THE ICELANDERS.
Skalholt.--Reykjavik.--The Fair.--The Peasant and the Merchant.--
A Clergyman in his Cups.--Hay-making.--The Icelander’s Hut.--
Churches.--Poverty of the Clergy.--Jon Thorlaksen.--The
Seminary of Reykjavik.--Beneficial Influence of the Clergy.--
Home Education.--The Icelander’s Winter’s Evening.--Taste for
Literature.--The Language.--The Public Library at Reykjavik.--
The Icelandic Literary Society.--Icelandic Newspapers.--
Longevity.--Leprosy.--Travelling in Iceland.--Fording the
Rivers.--Crossing of the Skeidara by Mr. Holland.--A Night’s
Bivouac.
Next to Thingvalla, there is no place in Iceland so replete with
historical interest as Skalholt, its ancient capital. Here in the
eleventh century was founded the first school in the island; here
was the seat of its first bishops; here flourished a succession of
great orators, historians, and poets; Isleif, the oldest chronicler
of the North; Gissur, who in the beginning of the twelfth century had
visited all the countries of Europe and spoke all their languages;
the philologian Thorlak, and Finnur Johnson, the learned author of
the “Ecclesiastical History of Iceland.” The Cathedral of Skalholt
was renowned far and wide for its size, and in the year 1100, Latin,
poetry, music, and rhetoric, the four liberal arts, were taught in its
school, more than they were at that time in many of the large European
cities. As a proof how early the study of the ancients flourished in
Skalholt, we find it recorded that in the twelfth century a bishop once
caught a scholar reading Ovid’s “Art of Love;” and as the story relates
that the venerable pastor flew into a violent passion at the sight of
the unholy book, we may without injustice conclude that he must have
read it himself in some of his leisure hours, to know its character so
well.
Of all its past glories, Skalholt has retained nothing but its name.
The school and the bishopric have been removed, the old church has
disappeared, and been replaced by a small wooden building, in which
divine service is held once a month; three cottages contain all the
inhabitants of the once celebrated city, and the extensive churchyard
is the only memorial of its former importance. Close by are the ruins
of the old school-house, and on the spot where the bishop resided a
peasant has erected his miserable hovel.
But the ever-changing tide of human affairs has not bereft the now
lonely place of its natural charms, for the meadow-lands of Skalholt
are beautifully imbedded in an undulating range of hills, overlooking
the junction of the Bruara and Huita, and backed by a magnificent
theatre of mountains, among which Hecla and the Eyjafialla are the most
prominent.
Reykjavik, the present capital of the island, has risen into importance
at the expense both of Skalholt and Thingvalla. At the beginning of the
present century the courts of justice were transferred from the ancient
seat of legislature to the new metropolis, and in 1797 the bishoprics
of Hoolum and Skalholt, united into one, had their seats likewise
transferred to Reykjavik. The ancient school of Skalholt, after having
first migrated to Bessestadt, has also been obliged to follow the
centralizing tendency, so powerful in our times, and now contributes to
the rising fortunes of the small sea-port town.
But in spite of all these accessions, the first aspect of Reykjavik
by no means corresponds to our ideas of a capital. “The town,”
says Lord Dufferin, “consists of a collection of wooden sheds,
one story high--rising here and there into a gable end of greater
pretensions--built along the lava-track, and flanked at either end by
a suburb of turf huts. On every side of it extends a desolate plain of
lava that once must have boiled up red-hot from some distant gateway
of hell, and fallen hissing into the sea. No tree or bush relieves
the dreariness of the landscape, and the mountains are too distant to
serve as a background to the buildings; but before the door of each
merchant’s house facing the sea there flies a gay little pennon; and
as you walk along the silent streets, whose dust no carriage-wheel
has ever desecrated, the rows of flower-pots that peep out of the
windows, between curtains of white muslin, at once convince you that,
notwithstanding their unpretending appearance, within each dwelling
reign the elegance and comfort of a woman-tended home.”
[Illustration: 55. GOVERNOR’S RESIDENCE, REYKJAVIK.]
Twenty years since, Reykjavik was no better than a wretched
fishing-village, now it already numbers 1400 inhabitants, and
free-trade promises it a still greater increase for the future. It owes
its prosperity chiefly to its excellent port, and to the abundance of
fish-banks in its neighborhood, which have induced the Danish merchants
to make it their principal settlement. Most of them, however, merely
visit it in summer like birds of passage, arriving in May with small
cargoes of foreign goods, and leaving it again in August, after having
disposed of their wares. Thus Reykjavik must be lonely and dreary
enough in winter, when no trade animates its port, and no traveller
stays at its solitary inn; but the joy of the inhabitants is all the
greater when the return of spring re-opens their intercourse with the
rest of the world, and the delight may be imagined with which they hail
the first ship that brings them the long-expected news from Europe,
and perhaps some wealthy tourist, eager to admire the wonders of the
Geysirs.
The most busy time of the town is, however, the beginning of July,
when the annual fair attracts a great number of fishermen and peasants
within its walls. From a distance of forty and fifty leagues around,
they come with long trains of pack-horses; their stock-fish slung
freely across the animals’ backs, their more damageable articles close
pressed and packed in boxes or skin bags.
The greater part of the trade in this and other small sea-ports--such
as Akreyri, Hafnafjord, Eyrarbacki, Berufjord, Vapnafjord, Isafjord,
Grafaros, Budenstadt, which, taken all together, do not equal Reykjavik
in traffic and population--is carried on by barter.[2]
Sometimes the Icelander desires to be paid in specie for part of
his produce, but then he is obliged to bargain for a long time with
the merchant, who of course derives a double profit by an exchange
of goods, and is loth to part with his hard cash. The dollars thus
acquired are either melted down, and worked into silver massive
girdles, which in point of execution as well as design are said, on
good authority,[3] to be equal to any thing of the kind fashioned
by English jewellers, or else deposited in a strong-box, as taxes
and wages are all paid in produce, and no Icelander ever thinks of
investing his money in stocks, shares, or debentures.
He is, however, by no means so ignorant of mercantile affairs as to
strike at once a bargain with the Danish traders. Pitching his tent
before the town, he first pays a visit to all the merchants of the
place. After carefully noting their several offers (for as each of them
invariably treats him to a dram, he with some justice mistrusts his
memory), he returns to his caravan and makes his calculations as well
as his somewhat confused brain allows him. If he is accompanied by his
wife, her opinion of course is decisive, and the following morning he
repairs with all his goods to the merchant who has succeeded in gaining
his confidence.
After the business has been concluded, the peasant empties one glass to
the merchant’s health, another to a happy meeting next year, a third to
the king, a fourth because three have been drunk already. At length,
after many embraces and protestations of eternal friendship, he takes
his leave of the merchant. Fortunately there is no thief to be found in
all Iceland; but in consequence of these repeated libations, one parcel
has not been well packed, another negligently attached to the horse,
and thus it happens that the poor peasant’s track is not unfrequently
marked with sugar, coffee-beans, salt, or flour, and that when he
reaches home, he finds some valuable article or other missing.
It would, however, be doing the Icelanders an injustice to regard them
as generally intemperate; for though within the last twelve years
the population has increased only ten per cent., and the importation
of brandy thirty, yet the whole quantity of spirits consumed in
the island amounts to less than three bottles per annum for each
individual, and, of this allowance, the people of Reykjavik and of
the other small sea-ports have more than their share, while many of
the clergy and peasantry in the remoter districts hardly ever taste
spirituous liquors. Dr. Hooker mentions the extraordinary effect which
a small portion of rum produced on the good old incumbent of Middalr,
whose stomach had been accustomed only to a milk-diet and a little
coffee. “He begged me,” says the doctor,[4] “to give him some rum to
bathe his wife’s breast; but having applied a portion of it to that
purpose, he drank the rest without being at all aware of its strength,
which, however, had no other effect than in causing this clerical
blacksmith,[5] with his lame hip, to dance in the most ridiculous
manner in front of the house. The scene afforded a great source of
merriment to all his family except his old wife, who was very desirous
of getting him to bed, while he was no less anxious that she should
join him in the dance.”
Dr. Hooker justly remarks that this very circumstance is a convincing
proof how unaccustomed this priest was to spirituous liquors, as the
quantity taken could not have exceeded a wine-glass full.
After his visit to the fair, the peasant sets about hay-making, which
is to him the great business of the year, for he is most anxious to
secure winter fodder for his cattle, on which his whole prosperity
depends. The few potatoes and turnips about the size of marbles, or the
cabbage and parsley, which he may chance to cultivate, are not worth
mentioning; grass is the chief, nay, the only produce of his farm, and
that Heaven may grant clear sunshiny days for hay-making is now his
daily prayer.
Every person capable of wielding a scythe or rake is pressed into the
work. The best hay is cut from the “tún,” a sort of paddock comprising
the lands adjoining the farm-house, and the only part of his grounds on
which the peasant bestows any attention, for, in spite of the paramount
importance of his pasture-land, he does but little for its improvement,
and a meadow is rarely seen, where the useless or less nutritious herbs
are not at least as abundant as those of a better quality. The “tún” is
encircled by a turf or stone wall, and is seldom more than ten acres
in extent, and generally not more than two or three. Its surface is
usually a series of closely-packed mounds, like graves, most unpleasant
to walk over, the gutter, in some places, being two feet in depth
between the mounds. After having finished with the “tún,” the farmer
subjects to a process of cutting all the broken hillsides and boggy
undrained swamps that lie near his dwelling. The blades of the scythes
are very short. It would be impossible to use a long-bladed scythe,
owing to the unevenness of the ground.
The cutting and making of hay is carried on, when the weather will
permit, through all the twenty-four hours of the day. When the hay
is made it is tied in bundles by cords and thongs, and carried away
by ponies to the earthen houses prepared for it, which are similar
to and adjoin those in which the cattle are stalled. “It is a very
curious sight,” says Mr. Shepherd, “to see a string of hay-laden ponies
returning home. Each pony’s halter is made fast to the tail of the
preceding one, and the little animals are so enveloped in their burdens
that nothing but their hoofs and the connecting ropes are visible,
and they look as though a dozen huge haycocks, feeling themselves
sufficiently made, were crawling off to their resting-places.”
When the harvest is finished the farmer treats his family and laborers
to a substantial supper, consisting of mutton, and a soup of milk and
flour; and although the serious and taciturn Icelander has perhaps of
all men the least taste for music and dancing, yet these simple feasts
are distinguished by a placid serenity, no less pleasing than the more
boisterous mirth displayed at a southern vintage.
Almost all labor out-of-doors now ceases for the rest of the year. A
thick mantle of snow soon covers mountain and vale, meadow and moor;
with every returning day, the sun pays the cold earth a decreasing
visit, until, finally, he hardly appears above the horizon at noon;
the wintry storm howls over the waste, and for months the life of the
Icelander is confined to his hut, which frequently is but a few degrees
better than that of the filthy Lap.
Its lower part is built of rude stones to about the height of four
feet, and between each row layers of turf are placed with great
regularity, to serve instead of mortar, and keep out the wind. A
roof of such wood as can be procured rests upon these walls, and is
covered with turf and sods. On one side (generally facing the south)
are several gable ends and doors, each surmounted with a weather-cock.
These are the entrances to the dwelling-house proper, to the smithy,
store-room, cow-shed, etc. A long narrow passage, dark as pitch, and
redolent of unsavory odors, leads to the several apartments, which are
separated from each other by thick walls of turf, each having also its
own roof, so that the peasant’s dwelling is in fact a conglomeration of
low huts, which sometimes receive their light through small windows in
the front, but more frequently through holes in the roof, covered with
a piece of glass or skin. The floors are of stamped earth; the hearth
is made of a few stones clumsily piled together; a cask or barrel, with
the two ends knocked out, answers the purpose of a chimney, or else the
smoke is allowed to escape through a mere hole in the roof.
[Illustration: 56. ICELANDIC HOUSES.]
The thick turf walls, the dirty floor, the personal uncleanliness of
the inhabitants, all contribute to the pollution of the atmosphere. No
piece of furniture seems ever to have been cleaned since it was first
put into use; all is disorder and confusion. Ventilation is utterly
impossible, and the whole family, frequently consisting of twenty
persons or more, sleep in the same dormitory, as well as any strangers
who may happen to drop in. On either side of this apartment are bunks
three or four feet in width, on which the sleepers range themselves.
Such are in general the dwellings of the farmers and clergy, for but
very few of the more wealthy inhabitants live in any way according
to our notions of comfort, while the cots of the poor fisherman are
so wretched that one can hardly believe them to be tenanted by human
beings.
The farm-houses are frequently isolated, and, on account of their
grass-covered roofs and their low construction, are not easily
distinguished from the neighboring pasture-grounds; where four or five
of them are congregated in a grassy plain, they are dignified with the
name of a village, and become the residence of a Hrepstior, or parish
constable.
Then also a church is seldom wanting, which however is distinguished
from the low huts around merely by the cross planted on its roof. An
Icelandic house of prayer is generally from eight to ten feet wide, and
from eighteen to twenty-four long; but of this about eight feet are
devoted to the altar, which is divided off by a partition stretching
across the church, and against which stands the pulpit. A small wooden
chest or cupboard, placed at the end of the building, between two very
small square windows not larger than a common-sized pane of glass,
constitutes the communion-table, over which is generally a miserable
representation of the Lord’s Supper painted on wood. The height of
the walls, which are wainscoted, is about six feet, and from them
large wooden beams stretch across from side to side. On these beams
are placed in great disorder a quantity of old Bibles, psalters, and
fragments of dirty manuscripts. The interior of the roof, the rafters
of which rest on the walls, is also lined with wood. On the right of
the door, under which one is obliged to stoop considerably on entering,
is suspended a bell, large enough to make an intolerable noise in
so small a space. A few benches on each side the aisle, so crowded
together as almost to touch one another, and affording accommodation
to thirty or forty persons when squeezed very tight, leave room for a
narrow passage.
These churches, besides their proper use, are also made to answer the
purpose of the caravanseras of the East, by affording a night’s lodging
to foreign tourists. They are indeed neither free from dirt, nor from
bad smells; but the stranger is still far better off than in the
intolerable atmosphere of a peasant’s hut.
Mr. Ross Browne thus describes the church and parsonage at Thingvalla;
“The church is of modern construction, and, like all I saw in the
interior, is made of wood, painted a dark color, and roofed with boards
covered with sheets of tarred canvas. It is a very primitive little
affair, only one story high, and not more than fifteen by twenty
feet in dimensions. From the date on the weather-cock it appears to
have been built in 1858. The congregation is supplied by the few
sheep-ranches in the neighborhood, consisting at most of half a dozen
families. These unpretending little churches are to be seen in the
vicinity of every settlement throughout the whole island. Simple and
homely as they are, they speak well for the pious character of the
people.
“The pastor of Thingvalla and his family reside in a group of
sod-covered huts close by the church. These cheerless little hovels are
really a curiosity, none of them being over ten or fifteen feet high,
and all huddled together without the slightest regard to latitude or
longitude, like a parcel of sheep in a storm. Some have windows in the
roof, and some have chimneys; grass and weeds grow all over them, and
crooked by-ways and dark alleys run among them and through them. At
the base they are walled up with big lumps of lava, and two of them
have board fronts, painted black, while the remainder are patched up
with turf and rubbish of all sorts, very much in the style of a stork’s
nest. A low stone wall encircles the premises, but seems to be of
little use as a barrier against the encroachments of live-stock, being
broken up in gaps every few yards. In front of the group some attempt
has been made at a pavement, which, however, must have been abandoned
soon after the work was commenced. It is now littered all over with old
tubs, pots, dish-cloths, and other articles of domestic use.
[Illustration: 57. CHURCH AT THINGVALLA.]
“The interior of this strange abode is even more complicated than one
would be led to expect from the exterior. Passing through a dilapidated
doorway in one of the smaller cabins, which you would hardly suppose
to be the main entrance, you find yourself in a long dark passage-way,
built of rough stone, and roofed with wooden rafters and brushwood
covered with sod. The sides are ornamented with pegs stuck in the
crevices between the stones, upon which hang saddles, bridles,
horse-shoes, bunches of herbs, dried fish, and various articles of
cast-off clothing, including old shoes and sheepskins. Wide or narrow,
straight or crooked, to suit the sinuosities of the different cabins
into which it forms the entrance, it seems to have been originally
located upon the track of a blind boa-constrictor. The best room,
or rather house--for every room is a house--is set apart for the
accommodation of travellers. Another cabin is occupied by some members
of the pastor’s family, who bundle about like a lot of rabbits. The
kitchen is also the dog-kennel, and occasionally the sheep-house. A
pile of stones in one corner of it, upon which a few twigs or scraps of
sheep-manure serve to make the fire, constitute the cooking apartment.
The floor consists of the original lava-bed, and artificial puddles
composed of slops and offal of diverse unctuous kinds. Smoke fills
all the cavities in the air not already occupied by foul odors, and
the beams, and posts, and rickety old bits of furniture are dyed to
the core with the dense and variegated atmosphere around them. This is
a fair specimen of the whole establishment, with the exception of the
travellers’ room. The beds in these cabins are the chief articles of
luxury.”
The poverty of the clergy corresponds with the meanness of their
churches. The best living in the island is that of Breide’-Bolstadr,
where the nominal stipend amounts to 180 specie dollars, or about £40
a year; and Mr. Holland states that the average livings do not amount
to more than £10 for each parish in the island. The clergymen must
therefore depend almost entirely for subsistence on their glebe land,
and a small pittance to which they are entitled for the few baptisms,
marriages, and funerals that occur among their parishioners. The
bishop himself has only 2000 rix-dollars, or £200, a year, a miserable
pittance to make a decent appearance, and to exercise hospitality to
the clergy who visit Reykjavik from distant parts.
[Illustration: 58. THE PASTOR’S HOUSE, THINGVALLA.]
It can not be wondered at that pastors thus miserably paid are
generally obliged to perform the hardest work of day laborers to
preserve their families from starving, and that their external
appearance corresponds less with the dignity of their office than with
their penury. Besides hay-making and tending the cattle, they may be
frequently seen leading a train of pack-horses from a fishing-station
to their distant hut. They are all blacksmiths also from necessity, and
the best shoers of horses on the island. The feet of an Iceland horse
would be cut to pieces over the sharp rock and lava, if not well shod.
The great resort of the peasantry is the church; and should any of the
numerous horses have lost a shoe, or be likely to do so, the priest
puts on his apron, lights his little charcoal fire in his smithy (one
of which is always attached to every parsonage), and sets the animal on
his legs again. The task of getting the necessary charcoal is not the
least of his labors, for whatever the distance may be to the nearest
thicket of dwarf-birch, he must go thither to burn the wood, and to
bring it home when charred across his horse’s back. His hut is scarcely
better than that of the meanest fisherman; a bed, a rickety table, a
few chairs, and a chest or two, are all his furniture. This is, as long
as he lives, the condition of the Icelandic clergyman, and learning,
virtue, and even genius are but too frequently buried under this
squalid poverty.
But few of my readers have probably ever heard of the poet Jon
Thorlakson, but who can withhold the tribute of his admiration from the
poor priest of Backa, who with a fixed income of less than £6 a year,
and condemned to all the drudgery which I have described, finished at
seventy years of age a translation of Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” having
previously translated Pope’s “Essay on Man.”
[Illustration: 59. THE PASTOR OF THINGVALLA.]
Three of the first books only of the “Paradise Lost” were printed by
the Icelandic Literary Society, when it was dissolved in 1796, and to
print the rest at his own expense was of course impossible. In a few
Icelandic verses, Thorlakson touchingly alludes to his penury:--“Ever
since I came into this world I have been wedded to Poverty, who has now
hugged me to her bosom these seventy winters, all but two; and whether
we shall ever be separated here below is only known to Him who joined
us together.”
As if Providence had intended to teach the old man that we must hope to
the last, he soon after received the unexpected visit of Mr. Henderson,
an agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, who thus relates his
interview:
“Like most of his brethren at this season of the year, we found him
in the meadow assisting his people in hay-making. On hearing of our
arrival, he made all the haste home which his age and infirmity would
allow, and bidding us welcome to his lowly abode, ushered us into the
humble apartment where he translated my countrymen into Icelandic. The
door is not quite four feet in height, and the room may be about eight
feet in length by six in breadth. At the inner end is the poet’s bed,
and close to the door, over against a small window, not exceeding two
feet square, is a table where he commits to paper the effusions of his
Muse. On my telling him that my countrymen would not have forgiven me,
nor could I have forgiven myself, had I passed through this part of
the island without paying him a visit, he replied that the translation
of Milton had yielded him many a pleasant hour, and often given him
occasion to think of England.”
This visit was followed by agreeable consequences for the venerable
bard. The Literary Fund soon afterwards sent him a present of £30, a
modest sum according to our ideas, but a mine of wealth in the eyes
of the poor Icelandic priest. His life, however, was now near its
close, as it is stated in a short view “Of the Origin, Progress, and
Operations of the Society,” dated March 3d, 1821, that “the poet of
Iceland is now in his grave; but it is satisfactory to know that the
attention, in this instance, of a foreign and remote society to his
gains and his fortunes was highly gratifying to his feelings, and
contributed not immaterially to the comfort of his concluding days.”
He wrote a letter in very elegant Latin, expressing his heartfelt
gratitude for the kindness and generosity of the Society, so accordant
with the character of the British nation, and accompanied it with a MS.
copy of his translation. The latter was first printed in Iceland in
1828, but his own original poems did not appear before 1842.
The school where most of the Icelandic clergymen, so poor and yet
generally so respectable in their poverty, are educated, is that of
Reykjavik, as few only enjoy stipends which enable them to study at
Copenhagen. There they live several years under a milder sky, they
become acquainted with the splendor of a large capital, and thus it
might be supposed that the idea of returning to the dreary wastes of
their own land must be intolerable. Yet this is their ardent desire,
and, like banished exiles, they long for their beloved Iceland, where
privation and penury await them.
In no Christian country, perhaps with the sole exception of Lapland,
are the clergy so poor as in Iceland, but in none do they exert a more
beneficial influence.
Though the island has but the one public school at Reykjavik, yet
perhaps in no country is elementary education more generally diffused.
Every mother teaches her children to read and write, and a peasant,
after providing for the wants of his family by the labor of his hands,
loses no opportunity, in his leisure hours, of inculcating a sound
morality. In these praiseworthy efforts the parents are supported by
the pastor.
He who, judging from the sordid condition of an Icelandic hut, might
imagine its inhabitants to be no better than savages, would soon change
his opinion were he introduced on a winter evening into the low,
ill-ventilated room where the family of a peasant or a small landholder
is assembled. Vainly would he seek a single idler in the whole company.
The women and girls spin or knit; the men and boys are all busy
mending their agricultural implements and household utensils, or else
chiselling or cutting with admirable skill ornaments or snuff-boxes in
silver, ivory, or wood. By the dubious light of a tallow lamp, just
making obscurity visible, sits one of the family, who reads with a loud
voice an old “saga” or chronicle, or maybe the newest number of the
“Northurfari,” an Iceland literary almanac, published during the last
few years by Mr. Gisle Brinjulfsson. Sometimes poems or whole sagas are
repeated from memory, and there are even itinerant story-tellers, who,
like the troubadours and trouvères of the Middle Ages, wander from one
farm to another, and thus gain a scanty livelihood. In this manner the
deeds of the ancient Icelanders remain fixed in the memory of their
descendants, and Snorre Sturleson, Sämund, Frodi, and Eric Rauda are
unforgotten. Nine centuries have elapsed; but every Icelander still
knows the names of the proud yarls who first peopled the fiords of the
island; and the exploits of the brave vikings who spread terror and
desolation along all the coasts of Europe still fill the hearts of the
peaceful islanders of our days with a glow of patriotic pride.
Where education is so general, one may naturally expect to find a
high degree of intellectual cultivation among the clergy, the public
functionaries, and the wealthier part of the population. Their
classical knowledge is one of the first things that strike the stranger
with astonishment. He sees men whose appearance too frequently denotes
an abject poverty conversant with the great authors of antiquity, and
keenly alive to their beauties. Travelling to the Geysirs, he is not
seldom accosted in Latin by his guide, and stopping at a farm, his host
greets him in the same language.
I have specially named Jon Thorlakson, but Iceland has produced and
still produces many other men who, without the hope of any other reward
but that which proceeds from the pure love of literature, devote their
days and nights to laborious studies, and live with Virgil and Homer
under the sunny skies of Italy and Greece. In the study of the modern
languages, the Icelanders are as far advanced as can be expected from
their limited intercourse with the rest of the world.
The English language, in which they find so many words of their own and
so many borrowed from the Latin, is cultivated by many of the clergy.
The German they find still more easy; and as all the Scandinavian
languages proceed from the same root, they have no difficulty in
understanding the Danish and the Norwegian tongues. Of all the modern
languages or dialects which have sprung from the ancient Norse, spoken
a thousand years ago all over Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, none has
undergone fewer changes than the Icelandic. In the sea-ports it is
mixed up with many Danish words and phrases, but in the interior of the
island it is still spoken as it was in the times of Ingolfr and Eric
the Red, and in the whole island there is no fisherman or day laborer
who does not perfectly understand the oldest writings.
It may easily be imagined that among a people so fond of literature,
books must be in great request. Too poor to be constantly increasing
their small collections of modern publications, or of old “sagas”
or chronicles, by new acquisitions, one assists the other. When the
peasant goes on Sundays to church, he takes a few volumes with him,
ready to lend his treasures to his neighbors, and, on his part, selects
from among those which they have brought for the same purpose. When he
is particularly pleased with a work, he has it copied at home, and it
may be here remarked that the Icelanders are frequently most excellent
calligraphists.
The foundation of a public library at Reykjavik in 1821, at the
instigation of the learned Professor Rafn of Copenhagen, was a great
boon to the people. It is said to contain about 12,000 volumes,
which are kept under the roof of the cathedral. Books are freely
lent for months, or even for a whole year, to the inhabitants of
remote districts. This liberality is, of course, attended with some
inconvenience, but it has the inestimable advantage of rendering a
number of good works accessible to numerous families too poor to
purchase them.
Another excellent institution is the New Icelandic Literary Society,
founded in 1816. It has two seats, one in Copenhagen, the other in
Reykjavik, and its chief object is the publication of useful works in
the language of the country. Besides an annual grant of 100 specie
dollars (£24) awarded to it by the Danish Government, its income is
confined to the yearly contributions of its members,[6] and with this
scanty means it has already published many excellent works.
Though remote from the busy scenes of the world, Iceland has three
newspapers, the _Thyodtholfr_ and the _Islendingur_, which appear at
Reykjavik, and the _Northri_, which is published at Akreyri, on the
borders of the Polar Ocean. The Islendingur is said to contain many
excellent articles, but it would sorely task the patience of those who
are accustomed to the regular enjoyment of the “Times” at breakfast; as
it sometimes appears but once in three weeks, and then again, as if to
make up for lost time, twice in eight days.
In spite of their ill-ventilated dwellings and the hardships entailed
upon them by the severity of the climate, the Icelanders frequently
attain a good old age. Of the 2019 persons who died in 1858, 25 had
passed the age of ninety, and of these 20 belonged to the fair sex.
The mortality among the children is, however, very considerable; 993,
or nearly one-half of the entire number having died before the age of
five in the year above-mentioned. Cutaneous affections are very common
among Icelanders, as may easily be supposed from their sordid woollen
apparel and the uncleanliness of their huts; and the northern leprosy,
or “likthra,” is constantly seeking out its victims among them. This
dreadful disease, which is also found among the fishermen in Norway,
in Greenland, in the Faeroes, in Lapland, and, in short, wherever the
same mode of life exists, begins with a swelling of the hands and feet.
The hair falls off; the senses become obtuse. Tumors appear on the arms
and legs, and on the face, which soon loses the semblance of humanity.
Severe pains shoot through the joints, an eruption covers the whole
body, and finally changes into open sores, ending with death. He whom
the leprosy has once attacked is doomed, for it mocks all the efforts
of medical art. Fortunately the victims of this shocking complaint
are rather objects of pity than of disgust, and as it is not supposed
to be contagious, they are not so cruelly forsaken by their relations
as their fellow-sufferers in the East. In the hut of the priest of
Thingvalla, Marmier saw a leper busy grinding corn. Some of the poorest
and most helpless of these unfortunate creatures find a refuge in four
small hospitals, where they are provided for at the public expense.
Since a regular steam-boat communication has been opened between
Iceland, Denmark, and Scotland, the number of tourists desirous of
viewing the matchless natural wonders of the island has considerably
increased. But travelling in the island itself is still attended with
considerable difficulties and no trifling expense, to say nothing of
the want of all comforts; so that most of its visitors are content
with a trip to Thingvalla and the Geysir, which are but a couple of
days’ journey from Reykjavik, and very few, like Mr. Holland, make
the entire circuit of the island, or, like Mr. Shepherd, plunge into
the _terra incognita_ of its north-western peninsula. The only mode
of travelling is on horseback, as there are no roads, and therefore
no carriages in Iceland. The distances between the places are too
great, the rivers are too furious, and the bogs too extensive to allow
of a walking tour being made. Even the tourist with the most modest
pretensions requires at least two riding horses for himself, two for
his guide, and two packhorses; and when a larger company travels, it
always forms a cavalcade of from twenty to thirty horses, tied head
to tail, the chief guide mounted on the first and leading the string,
the other accelerating its motions by gesticulation, sundry oaths, and
the timely application of the whip. The way, or the path, lies either
over beds of lava, so rugged that the horses are allowed to pick their
way, or over boggy ground, where it is equally necessary to avoid those
places into which the animals might sink up to their belly, but which,
when left to themselves, they are remarkably skillful in detecting.
With the solitary exception of a few planks thrown across the Bruera,
and a kind of swing bridge, or _kláfr_, contrived for passing the rapid
Jökulsa, there are no bridges over the rivers, so that the only way to
get across is to ride through them--a feat which, considering the usual
velocity of their current, is not seldom attended with considerable
danger, as will be seen by the following account of the crossing of the
Skeidara by Mr. Holland.
[Illustration: 60. BRIDGE RIVER, ICELAND.]
“Our guide,” says this intrepid traveller, “urged on his horse through
the stream, and led the way towards the mid-channel. We followed in his
wake, and soon were all stemming the impetuous and swollen torrent.
In the course of our journey we had before this crossed a good many
rivers more or less deep, but all of them had been mere child’s play
compared to that which we were now fording. The angry water rose high
against our horses’ sides, at times almost coming over the tops of
their shoulders. The spray from their broken crests was dashed up into
our faces. The stream was so swift that it was impossible to follow the
individual waves as they rushed past us, and it almost made us dizzy
to look down at it. Now, if ever, is the time for firm hand or rein,
sure seat, and steady eye; not only is the stream so strong, but the
bottom is full of large stones, that the horse can not see through the
murky waters; if he should fall, the torrent will sweep you down to the
sea--its white breakers are plainly visible as they run along the shore
at scarcely a mile’s distance, and they lap the beach as if they waited
for their prey. Happily, they will be disappointed. Swimming would be
of no use, but an Icelandic water-horse seldom makes a blunder or a
false step. Not the least of the risks we ran in crossing the Skeidara
was from the masses of ice carried down by the stream from the Jökul,
many of them being large enough to knock a horse over.
“Fortunately we found much less ice in the centre and swiftest part of
the river, where we where able to see and avoid it, than in the side
channels. How the horses were able to stand against such a stream was
marvellous; they could not do so unless they were constantly in the
habit of crossing swift rivers. The Icelanders who live in this part of
the island keep horses known for their qualities in fording difficult
rivers, and they never venture to cross a dangerous stream unless
mounted on a tried water-horse. The action of the Icelandic horses when
crossing a swift river is very peculiar. They lean all their weight
against the stream, so as to resist it as much as possible, and move
onward with a peculiar side-step. This motion is not agreeable. It
feels as if your horse were marking time without gaining ground, and
the progress made being really very slow, the shore from which you
started seems to recede from you, whilst that for which you are making
appears as far as ever.
“When we reached the middle of the stream, the roar of the waters was
so great that we could scarcely make our voices audible to one another;
they were overpowered by the crunching sound of the ice, and the
bumping of large stones against the bottom. Up to this point a diagonal
line, rather down stream, had been cautiously followed; but when we
came to the middle, we turned our horses’ heads a little against the
stream. As we thus altered our course, the long line of baggage-horses
appeared to be swung round altogether, as if swept off their legs. None
of them, however, broke away, and they continued their advance without
accident, and at length we all reached the shore in safety.”
[Illustration: 61. ICELANDIC BOG.]
After a day’s journey in Iceland, rest, as may well be supposed, is
highly acceptable. Instead of passing the night in the peasant’s hut,
the traveller, when no church is at hand, generally prefers pitching
his tent near a running stream on a grassy plain; but sometimes, in
consequence of the great distance from one habitable place to another,
he is obliged to encamp in the midst of a bog where the poor horses
find either bad herbs, scarcely fit to satisfy their hunger, or no
food at all. After they have been unloaded, their fore legs are bound
together above their hoofs, so as to prevent them straying too far,
while their masters arrange themselves in the tent as comfortably as
they can.
[Illustration: 62. COAST OF ICELAND.]