Hrafn.

A few years ago the hillside came down on the village after days of rain, and the whole place had to be evacuated. Things kept turning up out of the mud: an earring, a key, a little plastic soldier, a ring with no name inside it. Whatever someone claimed got given back. The rest ended up in an old baking tray, in the corrugated-iron shed behind his house, sorted by stretch of road even though nobody asked him to. Hrafn knows exactly which bend each object came from. He still hasn't given a single one back.

The common raven is the heaviest songbird in the world: the largest weigh around 2.25 kilos, more than any other songbird reaches. That's what gives it the broad head and the thick beak, which from a distance look like they belong to something bigger. Hrafn has the route nobody wants: in winter it depends on the Fjarðarheiði pass being open, the only road connecting his fjord to the rest of the island, which some years stays closed three weeks running. When it opens, he goes up.