A couple paragraphs from my fiction I'm giving away.
Lutefisk Indeed!
He bethought himself that of all of the Devil's imps circling overhead this year, one particular pest among them who made certain of his neighbors ten times the trouble they usually were, was laughing at him, determined to show up early and in force.
The crops folks fed on wouldn't be ready for a month after the hay harvest, feed for the livestock. They'd be into the moldy rye left over from last year and its day or even month long bouts of demonic possession. The mold on rye in sufficient quantities was a powerful hallucinogen.
[lysergic acid/LSD]
And with the demonic rye came the stockfish. Cod was salted and air dried on racks, and piled high as a last rampart against starvation. Hard as a rock it lasted for years. Even after breaking it up with an axe it still needed more than boiling to soften it. The softener was lye, the very stuff that socks were scrubbed in.
It was widely lampooned as ljuga fisk (lie fish), as no one upon tasting it could believe it had ever been a fish in the first place. Some kidnapped the scaled horrors on their way to the pot in winter and assaulted the cook with them. Others starved themselves to death. It was easier than fighting over the outhouse.
And this post is from an earlier version of my author blog, which I never took down.
Lutefisk: Another Viking Remainder of Horror and Evil Visitantshttp://vikingfinder.blogspot.com/2012/07/lutefisk-another-viking-remainder-of.html