Salka Valka by Halldor Laxness

18

Only after all of this was over could Sigurlína of Mararbúà° start thinking seriously about her nuptials. Kvíar-Jukki made it very clear that he saw no reason to wait until spring, as the coverlet could be made ready at any time. In the days following the funeral, he sat for hours in the kitchen, took snuff, clutched his snuff can and leaned forward in his seat, rested his elbows on his knees. He stared vacuously and spoke slowly and deliberately, with the weight of great wisdom. He spoke about the weather in general and meteorological prospects in particular, with more nuanced, scientific wording than in any weather report from down south; he seemed exceptionally well suited for being a weather watcher. His sixth sense informed him about the weather in distant districts, he made forecasts based on old verses and proverbs, the church calendar, the moon's phases and the tides, cirrus clouds, halos, and sun dogs. The horses had been high-spirited yesterday when he was mucking out their stable, and the ewes had been butting their water trough; all such things meant something with regard to the weather - last but not least his mother's bouts of gout, which could always be relied on, without exception. Now the blasted irritation was under her right collarbone - which surely meant that the wind would change and blow in from the sea at the next lunar phase. The ache in her back, on the other hand, pointed to cold, calm weather, especially if it migrated to her left hip at night. Someone in the valley had dreamed about wool, which meant snow, and someone else had dreamed of hay, which meant a hard frost and storms, most likely starting at the next new moon. He himself had dreamed a blue troll woman who came straight out of à–xl. Her legs were bare up to mid-thigh and her nipples were bloody; it really would be something if this didn't indicate a dry streak in the fishing. Naked women meant meager catches, and blood a mishap - they haven't yet seen the end of this fishing season, and it certainly didn't start off prettily. He had no small interest in the estrous cycles of livestock in general, and of his own livestock in particular, because everything depended on breeding at the right time. Eiríkur at Ósland's cow Skjalda, that dratted goose, went into heat last week, but as far as anyone knew, she'd been carrying a calf since the autumn, though more than one person did wonder how she could be so slim, but because she played that trick on Eiríkur, he felt he had no choice but to get rid of her, as he already had two autumn-bearing cows, and it wouldn't have made much sense having a third one what with his meager hay harvest. Among his own stock, two ewes had become pregnant before their time - the damned bitches, I might say - they'd run off mid-Advent and ended up with the dean's blasted wethers - supposed wethers, that is - which were roaming loose up in Skörà°. Then the conversation turned to the sheep plague.