Capitals of the Northlands: Tales of Ten Cities

by Ian C. Hannah

A faint idea of Icelandic scenery may perhaps be gained by taking a journey on the moon by the aid of a good telescope. Nowhere else is to be found the same weird impression of vastness and of magnificent desolation!

Not infrequently, particularly in a land of hills, do the works of man seem puny beside the works of God, but as in Iceland nowhere else. Only rarely, here and there, are signs of cultivation, and that is on the tiniest scale. Wild stretches of jagged lava and volcanic rock spread into space like "the ruins of an elder world." The great rugged mountains, capped by snow, and the numerous hot springs suggest the eternal battle-ground of elements, and give to the landscape a weird, almost unearthly effect. As Gudbrand Thorlac (Bishop of Holar, quoted by Hakluyt) expresses it: "There be in this Iland mountaines lift up to the skies, whose tops being white with perpetuall snowe, their roots boile with everlasting fire." The prevailing colours, including every shade of brown and yellow, are relieved only where appears the deep blue-black of the sea; save that here and there a tiny waterfall by stunted trees and a carpet of wild flowers, such as heather or grass of Parnassus, rather faintly suggest the glories of more southern lands.

The Great Pyramid and the Chinese Wall themselves would be lost, St. Peter's would appear a mere pebble, amid those gigantic stretches of lonely mountain. And during the very darkest days of early mediæval times a small handful of men in these remote solitudes were to play a part in history that is perfectly unique, to endow humanity with something it could ill afford to put away.

Here, on the dark winter nights of a region only just without the Arctic Circle, were written and enjoyed those sagas that are true history and very human, while nothing but dry chronicles were being composed in all Europe besides. Far less we should know of the early story of the British Isles and of North America had the Icelanders been dumb. Worthily appears the name of their Republic among those of other famous Commonwealths of earth in the hub of the universe, the State House at Boston, Massachusetts!

Interest in Iceland and her sagas has been greatly revived of recent years. In these days it seems strange to read what P. H. Mallet (p. [152]) wrote about 1755: "Such was the constitution of a republic, which is at present quite forgotten in the North, and utterly unknown through the rest of Europe even to men of much reading, notwithstanding the great number of poets and historians which that republic produced."

The stories of the early settlers, as related in the sagas, slightly recall the conditions that even to-day exist in such places as Rhodesia and newly-opened districts of the Western States. The details are as different as they could well be, but there is something of the same overflowing youthful vitality, the same grim sort of humour and vigorous enjoyment of life. This tale, for instance, from the Liosvetninga Saga, shows a rather indirect and possibly somewhat modern method of leading up to an extremely simple point: "When the table was set there Ufey put his fist on the board, and spake, 'How big dost think that fist is, Gudmund?' He spake, 'Very big!' Ufey spake, 'Thou wouldst think that there would be strength in it.' Gudmund spake, 'Indeed I would.' Ufey answers, 'A heavy blow thou wouldst think it would give?' Gudmund spake, 'Mighty heavy.' Ufey spake, 'What harm wouldst think it would do?' Gudmund spake, 'Breaking of bones or death.' Ufey spake, 'How wouldst like that way of death?' Gudmund spake, 'Very ill, and I should not wish it to happen to me.' Ufey spake, 'Then do not thou sit in my seat.'"

The settlement of Iceland was part of the happy movement that first carried Norsemen to the Faroe Islands and far beyond. There was a man named Gard-here, a Swede, and he journeyed to Sodor, or the Southern Islands[8] on the very common quest of getting in the inheritance of his wife's father, who had died. A gale broke his moorings. He was driven westward into the sea, and the eventual result was that he reached the island with which we are concerned. He praised the land much, and desired that it should be called by his own name.

But he did not discover the island. That glory belongs to dreamy mystics of the ancient Irish Church in the days when her rays lit up the whole of Western Europe, and her missionaries went out into all lands.[9] Where he heard no other sound than the thud of the storm waves on the lonely rocks, and the shrill cry of the sea-gulls, quite alone with his God, there the Celtic monk could best say his prayers. And the Libellus Islandorum expressly says of the first days of settlement: "There were then here Christian men, whom the Northmen call 'papa.' But soon they went away because they could not dwell with pagan hordes, and they left behind them Irish books and bells and crooks." A little cross of theirs is in the Museum at Reykjavik to-day.

Again there were certain men who needed to journey out of Norway to the Faroes, some say that Naddodh was of their number, and they also were driven to the same country, which they named Snowland. They walked up a high mountain in the East-friths, and looked far and wide to see if they could discover any smoke or other token of the presence of mankind, but they saw none. They went back to the Faroes at harvest-time and they praised the new country very much.

The third party of Norsemen that reached Iceland had decorously made a great sacrifice before setting forth, and three ravens had been hallowed. In the Faroe Islands, Floki, their leader, got his daughter very satisfactorily married, and then he sailed out into the sea and let loose the three ravens. The first feebly flew to the bows of the vessel; the second with little more adventure soared into the air and then came back to the ship; but the third flew forth from the bows and led the way to the island. And when they sailed past Reek-ness, or Smoky Cape, and entered the great mountain-walled fjord, Faxe said, "This must be a big country which we have found; here are great rivers." And, though his surmise as to the rivers was mistaken, the inlet received his name; as Faxefjoth men know it to this day. The whole frith was full of fish, including seals and whales, and the party became so absorbed in catching them that they imprudently took no heed to make hay—with the result that they lost all their stock in the winter. As to the climate there were many different views, but Thorwolf said that butter dripped out of every blade of grass in the country that they had found. Wherefore he was called Thorwolf Butter.