marshball

My guitarist friend Bent (who also works a summer job as a horticultural magnate, knows a thing or two about web design, and cooks a mean charcoal-grilled whale) pointed me in the direction of this Finn-invented sport. In Icelandic it's called mýrarbolti, or swamp soccer, and the European championships take place this August in lovely Ísafjörður, a fjord town far in the north of Iceland (but for cultural reasons said to be "west"). As part of Bent's summer work, he flooded a field overnight and organized a marshy match for all of his employees. You can see a video of live play action on the official site.

So why not make mýri the word of the day today? It means swamp or marsh, but came into English as mire from the Old Norse (Icelandic) around the year 1300.

Now, not to mire you in too much etymology, but while I was researching mýri I made another discovery. The word fen is the same in Icelandic and English, and it also means marsh or swampland in both languages. Bostonians from my old 'hood are well aware of this old word, as it lends its name to the Back Bay Fens and indeed the whole of the Fenway area, including the Grand Old Lady herself, Fenway Park.