The heath over which we took our morning ride is uninviting, dreary and somewhat awe inspiring. There are many beds of flowers in sheltered places. The purple armaria, sandwort and stone-crop are the smiles of Flora upon the face of an Arctic desolation. As one reclines upon the flowered mounds between the tussocks of grass, basking in the genial sunshine and piling the empty tins around him, he forgets for the moment that he is under the cliffs of a mighty sheet of perpetual ice, that he is entirely dependent upon his ponies and the scanty grass they are now so greedily eating. Breakfast over, we rode for hours under the front of Eyriks Jökull, with many a stony moraine to climb and glacial torrent to ford. There is a legend concerning the name of this mountain which is worth relating as it shows something of the stirring times of the old days in spite of the absurdity of the conclusion.
A band of outlaws assembled in the great cavern of Surtur and lived upon ponies, sheep and cattle stolen from the farmers near Kalmungstúnga, Kalmungs-Tongue, and became a great menace to the entire region. Many attempts had been made to capture them but without avail. Finally a lad volunteered to leave his home and join the outlaws and act in the capacity of a spy. He did his work so well that he won the full confidence of the outlaws for he killed sheep belonging to his own father and brought them to the cave. The time came when, at the signal from the boy, the farmers assembled to take the outlaws unawares. Gathering at the entrance of the side cave in great Surtshellir in large numbers they slew all of the outlaws except Eyrik. This man was the strongest of all men of his time and made a stout resistance. However, the farmers hacked at him with their swords and cut off both feet at the ankles and both hands at the wrists. Having no way in which to longer defend himself, Eyrik turned a cartwheel on his bloody stumps across the blistered lava, up the ice slope and to the very summit of the glacier. In this manner he escaped and if you doubt it you can still see the blood red crags of fire scorched lava over which he rolled a human wheel. He is, if this story is true, the only man who has ever gained the summit of this, the second mountain in height in Iceland and from him the mountain takes its name.
In the afternoon we came upon the great Hallmundarhraun, Hallmundar’s-Lava, twisted, crumpled, cracked and tangled, grey with lichens and Icelandic moss in patches and alive with ptarmigan, plover and whimbrels. Beneath this lava sheet is Surtshellir, Surtur’s-Cave. Before we explore this chamber of fire origin it is well to pause for a moment and glance at the Norse mythology relative to Surtur.
In the Edda of Saemund, the Wise, we find the “Song of Vafthruðnis.” This is a dialog between Odin, who, under the disguise of Ganrade, visited the Jötunori to converse with their gigantic chief Vafthruðnis, to determine which was the wiser. Their discourse was concerning the origin of the world and the races of men. When Odin entered the giant’s hall he was accosted by the master as follows:—
“What mortal he who dares to come,
Unbidden, to my awful dome
To hold discourse? For never more
Shall he his homeward way explore;
Unless he happly should exceed,
What wisdom is to me decreed.”