Words for Wednesday Á Íslandi 3

Please! all reading this go to Elephant's Child's place to find the prompts, read some good stories, and be inspired to write your own.
  This is a challenge, where the old saying "The more the merrier" holds true, therefore: Please, remember to go back, read other peoples' stories there or follow their links back. And please leave a comment after reading. Challenges like this one thrives on interaction.

  This Wednesday I wrote: "This week's prompts are two times six words. I continued the story of Susan and Knud going to Iceland. It's a bit 'drafty' and as is my wont just stops where I ran out of steam, but as there's more story inside my head -- and more words, I used them in the order they were given -- I promise to continue given half a chance in the coming days."
  Now having used three more words: Dreams, Meet, and Spider, I still promise the same: 

   Bird
    Lifetime
    Impossible
    Days
    Dreams
    Meet
And/or
    Spider
    Thread
    Secret
    Thing
    Author
    Recesses

I repeat the last paragraph from this Wednesday:

Upstairs were no wands or grimoires, it was dedicated to the stories of persecutions and genealogy of Icelandic witches and wizards. They were encouraged to try and trace their own families back, if they had any Icelandic forebears. Only the old professor wanted a go and Rósa showed him how it worked by tracing her own family tree back to a wizard burned at the stake in the 1670es.
  Both Susan and Knud noticed with satisfaction that Rósa's father was Sigurd Yngvasson, which they knew to be the name and patronymic of "their" Rósa's father.

After the other visitors were left to their own device either looking through the genealogic files, having a coffee or even a three course dinner in the restaurant, Rósa bade Knud and Susan accompany her to her office for a cup of tea and a talk. "I have a couple of other wands, both old and replicas in my office, no need to remove the exhibits from their showcases," Rósa said.
  Of course Susan was easily able to pick out the old wands from the samples in Rósas office, with one exception.

"No? That one is actually an old wand. We found it in ... Let me see, yes Kaldrananeskirkja. Impressive name for a small hamlet, " Rósa said smiling over the rim of her teacup.

"Very much so," Susan answered. "And don't expect me to repeat that. I remember the trouble I had with Eyafjallajökull."

"That was one of the finest samples of Icelandic pronunciation I ever heard form a Dane, your teachers can be proud of you. How long have you been studying?"

"I began as a very young girl, 13 or thereabout, but then I did not do anything about it for over 40 years, I just recently picked it up again, I was not a very good student, when I was young, Gilvi and Thora almost gave up on me," Susan admitted. "But I love languages, and Icelandic has always had a big place in my heart."

"Gilvi and Thora, you say. I think I knew them, or maybe it's from one of my dreams, or it might be another couple, Neither name are uncommon here," Rósa said, looking through the window, far out over the sea.

"Your dreams? Susan said, genuine wonder colouring her voice

"My dreams," Rósa said hesitantly, still watching the sea. "They have become more and more vivid, since I began working at this museum. They have to do with magic. In my dreams I go to school, I meet other magicians, I fly a broomstick, I do magic ... but it's a dream, just a dream. Only they are so vivid. Sometimes I wake up wishing it was true."

"But it is," Susan said quietly. "what I said about woodturning was ... well, not exactly a lie, but not the whole truth. I can see, in some of the new wands, the traces of newer woodturning techniques, but only vaguely, I cannot tell with any certainty if they are old or new. But I can feel the magic in some of those wands. Magic really do exist. Not the superstitious kind, making that girl love you, or neighbour's cream not turn into butter variety, but real, honest to God, magic."

  Susan stopped and looked at Rósa, who sat still as a mouse, gazing out over the ocean. Susan continued: "I know it's hard to believe. There's so much phony, so much wannabe magic around. Like the wand from Kaldrananeskirkja. Someone made the susceptible inhabitants of that hamlet believe that he or she could do magic, and as magic - the phony kind is as much in the mind of the receiving part as in the practitioner he might have succeeded. For instance those sigils, staves, you call them, here in the museum, are not true magic. They are some kind of sympathetic magic, more like a weak potion than anything else. But still they work ... You know, like ... like that unsecure boy, loving miss Right at a distance, not believing that she even notices him. Then Mr. Shy goes to the local wise one, gets a love-stave, carries it to the next ball, and then, when Miss Right looks at him, which she will eventually do, if she's not totally uninterested, then Mr. Shy believes that the stave is working, self confidence growing - maybe aided by a drop of liquid courage - he goes over and asks her for a dance, still believing tin the 'magic' and then, well nature will do the rest."

Rósa slowly nodded, and Susan carried on: "Or let's take Mrs. Lazy not being able to make butter. Given a stave, and hiding it under the churn, she'll churn on energetically, on the lookout for glimpses of butter - which of course she will eventually see, as anybody who ever tried whipping cream and inadvertently making butter can attest will happen. Then she will happily churn on, seeing the results. Staves are means to overcome people's innate inhibitions or faults, they are not real magic."

Rósa turned to Susan: "Then what is?" she asked, her voice low and strained.

Susan looked at the wand in her hand, then back at Rósa and continued: "Flying broomsticks, brewing potions, calling animals, healing the sick ... Do you remember the 4H courses you participated in as a child?"

"What a strange question, but yes I do. I even sometimes talk about them with Finnbogi, we were there together. We have happy, yet strangely vague memories of those summers. We sometimes remember tiny details in great clarity. We both remember a spider, we found in a stable one summer, but we cannot remember what we were taught."

"Is Finnbogi at work today?" Knud asked. He had been sitting quietly next to Susan, and Rósa had almost forgotten that he was there.

"Yes, Knud, he is," Rósa answered.

"You know my name?" Knud said with a gentle smile. "I did not tell you."

Rósa looked at him in astonishment: "But you are Knud, aren't you? Knud from that 4H-summer school. I remember you. And Susan ... It's all in my memories and my dreams, all woven together, just like those old, magic knots woven from multicoloured strands of thread."

"Do you think you could make Finnbogi join us?" Knud asked. "We owe you an explanation, and it's easier telling the tale only once."

"I'll make him come at once," Rósa said and picked up the phone. She spoke in rapid Icelandic, and while she did so, Susan swung the old wand, she had been holding and cast the Mál Sameinast spell.

Finnbogi arrived, bringing his tea mug and sat down at the table.

"So as not to cause any misunderstandings I'm going to continue in Icelandic," Susan began when they were seated.

... to be continued