A monument has been added to the public space in Reykjavik.
A lost story that has been traveling around the
faroe Islands by word of mouth since before 1944.
The story tells that when Denmark was the occupying power of Iceland,
a vulcano island erupted at the shores. It is told that the Danes sailed
to the island and while planting the Danish flag claimed the island with
surrounding water territory to be theirs.
Immediately after the Danes had planted the flag on the island, it sank into
the cold waters with the flag. It is said that the Icelandic people stood
laughing at the shore watching this event.
In 2007 we travelled to Iceland, where we reenacted the whole
story, but this time bringing the flag back to shore, where it was embedded
in a concrete public monument that describes the event in a modern saga story.
The monument is to be found in Lækjartorg Park in the middle of
Reykjavik city, where it now puzzles spectators of its origin, credibility and
transformation from myth to truth.
Collaboration with Søren Thilo Funder.
The story the Danish wanted to forget
Saw from the oceans new island of fire rise at the shores of Iceland,
at the time a Danish colony. Wanting to secure jurisdiction. Ownership
of the silverfish. Sailed to island with greed in their eyes and their
red and white flag, two Danes in the name of the king. As soon as they
struck the flag into the new soil, earth sank into the sea and
aldurnari (element from askur yggdrasill) did laugh and smirk like the
islanders that saw the deed.
Much later to the land ice two Danes arrived. On a journey around the
colonized Færeyjar they found this forgotten story that had been kept
alive by oral traditions for a long time. They wanted to preserve this
story and take it back home. So they created an island from crude oil
at the shore of Iceland and wanted to mark it with a Danish flag, but
the island sank from as soon as the flag touched it. After much
hardship they managed to escape from the ice cold sea but the island
sank with a small whimper into lives ocean. The only thing they managed
to rescue was the flag and the story but the island lurks at the edge
of Iceland.
Rescued from the fists of the ocean and neatly folded the colonists
flag will be sealed for the eternity to come within a concrete box.
The story goes in triple circle from island to island and those that
still have to sing to the flag preserve stories that the colony would
like to keep forgotten.
Sagan sem Danir vildu gleyma
Sér úr Ægi eldeyju nýja rísa við Íslands strendur sem þá
var nýlenda
Danmerkur. Með áfergju lögsögu vildu tryggja. Silfurfiskinn
eiga.
Sigldu að eyju með græðgiblik í augum og sinn rauðhvíta
fána, tveir
Danir í umboði konungs. Um leið og þeir stungu fána í hina
nýju jörð,
seig fold í mar og aldurnari hló og glotti sem og
eyjaskeggjar sem á
horfðu.
Löngu síðar áðu land á ísa eyju tveir Danir og vildu
endurheimta þessa sögu og taka heim með sér. Báðu
eyjaskeggja um björg þegar eyjan þeirra undan þeim
sökk en græðgiblikið hafði tekið sér bólfestu í eylandsins
fólki og aðeins fyrir greiðslu úr mari fyrrum nýlenduherrum
yrði bjargað. Við illan leik þau sluppu úr ísaköldum sjó og
eyjan sem þau byggðu úr hráolíu sökk með hægu andvarpi í
lífsins haf. Það eina sem tókst að bjarga var fáninn og
sagan en eyjan marar við jaðar Íslands.
Sjórekinn og samanbrotinn nýlendufáni um aldir alda
innsiglaður í
steinsteyptan kassa. Sagan fer í þrefaldan hring frá eyju
til eyju og
þeir sem enn þurfa að syngja til fánans geyma sögur
sem nýlendan vildi helst gleyma.
Monument inscription and saga written by author Birgitta
Jonsdottir