One of the
Makers of the Universes one day decided to play with Elements.
Thor was
his name, and he was very popular among the Makers: he had been awarded an
important prize for the most beautiful coastline having drawn Norway's.
He felt
ready for a new challenge.
Earth,
water, air, fire: the Greek would have built the philosophy of nature on these,
he was to make a country out of them. The most beautiful of all countries on
Planet Earth in the Milky Way Galaxy.
He was not
afraid to play with fire and shaped some volcanoes and scattered them nicely
along a gorge reaching very deep, at the very heart of the earth, where life
originated from, and he had fire meet with water so that water could extinguish
the most burning ones, being in turn warmed by them.
Such lively encounter
needed holes to let the energy out and the Maker thought that some hot springs
would have added beautifully to the rugged landscape and provided shelter and
comfort to the dauntless hikers that were to walk the valleys and climb the slopes.
He also made some pools intermittently emit hot water in high gushes, that were
to get more than one cry of wonder from passers-by.
He was not
done with fire. He had the volcanoes erupt and had the lava gently flow down
the sides, finding its way through the rocks and the fields, and then he waited
for it to cool off, and enjoyed the black streaks through the brilliant greens.
He added some extra red and ochre touches, feeling like a painter mixing colors
on his palette.
He also liked the lava to paint some sandy beaches and felt they
matched so well with the deep blue waters. He waited some more and arranged the
volcanic rocks to create imposing cliffs overlooking the ocean, strong enough
to stand the storms but also pliant to the waters and the winds, willing and
happy to change their shape, in a festive reunion of all the elements.
And as for
water, he almost felt overwhelmed by all the possibilities. He was kind of
biased to water, he liked it falling, running, storming, he liked it clear and
he liked it dark, he liked it gentle and he liked it strong. So he had rain and
snow and storms; and then he made water run down the mountains, through the
planes, down into the fissures and out to the sea. He made rivers and streams
and creeks, and lakes and puddles, and he placed waterfalls everywhere, some
elegant and thin like organza and some powerful and majestic and awe-inspiring.
He had water meet with chilly air from the Ocean and the North and had it
freeze and create the most strange figures in ice, always melting, always
changing, always rearranging themselves. Hence, he decided, the name: Iceland.
And then he
placed this land he loved so much in the centre of the Ocean, so that the air
could freely roam and start all over again.
He
understood he could play forever with the Elements in Iceland and smiled.
* special thanks to Philip José Farmer and The World of Tiers
