© Sauce*Box, Winter 1997-98. All
rights revert to author.
From a foreign correspondent:
Oh, Those Crazy Icelanders
REYKJAVIK, Oct 9 (AFP) - Male organs from all 31 mammals found on the island of Iceland and its coasts are on permanent display in a new phallus museum that opened its doors to the public in Reykjavik in August.
The collection, believed to be the first in the world, is comprised of phalli preserved in formaldehyde or dried and stuffed,collected by Sigurdur Hjartason, a 56-year-old history professor who came up with the idea for the strange museum.
A self-proclaimed expert of "phallology", this former school principal decided a few years ago to collect the private parts of all cetaceans hunted around Iceland.
He then expanded his collection to all mammals living on the island, and now charges visitors 300 Icelandic kronor (four dollars)to view his collection.
The curious immediately come face to face with window cases displaying the penises of all of Iceland's maritime mammals,including the blue whale, minke whale, sperm whale (of course),grampus and dolphin.
The largest specimens -- some measuring up to one meter (three feet) -- are stuffed and displayed like hunting trophies.
"Notice their tapered tips, which makes them look like a bull's horn," Hjartason tells visitors.
"It is to facilitate the sexual embrace, a brief face-to-face which lasts only three to five seconds for these large animals," he explains.
The seal and walrus organs are very different. They are equipped with a 30-centimeter (12-inch) central bone that guarantees rigidity at all times.
"The walrus and the seal, surrounded by their harems of females,have this bone to enable them to always compete against potential rivals," he says with studied restraint.
Hjartason has also collected the male organs of reindeer, fox,mink and other rodents living on Iceland.
On request, Hjartason will proudly show visitors a pledge made by a local Homo sapiens born in 1915 whose private parts will join the collection on his demise.
Hjartason's interest was aroused when he was a cowboy in northern Iceland in his youth, and was given what is technically known as a bull's pizzle whip to control his charges.
Appointed as a teacher to Akranes, a former whaling port, he noted that all parts of the marine mammals were used except the phallus, which gave him the idea of collecting them.
Amateurs of cheap erotica will likely be disappointed by the shrivelled organs, skinny stumps and rubbery penises which are more reminiscent of deflated inner tubes than of any giant fertility feast.
For the visitor who expected the testicles to be displayed alongside the penises, the "phallologist" explains that they are located inside the body of Arctic cetaceans and that it is not possible to isolate them.
Hjartason is a father of four -- one of his daughters is a guide at the museum -- and the author of a Spanish grammar book used in all of Iceland's secondary schools.
He spends much of his spare time sculpting birch branches into phalli, which decorate the museum's walls.
He is disappointed that the Icelandic government refused to grant him a subsidy for his museum, but is content with the 200,000 kronor (3,000 dollars) given to him by the Reykjavik municipality to support creativity.
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