Status Updates From Icelandic Folktales

This last one is also hilarious.

Lol! Oh, that is a feisty, old woman who doesn't take no for an answer. She throws the soul of her own good-for-nothing husband into heaven even when Jesus himself closed the door to her request! Hilarious!

"Then they came to the ugly and riotous sheep.
"'These,' said the stranger, 'mean the rich, who are never satisfied, and never thrive, albeit they have abundance of all things, for they ever are striving for more; and the discord and quarrelsomeness of these sheep betoken the envious talk which the rich hold one of another.'"
Seems to have been a lesson that goes far but is never implemented in the US.

A little bit of "A Christmas Carol" in this story with a priest in place of Ebenezer Scrooge who is shown many strange sights and what his final resting place will look like. But it's given a more Christian spin with the message being that a priest must be dedicated to God and God's people, and not the other way around.

I don't get the context of this exorcism prayer because it's written in Latin! And no one thought to put a translation in the margins?!

This story of the jealous farmer and the quern that was able to ground anything reminds me of another tale from Norway. That one also ended with the jealous farmer commanding the grinding stone to make salt, and the stone made so much it sank the ship it was on. Although this story doesn't say that that was the explanation for all of the salt in the oceans, I'd imagine that it was the point.

Yeah, I was wondering if the man's brother had caught on that the man had not asked him for any aid or any good or anything for a good long while. And then all of a sudden he asks for something very particular: a measurement tool.

This brother takes things too literally. When his brother told him to "go to the devil," he didn't actually mean go to the devil.

A farmer and a bishop double-teaming the devil in disguise? And the former was beating him with a holy book until he sunk into the earth? That's hilarious.

Lastly, are stories about God and the Devil, similar to those found in Norway, I imagine.

"'See how we differ! I cherish and love your son, while you beat and ill-use my husband;' with these words, she gave back to the farmer's wife her own son, and taking the changeling by the hand, disappeared with him."
The farmer's wife was just doing as she was told by the old, wise woman. Can't really blame her for being given terrible advice.

I was going to say, this sounds like a changeling story. It's weird that I have only just come across this folktale now and not earlier.

Magical, moving rakes! Is this how the witches got brooms later?

It seems that strange weather that forces people to get lost results in meeting with elves.

These stories of elves or spirits are very fast and don't make a whole lot of sense. I prefer the ones from Celtic lore in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.

That was a short story.

"The Genesis of the Hid-Folk" is the Christianization of the origin of elves. Which is definitely something NOT taught in Catholicism or Christianity, and which I find hilarious.

If this was a Grimm Fairy Tale, the whole family would've suffered from their ill-treatment of Helga, rather than be shown mercy and given gifts. But the sisters did get their punishment by being maimed by the big dog and will remain that way, so there's that.

This story is a cross between Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. Hey, Disney, you taking notes?

Usually, it's the step-parents and step-children who are mean and cruel to the youngest and most lovely child in the family. But here it's the whole family!

Usually, when a person sets forth certain details in a fairy tale, those details tend to happen in the order that they were spoken. But here it was a twist.

I have to read carefully on this part. There are no quotation marks to indicate someone speaking unless it says so.

Hey, a three-headed giant! I wonder if, in the original Icelandic, it was called an "ettin" too, or if that's just the Welsh/Scottish version?

Um, I'm not sure when this was written, but no Viking ship has a below decks. It's all one deck. That's why I was more than a little concerned when I read that they were carrying a toddler in it across the North Sea back to Iceland.

"Hardrada" where have I heard that name before? Is it in Denmark or Norway?
*checks online* Oh, Hardrada as in Harald Hardrada, the king of Norway. So, they are referring to Norway when it says "country of Hardrada," and not a specific place like Ireland or England.

The first story is called "The Giantess and the Granite Boat."

The next section of this collection is about elves, giants, and beasts. Yay!

And the saga ends with Helga dying of old age, still sad at the loss of the man she loved, right on the lap of her new husband! It kinda reminds me of Kate Winslet's character in Titanic at the end.

A little bit of a rivals' final battle here. Reminds me of Scar's and Simba's fight with Scar using trickery. Thor and Loki, too. As well as the final fight in the Northman, where no one survives. Very cinematic.

Raven does not fight fair nor deal fairly, as his kinsmen had said they would step aside and not interfere in the fight, but as soon as it began, they were the first to try to kill Gunnlaug. Now, our perspective as the reader has changed based on this twist.