Iceland: Horseback tours in saga land

by W. S. C. Russell

We were nearing Hekla, Hooded, so named from the hood of cloud that nearly always caps the summit. Evidences of its ten centuries and more of destruction were all around us in deserts of ash and sand, ruined farms, once the finest in the land, fragments and masses of lava that had been hurled fifteen and twenty miles in the many violent explosions from the craters of the volcano and the changed water courses that had been blocked by the flowing lava or choked by the drifting sand. In single file the ponies waded through the fine red, yellow and black sand and the dust kicked up by the troup literally obscured the leaders. The wind sifted the fine, gritty material through every needle-hole in our clothing; it filled our hair, blinded the eyes and produced miniature mud-cakes in the mouth. An hour of this work satisfied us and we rejoiced as we edged into a partly turfed section of the plain. Here the sheep in scattered groups of three to fifteen marked the outskirts of the grazing land and turning towards them we soon entered a long, narrow strip of excellent grass land between two masses of the recent lava flow. On approaching a farm we noted how the farmer had constructed a series of wind-breaks of stone to keep the sifting sand from encroaching too vigorously upon the mowing land. There is very little good turf in this section for fence building and the barbed wire has been substituted. How out of place it is in Iceland! It is ugly enough when hidden in the brush of a back pasture in New England but when it stands out bare and threatening above the green turf of an Icelandic meadow and supplants the grass-grown walls of ancient days, which add so much to the charm of the landscape, it is incongruous. There are several farms in the neighborhood of Hekla which are mere fragments of their former size and to traverse the sand and lava debris of this section is to realize a little of the terrible havoc the volcano has spread around its base.

At four in the afternoon we reached Galtalaekur, Boar-Brook, a poor little farm, just a remnant of grass between the black lava and the ash heaps where once a myriad acres of the choicest grazing lands in Iceland supported a large population. The buildings are very old and are strictly of the ancient type, consisting of a series of six stone and turfed walled huts built side by side. Each hut has a gable in front, no two of the same height, but the roof is rounded down to the ground at the back. The eaves of the adjacent roofs coalesce and in the gutters the flowers attain an abnormal development. There is no regularity as to the size of the different sections of the house. Each portion appears to have been added in times of increasing prosperity as needed and built in proportions according to the increment of need. They have been so long constructed that age, even in an Icelandic house, is showing itself and as the building grew from one end, so now, from this same end is it crumbling. The family are retreating from house to house and unless better times come to this farm in the way of grass for cattle and sheep, a few generations more will drive the family to the last enclosure and then,—abandonment.

Let us enter the house. To do so we must stoop beneath the lintel and step down into the passage which has walls of turf, yellow and centuries dry, and an earth floor packed and worn by the trampling of unnumbered generations. There is no light in the passage save what comes through the open door and as we turn to our right, at right angles, blackness faces us. Groping a little further a gleam of light locates a door at the right which we open to enter the guest room. Here there is also evidence of age. The room is well finished with Norway spruce and innocent of paint. Age has given to the wood a dark rich brown which no paint can imitate or equal in richness of color. A triple window lets in a flood of light for there are no such unsanitary things as blinds and curtains. The windows are after the Danish plan, split through the middle, hinged at the sides and open outwards like American blinds. This is an excellent innovation of recent years and is often the only method of ventilation. Wood houses admit an abundance of air through unnumbered cracks and chinks in the joining, especially if built for speculation, but walls of turf two to three feet thick are proof against the slightest drafts. Miss Oswald in 1880 described the windows as being set solidly into the walls with no way to open. She felt the oppression of the foul air so much that she often broke out a light of glass and paid for “the accident” in the morning with an added apology. The influence of the medical officers in their fight to decrease tuberculosis has produced the desired change in window construction. I never found a guest room where the windows did not open as above described. The furniture of this room consisted of a bed three feet wide and the customary scantiness of length, a table and several chairs, numerous boxes in which clothing and valuables are stored, photographs in albums and in wire racks on the walls, and an organ made in Brattleboro, Vermont. We found these organs in every home save one during our two summers of travelling among the farms, no matter how humble the home.

The music most in evidence is sacred with numerous selections from the German and Italian masters and much of the minor lyrical music of the Icelandic school. The people are fond of music and most of them are fine singers, a few of them excellent. We will never forget the quartett and the congregational singing in the Cathedral at Reykjavik which we heard a year later. There are numerous composers, the best known being Sveinbjórn Sveinbjónsson, well known in the musical circles of Europe, who now resides in Edinburgh, Scotland. A large amount of the music has been composed for the love-songs, idyls and pastoral hymns written by the local poets. The themes of the song writers are mostly pastoral, or, they are an appreciation of the charming scenery which inspired such writers as Jonas Hallgrimson and Matthias Jochumsson. The subtlety of the Icelandic language does not permit of accurate translation of the fine meaning into English. To illustrate one of these appreciations combined with ardent love of country, I have rendered into English, without any attempt at alliteration, one stanza from Jonas Hallgrimson,—

You know the land with smiling face

Which many blue-ridged mountains grace,

The song of swan on quiet stream

Where meads with joyous flowers teem,

The glacier’s broad and shining wall,

The glint of sea, the roar of fall,—