Hrip Farm enters The Private Papers of Crocodile Uppsala in Book Eleven Chapter 174 but we will pick up the tale a few chapters earlier. Aslak is a fulmar…fulmarus glacialis...with family around the Arctic Circle. Once he spoke of dinosaurs as his ancestors. But for Aslak modern fulmar history starts a quarter of a millennium ago with small fulmar settlements on Jan Mayen, on Grímsey off Iceland and on the islands of St Kilda to the west of the Outer Hebrides. Aslak is descended from the Grímsey Fulmars.

In 1978 the Grímsey Fulmars celebrated the centenary of the family’s first successful nesting on Foula, outermost of the Shetland Islands. By 1900 Aslak’s family were breeding along the North Scottish coast. By the 1920s they were being sighted all along the east coast of England as far south as the Humber Estuary and along the north coast of Ireland in Derry and Donegal. By the end of the 1940s fulmars were breeding on the northern shores of East Anglia around the whole of the coast of Ireland and on the north coast of Cornwall and Devon in the Bristol Channel. By the beginning of the 1950s the only stretch of these offshore islands unfamiliar with the sight of fulmars breeding was the coastline 150 miles either side of Rye…to Brixham in the west and to Boston in the north.

In the Landnámabók there is a story about a Norwegian called Grímur who went to Iceland looking for land. He arrived in late summer and settled temporarily on Grímsey in Steingrímsfjördur in the north. Aslak was there. In the autumn Grímur went fishing…his young son Thórir lying safely tucked into a sealskin bag fastened at the neck in the prow of the boat. Suddenly Grímur hooked a merman, and when he had hauled him to the surface, Grímur asked about their futures. ‘Where in Iceland should we settle?’

The merman replied that there was little point in making prophecies about Grímur…implying that he had not long to live…but the boy in the sealskin bag would settle and claim land at the spot where Grímur’s mare, Skölm, lay down under her load. Not another word could Grímur get out of the merman but as in all good sagas it all went as the fates decreed. Eventually Sel-Thórir settled at Raudamelur Ytri…Outer Red Hill…where the modern highway to Snaefellsnes swings westwards into the peninsular.

Not so long ago I overheard Aslak telling Marley some more of the story. When Sel-Thórir was old and blind he went out one evening and saw a huge evil-looking man come rowing into Kaldárós…Cold River Estuary…in an iron boat. The man walked up to a farm called Hrip and started digging at the door of the sheep-shed. There was a volcanic eruption there that night and from here runs the lava field of Borgarhraun. Where the farm had stood there is now a crater. I got the impression that Aslak hoped Marley could throw some light on the identity of the man by the sheep-shed. But he’s a dark sheep that one. And so to the last of our horroscopes.

Leo (July 23 - Aug 22): You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are an idiot. Most Leo's are bullies. You are vain and cannot tolerate criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people are thieving bastards. Virgo (Aug 23 - Sept 22): You are the logical type and hate disorder. Your shit-picking attitude is sickening to your friends and co-workers. You are cold and unemotional and often fall asleep while doing it. Virgo's make good bus drivers and pimps. Libra (Sept 23 - Oct 22): You are the artistic type and have a difficult time dealing with reality. If you are a male you are probably queer. Chances are employment and monetary gain are nil. Most Libra women are slappers and get VD.