Yes, Láfi and I would impress upon the corpse of the parson’s son the workings of the world and its own place within it, after which it would hopefully find its way to the right door, in this case the coffin lid. But for this to work, I would have to browbeat it. Láfi glanced out of the corner of his eye and nodded, signalling that the ghost was sneaking up behind me. I spun round. Yes, there it stood, mouldering and hideous. I began the browbeating:
Christ’s death upon the holy cross
has brought mankind salvation.
Twixt thee and me this fact I toss,
thou creature of damnation …
And still I intoned:
All day we’ve knocked this fiend about
and harried him with our verse;
may it strike his jaw like a bloody great clout
and put an end to this curse.
At this, the apparition’s lower jaw snapped against the upper with such force that its front teeth cracked to the root. Not that it could have answered me anyway as its tongue was too rotten to do more than growl and spit. And now it could not even do that, though its throat still rattled and the groans found their way out through its nose as it flinched under the verses, which became ever harder for it to bear the more skilfully and aptly they were composed. While I chanted, Láfi made sure that the ghost remained within earshot, for of course it fled from the message like a dog from curses, and was uncomfortably quick on its feet due to the length of its stride, as mentioned before. The corpse fled, not pausing in its flight except to stoop for stones or dirt or sheep droppings still warm from the rectum, which it flung at my head as I tore in pursuit, chanting as loudly as my lack of breath would allow, while Láfi ran alongside, trying to head it off or guide it towards rough terrain that would slow it down. Eventually, we managed to drive it into a marsh, where it sank up to its navel in a bog. I was now able to summon up before its mouldering eyes a picture of the horde of demons that fell to Earth when Lucifer was cast down from Heaven. Their multitude is like glowing motes in a sunbeam (they are swarming evil in search of something to stick to) or as many as the raindrops that fall in a downpour that lasts for nine days without stopping. Then I consoled it by explaining that it did not belong to that group. I described for it how the heavens rise and fall in relation to the moon, three in a row above and three in a row below. In these heavens dwell the ethereal spirits, endowed with various natures, some fine, some foul, though it is always perilous for people to swallow them and therefore not to be attempted except by well-equipped experts like Láfi and me. Under this onslaught the animate corpse struggled like a wolf in a trap, scrabbling in the spongy moss and trying in vain to heave itself out of the bog. I continued, turning now to its own case, telling it that revenants were the bodies of the dead who in life had been guilty of swearing at others; that on the corpses of such cursing wretches the doors stood wide open for the Devil himself to crawl inside. Which he did willingly, appointing himself the driver of the body and riding the deceased like a cruel jockey driving on his horse, except that in this case the vengeful heart formed the saddle in which the accursed rider sat as he drove his spurs into the rotten lungs. Once I had exposed the Prince of Darkness who was abusing the corpse of the parson’s son, it was as if all the wind left its sails. Its body slumped, its arms fell to its sides and it hung forwards, trapped by the bog, like a drunken rider fallen asleep in the saddle, its matted hair swinging in the evening breeze. In this position it began to stiffen up, like the corpse it should by rights have been. A deathly silence fell on the countryside, the breeze caressed my cheek and I believed the Devil’s corpse-ride was at an end. And so it was for a long moment. Then the corpse’s mouth fell open and from where I was standing I noticed that a small butterwort growing on a nearby tussock imitated its movement; its flower-head opened with a quiet pop, releasing a midge that it had snapped up the instant the world fell silent. The fly had not been lying in the plant’s digestive juices too long to prevent it from launching into flight, and with an ugly thunderous drone it flew straight into the dead man’s mouth. Instantly all rigidity left the corpse as the Devil re-entered it in the form of this midge. The corpse tore itself out of the bog with a terrible howl and took flight, heading for the mountain with us close on its heels. But its strength was so depleted by its enforced sojourn under my fiend-scaring verses that Láfi caught up with it before it could squeeze all the way into a fissure in the rocks. Clutching its shanks, Láfi hauled with all his might against the ghost which was halfway down the cleft, hanging on grimly to a root or whatever it could grab. The wretched fiend was evidently trying to reach the place where it was happiest; in other words, Hell. At this I began my hectoring anew, commanding it to release the soul of the parson’s son for judgement by God in Heaven, for only then would it be free to travel down the fifteen levels that separate the world of men from the inferno of Hell. At that it ceased all its struggling and our work was done. We dragged the corpse out of the hole and wiped the filth from its face, for although it was all battered and maggoty as described before, it now had the peaceful air of one who is well and truly dead. We carried the boy between us home to the parsonage, where the parson and his wife thanked us with kisses and cries of gratitude for laying the fiend that had forcibly taken up its abode in their son’s body. Láfi and I received our appointed wages, which were not much to speak of once we had divided them up between us but more than enough when one considers the fame we acquired by this deed. We did not dine at the farm, having had our fill of the stinking corpse, but took the food we were given and hurried up the mountain with our tent. It was the longest day of the year, my last night with Láfi, and the prospects were good for poetry. The following day I would head south to Sigga and Pálmi Gudmundur, our firstborn. I was full of grand plans, mindful of the fame that the destruction of a malevolent ghost was bound to bring me, the anticipated renown that would elevate me to the giddy heights of esteem, from which vantage point I would be able to survey the world as my playground. Just as I was thinking this thought, I was startled by a gruff voice saying:
‘Make the most of your fame!’
It is my poor old lady, Sigrídur. Instead of answering, I merely pat the tussock at my side and so the two of us sit, watching the sun complete its circuit of the Earth. It climbs aslant up the cloud-foamy sea of sky, sailing in a fine arc to the horizon where it perches for an instant like a dandelion seed which just touches a wet stone before the wind lifts it away.
Kidney Stone
Dazzling light: when the day is such a brilliant blue-white that the firmament is no longer a frame for the burning sun, rather the sun has become the kindling for a brilliant silver curtain that rises at the horizon and is drawn across the entire visible world, while the mountain ranges to the north, west and south shimmer as if in a mirage, sometimes in shadow, sometimes in sunlight, but never still; and the sea is a sheet of billowing velvet, stretching from the shores of the island to the hem of the sky, while the island itself, glittering in its midst, is a yellow-gold button on a downy cushion, waiting to be dented by the head of the heavenly child; and the whole vision is run through with tinkling bright silk thread, nimbly tacked between earth and sea and sky and fiery sun with the great needle that can pierce every element. But tracing the blazing needlework means little to the human eye, for although one line springs from another, like vein branching from vein on a birch leaf or the back of one’s hand or a precious stone, this magnificent play of light is so small when set against eternity that to perceive the whole picture the spectator would have to step back into the next world, to stand beside the throne of the One who in the beginning opened His mouth and uttered the words: ‘Let there be light!’