Transcriber’s Note: Obvious printer’s errors have been corrected. Discrepancies in spelling and hyphenation have generally been left as is, unless there was an overwhelming majority for one option, in which case an error was assumed and rectified.

The map is clickable for a larger version (if the device you’re reading this on supports that) but unfortunately, some of the place names on it got lost down the fold.

MAP OF ICELAND

AFTER ÞORVALDAR THORODDSEN

1900

Mrs. Russell in the Festal Costume of Iceland.
The Author in the Full Dress of the Faroese.

ICELAND
HORSEBACK TOURS IN SAGA LAND

W. S. C. RUSSELL

Illustrated from Photographs
By the Author

BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER
TORONTO: THE COPP CLARK CO., Limited

Copyright, 1914, by Richard G. Badger

All Rights Reserved

The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.

TO MY WIFE
GRACE
WHO TWICE COURAGEOUSLY ACCOMPANIED ME
OVER ICELANDIC TRAILS
AND TWICE
DISPLAYED THE GREATER COURAGE
REMAINING AT HOME
ALONE
THIS SIMPLE RECORD OF OUR WANDERINGS
AFFECTIONATELY
I
DEDICATE

FOREWORD

This Foreword, were it not for the tyrant Custom, might as well be omitted, since a preface is seldom read. Boldly I make my first appearance before the critical public with no excuses to offer and no apology to the reader for adding another volume to the long list of travel books in the English tongue. But I have reasons why I have ventured into print.

First,—Iceland has a fascination for all who know it. Its history, its ancient and modern literature, its legends and folklore, the people with their customs of a thousand years unchanged, the magnificence and grandeur of its scenery, its bird and plant life, its unexcelled opportunities for the student of geology,—all these and many more, are reasons why all the English speaking people should know something of this ancient branch of the Gothic line from which time and circumstance have separated the Angle and the Saxon.

Second,—There is little or nothing in the English language that is authoritative concerning present conditions in Iceland. Henderson, publishing in 1819, and Miss Oswald in 1882, are the only writers in English who have given to the public a fair and appreciative story of Iceland and its people. True it is that there are a few brief works, mainly the accounts of a sojourn of two or possibly three weeks in the country, but they are of necessity limited in scope of observation and lacking in appreciation of real conditions. A character study of the conservative Icelander may not be completed in a single season, one must live with him to know him.

Third,—The kindness with which my numerous lectures on Iceland have been received by the public and the manifest lack of any definite knowledge concerning this country and its people have led me to place before the public this straightforward, simple tale about the Icelanders with some descriptions of their fascinating land. It is the result of extended travels during the summers of 1909, 1910, 1911 and 1913 through the well known sections and in the out-of-the-way places as well as the unknown portions.

I desire to make the following acknowledgments:—I have both Henderson and Miss Oswald to thank for my first interest and their observations and remarks have ever been in my mind for a comparison with my own experiences. My thanks are due to many Icelanders, to all those who unselfishly opened their doors that I might share their hospitality, more especially to those who in kindness answered my numerous questions, often quite personal, about their countrymen and customs,—in particular do I mention Helgi Zoëga, who has been untiring in furnishing ponies, provisions and sound advice; Steffán Steffánson, who has written many lengthy letters in answer to inquiries; Ólafur Eyvindsson, my friend and trusty guide, whose name frequently occurs in these pages and Dr. Geir T. Zoëga, First Master of the Latin School at Reykjavik, for his advice and council. Finally, I acknowledge my indebtedness to her, to whom this volume is dedicated, for her kindly criticism of these pages while in progress of composition and for the final reading and examination of proofs.

Sir Walter Scott has said in reference to one of his poetical works:—

“…, though scarce my skill command

Some feeble echoing of thine earlier lay,

Though harsh and faint and soon to die away,—

…

Yet if one heart throb higher at its sway,

The wizard note has not been touched in vain.”

And so I say,—if one person acquires an interest in Iceland and its noble people, its history and its ancient tales,—this labor has not been in vain.

Springfield, Massachusetts,
February, 1914.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

ICELAND

CHAPTER I
HISTORICAL

Atossa.—And who is set over them as a shepherd of the flock, and is master of the army?

Chorus.—They call themselves the slaves of no man, nor the subjects either.

—Aeschylus.

Historically, Iceland is unique. Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Mexico,—each has a prehistoric period of human habitation, when man loved and hated, and competed with the brutes for existence. He fashioned his instruments from stone and made self-preservation his first and only law. A sturdy race, little removed from the highest brutes, filled with animal vigor and endowed with brute passions, held all known lands in prehistoric time. Step by step, cycle upon cycle, brute force submitted to reason; culture and refinement, mental acquisition and spiritual attainment characterized an evolutionary race of human beings in which each developing cycle was founded upon the decadence of the prehistoric.

Not so with Iceland. A myriad centuries the Atlantic had rolled its billows against these basalt cliffs, the Arctic packed its ice upon these shores, the beetling mountains cast their rugged outlines upon the quiet fiords, the great Plutonic candles flamed in the Arctic air and guttered the land again and again with scorching streams of molten rock. The seal basked in the sunshine of the lengthened summer, the salmon sported in the glacial streams and millions of birds congregated on the lofty cliffs. All life was blissfully ignorant of its great enemy, man.

There are no prehistoric conditions in Iceland.

The men who settled Iceland were neither serf nor savage. They were men of might and power, fearless and of high birth and of the highest mental capacity in the ancient days of Norway. The cause of their emigration is related by Snorri in Heimskringla. Halfdan, the Black, was one of the petty kings of Norway. At his death, he left his realm to Harald, a child of ten years, known in history as The Fair Haired.[1] It is to the influence of a high-minded woman, Gyda, daughter of Eric, King of Hordaland, that the settlement of Iceland by the nobles of Scandinavia is due. Harald sent his messengers to Gyda with the request that she become his wife. To their demand she replied,—

“I will not waste my maidenhood for the taking to husband of a king who has no more realm to rule over than a few folks. Marvelous it seems to me that there be no king minded to make Norway his own and be sole lord thereof in such wise as Gorm of Denmark or Eric of Upsala have done.”

Her reply in no way angered Harald. On the contrary he praised her high spirit and said,—

“For she has brought to my mind that matter which it now seems to me wondrous I have not had in my mind before.”

He then made the following oath,—

“This oath I make fast, and swear before that God who made me and who rules over all things, that nevermore will I cut my hair or comb it, till I have gotten to me all Norway, with the scat thereof and the dues, and all rule thereover, or else I will die rather.”

After years of strenuous warfare he brought all Norway under his rule, wedded Gyda and held a feast. Snorri completes the story as follows,—

“So King Harald took a bath, and then he let his hair be combed, and then Earl Rognavald sheared it. And heretofore it had been uncombed and unshorn for ten winters. Aforetime he had been called Shock-head, but now Earl Rognavald gave him a by-name and called him Harald Fair Haired, and all said who saw him that he was most soothly named, for he had both plenteous hair and goodly.”

Harald lived from 860 to 933 A. D. He introduced that new doctrine of middle Europe that made the people the king’s retainers at all times and not on special occasions. It was a centralization and consolidation of power and royal authority. It laid taxes upon all the lands and interfered with what the people had ever held as their vested rights. It enabled the monarch to meddle with the holdings of his people and aimed to cement the entire country into one kingdom of power through a central head rather than to permit the existence of several petty realms, each presided over by a Jarl who was jealous of his more powerful neighbors. To the lesser rulers the course of Harald was tyrannical, a curse upon their freedom, a blight upon their ambition. As we view the situation from the distance of ten centuries, it was a step in the progress of the nations that was to result in a blessing through the introduction of Christianity and the ultimate progress of civilization. The freemen resisted as long as they could; beaten again and again they gathered their waning strength and renewed the desperate struggle, but to no purpose. One by one the freeholders came under Harald’s dominion. Many withdrew from the scene of strife, forsook the land of their birth, preferring exile with their accustomed liberties to vassalage under conditions, where, as they deemed, no free-born man would care to live.

We now read of them in many lands. France, Italy, Spain,—each in turn feels the fury of the wrath of the fair-haired warriors of the north. A century later, we behold these restless wanderers victorious in the streets of Byzantium. They check their foes from whatever source they come, never give quarter and swiftly ride to victory, be it on their spirited chargers or in their high-prowed seahorses. In Sicily, Asia, the shores of the Black Sea, in Greece, in northern Africa, no matter where, the stoutest champions of the Moslem or the less valiant warriors of the declining Roman Empire, all feel the force of the northern blast and succumb to the prowess of the Northmen. Wherever they go they leave their mark, and to this day the arsenal of Venice is scored with runes which boast the triumphs of the Vikings.

Of all their wanderings the islands “west-over-the-sea” were their chosen field for conquest. For centuries the coast and river hamlets of England, Scotland and Ireland were in constant dread of their bloody depredations. Their blows were quickly struck. Whence they came the Briton did not know. Swift as the hawk upon the sparrow, they swept down upon some quiet, industrious hamlet with merciless weapon in hand. Fire, pillage and slaughter followed in their wake. They plundered home and sanctuary, tossed in sport the screaming children on their pikes, sent their mothers to shame and serfdom, and left the erstwhile peaceful Briton to quench the ebbing stream of life in the smouldering embers of his former home.

Ireland, where a civilization, greater than we shall ever know, was crumbling, lured them to mingle in the strife between its petty lords, from which the Vikings always issued with the lion’s share of the spoil and glory. Scotland, and its adjacent islands, offered tempting chances for swift descent upon unprotected hamlets; and in the hours of their rest or preparation for a new onslaught, its channels afforded them protection and opportunity to refit their ships. The blow struck and they were away with seahorse laden to the water’s edge, seeking the security of the Orkneys, the Shetlands and the distant lava peaks of Faroe. These island groups ultimately became the homes of those who dared not return to Norway or had become too aged to mingle longer in the robbery of Europe. From these islands the self-exiled Northmen sailed forth to assist now one faction of England, Scotland and Ireland, and now another, and even vented their spite by continued bold and dastardly forays upon the domains of Harald.

In 860 Naddodd, a Faroe Viking, left his native Isles and was driven by contrary winds deep into the stormy waters of the north. For days no land was visible, and the anxious eye beheld only the boundless waste of waters shrouded in impenetrable fogs, and the occasional glimpses were only of the rolling, drift-strewn sea ever beyond. At length, the mists were lifted, and the plucky mariner beheld the snow-capped peaks of Iceland. A landing was effected but Naddodd found no traces of human beings, and in his deep disgust he christened the newly discovered country Snaeland, immediately taking his departure.

In 864 Gardar, a Swedish Viking, in attempting to reach the Hebrides, was driven by adverse winds, as Naddodd had been, and at length reached Iceland. He explored the coast quite thoroughly and was the first to circumnavigate it. He built a house on the shore of Skjalfandifjörðr, the present site of Húsavik, “house-by-the-creek.” Hoping to affix his name to the country, he rechristened it Gardar’s Holm. On his return to the Hebrides he gave an enthusiastic account of his voyage and discoveries.

This story so influenced Floki Vilgerdarson, a famous old Viking, that he resolved at once to settle in the new country. Floki, trusting to the flight of ravens, took three of these sable birds of omen as his pilots. When a little beyond the Faroe Islands, he liberated one bird which immediately returned to the land. Some days later a second was set free, whereupon it arose, circled about the ship and returned to its cage. Later the third was liberated. This bird flew to the northwest, and piloted Floki to Iceland. On entering a great bay, bounded on the right by a lofty mountain and on the left by a rugged promontory, Faxa, one of his companions, called the attention of Floki to the fact that such prominent physical features must mark a land of vast expansion and enormous riches. So flattered was Floki that the bay was immediately christened Faxafjörðr, its present name. A colony was founded on a small inlet which in honor of their feathered pilot was named Hrafnarfjörðr, “Raven’s fiord.” Proper precaution was not taken for the severe winter that followed, and during the second year the few survivors returned to Faroe in disgust and gave to this inhospitable land the chilly name of Iceland.

Among the first of the high-born Jarls of Norway to leave his native land was Ingölfr Arnarson, accompanied by his foster brother, Hjörleifr. Many of his friends had gone to ravage France, others went to England, where Alfred was beginning his eventful reign and still others remained in Norway to await the reports from Ingölfr in Iceland. This was in 874, and recalling accounts of Gardar, they set sail with high hopes. Ingölfr took with him the pillars of the high seat of his ancestral hall and when he came in sight of the icy domes of the Öraefa Jökull he cast the pillars into the sea and vowed that upon whatever coast they drifted, there would be found his colony. How many a traveller in modern days has sailed those same waters with the story of Ingölfr fresh in mind and gazed up to these towering cliffs, crowned with pristine ice and decorated with countless waterfalls glittering in the Arctic sun!

A violent storm arose which separated him from his sacred relics and forced him to land upon a long, steep headland just under the Öraefa. To this day the promontory bears the name of Ingölfshöfði. A still bolder headland about seventy miles to the west bears the name of his kinsman, Hjörleifshfði. Hjörleifr was not only a sea-rover, a Viking, but he disdained to worship the gods of his race. He set his Irish slaves to tilling the land. They slew him and fled to the adjacent islands, since called Vestmannaeyjar, or the “Westmen Isles,” for the Irish were then known as the Westmen.

Ingölfr pursued the slaves and slew them all. With the fate of his brother in mind, who had refused to honor the gods, Ingölfr searched vigorously for his drifted pillars and after three years found them on a lava-strewn fiord towards the west. A stream ran down into the channel from a boiling spring, the steam of which was visible for some distance. Here Ingölfr, true to his vow, established his colony and called it Reykjavik, “Smoking Creek.” One of his followers complained of the location as follows,—

“Ill we did in passing the good lands to settle on this promontory.”

Many people have since agreed with him that Reykjavik was an unfortunate place for a settlement and a capital. Destiny has proved too strong for reason.

Following these pioneers, came a steady stream of chiefs and thralls until an event in Norway changed the even flow of emigration into a mad rush for the new lands in the lonely ocean. Among the sea-wolves whose lair was in the Shetlands and the Orkneys were many Vikings who were not content to ravage England, France and more distant shores, but they turned to Norway to vent their spite upon the hated Harald. The old fire was not quenched in the blood of Norway’s King. In 880 he came with a great host, bearing fire and sword, determined to utterly rout the Vikings and all their followers from their island fastnesses. He followed his foes into creek and over cliff, wherever sailor could go or landsman climb, from Orkney south to the Isle of Man he put them utterly to rout and freed forever his native lands from the pirates west-over-the-sea.

There was but one place left in the then known world, whence these liberty-loving, wild and dauntless men, driven from their haunts, could go. Harald had taught the lesson most thoroughly; his foes were too weak to cope with him longer. This was also a blessing to the struggling Saxon kingdoms in England. Thus the Vikings fled to the fire-born island in the north Atlantic, with many a southern kinsman and many an Irish bride.

Auth, daughter of Kettil the Flatnose, the queen of Olaf the White, King of Dublin, went to Iceland in 889, as related in the Erybyggja Saga. She was a woman of considerable wealth and a Christian. With her sister Thorun, she settled in Hvamn. If we accept the account of Dicuilus, an Irish monk who wrote in 829 that some of his Culdee brethren, whom the Vikings called “Papar,” visited Iceland to secure retirement like other anchorites, these two women were the first followers of the Cross in the country. In 890 the women moved from the Breiðifjörðr to Eyjafjörðr. In 1890 the Icelanders celebrated the thousandth anniversary of the landing of the first Christians.

We are apt to picture the Viking as a rover of the sea, making his war-ship fast to that of his enemy and dealing skull-splitting strokes in a mighty mêlée, where the shouts of the victor rose high above the clash and clang of spear and battle-axe upon shield and helmet. War was not his occupation nor was the sea his home. When he wearied of the pastoral life he turned to the sea for plunder, excitement and recreation. His wanderings were usually of three years’ duration. As he returns from the southern isles or the Mediterranean his galley laden to the water’s edge with spoil, let us view him in his real home.

The long ship is beached in a sheltered cove. On the green slope reaching upwards from the shore, stands his dwelling and around it is the tún or home field enclosed with a turf covered lava wall just as one may see it to-day in the rural districts of Iceland. If our Viking is a man of wealth and influence he possesses many thralls and owns a grand hall and possibly a temple. In the center of the hall a row of fires flings out a generous warmth while the smoke circles upwards, glaring and spark-sprinkled, through the holes in the roof. In the center of the long wall is the high seat or place of honor, its lofty pillars deeply carved and crowned with images of Thor, Odin and Frigga. Upon the cushioned seat sits the returning hero, his garments bound with plates of gold and his sword, “Fire-of-the-Sea-King,” in a jewelled scabbard by his side. A collar of engraved gold encircles his neck and his cloak is edged with cloth of gold. On a raised seat at one end of the hall sits his wife surrounded by her servants, her white head dress held with a coronet of gold mingles with her flowing hair falling freely upon her shoulders and over her cloak of royal blue. Her crimson gown from the far East is girdled with golden ornaments and from her wrist hang her keys and well filled purse.

Long rows of benches are occupied with friends and kinsmen who have come to the feast to welcome the returning hero, who is giving a great banquet in celebration of his victories and his safe return. The walls, deeply carved with the stories of many conflicts in the southern waters, are hung with trophies, shields and weapons. The dancing firelight plays upon their burnished surfaces. In the fitful light the house carles glide about, bearing to the benches huge joints of roasted beef and horse-flesh and replenishing the stoups with sparkling mead. During the feast the scald relates in impromptu chant with many a jest the story of the exploits of the hero.

“Toil-mighty leader ruled

Westward the most of war-hosts;

Sea’s mare sped ’neath the lord king

Unto the English lea-land.

The fight-glad king let keel rest,

And winter-long there bided;

No better king there strideth

From out of Vimur’s falcon.”

Translation of Wm. Morris.

The story of the life of the early Icelander is well told in the introduction of the Burnt Njal by Sir George W. Dasent from which I quote the following:—

“From the cradle to the tomb the life of the Icelandic chief fetters our attention by its poetry of will and passion, by its fierce, untamed energy, by its patient endurance, by its undaunted heroism. In Iceland in the tenth century it was only healthy children that were allowed to live. As soon as it was born the infant was laid upon the bare ground, until the father came and looked at it, heard and saw that it was strong in lung and limb, its fate hung in the balance. That danger over, it was duly washed, signed with the Thunderer’s holy hammer, the symbol of all manliness and strength, and solemnly received into the family as the faithful champion of the ancient gods. After the child was named, he was often put out to foster with some neighbor, and there he grew up with the children of the house, and contracted those friendships and affections which were reckoned more binding than the ties of blood. A man was of age as soon as he was fit to do a man’s work, as soon as he could brandish his father’s sword and bend his bow.”

“But for incapacity that age had no mercy. Society required an earnest and pledge from the man himself that he was worth something.”

“Place, King!” cries a new guest to a king of Norway.

“Place? Find a place for yourself! Turn out one of my thanes, if you can. If you can not, you must sit on the footstool.”

“And so these savages spread themselves over the world to prove their natural nobility. In Byzantium they are the leaders of the Greek Emperor’s body guard. From France they tear away her fairest provinces. In England they are bosom friends of such kings as Athelstane, and the sworn foes of Ethelred the Unready. From Iceland as a base they push on to Greenland, and colonize it; nay, they discover America in those half-decked barks.”

“All this they do in the firm faith that the eyes of the gods are upon them. Theirs was, in truth, a simple creed; to do something and to do it well, so that it might last as long as the world lasted. They were superstitious, that is, they believed in a false religion; but then they believed in it, which is more than all the professors of the true religion can say. They were proud; but humility is a plant of Christian soil. They believed in luck; this, too, is a belief which a more enlightened age has hardly shaken off. They were revengeful; but revenge was the most sacred duty of a society, which knew no voice more awful and impressive than that of a brother’s blood calling from the earth.”

“Nor let it be supposed that beneath these tall trees of the forest, growth of emotions did not thrive, which are the crown and joy of everyday life.”

“‘Weep not for me,’ says the dying warrior to his wife, ‘lest those hot tears should scald my bosom and spoil my rest.’”

“‘I was given young to my husband,’ says a faithful wife, ‘and then I promised to live and die with him,’ and this she sings when the house is blazing over their heads, and the foes that surround it offer to let her escape.”

“The Icelanders were the bravest warriors, the boldest sailors, and the most obstinate heathen; but they were the best husbands, the tenderest fathers, and the firmest friends of their day.”

Steadily the stream of the Northmen poured into Iceland until in sixty years from the coming of Ingölfr the population numbered over sixty thousand. So much land was taken by the first-comers that an agreement was made by which all those who came later could take only as much land as they could encompass by fire in a day. This was done by building a huge fire in the center of the location, whence the claimant travelled in a circle as far away from the fire as he could see the smoke.

They brought with them the customs of Norway and its worship of the northern gods. Neighbors gathered in the hústhing, the freeholders in the móthing and the nation in the althing. While great reverence was paid to their gods, who were high ideals of what the people aimed to become, yet their system reveals the presence of an unknown god, indistinct, shadowy and undefined, before whom even Odin, father of the gods, himself must bow. After the diversified life of agriculture and pillage was over, when the last feast had been given and the last war-cry uttered, after Valhalla had received the hero, there was still a lingering suspicion of something yet beyond.

Christianity was forced upon the Norwegians by Olaf Tryggvason and Olaf the Holy. During the rule of the former, Thangbrand preached “Christ’s law” in Iceland among the Eastfirthers, and in the Burnt Njál in this connection we read:—

“Hall let himself be christened and all his household and many other chieftains also; notwithstanding there were many more who gainsaid him. Thangbrand abode three winters in Iceland and was the bane of three men or ever he departed thence.”

When Icelanders journeyed to Norway, Olaf gave them their choice between taking christening or imprisonment. Among the prisoners were Hjallti and Gizur the White, the latter a prominent character in the Burnt Njál. They agreed to go to Iceland and preach the new faith if Olaf would release the prisoners. In the year 1000 they went to the Althing at Thingvellir. During a stormy debate a runner came from the Ölfusá stating that a stream of lava was overflowing the homesteads. The heathen men cried out,—

“No wonder that the gods are wroth at such speakers as we have heard!”

Then Snorri the priest said,—

“At what then were the gods wroth when this lava was molten and ran over the spot on which we now stand?”

They could not answer him.

The following law was then passed,—

“This is the beginning of our laws; that all men shall be Christian here in the land, and believe in one God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, but leave off all idol-worship, not expose children to perish, and not eat horseflesh. It shall be outlawry if such things are proved openly against any man; but if these things are done by stealth, then it shall be blameless.”

The last clause of this law disappeared in a short time and shows the growing hold of the new faith upon the heathen. At first, it was a difficult task to induce the Icelander to be baptized. The difficulty was removed by the agreement that the warm springs should be used as fonts. We may infer from this incident that the rite as administered by King Olaf and his followers was that of immersion. A few churches were built and we read that Snorri the priest erected one at Holyfell. Says the Eyrbyggja Saga,—

“This whetted men much to the building of churches, that it was promised them by the teachers that a man should have welcome place for as many men in the Kingdom of Heaven as might stand in any church that he let build.”

We do not see in this the softening influences of the Christ-life, forgiveness and salvation; it is rather the mediaeval conquest of the Church, which satisfied itself with the symbol of the cross and the rite of holy water. Christianity in this form was powerless to subdue the stirring passions of alienated families, who had long been trained to pay homage to such a god as Odin and to whom the blood-feud was just as sacred as the cross. Thus we see the spears and battle axes, blazoned with the emblem of Christianity, returning from foreign conquests to stain themselves anew in homicidal strife. This very strife gave birth to Icelandic letters.

During the long winter nights the nobles gave lengthened banquets in their halls as their ancestors had aforetime done in Scandinavia. During the progress of the feast the scalds recounted the heroic deeds of their masters. In the fitful glare of the firelight the joyous mead-bowl circled and dissolved in song and cheer the sternness of the north. Here were fought again the terrible Heath Slayings. Here were recounted the deeds of Howard the Halt, the quarrels of the Ere-Dwellers and the stirring scenes of the Water Dale. The returning Viking related his exploits in distant and fairer lands. The legends and folk-lore, through repetition, were clothed with choicer phrasing. These are vivid pictures of the ancient days, simple, straightforward tales that bear the stamp of truth and reveal the germ of a splendid dramatic power.

With the introduction of Christianity came the use of letters. The scalds and story tellers hastened to avail themselves of this method to place in rhyme and prose the idyls, the mythology and the history of the race. Every strong and original race has vented its emotions in literature. The Iliad and Odyssey express the life of the plastic period of the Greek; the Aeneid does the same for the Roman. Through the force of the example set us by our schools, we turn to the study of Greek and Latin, forgetful of our own rich expression of the past or ignorant of its existence. Our early tongue had its great epics. Presumption, it may be, to compare them with the Iliad, but of great merit nevertheless. Its chronicles were replete with the doings of the people. This literature possesses a mythology that, in its purity and noble sentiments, in its heroism and spiritual aspirations, was never equalled.

Thus came into existence the Eddas and Sagas. Mr. York Powell says that the earliest poets were a mixture of Norwegian and Irish. And Howell adds,—

“Hence the Keltic grace that softened down the Gothic strength.” The Eddas relate the earliest mythology, the ancient Scandinavian religion. The first Eddas were written by Saemundr the Wise in poetic form and the later Eddas were put into beautiful prose by Snorri Sturlason at Reykholt. The Landnamabók, the doomsday book of Iceland, was written by several hands but chiefly by Ari the Wise. The names and homes of all the early settlers are given. Snorri Sturlason also wrote the Heimskringla, “round world.” In it we read not only the history of Iceland from the beginning but of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland and England. The list of Sagas is long and each has a special interest. First of all is the Njála, so beautifully translated by Dr. George Dasent, of which he says,—

“It bears away the palm for truthfulness and beauty.”

In the middle of the eleventh century the Icelandic feuds had reached the point where all the great families were weary of bloodshed and in the year 1262 they surrendered their freedom to Hakon, King of Norway. The people still held their own laws and met as customary at the Althing. Says Howell,—

“But with the freedom passed the fruits of an heroic age. The stream of spoil from foreign lands had ceased to flow. The curb upon the chieftain checked the scald; copying took the place of writing, and then the land began to live upon the memories of the past.”

The century before the Reformation was one of sadness, poverty and misery for Iceland. In 1360 Denmark took possession of Norway and Iceland. In 1420 the Black Death visited the little nation and took for toll two thirds of its population. In the fourteenth century the Reformation which was sweeping Europe reached Iceland, the gospel was given to the people and in 1584 the first complete Bible was produced in Icelandic by Bishop Guthbrandr Thorlaksson. With the reformation, also came a revival of letters. In 1602 Denmark gave to a Copenhagen company a monopoly of all Icelandic trade. This wrought an evil that was not remedied until 1874, the effects of which are still experienced by the people. In the seventeenth century, pirates from England, France and Barbary wrought great havoc upon the unprotected coasts and carried away hundreds of captives. Calamities came rapidly. In 1707 the small pox claimed a toll of eighteen thousand people. Fifty years later half a million sheep and nearly all the cattle died of pestilence and as a result famine stalked throughout the land. In 1783 a volcanic eruption destroyed thirteen hundred people, many cattle, twenty thousand horses and one hundred and thirty thousand sheep. The heroic nation had reached the limit of its endurance and Denmark relented. In 1800 the Althing which had met in the sunken plain of Thingvellir for over nine hundred years left the Lögberg to history and removed to Reykjavik to sit beneath a roof. Then arose the Icelandic patriot, Jon Sigurðsson, and through his labors Iceland received from the hands of the King of Denmark, at the celebration of its one thousandth anniversary, its constitution and its practical freedom.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The data for the preceding chapter have been drawn from the following works. To their authors, dead as well as living, the writer is pleased to make acknowledgment.

HEIMSKRINGLA, Snorri Sturlason, Trans. by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson. This is in six volumes, published in London in 1895. Rare.

BURNT NJAL, translated by Sir George W. Dasent, Edinburgh, 1861, two volumes. The Introduction is especially recommended. It has long been out of print but Grant Richards, London, in 1900, published the translation but with a great abridgement of the classical Introduction.

JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN ICELAND, Henderson, during 1814 and 1815, Edinburgh, 1819. This work is a classic but very rare.

BY FELL AND FIORD, E. J. Oswald, Edinburgh, 1882. Valuable for the Saga data. Out of print.

ICELAND PICTURES, W. W. Howell, F. R. G. S., London, William Clowes and Sons. The first chapter, The Exodus of the Vikings. Out of print.

THE FAROES AND ICELAND, Nelson Annandale, Oxford, 1905, largely scientific. The characterization of the Icelanders does not accord with my experience.

SUMMER TRAVELLING IN ICELAND, John Coles, F. R. G. S., London, 1882, a personal narrative. Out of print.

ICELAND, Routes Over the Highlands, Daniel Bruun, Reykjavik, 1907.

HANDBOOK TO ICELAND, for Sportsmen and Tourists, Geo. V. Turnbull, Leith, 1906.

ICELAND, A Handbook for Travellers, Stefán Stefánson, Reykjavik, 1911.

CHAPTER II
THE LURE

“Oh Frey in the north lands,

Thou sweetest of powers,

Thy breath on the mountains

Turns ice into flowers.

Thy smile on the meadows

Is life to the fold,

Thy touch on the maid’s hair

Turns flaxen to gold.”

—Anon.

Why do you choose Iceland for a vacation? I would go to a more interesting place, if I were you.

This question has been asked so many times and similar comments have followed so often before I could answer the question that I write my answer here, as an inducement to you, who can not take the long journey with me literally, to follow me in imagination through these pages and live with me for a few brief hours in that far off land of fascination.

The people interest me. The country was settled, not by serf nor servant. The grand old warriors of the viking period, who overran in quick succession the British Isles, ravaged the coast of France, swept through the Mediterranean and even penetrated to Constantinople, and wherever they went subdued and triumphed,—these are the men who, once the lords and petty kings of ancient Norway, scorning to bend the knee to Harald, chose unknown dangers in a strange and distant land, and going there sat down amidst the frosts and volcanoes of Iceland to relate the story of their deeds. From this virile race are the modern Icelanders descended. They are a kindly, honest and hospitable race; kind to each other and to the stranger within their borders, hospitable with a hospitality which is almost unknown in our selfish race, honest beyond all question.

The literature fascinates me. The language, now dead in its ancient Norse valleys, is a living speech in Iceland. Its children read its ancient sagas, centuries upon centuries old, as understandingly as their weekly newspapers. It is just as if some long lost island of the Aegian still held in all its ancient purity the musical accent of the Homeric age, or, as if some forgotten valley in the Italian Alps resounded with the rhetoric of Cicero or vibrated to the tunes of Horace.

The scenery, the geology, has a charm unknown in other lands. It is a country fresh from the crucible of nature. Here one views a continent in the making, beholds the mighty upheavals from the nether abyss, sees how nature, as if ashamed of her rough work, planes with her league-long blades of ice the basaltic ridges and glassy peaks. The traveller beholds a country full of lakes and rivers, and waterfalls the largest in Europe, but a country without any system of mountain chains and drainage to conform to the laws laid down by the physiographer. Mountains there are in abundance and lofty ones, but scattered hither and yon at the strange caprice of Pluto. Rivers, both the delight and the vexation of the traveller, inspiring in the grandeur and unharnessed freedom of their mighty canyons, vexing when they obstruct his passage, and he must lift his hat in trust to swim their white currents or else forbear the distant shore. In stern defiance of obstacles the traveller journeys through a roadless country where a thousand years since the progenitors of his diminutive steed first bore their valiant masters. There are miles of meadows smiling in the lengthened summer day and freely sprinkled with a rich and beautiful flora; there are quaking bogs to cross and quicksands, where the judgment of his pony surpasses his rider’s wisdom; there are wastes of wind driven sand without a scrap of vegetation to enliven the scene; there are mountain ranges to be crossed, perhaps where no one ever pressed the lava; there are beautiful valleys, rich with flocks and herds and alive with horses; there are areas of smoking lands, ill-smelling and sizzling fumaroles, boiling springs and blue-black mud cauldrons which vomit their horrid contents with a sickening gasp; lakes and ponds innumerable, where live unmolested a myriad waterfowl, where flowers bloom in a profusion often rare in more southern climes.

The homes are simple, humble and pastoral. An ancient house of turf and stone, an enclosed mowing patch, the sheep folds and the byre, a scanty garden where a few hardy vegetables rejoice in the long, long day. Even the endless day has its charm, the nearly continuous sunshine and the fleecy clouds in the bluest of blue skies, the lights and shadows on lake and mountain, the extreme clearness of the atmosphere, clear to the point of great deception to the inexperienced,—the colors, I did not forget them, nor will one having seen the richest of nature’s colors in these grand old volcanic piles with streaks of emerald and patches of brown, gray, yellow, red and crimson all washed and blended with the fan-like brush of melting snow, ever forget.

Why do I go to Iceland? Because the people appeal, the old stories of heroic deeds stir the sluggish blood of city life, and the thought of being foot-loose and care-free throughout its lingering summer day to roam at will its mountain vales and smiling meadows impels me.

CHAPTER III
THE WAY

“Here rise no groves, and here no gardens blow,

Here even the hardy heath scarce dares to grow;

But rocks on rocks, in mist and storm arrayed,

Stretch far to sea their giant colonade,

With many a cavern seamed, …”

—Scott.

Iceland is an island in the north Atlantic just east of Greenland. There is no boat service between it and America. The American must embark either from Copenhagen or from Leith. The Copenhagen boats, the mail boats of Det Forenede Dampskibs-Selskab, always call at Leith and it is by this line and from Leith that we have always sailed for Iceland.

We went on board the Laura at the Albert Dock in the afternoon of the eighth of July 1909, and steamed out through the Firth of Forth. At last, after 3000 miles of ocean travel we were en route for Iceland. The little boat was crowded to overflowing and two English ladies slept in the starboard boat as it hung from the davits. Among the passengers there were eleven different nationalities. The Laura looked diminutive compared with the transatlantic liner from which we had disembarked but three days previously. We viewed her not without some doubt as to her behavior in the stormy waters of the north. She was an ancient boat, one could tell that at a glance as well as by another sense, but she was staunch. When the skipper told me that the display of bunting from peak to peak was in commemoration of her two hundredth consecutive trip to Iceland, I said to my wife,—

“The boat is all right, it all rests with the skipper.” This proved to be prophetic. Captain Aasberg took us safely through the stormiest passage we have experienced in these waters and landed us all safely as he had done with so many passengers previously. On the return he resigned and the owners turned the Laura over to a new skipper. Whether she was disobedient to her new master or not, I can not say, but on his first trip she climbed the lava ridges north of Iceland and her ribs are still grinding in the sluiceways. Better a frail boat and a staunch captain than the converse.

The passage northward is full of interest with such special features to attract the attention as,—the shipping activity of Aberdeen and Peterhead, the North Sea trawlers and the herring fleet, the smaller fishing craft venturing shorter distances from the protection of the great headlands, the grand old promontories of the Pentland Firth and the Skerries, to discuss all of which would shorten our journey in Iceland.

We can not pass the Orkneys without a word of notice. They were the Isles-West-Over-the-Sea of the Vikings. Here they fled at first from the wrath of Harald, here they fitted out their expeditions for all lands, here they recuperated and quarrelled with themselves and the mixed race of the mainland of Scotland. Here was written that great Saga of the northland, the Orkneyinga Saga, a stirring tale of Harald, the Earls of Orkney and of Scotland. Passing Kirkwall, the square Norman tower of its ancient cathedral attracts the eye. Pleasing is the crescent city on the quiet bay. How peaceful and how changed from the days of the Vikings! We recall that this is the center of the action in Scott’s Pirate, that fine story of much earlier days. On yonder crag Norna of the Fitful Head uttered her wild incantations, in this same kirk she plotted with the mysterious pirate while those fair fields with the upland flocks are the same as in the days of Halco and Magnus.

The Old Man of Hoy blends with the cliffs as we pass, the famous Naup Head sinks into the sea and the Laura in a smother of fog and drizzle turns confidently towards Faroe. Forty-six hours out from Leith the Laura found her old anchorage in Thorshaven, the capital of the Faroe Isles. We found it a great relief to go ashore for a few hours to visit the shops of these people. The place and the people are worthy of a special chapter which will follow this one. The passage through the fiords was fortunately made in clear weather and the scenery is impressive.

Lonely and grand in the north Atlantic rise the storm-scarred cliffs of Faroe. They are the stepping stones to Iceland and as such were used as a resting place by the first mariners of these waters.

CHAPTER IV
FAROE

“And still the eye may faint resemblance trace

In the blue eye, tall form, proportion fair,

The limbs athletic, and the long light hair,—

(Such was the mien, as Scald and Minstrel sings,

Of fair-haired Harold, first of Norway’s Kings);

But their high deeds to scale these crags confined,

Their only warfare is with wave and wind.”

—Scott.

Considering the latitude and its isolation in the north Atlantic, the climate of Faroe is comparatively mild. Fierce storms from the north beat down upon the islands and the heavy sea often surges for days together through these narrow channels making it impossible for boats to pass from shore to shore. Even in calm weather the tide currents often run at ten knots an hour so that it is necessary for the boatman to have an accurate knowledge of the currents in order to make progress. The high peaks are covered with snow frequently throughout the summer, but snow seldom lingers in the valleys over a fortnight even in the winter.

The temperature is low in summer and correspondingly high in winter. Heavy fogs cover the islands during the greater portion of the year and a perfectly clear day is rare. When the sun breaks through the mists, the effect of the shifting clouds, the areas of snow on the upper peaks and the myriads of waterfalls form a magnificent picture.

Seventeen of the islands are inhabited with a population of 16,000 people. The largest island is Strömö, Stream, which is twenty-seven miles long. The capital, Thorshaven, Harbor-of-Thor, with a population of 8,000 people, is located on the east coast of Strömö. These islands belong to Denmark and have two representatives in the Danish Parliament. All local affairs are conducted in the Lagthing, Law-Assembly, at Thorshaven. The people are exempt from conscription and of nearly all customs, duties and taxes. The members of the Lagthing are chosen by ballot for a term of three years. The President is appointed by the Danish King for life. The local taxes are collected by native sheriffs, who canvass their districts four times each year. The sheriffs also have charge of the division and distribution of the captured whales. Lawyers are resident at Thorshaven and at no other place in the islands. Criminal and civil cases are tried before a judge and without a jury. All petty cases come before the local sheriff. The head man of each village enforces the sanitary regulations and other local rules. There are no policemen in the islands and crime, unless committed by foreign sailors, usually Scotch fishermen, is extremely rare. The Faroese are peaceable and sensitive of any scandal if it passes beyond the borders of their own village. It is the duty of every man to see to it that the law is maintained, and they keep a careful watch of all foreigners when on shore.

There is only one jail in the islands and a Faroeman smilingly declared to me that it was for the sole benefit of the Shetland fishermen. The law permits a prisoner to diet only on bread and water. A man serving a sentence spends three days in jail and then enjoys three days of freedom alternately until the entire term of the confinement is completed. There is no danger of his making an escape.

Cutting up Whale Meat at Thorshavn.

Heads of the Bottle Nose Whale.

In Thorshaven and in the larger villages there are schools. There is also a Teacher’s College in the capital city. The people have local option in educational matters and many prefer to teach their children at home. If it is voted to have a school in a given village, then all the children must attend it, the parents must supply a teacher and provide sufficient pasturage for one cow for the use of the teacher, but the government pays the meager salary.

The results of their home education are excellent; the children study for the sake of knowledge. The most simple ones have a good knowledge of history and geography. The law requires that the church services, the village schools and the proceedings of the Lagthing be conducted in Danish. On all other occasions the Faroeman uses his own language. They use the Danish only upon compulsion. There is a strong anti-Danish feeling which is kept alive by the supercilious behavior and affected superiority of the resident Danes, who, however, in politeness, integrity and hospitality are inferior to the Faroese. The Danes in Faroe are not to be confounded by the reader with the Danes resident in Denmark.

The people are stoutly built, with fair complexions, usually handsome, mostly short in stature, broad shouldered and rugged, descendants of the ancient Norse Vikings who settled in Faroe prior to the settlement of Iceland. They have kept the race pure. If asked his nationality, the Faroeman proudly replies,—“I am a Faroeman.”

The men have a national costume, which is shown in the frontispiece of this volume. This suit I purchased of Peter Arge in Thorshaven. I asked him where I could obtain one of these suits and he took me to the little bed room at the top of his house and asked me to try on his best suit. I did it and found that it fitted closely, and so it was in style in Thorshaven. He willingly sold it saying that he could make another during the winter when there was no work. A brief description of this costume is not out of place at this point. It consists of knickerbockers, slashed at the knee and secured with four silver buttons and a broad, double-hinged silver buckle. The waistcoat is scarlet, fastened with six silver buttons. A continuous spray of forget-me-nots, daintily worked with colored silk, extends down each edge of the waistcoat and across the two diminutive pockets. A tightly fitting jersey of homespun, with twenty-four silver buttons, twelve on a side, is put over the waistcoat and over this, in cold weather, is worn a short heavy jacket fastened with silver buttons of large size. This is used much as we use an overcoat. The cap is of closely woven material in fine stripes of red and blue; it has no visor, is cylindrical in shape and gathered at the top in the form of a rosette, which is pulled down on the right hand side and fastened at the edge of the cap. Thick, homespun stockings of soft wool and sheepskin slippers,—or sometimes a Danish shoe with silver buckles,—fastened around the ankles with red or white cord complete the costume. No,—the Faroeman is not fully “dressed” without his beautifully inlaid knife in a highly ornamented sheath fastened to his belt with a twisted cord. This knife, as well as scores of similar knives from Faroe, was made by Mr. Arge, who is expert at inlaying shell, silver and wood. The suit was made in his own family and his daughter embroidered the waistcoat. The Faroese women, like the Icelandic men, have no national costume.

The people are very seclusive. Many families claim descent from the ancient Kings of Norway and Scotland, and will marry only among themselves. They are so clannish that the people on one island rarely marry with those of another island. To illustrate,—A woman born on Strömö married a man from Nalsö. The result was that she was boycotted by all the Nalsö people. Contrary to the dogma of the medical fraternity this inbreeding has not produced extremely abnormal offspring. Mental, moral and physical degeneration has not resulted from this long series of close inbreeding.

The language of the Faroese must be classed as a dialect. Although having the same origin as the Icelandic tongue, it differs strongly in pronunciation. In the Viking days the same speech was employed in Norway, Faroe and in Iceland. Icelandic has remained nearly pure but Faroe, being in close contact with Shetland, Orkney and with the numerous fishermen, its language has been much adulterated. Faroe has its Sagas as well as Iceland, Norway and Orkney, but there were no Sagamen or historians as in Iceland. The modern Faroese dialect has been written less than eighty years. The ballads, folklore and traditions are now being reduced to writing by the scholars and many French, English, Danish and Icelandic works have been translated.

The Faroese have escaped the demoralizing influences of the continent and for centuries have lived simply and quietly along the lines of their ancient customs. Their hospitality is generous, their courtesy to strangers extensive, their inborn honesty is perfect. The people, when not engaged in fish curing or in whale dissection, are clean and their homes are models of tidiness. Their centuries of isolation and peaceful living have eradicated every trace of the cruelty, piracy and murderous tendencies of their Viking progenitors. They have some vices,—what nation has none? They lack originality, their ambition and energy is at a low ebb, they take life as a matter of fact and do not worry. They surpass all other people in their love of gossip and in sarcasm. There is a lack of gaiety and a tendency towards melancholy. If climate has any effect upon the spirits of a race, surely the heavy fogs, that hang over these islands for weeks and saturate everything with chilling moisture, are responsible for the melancholy. The long, dark winters, the continuous roar of ocean through these ancient fiords is also responsible for the mental cast of the race. But, they have a peculiar humor and are fond of joking each other. This is a trait inherited from their Viking ancestors and this trait is strong in Iceland. The people dislike very much to be laughed at or to pose as objects of curiosity before the gaze of the foreigner. It was with the greatest difficulty that I obtained my series of one hundred photographs of these people and their homes.

Conservatism is their prevailing characteristic. Some European method or idea may be better than their own, but they cling to their ancient customs as their bird catchers to the cliffs. They build their houses as did their grandfathers because their grandfathers constructed their dwellings after the designs of more remote generations. Birch bark is still imported from Norway to cover the drift-wood rafters and over this is placed a layer of turf where the grass grows throughout the year and the flowers bloom in profusion in the long summer. The ancient wooden weighing beam, the quaint antique iron lamp for train oil, the implements of the forge, the fishing tackle, the boats and their rigging,—all are constructed according to ancestral specifications. Modern ideas are scoffed at, the old ways are the best. The Faroese are happy in their own seclusion and they live in the shadowy paths between the superstitions of ancient Scandinavia and the vigorous, pulsing life of western civilization. They care little for the outside world and its problems. A local newspaper, in spite of the submarine cable, gives only a fourth of a column to news of the outside world; the remainder is filled with gossip which every one knew before the sheet issued from the press.

The streets of Thorshaven are narrow, uneven, crooked and crowded. The houses are built mostly of wood on high stone foundations, the walls are frequently coated with tar and in the summer time festoons of fish are suspended from the gables to dry. Within the home everything is neat and clean, the Norway spruce is sanded, colored by time and untarnished with paint and has become a beautiful chestnut brown.

The people retain some of their ancient superstitions and believe that the result of a day’s fishing, or success in bird-netting, will depend upon some chance of minor importance. The trolls, underground people of diminutive stature, elves and fairies live largely in the imagination and the folk stories relative to these phantoms have a strong influence upon the children. Where the cliffs rise directly out of the sea, there are many isolated columns, like the “Old Man of Hoy” in Orkney, which have been left standing by erosion of the waves. The water surges around them and they stand erect in the mists, solitary and unpressed by human foot. The Faroese call them the “Fingers of the Norns” and the fishermen hold them in deep superstition. This northern superstition, the control of mortals by unseen powers, has been made use of by Sir Walter Scott in that mysterious character in the Pirate, Norna of the Fitful Head.

The people are chiefly occupied in fishing, sheep raising and bird catching. The codfish abound in these cool northern waters, especially on the Faroe Bank. They not only secure enough of them for their own consumption but export large quantities to the Catholic countries of the Mediterranean. As in Labrador and in Iceland, so in Faroe, the fishing is done by the men, while the splitting, cleaning, curing and packing is the work of the women.

The one time in the year when the Faroese are moved from the even tenor of their way is during the whale drive. This is a yearly affair that takes place during the latter part of July or early in August. It is the one great sport of the country and upon its success depends the condition of the larder during the long winter. This is the bottle-nose whale, Hyperoodon rostratum, a small species from fifteen to twenty-two feet in length. They frequent the north Atlantic in large schools. The Faroese are constantly on the look out for them and when the whales enter the channels the summons by signals and telephone is rapidly passed from island to island. In an incredibly short time the school is nearly surrounded by the boats of the excited fishermen with harpoons and spears. Because of the great shouting and the closing together of the boats, the whales become frightened and frantically rush to the shore where most of them are stranded, few ever escape. From the boats, from the shore, and in the water, the slender harpoon is hurled with deadly aim. The whale once struck is securely anchored and the harpooner hastens to secure another victim. When the slaughter is over, the heads are cut off and numbered, the bodies cut up and distributed under the direction of the sheriffs and an equitable distribution of the flesh and fat is made according to law. Not only do the people actually present at the whale slaughter receive their portion but all the people in the district receive their just share. The flesh of these whales is similar to dark colored coarse grained beef, but when nicely broiled is a palatable and nutritious dish. The body is enveloped with two to six inches of fat, which has the consistency of hard fat pork. This is salted and used by the people as we use salt pork. The flesh is smoked, dried or salted. Owing to the scarcity of grass the Faroese cows sometimes subsist upon dried whale meat in the winter and often eat dried fish heads.

The third occupation of the people is bird catching. This is followed by a restricted portion of the population. The great cliffs of Faroe, ranking with the finest in the world, are the homes of myriads of sea birds. Bird catching is an art as well as an occupation and has descended from father to son through many generations. The skua, puffin, guillemot and eider duck are among the more numerous birds. They are taken for their flesh, oil and feathers. Many of the birds are captured in nets similar to a butterfly net, except that the net is flat and spread between two forks at the end of a long pole. I measured one of these nets and found the handle to be eighteen feet long and each of the Y-shaped prongs was six feet. Between the arms of the Y is stretched the net. In use the fowler sits upon a rock and when he sees a puffin flying directly towards him he elevates the net, the bird is clumsy, unable to quickly change his direction and flying into the net becomes entangled. I sat by one of the fowlers in Iceland one day who was working with one of these nets and in thirty minutes he secured forty birds. Often times the record of two or more a minute is made, when the birds are flying well. The puffin burrows in the ground like a rabbit and there rears its young. During the day they haunt the sea, collect small fish and then fly in great companies in long files to their nests.

The fowler is also an expert cragsman and whether he creeps along the narrow shelf hundreds of feet above the sea and works his way from point to point on the overhanging cliffs, or is suspended like a pendulum on a rope four to five hundred feet, he is cool, collected, skillful, and always successful. In fact he is the best cragsman in the world.

There are a few domestic arts that have reached perfection, as far as their purpose is concerned, such as spinning, weaving, fulling, embroidering, boat-building and metal decorating. The Faroeman is an expert at wood and bone carving and at metal inlaying. My Faroese sheath knife, made by Peter Arge, is a model of skillful construction, deftly inlaid with the mother of pearl and silver. The sheath is of ebony, inlaid with silver in the form of a whale boat, harpoon and fish hooks.

Faroe is the stepping stone to Iceland. I have visited it on seven different occasions, have passed through nearly every one of its numerous channels, wandered through the villages, attended a country auction much like that held in the rural districts of New England, climbed the lower slopes of its hills which overlook the fiords, witnessed the marvelous bird life and learned a little about the quaint inhabitants and my experience has been such that I can cordially recommend these lofty islands as a delightful spot for a summer’s holiday. The tourist will be given all necessary assistance and information, whether he desires to paint, fish in the little lakes of the glacial valleys, accompany the fowler in his dangerous occupation upon the cliffs or journey from island to island through the wonderful channels with the fishermen. He will obtain homely but clean and nutritious food, and when the crust of conservatism is broken and the confidence of the host is secured, he will pass many an hour in delightful conversation which will store his mind with quaint anecdotes and ancient myths. He will leave the islands with regret and in after years will sometimes long for the serene and peaceful life of the Faroese, where worry, care and social duties do not intrude and he will count among his warmest friends the stoical Faroese.

With the ever changing mood of sea and sky these isles present a kaleidoscopic picture. The frowning cliffs alive with sea birds, where “clouds on clouds arise,” the higher pinnacles obscured or banded with drifting cloud ribbons, the patches of pristine snow high up in the mountain clefts from which numerous waterfalls leap the cliffs to fall in silver spray upon the sea, the quaintly garbed Faroese swinging like pendulums from the projecting lava to net the birds, or, bobbing in their boats upon the waves, the tiny homes set in a bit of emerald vegetation in an angle of the mountain wall, the changing panorama of sea, cliff and sky as the boat raced with the current through the tortuous channels and turned the last rockspire into the northern ocean and the fading of the mighty headlands in the purple haze of a midnight twilight,—these were the elements of a picture well worth ten thousand miles of travel. Faroe with the quaintness of twelve centuries of isolation dropped below the horizon and the next land to delight the eye was to be Iceland.

I was with the mate on the bridge at five the next morning and as anxious as was Ingölfr and his foster brother, Hjörleifr, eleven centuries before, to discover what secrets these northern waters held,—when the dim outline of land was seen through the shifting fog. An enthusiastic Dane, an Icelandic maiden and her Swedish lover started the national anthem of Iceland.

“Eldgamla Ísafold,

Ástkaera fósturmold,

Fjallkonan fríð,

Mögum pín muntu kaer,

Meðan lönd gyrðir saer,

Og gumar girnast maer,

Gljár sól á hlíð.”

At that time I did not distinguish the Icelandic from the Danish but I knew the tune, America, and I mingled the good English words of Dr. Smith with the lisping gutturals of the Scandinavian. Norse and Yankee are well met in this Icelandic sea and I doff my cap to the descendants of those sturdy mariners who discovered Iceland, Greenland and America before Columbus was born, who Anglicised Celt and Britain and eventually made possible our own dear New England.

The morning vapors are scattered. The ocean is a thing of life. It rolls in all the wild freedom of the north, rich in livid shades of blue and green in the nearer circle of our vision while on the far horizon it is a sparkling amethyst beneath the deeper azure of the bending sky. To the north, the circle is broken by the abrupt basaltic towers of Ingölfshofði. Beyond these rise the red and brown fragments of extinct craters, and yet beyond and towering far above them are the glaciated Jökulls down whose sides rush mighty torrents to dash in uncounted waterfalls into the impatient sea. It was at this point that the foster brothers cast overboard the temple pillars of Ingölfr, who vowed by Odin, that upon whatever coast they were cast, there would he found his colony. Hjörleifr went to the neighboring islands, the Westmans, where he was soon afterwards murdered by his Irish serfs. Ingölfr tarried here for about three years and sent parties along the coast to search for the lost pillars.

This bold promontory is also noted in the Saga of Burnt Njal as being the place where Kari, the blood-avenger of Njal was wrecked when returning from his exile. Near here stood the house of Flosi, the lifelong enemy of Kari. The incident shows the sacredness of hospitality among these savage people. Kari went boldly to Flosi and asked for succor from the storm. The Burner, in spite of the sworn enmity to Kari, granted his request, welcomed him with a Scandinavian welcome and afterwards they became lifelong friends.

We came close in under the bare black walls of Eyjafjalla, Island-Mountain, and gazed up to Skogafoss, Forest Waterfall, tumbling one hundred and eighty feet of unbroken water into the breakers which boiled with the black volcanic sand. At length we came to Vestmannaeyjar, Westman Isles, which, like the fingers of the Norns had been beckoning to us all the morning.

CHAPTER V
VESTMANNAEYJAR

“Here, by each stormy peak and desert shore,

The hardy isleman tugs the daring oar,

Practiced alike his venturous course to keep,

Through the white breakers or the pathless deep.”

—Scott.

These islands are named for the Irish slaves, formerly called Westmen, who are reported to have fled to this desolate pile in 879. For centuries it was the resort of piratical expeditions from England and from far-away Barbary. The first recorded attack was made by an English crew under the command of “Gentleman John.” Three years afterwards the church property was restored by King James, and John was severely punished.

The greatest raid was made in 1627. Barbary pirates were planning an expedition for plunder. One of them held a Danish slave by the name of Paul, who was tired of his life of servitude and counseled his master to make an expedition to Iceland. He stated that he had been there and could pilot them and that they could obtain a large profit in sheep and church valuables as well as many slaves. The expedition was decided upon and for his treachery he was to receive his freedom. The flotilla comprised four ships, one sailing from Kyle and three from Algiers. June 15 1627 the ship from Kyle reached Grimdavik, Iceland. They ransacked the village and took several prisoners. The people mistook the pirates for English fishermen, who had long been in the habit of landing on the coast to steal a few sheep, and so did not flee. The Moors captured a Danish trading vessel and then sailed to Hafnarfjörðr. After raiding this settlement they sailed for Kyle, which they reached in five weeks from their departure. Their prisoners were sold in the slave market.

The three ships from Algiers reached Berufjörðr and thoroughly sacked the town. They remained on the Iceland coast eight days, captured one hundred and ten people and secured a large amount of booty from the treasure chests of the people and the churches. They were extremely cruel with the older people but quite kind to the children, hoping to convert them to the faith of Mohammed. To illustrate,—

At Hál they found the priest’s wife, an aged woman, confined to the bed with sickness. They dragged her down to the shore, but finding her physically unable to go with them, beat her into an unconscious state with their muskets, a condition much to be preferred to that in which so many of her people found themselves in Moorish slavery.

They next set sail for the Westman Isles. They pressed into service an Icelandic renegade who had acted as pilot for English fishing boats. At this time the population of Heimaey was of two classes; first, Icelandic fishermen and birdcatchers and second, a small Colony of Danish officials and their servants. The Icelanders so mistrusted the Danes that they fled to the cliffs rather than assist them to repel the invaders. The Danish agent, Bagge, armed his assistants and prepared as best he could for defense, posting sentinels around the island.

Early in the morning Thorstein showed the pirates a secret path up the face of the cliffs at the south, which they ascended and spread out their damp powder to dry. During this time they danced and yelled in fiendish glee looking down upon their helpless victims. The raiders then divided into three bands and thoroughly ransacked the village. They looted the church and in mockery rang the bells, arrayed themselves in the vestments of the priest and finally burned the church. The people fled to the several caves in the tufa, many were murdered while in flight and others captured and bound. For three days one hundred people hid in one of these caves which is so concealed that it is with difficulty that it can be found.

Jon Thorstein, the first translator of the Psalms into Icelandic verse, a priest, since called “the Martyr,” took refuge in a small cave with his family where he doubtless would have been saved had it not been for the curiosity of a companion who ventured to the entrance and exposed himself and thus attracted the attention of the pirates. The following account is from the history of Björn of Scandsá:—

“The priest went to the outer part of the cave, where he saw that blood ran in the opening; and then he hied him out, and saw that Snorri lay headless at the door of the cave: for the raiders had shot off his head, and he had been to them a signal for the cave. Then Jon went within again telling this hap; and he bade his folks beseech Almighty God to succor them. Forthwith thereafter these noisy hounds stood over the cave, so that he heard their footfall.

“‘Margrjet, they are coming,’ he said, ‘Lo, I will go to meet them without fear!’

“He prayed that God’s grace might not leave her. But while the words were in the saying, the bloodthirsty hounds came to the cave’s mouth and would search it, but the priest went out to meet them. Now when they saw him, one of them said,” (doubtless the renegade, Thorstein),—

“‘Why art thou here, Sira Jon? Ought’st not to be at home in thy church?’ The priest answered—

“‘I was there this morning.’ Then said the murderer,

“‘Thou wilt not be there to-morrow morning.’ And thereafter he cut him on the head to the bone. The priest stretched out his hands and said,—

“‘I commit me to my God. That thou doest do freely!’ The wretch then struck him another blow. At this he cried out saying,—

“‘I commit me to my Lord Jesus Christ.’

“Then Margrjet, the priest’s wife, cast herself at the feet of the tyrant, and clung to them, thinking that his heart might be softened, but there was no pity in these monsters. Then the scoundrel struck a third blow. The priest said,—

“‘That is enough. Lord Jesus receive my soul!’ Then the foul man cleft his skull asunder. Thus he lost his life.

“There was a little rift higher up in the cliff than where these folk lay, and two women saw and heard all these things.”

Nearly four hundred Icelanders were carried to the Algerian slave markets where most of them speedily succumbed to the cruelty of their masters and the hot climate. Of the many carried away only thirteen ever returned to their native land.

When Herjölfr settled in the Westman islands, legend relates that he buried a large amount of gold, part of which he obtained in his Viking expeditions to the English Channel and the remainder by selling the water of the only spring on Heimaey. His daughter, Vilborg, in true charity and by stealth, distributed the water to poor people in times of drought. The residents of the island delight to show the niche in the tufa where Herjölfr stabled his horses. The only spring on Heimaey to this day is called Vilpá in memory of the maiden. Her father with all his wealth was buried during an earthquake and the inhabitants, when they have nothing else to do, delight in searching for the hidden treasure which the leader of the pirates, Morad, failed to find.

The Westman Isles are fourteen in number and lie seven miles off the south coast of Iceland. Four of these are entirely barren, sea-washed and storm-beaten, affording admirable nesting places for sea birds. The strait which separates them from the mainland is shallow, beset with shoals and hidden reefs and contains several treacherous currents. The mainland shore, the Rangar Sands, has a broad morass of drifting volcanic sand, upon which heavy waves continually break, rendering it nearly impossible to launch or beach a boat. Thus the Westman Isles are isolated much more than the narrow strait would indicate.

Until within a few years the children born on Heimaey have always died within two weeks of birth with infantile tetanus. It was formerly the custom for prospective mothers to visit the mainland to save their children from this dread disease. Improved sanitary conditions and scientific medical treatment have lately made this customary precaution unnecessary. Formerly the inhabitants were recruited by residents of the north of Iceland.

Heimaey, the “Home Island,” has an area of only four square miles and a population of less than one thousand. The village is on the northern side of the island, on the south shore of a little bay, under the bird cliffs which afford a harbor for small craft and then only in calm weather. This little bay is separated from the strait by the grand bird cliffs 2000 feet high, which are attached to the island by a narrow rim of volcanic sand. A solitary cone, Helgafell, with a black crater stands at the center of the island and Heimaey clings to the lower slope of the volcano, apparently ready to loose its grip and slip into the sea. The land slopes gently upward to the cone of cinder, tufa, and ash. The lower slopes are covered with a scanty carpet of grass freely sprinkled with flowers, where uncertain pasturage invites the sheep and forms a strong contrast to the red and black cone which rises naked against sea and sky.

The remainder of the island is a rough and jagged mass of lava, partly disintegrated into a desolate moor and partly storm-swept to the very ribs of the island. No brook chatters in the dark ravines, no trees shadow the sheep from summer’s long sunshine. Wherever the lava has crumbled to mingle with the droppings of uncounted generations of seabirds, the grass is emerald green as if in memory of the first settlers from the Emerald Isle. The climate is mild and enjoys the highest mean temperature in all Iceland. For centuries the people have had to depend upon their own resources. In recent years they have obtained supplies from Europe in exchange for oil, fish and feathers.

The houses, for the most part, are tidy little homes often with a little patch of carefully guarded cultivation. At the rear of the village stands the modest parish church, containing a good altar piece painted upon wood. Beside the church is the cemetery enclosed with a wall of lava and turf. The graves are mounds raised high above the level of the land, because the lava is so near the surface that to dig a grave is impossible and dirt is carried to the cemetery to form the mounds.

Excavations made in the volcanic sand in 1910 by Baron Klinckowström of Stockholm help to fix the date of the last eruption of the volcano. In the sand and ash he found evidences of a former people, a comb of ancient Scandinavian construction and the bones of the seal and sheep. One great volcano formerly covered this entire area and poured out ashes and cinder all around it. This material has since solidified into tufa and much of the tufa has been worn away, leaving many solid columns of the original lava core, which stand isolated in the sea. Then came the second eruption when the crater of Helgafell was formed. The references given in the Landámabók and the exhumed material fix the date of this eruption subsequent to the settlement of the island by the Irish slaves. The tufa itself is very hard for this class of volcanic rock. It is weathered in fantastic forms with myriads of niches and contains several sea caves. One of these is so large that we entered it in a thirty foot naptha launch and turned about within. The view from within is strange and impressive. The deep azure of the waters, the light brown tufa dome, the dark cone of Helgafell rising above the village and the clouds of sea birds shadowing the entrance to the cave and filling the air with a resounding clangor on our exit made a mark on memory’s tablet never to be effaced.

The most interesting occupation in Heimaey is bird catching. Of course the fish curing is worthy of attention, but then it is much the same whether we see it on the drear coast of Labrador, the green slopes of the Faroes, the lava blocks of Iceland or the wood stages of Gloucester. With the inhabitants of this volcanic pile it is not only a business it is a pleasure and an art which has culminated with generations of experience. The fulmar, puffin and guillemot are the principal birds taken. Throughout the summer the raucid clamor of the fulmars on the face of the cliffs mingles with the complaints of the puffins which stand in long rows like lines of soldiers, and the guillemots scan each other sagely from their captured niches in the tufa. These mammoth cliffs are riddled with holes and cracks and ornamented with narrow, projecting ledges. Above the cliffs there is an abundance of loose material where the shearwaters and puffins excavate their burrows.

Helgafell, Volcanic Cone in Vestmannaeyjar.

A Chain of Basalt Pyramids in Faroe.

The cliffs are the property of the Danish Crown and are rented annually in sections at a price ranging from sixty to seventy-five dollars. The laws governing bird catching are well defined and strict. The season and method of capture of each species is explicitly stated. A gun can never be used under any circumstances. No act can be committed which would in the least disturb the birds. The eider duck can never be killed except by a man who can prove that he was actually starving with no other means of procuring food. But above all the laws and rendering laws unnecessary is a sound public opinion.

All the birds are very tame. Tens of thousands of puffins sit upright along the tops of the crags, many of them still holding rows of little fishes in their great beaks. The catchers station themselves at definite intervals along the cliffs and catch them in a net as they fly past. Their necks are broken with a sudden twist as the net is unloaded and the birds left in piles along the ground or thrown to the bottom of the cliff to be gathered by the boys and women who pluck them. The breast is used for food. The remainder of the birds are strung on long lines and hung upon the fences or festooned from the gables of the houses to dry and to furnish fuel. A single puffin is worth when first captured about a cent and a half. The down is sold at the trader’s store for thirteen cents per pound. About 40,000 puffins are taken on these cliffs each season.

The fulmar is nearly as important as the puffin. About 30,000 are captured during the open season. The fulmar, “foul-gull,” is appropriately named. When captured or disturbed it spits a large quantity of oily fluid, rank with the odor of putrid fish. These birds are taken by the simple act of knocking them over with a club. Several men usually work in unison. One man has a long rope fastened to his waist and then twisted around each thigh. Suspended in the air, or with his feet against the face of the cliff he ascends or descends the sides of the rock, kicking himself outward. The rope is managed by three or four men at the top of the cliff and sometimes secured by an iron ring fastened in the rock.

The fulmars are plucked, the heads and wings cut off, the body split open, the interior fat cleaned out, and then the birds are either smoked or packed in salt for winter use. The fat is boiled down to a thick oil, spiced and used as a substitute for butter. Ten fulmars will yield a liter of oil. The oil is used in the native lamps. The entrails, heads, wings and legs are dried and used for fuel. It is so difficult to free the feathers from the oil that they are of little value. When thoroughly cleaned they are worth only twelve cents per pound. The birds themselves when cured are worth four cents each.

Nearly a thousand gannets, Solon Goose, are taken in these islands each year. Why it is called the “Solon” is not known. It is possible that it really possesses wisdom in excess of other geese. Scientifically it is not a real goose. A great many kittiwakes and guillemots are captured though the total value is much less than the above mentioned birds.

The young men of Heimaey capture the stormy petrels alive for the purpose of playing jokes with them. The birds give a sound similar to the purring of a cat. Several of them are let loose in the night in the house of the person on whom the joke is to be played. The birds dart about the house in a lively manner and give their cry of alarm which is weird and uncanny. It produces the desired effect upon the sleeper as he awakens.

We steamed away from Heimaey, passed between Fuglasker and Reykjaness where steam was rising from numerous hot springs and at seven in the morning, having crossed Faxafjörðr, dropped anchor in the stream before the still slumbering city of Reykjavik.

CHAPTER VI
REYKJAVIK

“When the old world is sterile

And the ages are effete,

He will from wrecks and sediment

The fairer world complete.”

—Emerson.

After searching three years, Ingölfr found the storm-driven pillars cast ashore in a steaming creek. He called the place Reykjavik, the Smoking Creek.

Hardly was the anchor down in the midstream before a rosy cheeked and genial gentleman came on board and introduced himself as Helgi Zoëga. He was the man with whom I had corresponded relative to arranging our trip, providing ponies, a guide and a pack train. To his quiet forethought and courteousness in after days I had much for which to be thankful. We were absolute strangers to land and people. He took us ashore in his boat and conducted us to Hotel Island where we found a comfortable, large and well furnished room. Shortly our baggage appeared by the same quiet agency. I then went to his office and spent some time in going over the plan of the route to be followed, the ponies, their equipment and the provisions to be taken.

I had been judiciously forwarned by the books of several English travellers about the snares into which the uninitiated would fall in dealing with an Icelandic guide so I was forearmed. I recall the quiet smile that scarcely spread from Zoëga’s lips when I asked about the extra straps, the extra shoes for the ponies and the price that was to be paid at the end of the journey, the reliability of the guide and if the agreement had not better be placed in writing to avoid misunderstanding at time of settlement. He replied that all was in readiness according to my wishes and his experience and assured me of a satisfactory ending of the journey. Let me state that in my long experience with Mr. Zoëga and many other Icelandic gentlemen, I was always squarely treated in small as well as in larger matters. Never has an Icelander attempted to take advantage of my ignorance. As far as my experience of four summers in Iceland goes the English statements are libels on Icelandic integrity. Could we do business in America with the same frankness and reliability we would need less bookkeeping, there would be less locking of doors and less work for the courts; we might close many of our jails and divert a whole army of people from corrective and restraining work into productive occupations.

The route decided upon, the arrangements completed to our satisfaction, Mrs. Russell and I set out to view the city of Reykjavik and receive our first impressions of Iceland. We turned our steps in the direction of the Laug, hot spring, which is about two miles from the city square. The route is along the Laugarvegur, a street with many houses of comfortable design and good construction. The hot springs are on a small stream running out of the meadow into the bay. Along the route we saw many women with bundles on their backs, boys with wheelbarrows filled with clothes and others carrying large wicker baskets. It is the “city laundry.” A long iron grill has been erected over the run-way from the boiling springs to prevent accidents. The clothes are washed in the running water and hung up to dry on numerous lines strung in the meadow. Commodious sheds have been erected for protection during rain and for ironing and repairing garments. Great piles of wool were scattered over the hillside to dry after being washed in the springs. Throughout the country the hot springs are made use of for woolwashing. The water seems to have special properties for removing the animal grease.

When we had returned from our long trip across the country in 1910 we sent a generous supply of soiled, torn and buttonless clothes to this out-of-door laundry. What was our amazement to find on its return to the hotel that the buttons had been replaced and all the rents neatly repaired. What a contrast to an American laundry!

The flow of the boiling water is quite constant throughout the year and the temperature is constant. My thermometer registered 95°C in the runway. Considerable steam rises from the water and when the air is still it is most difficult to obtain an unclouded photograph. The water is impregnated with hydrogen sulfid and a little carbon dioxid. This is true of most of the hot springs in the country.

On our return to the city we passed near the Leper Hospital, an excellent modern structure located near the sea. None but physicians are allowed admission to visit. While the Teutonic races are quite free from this ancient disease, nevertheless it does exist in Norway, around the shores of the Baltic, in Iceland, Scotland and in those portions of the United States settled by Scandinavians. It seems to effect islands and sea-coasts and because of this it is often stated that the disease in Iceland has been perpetuated by eating tainted fish in times of famine. Credit is due the physicians of Iceland in not only controlling the plague but in actually obtaining a steady decrease. This disease goes hand in hand with tuberculosis, that is, lepers are usually tubercular. Until recently tuberculosis was prevalent in Iceland owing to the damp and unventilated houses especially on the farms. Thanks to the energetic crusade of the Icelandic doctors the conditions are rapidly improving and both leprosy and tuberculosis are decreasing. The Surgeon-General, Guðmundur Björnsson, told me with considerable pride that the percentage of tuberculosis in Iceland was now less than in Europe or the United States.

Reykjavik is pleasantly situated on the north side of a headland projecting into Faxafjörðr. There are two high hills in the city up which the city is slowly creeping. The ancient portion of the city is on the level ground along the waterfront. It is not the untidy and ill-smelling place that many English writers would have us believe. On the contrary it is clean, the streets are wide and well kept, running water has been brought from a distance of eight miles to the capital. The fish curing is confined to the shore as it is in all the coast towns and it is not offensive. Indeed I might cite worse conditions in the fishing centers of Old England and New England. Many a street in Edinburgh, London, Boston and New York is in worse sanitary condition than the meanest streets of Reykjavik. The stores are numerous and well stocked with European and American wares. Two of the emporiums rise to the dignity of apartment stores, where the necessities of life as well as many of its luxuries may be obtained. The small shops are numerous where specialties are carried such as shoestores, tobacconists, dairy products and stationery shops. Telegraph and telephone connect the capital with all the towns and many of the isolated farms. The submarine cable which lands at Seyðisfjörðr connects the island with the world beyond. A modern gas plant supplies illumination for the city and a convenient fuel.

The population is a little less than 12,000 and has rapidly increased during the past fifty-eight years under the influence of the new life that has come to Iceland since in 1854 the people obtained commercial liberty. In 1874 Iceland got its constitution which was amended in 1903 to the effect that the Governor must be an Icelander and reside in Reykjavik. To all intents Iceland is an independent, self-governing republic with a liberal constitution. The following is a brief outline of the government.

It has a constitution. It is governed by the Althing, a legislative body composed of a Senate with fourteen members and a House of Representatives of twenty-six members. These forty members are chosen by popular ballot and when they assemble they choose the fourteen senators from their own number. Until 1911 six of the senators were appointed by the King of Denmark under the direction of the Icelandic Governor. This virtually gave the Governor the control of the Senate. This is now abolished. This same constitutional amendment completely enfranchises the women.

The Supreme Court is located in Reykjavik and consists of two judges and a Chief Justice. Their decision may be appealed to the Supreme Court of Denmark. The King of Denmark has a veto over the acts of the Icelandic Parliament but so far it has never been exercised. With this exception and the lack of the power to make treaties, the country is virtually an independent republic under a fair and liberal constitution. Some of the progressives desire a step further and would entirely sever themselves from Denmark. Owing to their defenseless condition and the inroads of the French and English upon the fishing grounds it will be wise to keep the protection of Denmark for some years.

There are several excellent buildings in the capital. The more modern ones such as the Thinghüs, Government Building, the Safnahüs, Library, are pleasing in architecture and solid in construction. The Thinghüs is situated on one side of the public square close to the Cathedral. Its interior is well arranged for legislative purposes and the decorations are simple, dignified and relieved with slight ornamentation. It contains many good paintings by Danish masters. There is a young school of Icelandic painting and some of the works are in this building. If Baedeker were writing a guide to Reykjavik he would double star “The Lögberg,” a view towards Hengil. There are several portraits of the Danish Kings and an excellent one of Jon Sigurðsson, the man who holds the same place in the hearts of the Icelanders that George Washington holds in ours and for the same reason. He is the Father of modern Iceland but he won the constitution without bloodshed. There is a painting by Otto Bache, “The Killing of Thoranin by Skarpðin.” Special notice should be taken of “The Ride of the Valkyrie” by P. Arbo. It is a wonderful conception and is full of action. Here also is a grand piece of wood carving made entirely with a jackknife by an Icelandic farmer as a memorial to Jon Sigurðsson. It is in the form of a frame to a pier glass and a pier stand. It is equal in design and execution to that famous carved pulpit in St. Gudule at Brussels, which was made by Verbruggen in 1669. There is an excellent bronze of Jonas Hallgrimsson who died in 1845. On leaving the Thinghüs the custodian gave us a friendly smile and a cordial handshake. This treatment is refreshing after the customary request for the shilling, the mark or the franc as is the common experience elsewhere.

The Government House which contains the executive offices is older and much more simple in design. There are two banks in the city and one of them is housed in its own building, which was the finest in Iceland until the completion of the Safnahüs.

This building houses over 80,000 bound volumes besides 6,000 manuscripts, many of them priceless. For a city of less than 12,000 people this is a good sized library. A thorough examination of the bookshelves and the lists of the book charges yields abundant evidence of the inborn aptness of this people for education. Mind culture reaches a high level. It is pleasing to an American to note Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary in a prominent position and a well used set of the works of the Sage of Concord, Ralph Waldo Emerson. The library contains a well balanced collection of history, literature, science, philosophy, poetry and economics, not only in the native language but in all the spoken tongues of Europe. For the benefit of those who do not read English there are translations of our masterpieces of drama, poetry and romance. I was pleased to note the evidence of much use of the American classics and almost the entire absence of that great class of light reading which lumbers our bookstalls, follows us on the train and burdens the card catalogs of the American libraries.