By Michael Bloor
(first published in THE DRABBLE, Sept 7th 2018)
Beyond the barren rubble of an antique lava-flow, a herd of Icelandic ponies graze on rough pasturage among rashes and dwarf birch. A stallion sniffs the breeze; mares and foals snuffle among the grass and herbs. The stirring and shifting of their manes and tails seem all of a piece with the jagged mountain silhouettes on the horizon and the jumbled lava – a wild, young, restless country. I turn to Guðmundur: ‘Those horses … they’re almost an emblem of freedom.’
Guðmundur paused, smiled and shook his head: ‘My grandfather made his living selling them to work down the Scottish mines.’