When the man in the hat was five years old his great-grandmother read to him from the book of Eddas. She read stories from the Konungsbók out loud, correcting her breathing whenever necessary, her lungs frail and weakly from years of heavy smoking. She stole the book from the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies when on vacation in Reykjavík. Brynjólfur Sveinsson of Iceland, renown for his long scraggly beard and small childlike hands, had hidden the book away in his castle, where it remained unfound until Frederick III of Norway recovered the book, placing it in his rectory closet for safekeeping. She was particularly fond of the Gylfaginning, or Tricking of Gylfi which she read over and over again, or until she couldn’t syncopate her breathing with her voice. She saved the story of Skáldskaparmál, the dialogue between the giant Ægir and the diaphonic Bragi, for special occasions, or whenever she felt up to reading a 50,000 word Eddas.
Icelandic fairy tales and Konungsbók Gylfaginnings were common playtime activities in the man in the hat’s home, even when his great-grandmother could barely breath, wheezing and coughing out the words to the Tricking of Gylfi or humming a Nordic tune like a pike-necked warbler. To the best of his knowledge the man in the hat had no relations in Iceland, Denmark or Norway, so the thought of having to listen to his great-grandmother, her voice crackling, spit pooling at her feet, made him feel grossly spoiled.
A child with a ball and a child with a hula-hoop darted in and out of traffic, faces russet with cold and play. The harridan’s sister, hurrying to the church to set up her knickknacks table, scolded the children ‘wretched little wretches’ she bellowed ‘little shits all of them!’ The child with the ball darted to the left, the child with the hula-hoop to the right, meeting directly in front of the harridan’s sister, they’re crabapple red tongues stuck out like blisters. ‘Shoo you little wretches’ she hollered, ‘away with you both!’ The child with the ball kicked the harridan’s sister in the knee with his left foot, the child with the hula-hoop kicking her in the shin with his right foot, they’re crabapple red tongues bobbing and pointing like blisters. The harridan’s sister pushed her way past the children, the hem of her skirts trailing behind her like a torn windsock, and hurried up the front steps of the church, her knickknacks table unfolding like a broken accordion.
Icelandic fairy tales and Konungsbók Gylfaginnings were common playtime activities in the man in the hat’s home, even when his great-grandmother could barely breath, wheezing and coughing out the words to the Tricking of Gylfi or humming a Nordic tune like a pike-necked warbler. To the best of his knowledge the man in the hat had no relations in Iceland, Denmark or Norway, so the thought of having to listen to his great-grandmother, her voice crackling, spit pooling at her feet, made him feel grossly spoiled.
A child with a ball and a child with a hula-hoop darted in and out of traffic, faces russet with cold and play. The harridan’s sister, hurrying to the church to set up her knickknacks table, scolded the children ‘wretched little wretches’ she bellowed ‘little shits all of them!’ The child with the ball darted to the left, the child with the hula-hoop to the right, meeting directly in front of the harridan’s sister, they’re crabapple red tongues stuck out like blisters. ‘Shoo you little wretches’ she hollered, ‘away with you both!’ The child with the ball kicked the harridan’s sister in the knee with his left foot, the child with the hula-hoop kicking her in the shin with his right foot, they’re crabapple red tongues bobbing and pointing like blisters. The harridan’s sister pushed her way past the children, the hem of her skirts trailing behind her like a torn windsock, and hurried up the front steps of the church, her knickknacks table unfolding like a broken accordion.
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