Iceland: Horseback tours in saga land

by W. S. C. Russell

Entertainment has a different meaning to an American after he has experienced it in Iceland. What would Americans think if two foreigners, travel-soiled, unable to speak their language, should ride upon their lawns, throw the bridle to the ground, and through an interpreter make a request, much in the nature of a demand, for food and lodging? I fear that in most cases they would be cooly invited to continue their journey. Not so in Iceland. The stranger is taken to the best room, provided with soap, towels and food. His riding habit is taken away to be cleaned and returned in the morning when the morning cup of coffee and the cakes are taken to the bed room. The breakfast, like the dinner, is of the best the house can afford, the ponies are taken to the door, you pay the modest reckoning and ride away conscious of a kindly and generous liberality.

The Ölfusá, as the lower end of the Hvitá is called, is a mighty river. It receives the waters of Thingvallavatn, the Laxá, the Túngufljót, Varmá, Warm-River, and several other tributaries. At the sea this lake narrows to half a mile by a projecting bank of sand. The flood of water pours out this narrow channel at low tide with a strong current. The water is icy cold and it is so laden with glacial clay that it is still “Hvitá,” White River. At Óseyri, Beach-Mouth, we obtained a boat and two local guides, who knew the river, to ferry us across. We waited for low tide as it is impossible to swim the ponies across this broad estuary at high tide. The boat was taken half a mile up stream to allow for the drift of the current in crossing, the ponies were stripped of saddles, bridles and packing cases and Johannes tied a cod line around the lower jaw of each horse and left the lines about eight feet long. All the luggage was placed in the bottom of the leaky boat with the packing boxes at the bottom. We sat on the top of the baggage and the two oarsmen, stout fellows, worked the boat into the stream. Johannes handled the ponies in the following manner. He knelt in the stern of the dory with four of the lines in each hand. The ponies hung back for some time, as the cold and rapidly flowing water frightened them. It required full five minutes of careful coaxing to bring them into the water beyond their depth. This was a delicate bit of oar work as the current tended to sweep the boat sideways towards the shore and against the legs of the ponies. As the ponies were swept off their feet and began to swim the current caught the boat sideways and it required all the energy of the two oarsmen to back water sufficiently to relieve the strain upon the towing lines and at the same time keep the boat pointed across the stream. The tethers were kept sufficiently taut to enable Johannes to keep their noses above the water and we now discovered why Johannes had tied the cords around their jaws. He watched them with care and as soon as one nose plunged below the water he gave that pony his whole attention and with the strong cord pulled the pony’s nostrils to the surface and held it there till it had blown out the water. One after another, and sometimes two at a time, they succumbed to the cold water and to the difficulty of swimming so closely together. Only one of the eight swam the entire distance without sinking and this was the fiery “Jog Joggensen,” my afternoon mount. Away we went down stream, boat and horses together, the ponies checking the stern of the boat, the current swinging the bow downwards, requiring the utmost exertion of the oarsmen to point it towards the opposite shore. It seemed as if we would be swept over the bar and out to sea before we could win the beach. To add to the difficulty the boat leaked frightfully and held over a foot of water by the time we landed. The plunging and snorting ponies, the wild rush of the waters sweeping out of the estuary at low tide, the roar of the breakers just below, the countless gulls and tern circling over our heads, the rapidly sinking boat and the anxiety depicted on the face of Johannes, made this anything but a pleasant crossing. Around us the seal thrust their shining heads above the water, questioned with their eyes our right to invade their ancient domain and dived to reappear on a different quarter. The bow touched the sand, Johannes cast off the eight lines, we jumped into the water and waded ashore and the ponies staggered up the slope and lay down exhausted in the sand. They speedily recovered, rolled repeatedly to dry themselves and we allowed them a brief rest before resaddling.

When the boat touched land at the very verge of the breakers with the sand streaming away from us as the waves crawled back into the sea, at least one member of the party gave a sigh of relief. It has always been a disputed point as to which one of us uttered that sigh. Many ponies have been lost at this crossing by being swept out to sea. We were fortunate in saving all of ours, but Johannes stated that he had lost several in this tide race. As we lifted the packing cases out of the water in the boat it was with grave fears as to the condition of the camera films, for the water had filled all spaces within those cases.

At noon we arrived at a small farm under a high cliff at some distance from the sea. It is called Hlíðarendi, (not to be confounded with Hlíðarendi, the home of Gunnar), the usual Icelandic farm in an unusual situation. The buildings stand at the back of an amphitheatre. The surrounding cliffs are five hundred feet in elevation above the buildings. At the base of the cliff three generous streams of water flow out of the mountain. This is water that has sunk into the moorland near the base of the distant mountains and has found a passage through the cracked lava. Climbing to the top of the bluff I found an extensive moorland where numerous sheep were grazing and hundreds of whimbrels and plover. I spent two hours in stalking the plover with the camera. They finally allowed me to approach within fifteen feet of them. In the winter several hundreds of ptarmigan live upon this heath and the farmer shoots them for the English market. They are shipped in a frozen condition and are used in the London Clubs.

The view from the bluffs is extensive. At the foot of the cliffs lay the tún dotted with bundles of hay. Beyond the tún extends a waste of lava blocks and sand and then the sea, blue and surging. To the north rises range above range of the barren volcanoes of Reykjaness, Smoking Cape. I found the descent of the bluffs much more difficult than the ascent. The cliffs are clothed with a rich carpet of grass and an abundance of flowers in full bloom. Here the Spiraea lifts its purple spikes high above the grass, the dandelions and Arnica sprinkle the area with patches of bright yellow: beside the water pockets and embedded in the sphagnum moss the orchids bloom profusely: wild geraniums fringe the angular lava and many plants peculiar to this high latitude fill in the remainder of the floral scheme.

Mrs. Russell had considerable labor in restoring order to the packing cases and in spreading our clothes upon the rocks to dry. In the passage of the Ólfusá, our cases filled with water though they were supposed to be waterproof. The jog, jog, jog of the ponies had stirred up towels, soap, bread, tobacco, camera films, cocoa, tea, note books and other items and churned these ingredients into one common mass with salt water better than it could have been done with any Yankee washing machine. This was the reason we ended our journey at noon this day. The camera films were uninjured as I had taken the precaution to place each film in a metal box and seal it. These same boxes have since been around the world with another traveller and did similar excellent service for him in the jungles of India. All camera films taken to Iceland for transportation on a pony should be soldered water proof. They are easily opened and the empty tin will take the exposed film. This can may be securely sealed against moisture by winding the joint with several turns of waterproof tape.

I turned to the hayfield and finding an unused rake I went to work, not that I needed the exercise after my climb of the bluffs, but that I might have further excuse for observing the people at their work. I have previously made several observations about the haying and the tools but there remain other items of interest. The rake may be called a fine toothed comb. It is made in the usual form of the American hand rake with the exception of the teeth, which are from an inch to an inch and a half in length and set closely together. They are whittled out of the tough and crooked roots of the Arctic birch. This implement serves its purpose admirably, for it gathers all the short fine hay. The Icelandic scythe has been described, but it remains to mention an instrument not used in America, the reipe, rope. This consists of two eyelets whittled out of wood or more often fashioned from a ram’s horn. The eyelets are connected with a rope a foot long. To each eyelet, and at right angles to the connecting rope, there is attached another rope which is from twelve to eighteen feet in length. In use these two ropes are laid in parallel on the ground, the hay is heaped upon the center to a weight of eighty to one hundred pounds. The eyelets are then brought up to the top of the heap, the corresponding rope from the other side is then brought up to its eyelet and passed through, the free ends are drawn taut by the force of two men, a half hitch is taken in each, the ends are then turned at right angles to their original position and passed round to the other side of the bundle and fastened just as a box is tied in a store. Out of the loose ends is fashioned a loop to hang the bundle on the pin of the hay saddle. The bundle is then thoroughly combed out with the rake and it is ready for transportation to the haystack. If it rains or if the hay is not sufficiently cured, the bundle is left in the field. Hay makes rapidly in these bundles and a long rain will not penetrate. Haying is the only agricultural pursuit in the country. Each farmer keeps account of the number of pony loads taken to the stacks each season. An average crop for the country is about 1,800,000 pony loads which average one hundred and ninety pounds per pony load. Of this hay 1,000,000 loads are taken from the wild land, that is, from the land outside of the tún. This wild land is the moorland, unfed patches in the pastures, islands, bogs and meadows. The tún is fertilized with the manure from the cow stables. Each day this material is carried out on a stretcher by the milk maids and piled in a heap. This material dries into a hard cake during the summer. When the time comes for spreading it upon the tún it is broken up and the fragments are placed in a toothed hopper and ground. There are hundreds of tons of this best of all fertilizers that go to waste as the soil does not need it. If the soil could be sufficiently warmed by the sun to produce garden crops Iceland would become a great market garden for Europe as its soil is exceptionally rich and fertilizer is abundant. Every farm has its potato patch and a bed of turnips in a high walled enclosure near the buildings but the farmer raises only what he needs for his own family. The ground is spaded and the potatoes are planted in beds as we plant beets and lettuce. There may be ploughs, mowing machines, pitchforks and hayracks in Iceland but I have never seen them on any of the many farms I have visited. I have seen a photograph purporting to be from Iceland which shows some of these instruments but there are other items in the picture, such as the costumes of the people, which prove that the negative was made in Sweden.

The ride along the sea coast to Krisuvik is mostly a scramble over a mass of lava which is strangely contorted and blistered. A mountain bluff extends parallel with the coast line about a mile from the shore. Prior to the settlement of the country an eruption of one of the volcanoes in this region poured out a large volume of fluid lava which rolled over this bluff in several places and then meandered in various directions. During an entire day’s ride we saw but two houses, comfortless homes of fishermen on a barren shore and far from neighbors. This is a bird shore. Many thousands of sea birds nest in this rough country, far away from sheep and dogs, in undisputed freedom, for they are seldom disturbed by man. Oftentimes the ground for several square rods was literally covered with them. When our trail led through these patches the old birds resented our intrusion, swooped down and pecked at the horses and at our clothing. We were forced to keep one hand in continual motion about our heads to prevent being violently hit with their wings. Over my desk hangs a quill pen made from the wing feather of the great black backed gull, which I tore from this bird as it swooped against my arm.

We took lunch this day at Stranda Kirkja, Church-by-the-Strand, beside a stream of brackish water which flowed from under the lava wall. It was cool but unsatisfactory as a beverage. We found it too sour to drink. It contained some acid, probably sulfuric, though I had no barium chlorid with which to prove it. After lunch we forded the shallows at the mouth of the nearly land-locked bay of Vogsósar, Whale-Mouth, and descended to the shore over a billowy mass of ropy lava. Numerous tide pools were scattered about and in them were countless eider duck with their young as well as many other species. It is well for these birds and for the people who gain a livelihood from their eggs, down and feathers that the sportsman knows nothing of these breeding places and that the sound of the shotgun never wakes the echoes of these basaltic cliffs.

We found our way by following a zigzag line of cairns. It was rough travelling. Oftentimes the ponies were forced to raise their fore feet to the edge of a block of stone or lava shelf and then spring to the top like goats, again in descending these stone stairways they crouched like a cat for a spring, carefully lowered one foot into a niche, placed the other fore foot in a similar niche below it and then jumped to the lower level. Never did they slip or make a false step, left to their own guidance they picked the best places and brought us safely across a mass of fractured lava that seemed impossible for them to traverse. Certainly horses of other countries could not have accomplished this feat. Thus climbing and descending, fording shallows and circling tide pools to the annoyance of the birds we traversed ten miles of a wild and interesting country, absolutely primaeval as far as any trace of man’s presence is concerned save in the scattered cairns and the deep grooves of his horses hoofs in the lava. In one place I measured a trail ten rods long across the smooth ledge that had been worn to a depth of seven inches and a width of eight inches by the tiny feet of the ponies during a thousand years of travel along this shore.