In truth I had until now had little time for the female of the species, regarding the entire tribe as tedious and irksome company. No doubt the feeling was mutual: they were bored by my philosophising and I was bored by their talk of housekeeping, provisions, child-rearing and whatever they call all that futile business around which their lives revolve. Naturally people whispered that I was impotent with regard to women. What of it? The other bachelors need have no fear that I would compete with them for the wenches. Yet this did not prevent them from commissioning me to write poems ablaze with ardent feelings for the opposite sex. The girl from Bakki was not only of marriageable age but also rumoured to be interested in the heavenly bodies. That sounded promising. Well, I would not give up until I had set eyes on this paragon. It was in the spring of 1598, on the seventh of March. How do I remember? It was the spring when the eclipse sent both man and beast mad. When I arrived at Bakki I pretended to be passing through on my way to Hólar to present the bishop with a book that had long ago been removed from the episcopal seat,
ex libris
of that decapitated martyr of the True Faith, Bishop Jón Arason. It contained a handful of Greek fables by the wise author Aesop, translated into Latin and illustrated with comical pictures of witless beasts going about human business. A frivolous book from pagan Asia but a valid passport for my sightseeing trip to Bakki. I certainly had the book with me, in case anyone asked, and could show it to trustworthy types if required. I was received with generous hospitality, though the farm was in a state of mourning as the father of the householder had recently departed this life and his body was still lying in state upstairs. I behaved like any other visitor who merely happened to be passing along the fjord on the aforementioned business and had not at all come to catch a glimpse of the moonstruck girl. I was well provided for with food and drink. The good people found me entertaining and listened in silent pleasure to my poems and discursions on natural history, for I adapted my material as befitted a house where a corpse was lying in the parlour. And no one thought it odd that I should have business with the women in the kitchen as in former times. Nothing had changed in there; indeed, kings may come and kings may go but the kitchen hearth remains unchanged, with its fire, food and gossip. I assumed the moonstruck girl would have an errand there sooner or later, and while I was waiting I took a look up the skirts of a couple of old biddies, and fumbled another three, for they allowed me access again, never suspecting that I would be aroused by that touch – however much they themselves might enjoy it. I also pulled a rotten molar out of the eldest of them, who, to my astonishment, was none other than the woman who had teased me with her dirty talk a whole decade before. Alas, why does God allow the candle of worthless old hags to flicker, year in year out, for nine times nine years, while abruptly and without apparent mercy blowing out the newly kindled flames of one’s own children? It is an ugly thought which everyone who has ever lost anyone has entertained, demanding in their despair, why him? Why her? Why not that one or that one, or that other? But I cannot help it. And I would not be surprised if the old crone is still alive now, a hundred and forty years old and convinced there is nothing more natural, though she is of no use to anyone and hardly a source of pleasure even to herself. Anyway, her tooth had no sooner been extracted than there was a great hubbub of raised voices and people began to pour out of the buildings. The old women and I were just scrambling