of Böggvir, Amur and Allsvartur, two tree apartments had become free.
What do you ask? Why only two apartments, when there were three wretches?
You know, it's because Böggvir and Amur had also shared a tree apartment. So did Tamin and I. Their apartment was very big, so we decided in a meeting that after their banishment Gosi should set up his workshop there. I tell you, if we didn't have Gosi, we would probably all be sitting on the floor, sleeping and eating. After all, it is he who makes us such beautiful furniture and can always fix anything that has broken. We all love him very much for that.
Quite often Reifur embellishes our furniture with moss. He is a real master at that.
But at first I was a bit skeptical when I heard that it was about Allsvartur's tree apartment. Everything about Allsvartur was black. His clothes and also the furnishings of his apartment. How awful, don't you think? It is much nicer to have colorful clothes and also colorful pictures on the walls, isn't it?
He called himself 'Allsvartur', which translated into human language means 'the deep black one'. And let me tell you, when I first entered the apartment, my hair stood on end under my wight cap.
He had blackened everything with the coal from the cooled campfire. And I really mean everything: his bed, the table, the walls, his shelf, and even his chair. Horrible, really horrible. To make the paint last and not rub off every time he touched it, he covered everything in his apartment with the resin from the trees. It was always so dark in his house that none of us wanted to visit him.
Everyone talked me through it and with the active support of my dear friends we were able to turn this dark place into a truly 'golden' home for me. Gosi, for example, built me a new table with two matching chairs and, at my request, a really great shelf in my reading corner, where all my books have found their place.
Even the shy Styggur (he is pronounced Stügur in human language), who actually does not like to be active with the rest of us, gave me a self-made lamp.
The gift from Reifur, however, was the big hit: He had covered his old wing chair, which Gosi had previously repaired, with fresh moss especially for me and presented me with two cushions embroidered by him to go with it. Oh, I love to snuggle into the armchair with the high back and the thick cushions. The cover is so wonderfully soft that I have fallen asleep many a time while reading.
And Pokki gave me a big plate full of homemade cookies for moving in, which we all had to snack on. Some tasted like wild strawberries, others like nuts. But once again, the most delicious were the cookies that tasted like herbs. He is always trying out new recipes and has already written a very thick book about them. Of course, he is very proud of this and lets us try his new delicacies every now and then. But I'll tell you a secret now:
Sometimes they don't taste at all or are totally charred and when he asks us in his great joy if we like them, we usually just nod so as not to fib. But please don't tell him.
Oh dear, I actually wanted to tell you why my home is 'golden'. Please forgive me, I am sometimes a bit scatterbrained and ramble on while telling you.
Well, word got around that I would be moving into Allsvartur's tree apartment, and quite a few people were horrified. So Gulltoppur's suggestion to help me with the renovation was most welcome. Gulltoppur has an absolute knack for mixing paint. Especially nice, is the golden color. He claims to make it from an ancient and secret fairy recipe from his great-great-grandmother.
So there he was, standing in the middle of my new apartment: with a big bucket of this impossibly beautiful paint in one hand and a second bucket of white paint in the other. He could not be dissuaded from painting the walls white, as well as many a piece of furniture gold. I already knew the golden color, but was once again deeply impressed. At the second bucket, however, my gaze was really stuck.
"My goodness, I've never seen such white paint. How do you manage to do that?", I asked him.
"You know, I mix all my own colors. We've always done it that way in my family. For example, if you mix the light colors blue and green, you get the color turquoise. On the other hand, if you mix red and green, you get the color yellow. And now hold on: if you mix them all together, i.e. blue, green, turquoise, red and yellow, you get the color white."
At that point I was actually flabbergasted and very happy that he had explained it to me so well.
My dear Tamin brought me self-sewn orange and white checkered curtains and a matching tablecloth, Pokki decorated my dining table, dresser and even a niche located in the tree with self-picked bouquets of beautiful forest and meadow flowers. Gosi had given me a door sign with my name on it and from Pegjandi I got a rug made of straw.
My new apartment was perfect.
My dear neighbor
Oh no, I actually wanted to check on Galdur, who had a problem with some knot. Ts ... ts ... ts ... I so often forget the time while telling the story. So, now I'm really going to walk briskly to him.
No sooner said than done.
"Galdur, dear friend," I said, when I had walked around the tree and saw him sitting on the forest floor in front of his front door. "Can I be of any help to you?"
"Now look at this, Snørgl. I got a new hammock from Svipdapur today and didn't hang it up with him right away, silly me. I had to sweep up the fallen leaves in front of the tree first, so that I can fill my cushion again. And now it's all tangled up and the ends have turned into one big knot. Can you please help me untangle it? I'm pretty annoyed!" he said, holding the tangled hammock out to me with such a desperate expression on his face that I had to laugh out loud.
Galdur
"Sorry, your expression really should be painted! I can barely contain myself," I said laughing and grabbing the hammock at the same time.
It actually took us quite a while to untie the knots and attach the hammock.
"Do you think we can really all go on a dream trip together someday?" he asked me as we sat together outside his apartment on the tree stumps that Gosi had worked on. Now they almost looked like garden furniture.
"Well, I can't really imagine how that would work. But I'd really like to do it. That would certainly be a lot of fun. Fortunately, my last dream trip was some time ago, but I'm always happy when the lucky children smile again and forget their worries. But you'd better tell me why you had a fight with Vökull a few days ago."
Thoughtfully he looked at me.
"We didn't quarrel. I was just annoyed with him because he wouldn't stop pimping Styggur."
"Why? What was he doing?"
"Oh, you know, Styggur is in love with Sóla, after all, and every time he sees her he gets red in the face, starts stuttering, and finally runs away. It's not okay to tease him about it all the time and make him look ridiculous. It annoyed me and I guess that's why I got a little louder with him. I did apologize to him about it a short time later. But only because I was loud and not because of what I said to him."
He was really right about that. I had also noticed Styggur's behavior. But that you make fun of it is really not nice. I think it's very good that Galdur spoke to Vökull about it. But what I find just as great: he apologized to him because he had become so loud. I wonder if he suspected that it happened to me with Lýsa in the same way as it happened to Styggur with Sóla. Surely everyone suspected that I was also in love with an elf. With the most beautiful of all elves... with my Lýsa. But none