The short story collection Vargatal, translated to English by Sarah M. Brownsberger.
About the book
Through eighteen stories, Sigfús Bjartmarsson follows a zero-sum game between the varmints of the great north - such as gyrfalcon, gray seal, and mink - and their rival predator, human civilization.
From Raptorhood
The gyrfalcon did not make the news again that winter, and I had more or less stopped thinking about gyrfalcons when, yet again searching for lost books up in the attic, I dug up from the bottom of a box a battered copy of Jonas of Hrifla's Zoology Primer.
And it fell open of its own accord to the gyrfalcon. Now this, I thought, was a bird of far greater substance than the common run, her expression not just keen but downright martial. Almost as sharp-looking as Bishop Absalom in his war regalia, and at least the equal of the guy in the Sunday School picture who stood there unarmed, unarmored, and game as could be, waiting for the Romans to loose their lions on him.
This gyrfalcon turned out to be a great companion, as I quickly mastered the trick of closing my eyes and running my finger down along her head and back so that she'd push off into the air. Somewhat stiffly at first, of course, and naturally she recoiled from the heat of the lamp; she had to limber up with a few trips under the rafters to the door and back.
But she soon got the hang of it; evidently her arthritis wasn't too bad yet.
And then she'd shake off that broken-down-angel look and we would take off over the countryside, the farms mesmerizingly small and trivial, the way fighter pilots see them.
(pages 22-23)
