Mosavaxnir varðmenn

More about Mosavaxnir varðmenn

When the glaciers withdrew from the valley, they left behind two figures—guardians carved not by hand but by time. The locals called them the Mossbound Keepers. Their faces, eroded and softened by centuries of rain, leaned together as if in a silent vow. Children who wandered too close swore they could hear whispers among the stones, though no one dared to linger after dusk.

The valley itself was a wound that had healed unevenly. Streams bled through seams of iron and clay, staining the earth with rust. Wildflowers bloomed in erratic patches, their roots feeding on minerals deep in the soil. Travelers rarely came this way now, not since the old road had been claimed by landslides. Only the shepherds remained, their flocks grazing the high meadows, their songs echoing through the ridges.

One such shepherd, Eira, passed the Keepers every morning. She would nod to them respectfully, leaving a sprig of heather between their weathered faces. Her grandmother had told her that the figures were once people—two lovers who refused to abandon the valley when the mountain broke apart. They had knelt before the rising flood, and the mountain, moved by pity, turned them to stone so that they might endure.

On a morning heavy with mist, Eira found the stream had changed course. The water now flowed directly between the Keepers, washing away the soil that had long anchored them. For the first time, she noticed that beneath the moss and the lichen, their arms reached toward each other but did not touch. Between their hands was a space no wider than a finger’s breadth.

She crouched and filled that space with a pebble from the stream—a small act, but one that made her heart race. The water flowed around it, steady and clear. When she rose, she thought she saw a shimmer in the air, like heat above a forge.

By evening, the stream had calmed, its path set again. The valley seemed to exhale. The Keepers remained as before, faces bowed, their stone arms nearly meeting. But from that day on, the shepherds said the valley’s grass grew greener, and the air held a new sweetness.

And each spring, without fail, a cluster of heather bloomed at the feet of the Mossbound Keepers—purple and alive, bridging the silence between them.