“Go ahead with the butter!” is an expression that literally means “On with the butter!” It is used to tell someone to stop partying and move on.

Back in the days of the shepherds, butter was made by hand in a churn, and it took somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 dips to turn milk into the smooth, soft fat spread we all know and love. You can imagine how many hours and back pains this process would take, and why a slightly exaggerated “go with the butter!” would have been useful in such a scenario.

At that time, making butter was considered such a difficult task that there are even stories of housewives tying the churn to a shepherd’s back. After many hours in the field tending to his flock, he returned home with butter spread and saved her those 7,000 manual jumps.

Despite the backlash process, Icelanders had a surplus of this stuff and used it sparingly in everyday life. It was considered strength, especially in winter. The recommended dose was a whopping 1700 grams (3.7 pounds) per week per person. It has been recorded that butter was sometimes used as a substitute for soap and in other cases as a lotion for children. Weak lambs were also given butter to make them stronger.

Butter’s reputation has taken a hit of late, as the world has cut back on fat and turned to leaner, “healthier” lifestyles. But winter is coming and there is nothing more delicious than a bowl of meat soup with buttered rye bread.

Every single word in Icelandic is a pictorial survey of the Icelandic language. I find an interesting compound word, then deconstruct it and describe it as symbols. The goal is to express how Icelandic can be dead literal and unexpectedly poetic at the same time.