A tri-lingual edition of the poetry book Flateyjar-Freyr (ljóðfórnir): The Icelandic original, an English translation by Adam Kitchen and a German translation by Hans Brückner.
Epilogue by Birna Bjarnadóttir.
About the book:
A jar that used to contain pure Pacific honey is filled with words – sacrifices on the remote and almost deserted island of Flatey, west of Iceland. Witnessed by the ocean, the wind, a few birds and a wooden sculpture of the Germanic god Freyr, what emerges as a strange and beautiful poem on fertility and decay, which is now appearing in three languages.
From the book:
Freyr, in this jar I honour the spirit of fertility and the progress of art. It used to contain pure Pacific honey that I bought at the health-food store. The jar will grant good thoughts and fortune to anyone who looks into it and sees the bottom, especially when they are in sullen spirits, weakened and worn, stunned by a confining and infertile state of being and limp, up top and down below. There were two other jars: the Happiness jar and the Fame jar, but this one, the Word-sacrifice jar, is the one in which I Place a thought every day, while shouting aloud into the air and recording it to tape.
Tell me one thing
in all honesty
Freyr:
Does the grass always grow in exactly the right spots on
Earth?
Freyr’s answer:
Go ask Heimdall
and the conservatives, with their green revolution.
(3)
