Things have been pretty tough in Iceland since the start of the banking crisis back in the fall. The three largest banks in the country all were nationalized to keep them from going under. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown basically called the entire country a nation of frauds and froze a billion pounds of assets in Icelandic banks operating in the U.K. Unemployment has tripled (although it’s still only 4%), and there are persistent anecdotal reports (regularly denied by officials) that the citizens are hoarding food and other supplies out of fear that there will be a political collapse.
So maybe it’s time for the Icelanders to give up on their clean, wholesome, Scandinavian progressive way of living and return to a darker time, when Iceland was populated by Viking marauders, fierce warriors, and, of course, witches and sorcerers. The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft remembers a time when the volcanic isle was home to practitioners of the black arts. Among their exhibits is this replica of a pair of “necropants”, made from the skin of some unfortunate human sacrifice to the underworld. And the whole place is overseen by a huge, terrifying raven:
A couple of Icelandic Viking raids on Scotland and skinning a couple of Labor MPs for necropants, and I’ll bet Gordon Brown would be singing a whole different tune about whose assets are whose.
