Though still retaining in their ceremonies, says a recent traveller, a few vestiges of the old religion, though altars, candles, pictures, and crucifixes yet remain in many of their churches, the Icelanders are stanch Protestants, and singularly devout, innocent, and pure-hearted. Crime, theft, debauchery, cruelty are unknown amongst them; they have neither prison, gallows, soldiers, nor police; and in the manner of their lives mingles something of a patriarchal simplicity, that reminds one of the Old World princes, of whom it has been said, that they were “upright and perfect, eschewing evil, and in their hearts no guile.”
In the rural districts, if such a phrase can properly be applied to any part of Iceland, the church is scarcely distinguishable from any other building, except by the cross planted on its roof. It measures, generally, from eight to ten feet in width, and from eighteen to twenty-four feet in length; but of this space about eight feet are devoted to the altar, which is divided off by a wooden partition stretching across the church, just behind the pulpit. The communion-table is nothing more than a small wooden chest or cupboard, placed at the end of the building, between two small square windows, each formed by a single common-sized pane of glass. Over the table is suspended a sorry daub, on wood, intended to represent the Last Supper. The walls, which are wainscotted, are about six feet high; and stout beams of wood stretch from side to side. On these are carelessly scattered a number of old Bibles, psalters, and loose leaves of soiled and antiquated manuscripts. The interior of the roof, the rafters of which rest on the walls, is also lined with wood. Accommodation, in the shape of a few rough benches, is provided for a congregation of thirty or forty souls.
Poor as are the churches, the pastors are still poorer. The best benefice in the island is worth not much more than £40 per annum; the average value is £10. The bishop himself does not receive more than £200. The principal support of the clergy, therefore, is derived from their glebe-land, eked out by the small fees charged for baptisms, marriages, and funerals.
Such being the case, the reader will not be surprised to learn that the Icelandic clergy live miserably and work hard. They assist in the haymaking; they hire themselves out as herdsmen; they act as the leaders of the caravans of pack-horses which carry the produce of the island to the ports, and return loaded with domestic necessaries; and they distinguish themselves as blacksmiths, as veterinarians, and shoers of horses.
Dr. Henderson gives an interesting and graphic account of a visit he paid to one of these “poor parsons,” John Thorlukson, who, while supporting himself by drudgery of this painful kind, translated Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and Pope’s “Essay on Man” into Icelandic.
“Like most of his brethren, at this season of the year,” says Dr. Henderson, “we found him in the meadow assisting his people at haymaking. On hearing of our arrival he made all the haste home which his age and infirmity would allow, and bidding us welcome to his lowly abode, ushered us into the humble apartment where he translated my countrymen into Icelandic. The door was not quite four feet in height, and the room might be about eight feet in length by six in breadth. At the inner end was the poet’s bed; and close to the door, over against a small window, not exceeding two feet square, was a table where he committed to paper the effusions of his muse. On my telling him that my countrymen would not have forgiven me, nor could I have forgiven myself, had I passed through this part of the island without paying him a visit, he replied that the translation of Milton had yielded him many a pleasant hour, and often given him occasion to think of England.”
It is true that this passage was written some fifty-five years ago, but the condition of the clergy of Iceland has not much improved in the interval.
Travelling in Iceland, even under the more favourable conditions brought about by a constant influx of tourists, is not to be achieved without difficulty and discomfort. Not only is the country destitute, necessarily, of inns and the usual arrangements for the convenience of travellers, but much, very much, depends upon the weather. With a bright sky overhead, it is possible to regard as trivial and unworthy of notice the small désagréments which, in bad weather, develop into very serious annoyances. The only mode of travelling is on horseback, for as there are no roads, carriages would be useless; while the distances between the various points of interest are too great, the rivers too violent, and the swamps too extensive for pedestrian tours to be undertaken. Even the most moderate-minded tourist requires a couple of riding-horses for himself, a couple for his guide, and a couple of pack-horses; and when a larger company travels, it expands into a cavalcade of from twenty to thirty horses, tied head to tail, which slowly pick their way over rugged lava-beds or dangerous boggy ground.
It is one thing, as Lord Dufferin remarks, to ride forty miles a day through the most singular scenery in the world, when a glorious sun brings out every feature of the landscape into startling distinctness, transmuting the dull tormented earth into towers, domes, and pinnacles of shining metal, and clothes each peak in a robe of many-coloured light, such as the “Debatable Mountains” must have been in Bunyan’s dream; and another to plod over the same forty miles, wet to the skin, seeing nothing but the dim gray bases of the hills, which rise you know not how, and care not where. “If, in addition to this, you have to wait, as very often must be the case, for many hours after your own arrival, wet, tired, hungry, until the baggage-train, with the tents and food, shall have come up, with no alternative in the meantime but to lie shivering inside a grass-roofed house, or to share the quarters of some farmer’s family, whose domestic arrangements resemble in every particular those which Macaulay describes as prevailing among the Scottish Highlanders a hundred years ago; and if, finally, after vainly waiting for some days to see an eruption which never takes place, you journey back to Reikiavik under the same melancholy conditions, it will not be unnatural that, on returning to your native land, you should proclaim Iceland, with her geysers, to be a sham, a delusion, and a snare!”