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Woman, apologetically: I'm going to light this thing anyway, even though we don't go in much for that sort of thing in this house. It was forced onto pastor Jón a year or two back when every farm was connected up in accordance with the new regulations, whether people wanted to have it or not.
The undersigned wasn't very sure at first what the "this" was that couldn't be mentioned by name. Gradually it dawned on me that the woman was talking about electricity.
Embi [the bishop's emissary]: It's quite unnecessary to switch on the electricity for my sake. A candle will do.
Woman: That's hardly good enough for bishops.
However, the upshot was that the woman switched off the light with the unmentionable name and lit a candle; this was actually far more festive than the naked 15-watt bulb. The woman poured the visitor a cup of coffee and invited him to help himself, then took up position by the door with a stern expression on her face. The coffee had a mouldy taste, and truth to tell I was paralysed by the sight of these innumerable cakes arrayed around such awful coffee. I felt that the woman was watching over me in the same spirit of duty as when one is making sure that animals are eating the fodder they've been given.
She is a woman of dignity, but taciturn; perhaps she yearns for eternal silence and feels uncomfortable in body and soul if anyone addresses her first; it's better to tread warily. Perhaps there was just a small railing around her, like a statue in a square. A cleanly woman. Not much over sixty. Thickset, rather clumsy.
Embi: Perhaps the pastor has gone to bed?
Woman: That I do not know.
Embi: Excuse me, but aren't you the pastor's wife?
Woman: I've not been so considered hitherto.
Embi: Never before have I sen so many cakes all at once. Did you make all these cakes?
Woman: Who else, indeed? That's why they call me Hnallþóra (Pestle-Thóra) hereabouts.
Embi: An unusual name.
Miss Hnallþóra: I suppose the folk here think I wield the pestle in the mortar rather vigorously.
Embi: A very entertaining notion, certainly.
Miss Hnallþóra: There's a lot of envy around here, you know. The madams with their mixing machines say things about my mortar. But what's cardamom until it's been under the pestle, say I! Do have some more cakes.
Embi: Excuse me, but is the pastor's wife not at home herself?
Miss Hnallþóra: I don't know. I rather think she isn't here. Did the bishop need to have a word with her?
Embi: No, not really. I was just asking.
Miss Hnallþóra: Quite so. One could try asking down at Neðratraðkot (Netherland Croft). It's thought to be haunted sometimes in springtime, or so they say.
Embi: But you're the housekeeper, are you not?
Miss Hnallþóra: I'm simply here. I go with the parsonage.
Embi: Were you already here when pastor Jón came here?
Miss Hnallþóra: Yes, I'm from up the mountain.
Embi: From up the mountain?
The lady heaved a sigh, closed her eyes, and inhaled a needless sort of "yes" all the way down into the lungs -- yessing on the in-breath, as it's called.
Embi: From up the mountain? Is that some particular family?
Miss Hnallþóra: I don't come from any particular family. That's for other folk.
Embi: Nothing particular in the way of news around here?
Miss Hnallþóra: There's nothing much happens around here. Nothing ever happens to anyone. No one has ever seen anything.
Embi: Nothing ever happened to you either? Never seen anything?
Miss Hnallþóra: Nothing to speak of.
Embi: Perhaps something you cannot speak of? Have you never owned a horse, for instance?
Miss Hnallþóra: No, praise be to God. Others have owned horses, I'm happy to say, but not me.
Embi: Who owns the calf?
Miss Hnallþóra: The calf! That thing on its last legs? I've no idea why I was given it. There's nothing here to feed to a calf except coffee once in a while, and old cakes I mash up in it. On the other hand I won't conceal the fact from anyone that once upon a time a little something happened to me. I saw a little something. But never except just that once.
Embi: This is turning out better than seemed likely.
Miss Hnallþóra: Of course, I wouldn't tell a soul about it.
Embi: That's not so good!
Miss Hnallþóra: I'll just go and make some more coffee.
Embi: Thanks, but there's really no need. I'm not accustomed to drinking more than a half a cup or so. And I'm sure that coffeepot holds at least a litre and a half.
But there was no stopping her going out again with the coffeepot to replenish it, even though the level couldn't have been lowered by much. While the lady was out, the bishop's emissary could scarcely take his eyes off the three war-cakes bulging with spices and measuring a total of sixty centimetres in diameter. I was sweating a little on the forehead.
In the hope that with a little patience some information might be got out of the lady, I accepted a third cup contrary to my custom. It worked. The visitor's coffee-swilling began to have a loosening effect on this fettered woman. Her reactions became more human, and she submitted to that softening of the soul and surrender to God and man that comes from telling a story. She returned to that one thing that had ever happened to her in her lifetime, that one and only time she had ever seen something. It was very nearly fifty years ago, but, she says, I remember it as if it had happened yesterday. May I not cut the bishop a wedge of layer cake?
Embi: There's really no need, but, well, yes, thank you.
Miss Hnallþóra: Would you not like a piece from each one? It wasn't the intention to have to throw it to the dogs.
The visitor besought her only to cut from the one, preferably the one with the sugar icing, because that one wasn't as moist as the others and wasn't oozing quite so much juice and tinned fruit. So she cut me a wedge that would have been a suitable portion for seven people, and laid it on my plate.
Miss Hnallþóra: I was just a chit of a girl at the time. I was sent on some errand out to Bervík. Instead of going the direct coastal way along the seashore, I followed the sheep-paths higher up, straight over the glacier moraines. There are lots of lovely dells up there, full of mosses and heathers. And then, as I am walking over one of the ridges, suddenly I see a brown ram with trained horns standing there on its own, with no other animal anywhere near, and looking up at me from the hollow. I've never been so frightened in all my born days, a speechless person, a helpless girl, because I knew that neither this nor any other straight-horned brown ram existed here at Glacier. A golden lustre shone from him. Never in all my born days have I seen such a fleece on any living animal. I felt I was turning to stone. For a long time I couldn't tear my eyes from this beautiful animal I knew didn't exist here in the valley not down by the shore not anywhere in Iceland. The ram just stood there and gazed at me. I feel as if I'm standing there this very day and the ram is gazing at me. What was I to do? In the end I had the sense to run out of sight. I made a wide detour down from the ridge and ran helter-skelter along the hollows all the way down to the sea until I reached the main road. Thanks be to God.
Embi: A fairy ram?
The woman inhaled her answer in a falsetto, no doubt still with palpitations to this very day: I don't know.
Embi: Did anyone ever get to the bottom of this?
Miss Hnallþóra: No, of course no one ever got to the bottom of it. Everyone knew as well as I did that there were no straight-horned brown rams in these parts. Some lads from the next farm went up to have a look, but naturally they saw nothing. And since then I myself have never seen anything one could call seeing. And nothing has ever happened to me.
Halldór Laxness / Chapter 5 of Under the Glacier (Kristnihald undir jökli) / The Story of Hnallþóra and the Fairy Ram
