They gather round us, forgetting the venerable axiom, “Manners makyth man;” they pester us, and ask in roaring voices about the English “hestar,” for they naturally hold us to be horsedealers, and, as the universal bow-legs show, all are “horsey” from babyhood. Their luggage consists mainly of old saddles and bridles, and of nests of sealskin riding-bags. They talk politics, they regret the old Iceland republic, and they hope to see it once more—this must be expected from students, and we find it even in the law-abiding Brazil. Two of them are never sober, and huge horns of spirits acting bottles supply the de quoi: all drink hard at each landing-place, which leads to the “stool of repentance” next morning. Their heartiness, not to say their roughness, is dashed with a curious ceremoniousness: they never omit pulling off their hats, an uncomfortable practice perhaps less common in England than elsewhere; they shake hands whose warts cause a shudder; and, when they exchange the parting kiss, it is with deliberation—first prospecting the place, then planting a “rouser” upon each cheek, and finishing off full upon the mouth.
The Coryphæus of the band is a little rather reverend, freshly ordained and stationed at some hole in the Skagafjörð, which elicits not a few mild witticisms connecting his domicile with purgatory. Sir Guttormr, who violently objects to his name being translated “Dei vermiculus,” makes the serious mistake of disputing on Old Testament subjects with Mr Levi, a Norwegian Jew, whom I had at once diagnosticised and drawn out by a “Shalom lach:” Apella is now going to try the north, last year he and his partner “did” the south. Their business consisted in women’s hair, especially the tints which command such large prices in the southern marriage-marts; and, unless report greatly belie them, they collected their booty by “screwing” husbands and brothers up to the cutting point with spirits.
Two hours’ steaming through the maze of rocks placed us at Flatey. It occupies nearly the centre of the Eyja-Hrepp (island parish), and it is connected in trade with the Svefneyjar or Isles of Sleep—ah! how different from
“That happier island in the watery waste”
which lodged the lotus-eaters. Flat-isle is, of course, not flat, but rolling ground, trending east-north-east to west-south-west, with a dwarf bluff in the former, and a high basaltic rib in the latter direction. The length is at least a mile, by about three-quarters of utmost breadth, though Henderson (ii. 91) gives it only one mile in circumference. Curious to say, the little rock has a name in literature, through the “Codex Flateyensis,” or annals of the Norwegian kings.[75] In A.D. 1183 its monastery was transferred to Helgafell, and, during the Reformation, its ninety-six farms were duly secularised and annexed by the Danish Crown. At present about a quarter of the island belongs to the Church; and thus the clergyman is no longer obliged, like Sira Andreas, to “follow the original employment of Zebedee’s children,” and be “particularly dexterous in catching seals.”
We landed on the north-western side of the island, about its middle length, at a regular dock fronted by a natural breakwater of basalt, upon the usual scatter of slippery wrack-grown rocks backed by a few yards of black sand. A rude causeway, not made by man, leads up to the settlement, half-a-dozen houses, one wholly wooden and double-storied; the rest of the normal ground-floor type, overgrown with the white-flowered weed. The huge vats and oil-tuns were not wanting: there was a windmill like that of Reykjavik for grinding imported rye, and higher up stood the church. A wooden box like those of the old Saxons, it had a long coffin for a deceased clock, a steeple of two stages, each with a white-framed window staring out of the black tar: where the apse should be, the outline was stepped after Iberian fashion. The cemetery lay around it, with a few monuments and railings neglected and broken down, and this being Saturday, of course the building was closed. We walked to the north-east over the wet grass and warty ground, and then turned south-west towards a sloping and time-wrecked cross, crowned with an old billy-cock and a fragmentary stocking. This is not intended for irreverence, but to show that the place is to be respected by hawks, ravens, and strangers; the utilitarian idea comes from Norway, where, indeed, we must go for explanation of many Icelandic peculiarities. The eiders, here and in Stykkishólm, float about the harbour tame as horse-pond geese; at times a Skua causes the duck to bolt with prodigious cackling, followed by its young, piping their plaints. The turf is shaven and hollowed to make the nests, which affect the wrinkles and pock-marks of the surface, and the places are marked by pegs; as at Engey, some show eggs, others ducklings, whilst others are abandoned with the down carelessly left to decay.
We returned on board in a greasy boat, with huge hooks fastened to wooden bars, and baited with flesh of the sharp-biting puffin. The “sea-parrot” nests in the sand, making holes two to three feet deep, and clinging to one another when dragged out. The head and feet, wings and entrails, are often mixed with cow-chips for fuel, whilst the breast is salted. On this occasion, and many others, I remarked that the sailors prefer turning sunways or to the right (deasil or dessil), the left or “widdershins” being held uncanny. The superstition is rather Aryan than Semitic, the former affecting Pradakhshina, whilst the Tawáf of the latter presents the sinister shoulder. So in the marriage ceremony of the Russian Church, bride and bridegroom thrice circumambulate the temporary altar.
June 30.
During the night we had steamed along the bold bluffs of Barðaströnd in the Sýsla of that name: now we prepare to double the great north-western projection of Iceland, which somewhat resembles south-western Ireland. The country people extend the right hand horizontally: the thumb forms the length, whose nail is Snæfellsjökull; the hollow between pollex and index represents the Breiði Fjörð, and the other fingers are the digitations of the annexe, North Cape being the ring of the little finger.