- [last lines]
- Margit: Once there were two children whose mother was a bird. They flew away with her to the land of the birds, but she sent them back among people to take care of their father. But when they returned from the land of the birds, their father had found a new wife and did not know them. She closed their father's eyes to them and filled his hearing with her voice. She sent her laughter over the mountains and he followed. The children called after him, but he did not know their voices. And so they stayed behind, and they knew what the birds know.
- Margit: [to Jónas, referring to her Mother] She remembers how everything was. She was always telling me stories. Once there was a man who lived far away in the mountains.
- Mother: ...far away in the mountains. He was lonely because his wife was dead, and they had had no children. One day when he was out with the sheep, he heard weeping from behind a rock. He went to look and found a large bird with a broken wing. "Help me," she said, "and I will stay with you until I give you a son. But then I must leave you and continue on my journey." So, he took her home and nursed her. In time, her wing healed and she bore him a tiny, feathered son. "You helped me and I gave you a son. But you can see he has feathers and is more like me than you. The birds will tell him what he needs to know." Then she flew up and away, and her young son and with her, and they disappeared forever.
- [to Margit]
- Mother: And now it's time for you to go to sleep.
- Margit: Once there was a boy whose mother was a bird. She loved him very much, but she could not stay among people, and one day, she returned to the land of the birds. The boy's father grew used to her being gone, but her little son wept so much that finally she heard him from far away and flew back to comfort him. "I will take you with me," she said, "and teach you what I know. But you cannot stay among the birds and must return to take care of your father." And when the boy came back from the land of the birds, his father did not know him. His skin had changed and become feathers, and his fingers had turned into wings. And he knew what the birds know.
- [first title cards]
- Title card: Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining.
- Title card: We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other.
- Title card: Under a tree in the cool of the day, with the blessing of sand.
- Title card: Forgetting themselves and each other, united
- Title card: in the quiet of the desert.
- Title card: T. S. Eliot
- Jóhann: You know about the man who couldn't find his wife?
- Margit: No.
- Jóhann: Well, one day a farmer came home and his wife was nowhere to be found. So he called on Olaf the priest, who went to all the trolls of the hills, but also couldn't find the man's wife. Finally, he remembered one rock, far in the north, where two trolls were living. He went there and called them out. They came and had to admit that they had stolen the man's wife. They brought her out to show, but she was in a glass box, asleep as if she were dead. And there was nothing Olaf could do to bring her back, although he made the trolls promise to go back into the rock and never to take anyone else again.
- Margit: [a fly is buzzing around her] Out from here, out from there. Out to take you anywhere. Into iron, into stone, out from here away, begone.
- [the buzzing stops]
- Jóhann: [reading from the Bible] But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, "It is enough now. Oh, Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers." And he lay down and slept under a juniper tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, "Arise and eat." And he looked, and, behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.
- Margit: Jónas, Jónas.
- Jónas: What's the matter?
- Margit: I've seen my mother.
- Jónas: Where?
- Margit: By the sea, and on the heath. I couldn't remember before. But now I do.
- Jónas: What does she look like?
- Margit: She's very beautiful.
- Jónas: But how can she be here?
- Margit: Sometimes people return.
- Jónas: Is she a ghost?
- Margit: No, she came to take care of me.
- Katla: [to Jónas] She must have loved you very much to give you something so fine that you can't show it.
- Jónas: You took two.
- Margit: I only knocked it with my hand.
- Margit: You have to pick a shell first.
- Jónas: Where are you and your sister from?
- Margit: It's not there anymore.
- Jónas: It disappeared?
- Margit: No. There aren't any people there anymore. They are all gone.
- Jónas: Will you ever go back?
- Margit: Katla says we'll stay here. That we are from here now.
- Jónas: But you can't change where you are from.
- Margit: But what if where you are from isn't there anymore?
- Jónas: Then you can be from here, but your sister can't be.
- Margit: Why not?
- Jónas: Because I'm from here and I don't want her to be.
- Margit: But she's my sister and she has to be from the same place as I am.
- Jónas: But I don't want her to be.
- Margit: But she has to be.
- Jónas: No, she can't be. I don't want her to be. No she can't be. I don't want her to be. She can't be. I don't want her to be. No. She can't be. I won't let her.
- Margit: Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, in earth as in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those that trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation; and deliver us from evil. Amen.