Just Sayings: “Hollari er húsbruni en hvalreki á fyrsta ári”

How to explain this? The idiom goes like this in English: “It’s healthier that your house burns to the ground than to find a beached whale in your first year.”

And now you might ask, what the fuck?

Well, this seems to mean that if you find a beached whale (a windfall for Icelanders of yore), you will be convinced that you will be lucky forever, living like a filthy king, convinced of your eternal blind luck. This can only end badly, obviously. So, I guess it’s healthier that your house just burns down. I guess.

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