Babe the Pig, The End of Innocence

So much of life is revealed when you grow up on a farm. I got to visit with Anna and Sveinn’s four-year-old granddaughter, Alexandra, yesterday for the first visit of this trip. She’s the daughter of their eldest daughter, Guðbjörg--an Icelandic poster woman with her long ice blonde hair, who is also a Crossfit athlete and regional champion on "Snowcross" (like motor or cycle cross races in which multiple contestants start at the same time and compete in a series of loops around a snaking track full of hills and obstacles... but on snow mobiles). 

The family lives with Guðbjörg’s partner about an hour away in the nearby town of Dalvik, on the other side of the Eyjafjörður fjord. I first met Alexandra when she was nearly two and have always been struck by her impish sense of humor– she has a hilarious growl of a laugh, enjoys arm wrestling her beloved afi (grandpa) and even when she was not yet two would take on the task of entertaining the dinner table after completing her fish or lamb by taking the glasses from her Mr. Potato head toy (an apt play thing for a potato farmer’s grandchild) and trying to squeeze them onto still infant-rounded head and cracking herself up. We enjoyed each other’s company and in Anna took to referring to her as “your friend” when telling me she was coming over. 

I had seen her once this trip– the family had stopped by to see the new lambs en route to a party, and Alexandra came downstairs to say hi. She was a little shy at first. Anna explained that she was a bit nervous to talk to me because she didn’t speak English (she had few words in general last time I was here, so that was not a point of self-consciousness). Of course it should be me who was shy about my lack of language, but a proper sense of demure self-flagellation is a little hard to convey to a child. 

It turned out to be a moot point though, when she came back a few days later. I had a present for her of a unicorn headband and board book copy of A Pocket for Corduroy (which I hope will be entertaining later). This broke the ice, and then her shyness quickly melted away as it turned out the headband, with its unicorn point, was hilarious to don and then use to pretend to be a bee and sting me. I happily mimed death, over and over by this method to her great delight. My rudimentary Icelandic included the phrase “where is Alexandra?” key for peek-a-boo with the Pendleton Woolen Mill blanket I’d brought the family for a present last visit, and, one doesn’t need any language beyond the one word phrase “burrito” to understand the hilarity of being wrapped up in said blanket, as if a Mexican delicacy. 

Soon it was 9:00 PM and nearly bath time so it was time to “be more calm,” the wind down phase of a day being a key universal toddler phenomenon, just taking place a bit later in Icelandic May when the days last so long. Rakel was knitting in her barcalounger, and had the movie “Babe” playing, dubbed into Icelandic. It’s arbitrary which non-human animals should speak which human languages, of course, but still, I experienced less cognitive dissonance watching the sheep and sheepdog characters of Babe converse in Icelandic than when I watched the lions do the same in an Icelandic dubbed version of “Lion King.” 

Rakel complemented Alexandra in Icelandic and translated to me that Alexandra had “helped one sheep be born today!” I generally find myself complementing four year olds if they know how to put on a jacket by themselves, so helping to pull out a birthing lamb I found legitimately impressive.

I hadn’t seen Babe in full since its 1995 release when, visiting my grandparents in New Jersey, we went and saw it in the theaters. Thus, I had forgotten most of the key plot points, including the scene where a rogue dog attacks one of the sheep, and Babe is inadvertently framed. The sheep is left bloody on the ground, gurgling its last solemn words in a Shakespearean Icelandic death scene that was surprisingly gorry for a children’s movie. Rakel said something else to Alexandra, I assumed words of comfort, as Alexandra nodded her head in understanding. Rakel then translated to me. “I just told her that if Pilla (the family dog) ever did something like that, Sveinn would shoot her.” 

Comfort comes in many forms…