Oh, others are showy, but, over time, after wandering over and through many lava fields and stony wastes, the willow’s stunning, low-level, never-repeated poetic lines win out.
Neskaupstaðir
As this rowan in the birch forest at Ásbyrgi shows, it’s about the darkness, and how that is woven with light.
See?
Ewe With Her Lambs, Buðir, Midsummer’s Night 2019
The birch forests of Ásbyrgi are not passable, except slowly and in no direction not directed by the trees.
The words for human bodies come from trees like this: body, belly, bone, arm, branch, and so on. Only after these properties were named were the names applied to humans. Before that, our ancestors saw only the trees. In that sense, we are the hidden people, just as much as we are the boughs, beams, trunks and bodies reaching here.
Beautiful Arnarstapi!
We went to Seyðisfjörður to visit the dwarf church, one of our favourite places in Iceland, but sadly it is no longer accessible except by boat. However, we had the good fortune to walk down to the beach at Skardsvik, on the complete other side of the country, and there was a whole dwarf fortress. Hurrah!
Here’s the gate.
Note the red stone to the right of the opening.
And some of the finer details…
I really love the next one.
Here it is close up.
Always leave a gift. I left a pink flower, as I had no coins in my pocket. (Always carry coins in your pocket. That’s a new rule.) And then, on the road again:
In this way, the land is never empty. In this way, the land is always a gift and never full.
Some lava lumps are too powerful to be placed in a wall.
Óndverðarnes in Snæfellsjökull National Park
This is one worthy of being placed in the Icelandic folk song (and Gunnar’s book) Vikivaki, which is a dance with the dead. The point is that they are not dead. Not really.
I mentioned the dragons of Rauðhóll a few days back. Here’s another.
This one is hunting elf sheep. The bright, emerald-green patch in the dragon’s mouth is the sheep’s fleece, and another elf sheep forms its eye. It is, in other words, possible to be attacked by a dragon, and survive. You might, however, be held in its thrall for a few thousand years.
No lie. Here it is. The trees behind the ferns.
Frakkastigur has always been one of my favourite streets. This just adds to the delight.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell what season it is or whether one is on Earth or in the Sky!
The View Back over Héraðsandar from the Njardvik Lookout in Early July
On Midsummer Eve Day, we climbed Rauðhóll (Red Hill.) I was enchanted by all the dragons still coming to live in this new tephra cone. Here’s the first one that caught my eye. Many dozens followed. I was surrounded!
I was fascinated by how each leg or wing of the dragon was a dragon of its own. That’s some very deep, persistent dragon-ness! It’s a beautiful volcanic site, too.
A Farm in Iceland 