He is, however, by no means so ignorant of mercantile affairs as to strike at once a bargain with the Danish traders. Pitching his tent before the town, he first pays a visit to all the merchants of the place. After carefully noting their several offers (for as each of them invariably treats him to a dram, he with some justice mistrusts his memory), he returns to his caravan and makes his calculations as well as his somewhat confused brain allows him. If he is accompanied by his wife, her opinion of course is decisive, and the following morning he repairs with all his goods to the merchant who has succeeded in gaining his confidence.
After the business has been concluded, the peasant empties one glass to the merchant’s health, another to a happy meeting next year, a third to the king, a fourth because three have been drunk already. At length, after many embraces and protestations of eternal friendship, he takes his leave of the merchant. Fortunately there is no thief to be found in all Iceland; but in consequence of these repeated libations, one parcel has not been well packed, another negligently attached to the horse, and thus it happens that the poor peasant’s track is not unfrequently marked with sugar, coffee-beans, salt, or flour, and that when he reaches home, he finds some valuable article or other missing.
It would, however, be doing the Icelanders an injustice to regard them as generally intemperate; for though within the last twelve years the population has increased only ten per cent., and the importation of brandy thirty, yet the whole quantity of spirits consumed in the island amounts to less than three bottles per annum for each individual, and, of this allowance, the people of Reykjavik and of the other small sea-ports have more than their share, while many of the clergy and peasantry in the remoter districts hardly ever taste spirituous liquors. Dr. Hooker mentions the extraordinary effect which a small portion of rum produced on the good old incumbent of Middalr, whose stomach had been accustomed only to a milk-diet and a little coffee. “He begged me,” says the doctor,[4] “to give him some rum to bathe his wife’s breast; but having applied a portion of it to that purpose, he drank the rest without being at all aware of its strength, which, however, had no other effect than in causing this clerical blacksmith,[5] with his lame hip, to dance in the most ridiculous manner in front of the house. The scene afforded a great source of merriment to all his family except his old wife, who was very desirous of getting him to bed, while he was no less anxious that she should join him in the dance.”
Dr. Hooker justly remarks that this very circumstance is a convincing proof how unaccustomed this priest was to spirituous liquors, as the quantity taken could not have exceeded a wine-glass full.
After his visit to the fair, the peasant sets about hay-making, which is to him the great business of the year, for he is most anxious to secure winter fodder for his cattle, on which his whole prosperity depends. The few potatoes and turnips about the size of marbles, or the cabbage and parsley, which he may chance to cultivate, are not worth mentioning; grass is the chief, nay, the only produce of his farm, and that Heaven may grant clear sunshiny days for hay-making is now his daily prayer.
Every person capable of wielding a scythe or rake is pressed into the work. The best hay is cut from the “tún,” a sort of paddock comprising the lands adjoining the farm-house, and the only part of his grounds on which the peasant bestows any attention, for, in spite of the paramount importance of his pasture-land, he does but little for its improvement, and a meadow is rarely seen, where the useless or less nutritious herbs are not at least as abundant as those of a better quality. The “tún” is encircled by a turf or stone wall, and is seldom more than ten acres in extent, and generally not more than two or three. Its surface is usually a series of closely-packed mounds, like graves, most unpleasant to walk over, the gutter, in some places, being two feet in depth between the mounds. After having finished with the “tún,” the farmer subjects to a process of cutting all the broken hillsides and boggy undrained swamps that lie near his dwelling. The blades of the scythes are very short. It would be impossible to use a long-bladed scythe, owing to the unevenness of the ground.
The cutting and making of hay is carried on, when the weather will permit, through all the twenty-four hours of the day. When the hay is made it is tied in bundles by cords and thongs, and carried away by ponies to the earthen houses prepared for it, which are similar to and adjoin those in which the cattle are stalled. “It is a very curious sight,” says Mr. Shepherd, “to see a string of hay-laden ponies returning home. Each pony’s halter is made fast to the tail of the preceding one, and the little animals are so enveloped in their burdens that nothing but their hoofs and the connecting ropes are visible, and they look as though a dozen huge haycocks, feeling themselves sufficiently made, were crawling off to their resting-places.”
When the harvest is finished the farmer treats his family and laborers to a substantial supper, consisting of mutton, and a soup of milk and flour; and although the serious and taciturn Icelander has perhaps of all men the least taste for music and dancing, yet these simple feasts are distinguished by a placid serenity, no less pleasing than the more boisterous mirth displayed at a southern vintage.
Almost all labor out-of-doors now ceases for the rest of the year. A thick mantle of snow soon covers mountain and vale, meadow and moor; with every returning day, the sun pays the cold earth a decreasing visit, until, finally, he hardly appears above the horizon at noon; the wintry storm howls over the waste, and for months the life of the Icelander is confined to his hut, which frequently is but a few degrees better than that of the filthy Lap.
Its lower part is built of rude stones to about the height of four feet, and between each row layers of turf are placed with great regularity, to serve instead of mortar, and keep out the wind. A roof of such wood as can be procured rests upon these walls, and is covered with turf and sods. On one side (generally facing the south) are several gable ends and doors, each surmounted with a weather-cock. These are the entrances to the dwelling-house proper, to the smithy, store-room, cow-shed, etc. A long narrow passage, dark as pitch, and redolent of unsavory odors, leads to the several apartments, which are separated from each other by thick walls of turf, each having also its own roof, so that the peasant’s dwelling is in fact a conglomeration of low huts, which sometimes receive their light through small windows in the front, but more frequently through holes in the roof, covered with a piece of glass or skin. The floors are of stamped earth; the hearth is made of a few stones clumsily piled together; a cask or barrel, with the two ends knocked out, answers the purpose of a chimney, or else the smoke is allowed to escape through a mere hole in the roof.