Iceland's Bell Read Free

hearings and before executions, and was so ancient that no one knew its true age any longer. The bell had been cracked for many years before this story begins, and the oldest folk thought they could remember it as having a clearer chime. All the same, the old folk still cherished it. On calm midsummer days at Þingvellir, when the fragrance of Bláskógar wafts in on gentle breezes from Súlur, the regent, the magistrate, and the executioner, the man to be hanged and the woman to be drowned assembled at the courthouse, and the chime of the bell could often be heard mingled with the murmur of Öxará.*
    One year when the king decreed that the people of Iceland were to relinquish all of their brass and copper so that Copenhagen could be rebuilt following the war, men were sent to fetch the ancient bell at Þingvellir by Öxará.
    A few days after the dissolution of the Alþingi, two men with several packhorses approach from the western side of the lake. They ride down the ravine opposite the estuary, cross over the ford, and dismount at the edge of the lava field near the courthouse. One of the men is pale, with full cheeks and small eyes, wearing a tattered aristocrat’s jacket much too small for his frame and walking with his elbows extended like a child pretending to be a nobleman. The other is dark, ragged, and ugly.
    An old man with a dog walks over through the lava rocks and steps out onto the path before the travelers.
    “And who might you men be?”
    The fat one answers: “I am His Majesty’s emissary and hangman.”
    “You don’t say,” the old man mumbled hoarsely, in a voice that seemed to come from a great distance. “All the same, it’s the Creator who rules.”
    “I have a letter to prove it,” said the king’s emissary.
    “Oh, for sure,” said the old man. “Everyone’s got letters these days. All sorts of letters.”
    “Are you calling me a liar, you old devil?” asked the king’s emissary.
    The old man didn’t want to risk coming any closer to the travelers, so he sat down on the remains of the wall encircling the courthouse and looked at them. He was no different from any other old man: he had a gray beard, red eyes, a chimney-cap, and gnarled legs, and he clenched his blue hands around his walking stick and leaned forward upon it tremblingly. His dog came over inside the wall and sniffed at the men without barking, as dogs do when concealing their savagery.
    “No one had letters in the old days,” murmured the old man softly.
    Swarthy, the pale man’s guide, exclaimed: “Right you are, pal! Gunnar of Hlíðarendi* had no letters.”
    “And who are you?” asked the old man.
    “Oh, this is a cord-thief from Akranes; he’s been lying about in the Þrælakista at Bessastaðir* since Easter,” answered the king’s emissary, and he kicked angrily at the dog.
    The black-haired man spoke up and sneered, baring his gleaming white teeth: “That’s the king’s hangman from Bessastaðir. All the dogs piss on him.”
    The old man on the crumbling wall said nothing, and his expression remained for the most part blank. He continued to look at them and blinked a little as he sat there trembling.
    “Climb up there on the house, Jón Hreggviðsson, you miserable wretch,” said the king’s hangman, “and cut down the bell. I find it hilarious to think that on the day when my Most Gracious Sire orders me to twist the noose around your neck, right here in this very place, no one will be ringing this bell.”
    “Enough with your mockery, lads,” said the old man. “It’s an old bell.”
    “If you’re in league with the priest,” said the king’s hangman, “then tell him from me that neither quibbling nor crying is of use here. We have letters for eighteen bells plus one—this one. We’ve been ordered to break them apart and send the pieces to Denmark on the Hólmship.* I answer to none but the king.”
    He took a pinch from his snuff-horn without offering any to his companion.
    “God