Drizzle-witch,
why do you drive
your load of mist
across my land?
For remedy
I will sacrifice to you
my cow, my wife,
and my Christianity.
[Hví svo þrúðgu þú
þokuhlassi
súldanorn
um sveitir ekur?
Þér man eg offra
til árbóta
kú og konu
og kristindómi.]
Jónas Hallgrímsson, “Dalabóndinn í óþurrknum,” from Ljóðmæli eptir Jónas Hallgrímsson (1847), online at http://www.jonashallgrimsson.is/page/ljod_dalabondinn.
13 comments:
"Don't use anti-climax in poetry" we were taught at school.
well - after all that sacrificing - did it work?
I'd bet my wife it did.
How far would you bet the wife though, Deogolwulf?
The proles clamor for more posts!
Posting has been made difficult by a combination of blogging-shyness and that dreadful thing called the real world, wherein are found such unpleasantries as work, motorways, cars, and wrangling with the salesman who sold me the car that broke down on a motorway -- which together have been playing on my mind.
A little shaft of sunlight has beamed over my dull provincial life since discovering your blog. Like you, I suffer the dread that is an unpleasant working day. You must labour to overcome your blogging shyness, put the matter of duff cars and callow salesmen behind you, and accept the burden of lightening all our working lives. Next instalment, please!
I paid £1300 for a ten year old V40. It smelt of dogs, in places the paint was worn through, but I took it for a test drive and the engine and handling were beautiful.
Came with MOT till March 2009.
Doing very well. Smell's gone. Everything still works(Aircon, heated everything, electric everything) Volvos are pretty reliable.
As for work, I got in this morning, my supervisor said "Don't say I never give you anything." and put a CD-R on my desk.
It was AC/DC's new album, 'Black Ice'.
It won't be in the shops till the 20th.(Naturally I immediately pre-ordered)
I expect the petrol consumption is something to crow about too.
I use about a tenner a week.
You have a car? Disturbing.
Glad to have been of service, Jaded. A "ray of sunshine" is certainly a surprising thing to come out of a gloomy blog.
Pietr, I nearly bought an old V40. I wish I had.
It is disturbing, Elberry. I don't like cars.
It is precisely the gloom that makes the blog so cheering.
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