Under the Glacier by Halldór Laxness

The bishop's emissary now put question number two to the parish clerk as follows: Question No. 2: Is there any truth in the story that pastor Jón Prímus got married in his younger days, but that his wife ran away from him and that the pastor has since then taken no steps to obtain a lawful divorce from her? Tumi Jónsen's reply according to the emissary's shorthand (unnecessary wordiness omitted): The story goes that a woman came to Iceland, some say from England, others from Ireland or even Spain, who was called Úrsúla the English, or Úrsa, known as Úrsalei-at-Glacier. This happened in the days of the merchant Þorleifur ríki (the Powerful) of Stapi, the son of Árni, farmer and sheriff of Reykjavík, the son of Ingibjörg, the daughter of Narfi of Narfeyri. Some say that on one of his business trips to Scotland, the said Þorleifur had seduced this highborn maiden of noble English and Spanish lineage and brought her to Iceland with him, to Glacier. I would not dare to vouch for the truth of this story, but I do not dispute the accepted view that Úrsalei was certainly an Irish-Spanish noblewoman of carefully selected stock on both sides for many generations in the matter of flesh, and that she was therefore a thoroughbred. On the male side, all but a select few were said to have been castrated, and the story goes on to say that female children of this clan were suckled by wet nurses until they reached marriageable age. I'm only passing on what I've been told. But reliable scholars have asserted on their conscience that the fleshly conditions in Úrsalei's family were such that those ladies can best be likened to the women the newspapers nowadays call "bombs," named after powder-filled canisters designed to cause an explosion.

Another "tradition" in which Tumi Jónsen says he has as much faith as the first one: Úrsalei early got an urge, considered by scholars to be quite rare among the aristocracy, in that she had a burning desire to become a ship's stewardess. This was granted her. On one of her journeys she landed in Iceland, at Glacier. Some might find this a little strange. Not to make a long story of it-no sooner had Úrsalei stepped ashore at Stapi than the Glacier men set to with all their celebrated broadmindedness and, saving your presence, gave the girl a baby. None can escape from destiny. For that reason Úrsúla the English settled here in these parts, according to this version of the story. The Annals say she later married the merchant Þorleifur ríki of Stapi. Her name, unfortunately, has never been found in the parish registers, but there was a needy anchoress of that name living in a hovel near Búðir in the seventeenth century. The world's unsure and the earth is dung, as it says in the verse. And though I counsel people to believe the Annals only in moderation, there is no doubt that a strange woman has propagated her breed in these parts; her descendants are alive to this day. A host of place-names in the district are associated with her, and always the loveliest places.