Jónki and I are not any priority-workers here where sheep has been gathered in the autumn.
(aðal-maður)
But we try to be of some use.
It is so difficult not to have grown up.
Jónki is a nick-name for Jón (---or rather one of the nick-names for Jón; also: Nonni and Jónsi---))
Réttir are the round-up of sheep in autumn, before winter hits the mountains, where sheep graze wild all summer.
(síl-spikaður;
Iceland pony is referred to as a horse French & English pony German, Scandinavian, Dutch, Icelandic: hestur; smala-hundur)
Note;
The flock of sheep, is chased slowly from the wilderness. There is sheep’s bleat and whining.
The horses are sweaty, men shout to urge the flock of sheep to move on, some sheep show stampede, the poor rams are out of breath, as they are very fat after the summer of grazing in the highlands.
My little bitch is cooling off by letting her tongue drop out of her mouth.
I am trying to train her to be a good sheep-dog. Jónki did not take a dog with him to gather the sheep from the wilderness of the mountains. His puppy is still too young to be taken to this kind of sheep-gathering.
It is nice to see the flock approach, but we have to keep them close together. (They still want to run back to their summer-freedom.)
One and one sheep tries to get away.
-Well, boys, Sigurður says, -run and get them back to the flock.
-Now try to show us how efficient you are, boys.
Quick. - Hurry.
Jónki has been running a lot more than I have today.
Well, he owns sheep. I don´t.
Jónki finnur
Jónka-Golsa
All the sheep is now in the main part of the fence, and the farmers have begun to find their sheep and drag them to their private section of the fence.
Jónki finds one of his sheep.
-Well, boys, Sigurður says, -now go and get her.
(i.e. the largest, main and middle section of rétt (/sheep-fence)))
Golsa, the sheep that Jónki owns, stands there unmoving. Completely motionless.
Well, she tramps down her fore-foot twice, showing us her stubbornness. (this indicates her readiness to resist being caught)
It is much better to own horned sheep than polled ones, I think.
Golsa is not in the mood of having us drag her.
(sheep-name Golsa refers to color gols+ótt)
And Siguður laughs and dares us.
-You cannot get the reputation that you cannot draw one ewe - two of you together.
The farmers are amused.
No little jump that Golsa takes, when at last she decides to move!
I am not so sure that I am ever going to own sheep when I grow up.
Jónki is going to become a farmer who has
Well, it does not hurt even if one falls a little bit, because there is a thick layer of shit/mud in the fence.
-Perhaps you then try to cope with the red ram, boys, Sigurður says.
-It belongs to your dad, Jón. Now just put him into his appropriate fence section of the rétt.
No, actually, the red one does not seem to be something that we can cope with.
We better not make fools of ourselves. The older boys would just laugh if we cannot pull him anywhere (/cope with him).
We find one of Jónki´s lambs, a beautiful she-lamb, and drag it into his dad’s section where the lambs that will be slaughtered are kept.
Then we decide to take a little rest.
Go inside to grandma and have some milk and kleina.
(fal-leg; slátur-lömb; á-kveða; svo-lítið)
(kleina is the Icelandic twisted doughnut)
She
Budda, the cheeky little brat, is in the brook playing.
She is far too young to help with the sheep.
is a
See what a stupid little thing she is: She is pouring brook-water into the milk!
-Budda, you mustn´t do this, Jónki shouts to her. -Grandma becomes angry.
-Come, Budda. We shall show you something.
-Come, and have a look at the queer fly that is in the lamb-shed. We are not mocking you.
(svo lítið, svo-lítið; lamb-hús
ekk-ert = ekki neitt)
Just come and have a look.
þú; sjá þú)
Then we take Budda to the lamb-shed.
But there is no fly there. We were just playing a trick on her.
We run out and close the door.
Budda screams and screams. What a temperament (/cheek).
She yells so loudly that her mom can hear her all the way into the farmhouse.
-Big boys as you are bullying a little innocent girl who is just playing outside.
-Yes, but she was pouring water into the milkcontainer.
-Now go where the sheep is and try to be of some use.
And tell a lie, on top of all. Budda cannot get the lid off the milk-container.
Shame on you. Bully those who are weaker than you are, big boys.
þið
is rude / ruddalegt (rudda-legt))
We walk slowly to the sheep-fence again.
Well, she did address us as “big boys”.
We let go of the idea of getting a kleina for now.
Budda’s mother is most likely telling gramma what happened.
Of course we shouldn´t have locked her up. But, little kids are, simply, so stupid. (á-reiðan+lega; vit-laus)
That was, of course, long long ago:
-I went with mom to the slaughterhouse to buy meat and such stuff to make haggis and meat-paté, and then I saw a wheelbarrow full of bloody lambheads.
(vit-laus; slátur-hús; svo-leiðis; hjól-börur; lamba-hausar)
-Shall I tell you, Jónki, how stupid I was once, when I was very young?
-Hver
-Slátrarinn,
-Slátrarinn
Var
-Who killed all the lambs!?? I exclaimed, terribly upset, man! (wrong past tense of the verb drepa should be drap hver drap…. “drepti” = röng þátíð (þá-tíð) af sögninni drepa á að vera hver drap….
-The butcher, mom replied.
-The butcher is simply evil, I said. and then I refused to taste lamb-meat (/mutton) for a long time afterwards.
Was I not stupid when I was a small kid? (lamba-kjöt vit-laus)
We sit down on the wall around the sheep-fence.
-The only sensible thing to do is to have enough to eat, Jónki says.
(To my mind, his voice sounds a bit too cocky.)
He shows me the lambs that he is going to send to the slaughterhouse.
I am rather glad that I am not a lamb.
(réttar-veggur; ekk-ert (ekki neitt);
(óþarfur = unnecessary); manna+legur; (feginn = thankful; relieved))
I don´t want to let Jónki know what I am thinking: It must be very sad to be eaten.
I am contemplating the idea of becoming a vegetarian.
I do not want Jónki to know that either.
-Well, the only right thing to do is to have enough meat, Jónki repeats (/says again), and this time sounding even more selfimportant that he was before.
(ó-sköp; leiðin+legt; græn-metis-æta)
The whining of the lambs who are calling their mothers, sounds in the ears and I try not to think about the slaughterhouse. END OF STORY (sögu-lok)