I truly enjoy updating the Icelandic legends into modern stories, but it is fun to share versions written by others as I come across them. I hope this brings a smile to your face as it did mine. This was originally posted on 10/27/13 by Liz in Adventures, Destinations, Europe, Iceland
Once upon a time there was a monastery nestled among the
jurassic green hills of southern Iceland. Nearby was the impressive Mýrdalsjökull Glacier, a
mountain of ice looming over the south coast of this unforgiving land.
Run by a friendly abbot, the monastery thrived with
villagers and locals coming to work together and chip in, a community of people
working hard to survive the harsh arctic winters. Among them was the
housekeeper, Katla. Powerful and frightening, it was whispered that she was a
witch, though none dared speak of it to her face.
It was rumored that she used her black powers to create a
magical pair of panties, and whoever wore them could run as fast as the wind
and never get tired.
Feared by
all, including the Abbot, Katla had a terrifying temper and most avoided her
when possible.
The hardest worker in the abbey was a shepherd named Barði.
Simple-minded but friendly to all, Barði’s usual duties were to take care
of the sheep, which if you have ever been to Iceland, you know are EVERYWHERE.
Terrified of Katla, Barði was careful to never offend her,
but sometimes he couldn’t find all the sheep to herd and she punished him.
Voicing his fears to the Abbot, he was told not to worry, that he had no reason
to be afraid of the housekeeper.
“I know I
shouldn’t say anything sir, but it’s Katla. She really, really scares me,”
said Barði in secret one day.
“Don’t worry, my child. We are all God’s creatures, and everyone
can be saved,” the kindly old Abbot replied. Little did he know how much he would
come to regret those worlds. Dun, dun, dun.
One day he returned home from a long day of working in the
fields to find Katla waiting for him. Shaking down to his very boots in
terror, Barði stood silent while Katla yelled that one sheep was missing.
Getting ready to leave for a party with the Abbot, Katla warned poor Barði
that he better find the missing sheep before they returned….OR ELSE!
“If you don’t have that missing lamb back in its pen before I
return, don’t bother coming back!” She cackled!
Scampering
off in fear, Barði panicked about what to do. He spent all day looking and
couldn’t find that one sheep. What to do? What to do?
“If only I had a horse or someway to find that stupid sheep,”
thought Barði to himself.
The sun was starting to set and fearing he would be out at night
looking high and low in the dark, Barði began to panic.
Suddenly the lightbulb clicked on in Barði’s mind. Katla’s
magic panties! If he could find them and wear them, he was sure to find the
missing sheep like THAT!
Running to
her room, Barði searched high and low until he found the magical black
undies. Pulling them on, he ran like a bat of hell all over the farms and
fields until he found the missing little lamb.
Hightailing it back to the monastery sheep in tow, he quickly
put Katla’s panties back where he found them and waited for them to return,
pleased with his quick thinking.
Little did he know that Katla was all-powerful, and knew
immediately what he had done. Livid with Barði for both stealing her
underwear and trying to outwit him, Katla lured the poor shepherd down to the
wine cellar (though, let’s be honest here, I would be pretty peeved if some guy
wore my undies, magical or otherwise!)
“You stole
my magical panties, I know it!” Shrieked Katla at the cowering shepherd among dusty bottled
of red wine and mead. “No one could find a sheep like that so fast in the
dark!”
Shoving
poor Barði into a giant vat of wine, Katla drowned the shepherd in a fit of
rage. Leaving him inside the vat til spring, she went back to work as if
nothing happened. The Abbot and everyone else at the monastery thought he
disappeared while looking for the sheep.
After a few months, the weather grew warmer and the level of
wine was dropping so low Katla was sure the Abbot would find Barði’s body
sooner rather than later. Fearing discovery, Katla ran away from the monastery
as fast as she could towards the Mýrdalsjökull Glacier.
Jumping into a crack in the ice, Katla the witch wormed her way
below, discovering a dormant volcano beneath the glacier. Searching for the
entrance, she finally found her way inside, burrowing her way into the volcano.
Shortly after there was a huge eruption, causing a tidal wave glacial flood all
over the south coast of Iceland, destroying everything in its path.
Since that day, the volatile volcano that sleeps beneath
Mýrdalsjökull has been known as Katla, and even now she causes fear among
foreigners and Icelanders alike.
