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Stupid Summer
Lalli wasn’t thrilled to learn Reynir would be visiting Toivosaari. Admittedly, he’d probably have useful information about sheep husbandry. And of course, no one could claim Reynir wouldn’t try to pull his own weight. He was always helpful. So, so helpful. Lalli sighed. But it would be good to hear how things were going in Iceland, and Reynir would go to Sigrun and Mikkel first, so maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.
It was still quite bad. The moment Reynir stepped off Onni’s boat he was waving and yelling like the idiot he was.
“Halló, svo gaman að sjá þig aftur! Það er langt síðan!” Probably a greeting. Stupid Icelandic.
“Hi” Lalli tried to wave his greeting.
But now Reynir was trying to hug Lalli and Emil! Lalli managed to squirm away with minimal contact, but uu-ugh! His stupid braid smelled of sheep (despite him having left Iceland weeks ago), and what was probably the close quarters at the ship.
Unfortunately, Reynir’s arrival was only the first in a series of misfortunes. The entire summer seemed to be particularly unlucky. Items broke. Food was bland, or overly salty. Bread dough wouldn’t rise properly. The vegetable garden had started strong but was now struggling. Some bugs got into the kale, and many of the onions rotted. The carrots were tiny and weird shaped. Stupid carrots.
Their cat went into heat, drawing all the tomcats on the island to serenade around the Hotakainen homestead. Despite their best efforts, she remained empty. This was a disappointment, as she was a fine animal, and they were expecting strong kittens from her.
On one particularly chilly morning, Emil decided to heat the house a little, but when he lit the wood in the oven, the house promptly filled with smoke. A bird had built its nest in the chimney.
Emil tripped on a root on the path to the sauna and hurt his ankle. Lalli banged his head on a branch while out trapping, and the birds he was holding escaped. More than once all traps were disturbed with no prey left. Reynir’s knitting developed weird tangles, and he had to undo almost as much as he gained. Onni was irritable. Even more irritable than usual. He was working on some new runos, but nothing sounded good. And when he tried to do some handcrafts to give his thoughts some time to settle, he ended up breaking his work and cutting his finger. The milk went sour quicker than usual, and the bread got burned very easily. Everything seemed to be a little off.
The worst incident had the makings of a true accident. The sauna was heating, when suddenly Emil jumped up.
“Something’s wrong!” He ran out to see sparks flying from the sauna chimney, and the roof shakes were already smoking. They managed to put the fire out, but Emil was puzzled.
“That was weird! The chimney is by far too tall for that to happen. Something’s not right.”
Lalli agreed. The entire summer had been stupid. At first, he had thought it was just because he was irritated to have Reynir around, but he wasn’t really. Reynir was stupid, but he’d grown used to him. And he had been useful on occasion. But something was wrong, and it wasn’t Reynir. Probably.
Lalli was moping at the shore behind the sauna at one of his usual moping spots, when a pinecone hit him on the head. Pok!
“Ouch! Cut it out!” But there was no one there. And, remarkably, no pines. Another cone hit his back, when he was looking for a culprit.
He said a short placating runo and sat down to observe. After a while, he saw something in the edge of his vision. Or rather, someone. He didn’t look directly but did shift his gaze a bit to make sure he knew the… person. The person was a bit under one meter (about three feet) tall, shaggy, and dark. It was hard to see their face clearly, but the piercing eyes were familiar. It was Koppo, their kotitonttu. Koppo was staring at him sullenly. They threw a third pinecone and were gone.
“Ok everyone. The tonttus are unhappy. I saw Koppo just now.”
“You saw Koppo? Did they say anything?” A stupid question. Emil should know by now that the tonttus didn’t speak to humans, except maybe in grave emergencies. The sauna hadn’t burned down so this wasn’t an actual emergency.
“Of course not. But they made sure I knew.”
“What could it be?” Onni was a bit alarmed.
“(ICELANDIC) You haven’t forgotten to leave the sauna clean for the tonttus, have you Reynir?”
“No, I did just as you instruvted. Besides Lalli and Emil usually go after me. Why do you ask?”
“Lalli saw one of our tonttus. They are unhappy with us.”
“What is a tonttu?”
Yeah, of course. The stupid Icelanders have their elves, but they don’t have proper tonttus for the homes and other buildings. Onni explained to him the basics of the tonttus, the keepers and guardians of the house and the sauna. They were helpful and mostly friendly, unless they got upset. If that happened, they may cause all sorts of harm and even be dangerous.
“(FINNISH) Emil, you have been careful to always put out the bread?”
“Yes, of course. I know it’s important!”
Yes, he did, now. He’d had his share of stumbling over his own feet (even more than he did just because of being Emil), stubbing his toes and stepping on pinecones, but now he was in good terms with the tonttus. Maybe they bonded over his stupid infatuation of fire? The tonttus liked fireplaces, just like Emil.
Onni was explaining the conversation to Reynir, who suddenly looked very awkward.
“(ICELANDIC) Ah, um, the… bread? The bread you guys often bring to the flat stone out in front of the houses?”
“Yes. That bread. The flat stone is our sacrificial stone, although usually just for the tonttus.”
“Ummm… the flat stone under the tree, where I like to sit knitting?”
“Yes, the same.”
“Well… there… may have been some misunderstanding. I never meant to! Honest!”
“You never meant to WHAT?!”
“I never meant to eat any offerings! I thought it was for me! I’m sorry! I never imagined hidden folk lives so very close to human buildings here.”
After a somewhat awkward conversation (and not only because Onni had to translate into stupid Icelandic and back), it was established that Reynir had eaten the offerings for the tonttus, not once but several times during the summer.
It was very, very stupid of him! But he had made a honest mistake. In Iceland the hidden folk live out in nature, in hills and huge boulders. Such weird creatures! It hadn’t occurred to Reynir that the tonttus live at and in the human homes. And because he was always trying to be friendly and polite, it hadn’t occurred to anyone to warn him against disturbing the offerings for the tonttus, because who in their right mind would do that?
After some back and forth it was decided that Reynir will bake extra fine cakes for the tonttus, and Lalli and Onni composed a runo to try and explain. They had not stopped offering, but a misunderstanding had left the tonttus thinking they did. When the cakes were hot out of the oven, Reynir placed them on the stone. The he and Emil withdrew into Lalli and Emil’s house, while Onni and Lalli sat outside singing, with their backs turned to the tree and the sacrificial stone.
When they had been singing for a couple of hours, a pinecone landed on Lalli again. He startled and looked up, to see Pokko on the roof of their house waving at him.
“I think they have decided to give us another chance” Lalli told Onni. The cakes were gone. And there were no more pinecones that summer.
Reynir spent the rest of his visit knitting mittens and scarves in children’s sizes. In August, when it was time to start the journey home before the Saimaa Channel closed again, he left them on the stone.
The winter was free of misfortunes. Late turnips and rutabagas, which are harvested late in the autumn, turned out fine. Ice fishing and trapping were good. Everyone had enough to eat. Sometimes when he was coming home late at night or early in the morning, Lalli would see movement from the corner of his eye. It was Pokko, wearing a beautifully knitted scarf.