From Iceland — Sour Grapes & Stuff: Issue 12, 2015

Words by

Say your piece, voice your opinion, send your letters to: letters@grapevine.is

––––––––––

On Aug 12, 2015, at 8:58 PM, Ana Maria wrote:

Hi! I’m a freelance journalist and I would like to do a story for the british press about the baby seal fed to the foxes situation. I know your magazine has done some articles on this subject.

Hey Ana,
Thanks for writing. Answers inline.

– I understood that the Zoo staff has (or had) an autumn barbecue where they sacrifice and eat animals from the zoo. Is this true?

Yes, every year at Mabon—the mid-harvest festival of the autumn equinox—the zoo staff dons its ceremonial robes and engages in ritual killings of animals that have proven worthy (during the Zoo’s extensive Summer Trials) or especially annoying (or come from a tasty lineage). Once the slaughter has peaked, they bathe themselves in blood as the animal flesh cooks to a tasty, succulent texture in the Zoo’s fire pit altar.

– Why do they choose to eat them instead of releasing them into the wild?

It’s not so much a matter of choice, as it is one of common sense. First of all, The Zookeepers would not dare evoke the wrath of Veles, the autumn god (we all know what happened to Perun) by negging on their secret, sacred, sacrificial vows. Furthermore, the chosen animals are particularly vicious and tasty, and would wreak great havoc over the people of Iceland should they be freed from their restraints and let run amok. Lastly, being sacrificed to Veles is traditionally considered a great honour among the animals, one The Zookepers would not dare deprive them of.

Also, they are very tasty animals.

– Do you know what types of animals they eat at the barbecue?

Here is a brief list, provided by the Zookeepers’ Union:

Things we eat at the barbecue:

-The hart, the roebuck, the fallow deer, the wild goat, the pygarg, the wild ox, and the chamois.
-Generally every beast that parteth the hoof, and cleaveth the cleft into two claws, and cheweth the cud among the beasts.
-All that are in the waters, all that have fins and scales.
-All clean birds

Things we do not eat at the barbecue:

-Abominable things.
-Animals that chew the cud, or them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney.
-The swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud.
-Whatsoever from the waters that hath not fins and scales.
-The eagle, the ossifrage, the osprey.
-The glede, the kite, the vulture.
-Every raven.
-The owl, the night hawk, the cuckow.
-The little owl, and the great owl, and the swan.
-The pelican, and the gier eagle, and the cormorant.
-And the stork, and the heron, and the lapwing, and the bat.
-Every creeping thing that flieth.

-What are the activists’ plans related to this issue?