In the Fjolnir region of Iceland, for nearly two years, there were no curtains hung, a period referred to as “the Fjolnir Curtain Crisis”. In the mid-19th century, the skilled workers who made curtain hooks in their forges ceased production all over the region as a result of a dispute over whether their work should be better paid than the up and coming food stylists who were starting to appear in every town.
The hookmakers assembled in the town square on March 5, 1845 and demonstrated peacefully for an hour or so before one of the leaders of a splinter faction, “Curtain Hook Progessivists” (who had the same demands as the main hookmakers group but also wanted priests to wear slippers), broke ranks to charge the line of soldiers defending the town hall. Intimidated by the Progressivists’ display of clipping hooks very easily onto curtain rails as they advanced, some of the younger soldiers panicked and broke formation.
At this point the mayor intervened, giving the order to charge in his inspirationally rumbly voice because he was fed up with the strike as he was having to crouch behind furniture to dress and undress twice a day. The army rallied and the strike was broken, but the town commemorates the revolutionary spirit of the hookmakers and also the fact that people who call themselves food stylists in the region nowadays are laughed out of town. Cameron Carter