On Drangey Island in Skagafjörður in Iceland puffins lay their eggs, Only one each year. However there is something Demonic lurking in the tall cliff faces where the birds nest. Legend has it that when the locals would scale the cliff faces to harvest eggs from the nests for their tea, a demon would reach out of a cave and send them to their deaths!
Fortunately, there was a saint, Guðmundur the good, well, actually a bishop as the Catholic church has not recognised him as as a saint, although by all accounts he was pretty awesome; very good at dealing with demons, this one in Drangey among others!
Guðmundur visited Drangey and blessed the island with holy water. The demon showed himself and asked Guðmundur to stop his blessing, making the case that even evil needed a place to live. Guðmundur thought this fair enough and cordoned of part of the island for the creature to live. After that every one went on harvesting puffin eggs from the other part of island for their tea! Which is a bit sorrowful as puffins only lay one egg. Maybe Guðmundur thought the demon was actually doing the puffins a service by maintaining their population!
Comments will be approved before showing up.
With the exception of artists, inventors, and teenagers - we humans are diurnal daytime creatures on the whole, and although it’s one thing to be out and about during the night in a street lit urban environment, it’s a very different scenario if you find yourself in, say… oh, I don’t know, a forest per se. Where, if you’re lucky, you may hear the unmistakable cry or hoot of an Owl: natures very own nocturne, a stark reminder of the unknown peril of night, and a creature that has featured heavily in myth and folklore throughout the ages.
Daniel Mackie
Author