Tochts fae Tushie Truncherfaece
Less a less, for sicca ess!
Hit wis da sam da last time yon volcano gied aff. I got da blame for da smell. I wis joost a peerie trow playin on da hill in 1821 when my midder accused me.
“Tushie, is yon dee? I should niver hiv let dee aet aa yon kale dastreen,” she said waftin a claa afore her snirled up nose.
“Hit’s no me, Mam,” I insisted.
Da guff laek rotten eiggs niver left wis aa day. Den da clood o ess cam. Back den naebody kent whit it wis. For mair dan a year da ess cam an gied.
An it wis nae idder dis time. As soon as Meenie sniffit da sulphur she wis on tae me. “Tushie, is yon dee? Whit has du been aetin?”
“Du needna blame me,” I telt her. “Yon’s Eyjafjallajökull without a doot.”
Meenie draaed doon her broos in puzzlement.
“It’s Icelandic for ‘island mountains’ glacier’, my dear. It’s a volcano.”
So Meenie wis treatit tae a lecture on aathing I kent aboot da volcano. Da last time she erupted wis in 1821. Of coorse, den da neeghbourin Katla erupted an aa. Ejyafjallajökull is peerie in comparison tae Katla. Dey’ve baith geen aff wan eftir da idder tree times ower da last thoosan years. But thankfully da peerie een has erupted on her ain far mair aften. So hoopfully we dunna need tae faer Katla. Imagine da steuch dat wid be!
Noo, wir heard mair dan enoch aboot hoo humans hiv been pitten oot by dis volcano. Whit an onkerry wi aa dis cancelled planes. But hiv we heard onything aboot hoo Iceland’s peerie fokk, trolls, ogres an giants hiv been copin? Not wan mention o dem in da media.
Whit aboot da huldufólk? Dey ir da nearest thing Iceland has tae trows. Huldufólk means hidden fokk as dey ir rarely seen. Da hidden fokk believe volcanoes haad eevil speerits. So whit ir dey maakin o aa dis magma, ice an ess?
Da fokk in Iceland ir bidin inside an wearin masks when dey geng oot tae protect dem fae da ess. Dey ir worried dat animals will breath hit in an no be weel. I hoop da hidden fokk hae da sense tae bide undergroond.
An den dir is da giants an trolls. Some o dem ir an afo size. Dey bide among da mountains an ir nearly as big as dem. Ir dey high up enoch tae shock on dis ess? Whit a tocht.
Dir is wan troll I hae nae faer for. Gryla, Iceland’s maist weel kent troll, is a tough aald ogre. She has da hairiest, wartiest an snurtiest nose iver kent o. An A’ll no even mention her teeth. Ill luckit wi men trolls, she’s been married tree times an has 72 bairns. Whit a mooths tae feed!
Centuries ago Gryla wis kent for her 15 tails. On each tail she kerried a bag foo o filskit human bairns. She wid tak dem intae da mountains an steer dem intae her muckle pot. Her 72 peerie trolls wid git a feed o bairn stew.
For a mercy a laa wis passed in 1746 stopping fokk fae maakin bairns fairt wi stories aboot Gryla. So she laid her tails tae rest an became a mair ordinary troll. Weel, as ordinary as you can be wi 300 heads, each wi tree een.
Gryla has bidden in Iceland for centuries so has seen twartree eruptions in her time. An wi 20 active volcanoes in Iceland in 2010 she’ll laekly see twartree mair. A’m sure dat even if Katla erupts, Gryla wunna bat an eyelid. Not even wan o da 900 she has.
Here’s hoopin Iceland’s volcanoes lie in paece,
Tushie Truncherfaece x
