At Hallormstaðir, our first stage, we failed to find the Prófastr (archdeacon) Sigurður Gunnarsson, who had gone for supplies to Seyðisfjörð. His wife received us kindly with “Yule bread,” containing raisins and other delicacies. She must be a model housewife; her six-gabled house was being painted; her kitchen-garden grew unusually fine potatoes; and her poultry-yard was far better stocked than usual. We were hospitably invited to pass the night, and Gísli Skulk looked wistfully at the comforts around him; but we were inexorable and, after a two hours’ halt, began operations upon the next stage.
I shall not readily forget that march. The ponies, also, had apparently made up their minds for a half-holiday, and, when refused, they resolved to revenge themselves. Briefly, the loads were everywhere except where they should have been, and the fight at the ford was unusually severe. The bridle-path up the right bank, moreover, was bad, broken with gullies, rugged with rocks, and cullendered with holes; in places we had to avoid headlands of stony teeth by fording the waters; and, as on the skirts of Hermon, the ways were double, high for winter, and low for summer. Student Sigurður explained Lagarfljót as a corruption of Laugr, a bath; others translate it the “layer” or mixed water, because composed of ice and mud. It is considered unwholesome and undrinkable. The average breadth is one mile and a half, and the people declare that the depth reaches sixty fathoms. It is formed by a glacier stream, the little Jökulsá, flowing through the Fljótsdalr or Norðurdalr, a line which we shall presently follow; and an eastern lake-stream, the Keldá, draining the Syðridalr. The latter rises in the Keldavatn, which the map writes Kelduárvatn, the lake of springs-water; and it is reached in a long day’s ride from the Víðivellir, or the Klúka farm, which almost fronts Valthiófstaðir.
I had heard much of the Skógr (Shaw) of the Lagarfljót, as the most beautiful in Iceland: it probably tempted the first settler, Hallormr, to become Hallormr of the Wilderness. In other places, the freezing and thawing of the sap bursts the vessels and kills the plants. Here, however, the Birkis have a backing of heights to concentrate sun-heat, a westerly exposure, and a large sheet of water tempering the cold. The thin birch-scrub grows on all kinds of soil; mostly the trees are mere bushes, but the topmost twigs of the giants of the forest may reach twenty feet, and the timber is heavy enough to make pack-saddles. All are being felled, and none are planted; the weight of the snow is said to destroy the young trees. Nor was the Skóg a vocal growth: I listened long and in vain for the merest chirp.
About an hour before reaching the ferry we had a fair prospect of the Hengifoss, said to be the tallest cataract in Iceland. It is an Icelandic copy of the immortal Cocytus (Mavroneria) in Arcadia, with a fall six times the depth. “Hanging-force” plunges suddenly into a huge caldron, the Hengifossárgil, and is dashed to drops before it reaches the kieve, which is considered to lie 1200 feet below. Its wonders can hardly be appreciated, we were told, without entering the cavity: it faces to the south-east; and, as you ride along the lake, the strata lie exposed to sight, as in a Californian cañon. Amongst them is said to be a small quantity of Surtarbrand.
We had sent on to warn the ferryman, and Charon, Sigfús Stefánsson, of Bessastaðir, with fiery hair, clean-cut red whisker, and huge goggles, was the model of a Scotch pedagogue. Remounting, we galloped ventre à terre, the best cure for cold feet, over the turfy flat of the left bank, and found ourselves at Valthiófstaðir, the church and parsonage of Síra Pétur Jónsson. The house was being painted, but we found lodgings in the church: the altar candles were duly lighted, and, after doing what little we could to make ourselves comfortable, we turned in shortly before midnight.
August 3.
At Waltheofstede, whose name is distinctly Saxon, we reduced our stud to the best sixteen head; we bought ropes and horseshoes; we mended the pack-saddles; we paid off the temporary guides; and we engaged the student Stefán Sigfússon, of Bessastaðir, who gave thorough satisfaction when he did not air his ten words of English. Whilst these preparations were being made, I inspected the premises. The farm is of old date, but it is not the Waltheofstede so pleasantly mentioned in the Landnámabók (p. 100): “Tunc servi Erici ruinam villæ Valthiofi de Valthiofstadis intulerunt, Eyolfus autem Saur (Eyólfr Saur) ejus cognatus servos apud Skeidsbrekkas super Vatnshornum occidit, eâ de causâ Eirikus Ejolfum Saurem interfecit, iste quoque Holmgangu Rafnem (Rafn, the duellist) Leifskalis interemit.” Thus, in seven half Lines, we have a regular monomachist, the destruction of a farm, and the murder of two Franklins, with an indefinite number of thralls. We still find a Thórdísa, in memory of old days, the granddaughter of the parson at Valthiófstaðir.
The church is somewhat larger and better, that is, more tawdry, than usual; and justly vain of it is the district. Outside it is red-striped, with gallery, tower, spire, finial, staff, and weather-cock: the latter bears the cross of Denmark, yet “Odi Danicos, sperno, contemno,” is a sentiment frequently expressed in this neighbourhood. Inside it is daubed to mock marble. The bell in the loft bears for date 1744, and the altarpieces are truly hideous: Sanctus Peterus (sic), with key and book, wears his glory on one side of the head, like a cavalryman’s forage cap. The churchyard epitaphs are funny as usual. Hjörleif Thórðarson (ob. 1786) speaks of his future prospects with a confidence which some might consider premature, if not misplaced:
“Fluctibus innumeris adversæ sortis in orbe
Tandem transmissis, jam benè tutus ago;”
and another’s long home, a box, has become a classic “urn:”