Ketkrókur is cunning and resourceful, even for the Lads’ already high standards of cunning and resourcefulness. What Ketkrókur does better than any other is “fishing” the traditional smoked lamb with a hooked pole.
He's the tallest of the brothers. That cross of troll, elf and human ancestry gave him a very long and rather stiff pair of legs. Legend says he walks as though they were made of wood, and he has to use a long walking stick to be able to walk properly.
Folklore also says Stekkjarstaur is not interested so much in eating sheep as in drinking the ewes' milk (people did make cheeses and other dairy products from sheep's milk in the old days). He would try to do this by bending under the ewes and squeezing their milk from the udders into his eager, open mouth. This was a good plan in theory, but having such long legs made it difficult for Stekkjarstaur to bend down to steal milk. He'd have to contort himself like a pretzel, no easy feat. He also wasted a lot of time, on occasion, because it took too long to dig a hole under the sheep for the ladder.
His favorite strategy consists in lowering his hook through the kitchen chimney. He can steal heaps of this Icelandic delicacy using this peculiar technique. If you have no chimney is your festive dinner safe then, you’ll ask? I don’t honestly know.
Icelandic
Ketkrókur, sá tólfti,
kunni á ýmsu lag.
-Hann þrammaði í sveitina
á Þorláksmessudag.
Hann krækti sér í tutlu,
þegar kostur var á.
En stundum reyndist stuttur
stauturinn hans þá.
English
Meat Hooker, the twelfth one,
Knew a thing or two.
-He marched into the country
On St. Thorlak's Day.
He hooked a bit of meat
Whenever he could.
But often a little short
was at times his staff.
Berglind, Iceland24
December 2014
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