In the last fifty years, the occupations of the people and their culture have changed from being in many respects medieval, and have assumed modern forms. The earlier turfbuilt farmhouses have now been replaced by comfortable concrete buildings which get their electricity from a source of water power virtually inexhaustible. Many of these,—e. g. the majority of houses in Reykjavík—are heated by water from hot springs, so that the purity of the northern air is seldom spoilt by smoke from coal-fires. The reliable Icelandic pony—so dear to the farmer in New Iceland, and for long known as "a man's best friend"—has now for the most part come to serve the well-to-do who can afford to use it for their joy-rides, its place in farmwork being taken by modern agricultural machinery. As a means of travel it has been replaced by a host of motorcars, and by aeroplanes, which in Iceland are as commonly used in going from one part of the country to another as railway trains in other countries. In fact, it has not been found feasible to build railways in Iceland. Besides this, a large number of airliners make daily use of Icelandic airfields on transatlantic flights. What with most other nations has been a slow and gradual process lasting several centuries, has in Iceland come about in more or less a revolutionary way. It is therefore not to be wondered at that there should have been a certain instability in the development of the urban and economic life of the country. In this field, however, there appear to be signs of consolidation.
Foreigners who come to this country in search of the old saga-island are sometimes a little disappointed at finding here, in place of saga-tellers and bards, a modern community, with its own university, a national theatre, and a symphony orchestra. Be this as it may, literature still holds first place among the arts and cultures. A collection of books is indeed considered as essential a part of a home as the furniture itself. For such visitors, there may be some consolation in the fact that in some places they may have quite a job in spotting the grocer's among the bookshops.
IV
In literature there had, especially in poetry, been a continuity from the very beginnings. Yet, in the field also, the early nineteenth century saw the dawn of a new age. The Romantic Movement was here, as elsewhere, accompanied by a national awakening, so that literature became the herald and the principal motive force of social improvement. There was at the same time a new drive for an increased beauty of language and refinement of style, where the classical, cultivated, literary language and the living speech of the time merged. With Romanticism there also emerged poets of so great merit that only a few such had come forward since the end of the saga period. But henceforward—let's take as our point of departure the second quarter of the nineteenth century—each generation in the country has indeed produced some outstanding literary works, comparable in quality with the accomplishments of the ancient classical Edda and saga periods.
During this new golden age, several literary tendencies and genres may be observed. But Romanticism remained the most lasting and potent literary force for about a century. However, one of the characteristics of the Icelandic literature of later ages is the infrequent manifestation of literary trends in their purest and most extreme forms. Here the stabilizing and moderating influence of the ancient sagas has, without doubt, been at work. In most cases this middle course may be said to have been beneficial to the literature.
But the saga-literature may also well have had a restraining influence on later authors in so far as it set a difficult standard to be emulated. It is probably here that the principal explanation of the late re-emergence of prose fiction is to be sought. It was not until about the middle of the nineteenth century that modern short stories, novels and plays began to be written on anything like a scale worthy of note. The earliest of these were romantic in spirit, though most of them had a realistic tinge. With Realism, the short story came into its own in the eighties and nineties of the last century. This trend came like a fresh current to take its place side by side with Romanticism, without, however, ousting it from the literary scene. But owing to the realistic technique and the tragic endings of much in the ancient literature—Eddaic poetry and sagas alike—Realism was never the novel force it generally was felt to be elsewhere. Still, it brought social criticism into our literature. This was introduced through the activity of young literary-minded students who, while studying at the University of Copenhagen, had become full of enthusiasm for Georg Brandes and his school.
One of these young men was Einar H. Kvaran (1859-1938), a clergyman's son from the North, who, after beginning as a student of politics, soon turned his attention to literature and journalism. He became editor of Icelandic newspapers in Canada (1885-95), and, later, in Iceland, mainly in Reykjavík. His chief preoccupation, however, became the composition of short stories and novels, and besides these he also wrote some plays and poetry. The delicacy and the religious bent of his nature could not for long remain the soil for the satirical asperity and materialism of the realist school, though his art was always marked by its technique. As he advanced in years, brotherhood and forgiveness became an evergrowing element in his idealism, and he became the first bearer of the spiritualist message in this country. With his stories he had a humanizing influence on his times, especially in the education of children, and in the field of culture he remained actively interested right up to a ripe old age. If somewhat lacking in creative fervour and colourful raciness of style, he made up for it by the abundance of his intelligence, his humanity and culture.
He wrote A Dry Spell (Ðurrkur) at the beginning of the present century, when he had disengaged himself from the strongest influence of Realism, but before moral preaching and the belief in the life hereafter had become the leading elements in his stories. He had then, for a few years, been living in the north-country town of Akureyri, which obviously provides the model for the setting of the story. It was first printed in the 1905 issue of the periodical Skírnir.
In addition to the travelled, academic realists, there appeared a group of self-educated popular writers, some of whom had come into direct contact with this foreign school. They were farmers, even in the more remote country districts, who had read the latest Scandinavian literature in the original, and who wrote stories containing radical social satire. Guðmundur Friðjónsson, for instance, had begun his career in this way. In many of these authors, however, we find rather a sort of native realism, where there is not necessarily a question of the influence of any particular literary tendency. Their works sprang out of the native environment of the authors, whose vision, despite a limited horizon, was often vivid. They convey true impressions of real life.
Of this kind are most of the works of Guðmundur Friðjónsson (1869-1944), a radical who later turned to conservatism—and the best works of Jón Trausti (1873-1918). These, who had their debut as writers about the turn of the century, are the authors of the next two stories in our collection. Both were North-countrymen. The former, a farmer's son from a district enjoying a high standard of culture, himself settled down as a farmer in his native locality in order to earn a living for his large family. In his youth he had attended a secondary school in the neighbourhood for a couple of winters, but he never had his experiences enriched by foreign travel and was during the whole of his life anchored to his native region. Jón Trausti, the son of a farm labourer and his wife, who had been born on one of the northernmost farms in Iceland in a barren and outlying district, was brought up in dire poverty. From an early age he had had to fend for himself as a farmhand and fisherman, finally settling in Reykjavík as a printer. Apart from his apprenticeship with the printers, he never went to any sort of school (school education was first made compulsory by law in Iceland in 1907); but on two occasions he had travelled abroad.