2:mm. 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
 R GRANT & SON, 
 
 BOOKSELLERS, 
 107 Princes Street 
 
^^e<^^ 
 
 
BY FELL AND FJOKD 
 
 OR 
 
 SCENES AND STUDIES 
 IN ICELAND 
 
 BY 
 
 E. J. OSWALD 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXII 
 
 ^ — \ l# S"^ — HlT' A^i i^i<jf'ts re.s'eroed 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/byfellfjordorsceOOoswarich 
 

 PEE FACE, 
 
 This little book is a record of travels in Iceland, of whicli 
 the pleasure was greatly enhanced by the saga-lore previ- 
 ously acquired, and the legends gathered by the wayside. I 
 am not aware that any other book about Iceland has taken 
 the special line that I have attempted to follow in mine — 
 the connection of the land with the sagas ; and it may there- 
 fore assist some of the tourists who now visit the island in 
 increasing numbers to enter more into its peculiar charm of 
 local legend and past literature. 
 
 These journeys, made in three different years, were full 
 of enjoyment, which increased with the knowledge of the 
 language, and larger acquaintance with the Icelanders them- 
 selves. For much true kindness and hospitality, to which 
 I cannot here do full justice, I take this opportunity of 
 thanking my many friends in the island. 
 
 Some chapters relating to our first journey have already 
 appeared in ' Good Words.' The illustrations are woodcuts, 
 or reproductions of pen-and-ink outlines, from my water- 
 colour sketches ; and although they have lost with the 
 colour any attractiveness the originals may possess, it is 
 hoped that they may serve to explain the letterpress. 
 
 ivi317278 
 
NOTE. 
 
 A few Icelandic words are used without translation, as — 
 
 d (pronounce as ow in prow), river — as Thjorsa, Tliors river ; 
 
 Ellidk, Ellid river. 
 BoTidi, yeoman, peasant proprietor, but often used of the head 
 
 of a family even when not a landowner ; hence our word 
 
 husband — i. e. , hus-bond. 
 JBce (pronounce by), dwelling. 
 Fjall, fell, mountain. 
 JoTcull, glacier. 
 Prestr, priest or clergyman. 
 Tun, enclosed gi-ass-land round a farm, equivalent to the Scottish 
 
 toun. 
 Vellir, valley. 
 
 Icelandic is pronounced as written, with Italian vowel-sounds, 
 besides others peculiar to itself. The consonant Thorn, or th 
 English, and the soft modification of the d, which is pronounced 
 dh, both represented by different characters in Icelandic, are here 
 printed th and d, not to confuse the page. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. WHY WE GO THERE, ...... 1 
 
 II. ON THE WAY THERE — FAROE ISLANDS, ... 4 
 
 III. REYKJAVIK AND THE PONIES, ... . . 13 
 
 IV. GEYSIR, ........ 20 
 
 V. LOCAL ORIGIN OF ICELANDIC LITERATURE FORMS OF 
 
 SAGAS, 34 
 
 VL 'lANDNAMABOk' THE 'eDDAs' STURLUNGA WOMEN 
 
 OF THE SAGAS — SAINTS BIOGRAPHIES — MORALITY — 
 
 MODERN LITERATURE, . . . . . .41 
 
 VII. MOSSFELL HVALFJORD AND ITS LEGENDS REYKHOLT 
 
 KALMANSTUNGA— CENTRAL LAVA SURTSHELLIR, . 58 
 
 VIII. NORDTUNGA BORGASYSLU HOLTVORDSHEIDE THE 
 
 NORTHERN COAST, ...... 77 
 
 IX. FISHING IN ICELAND LAXDALE AND ITS SAGAS 
 
 KVENNA - BREKKA BlIsKOGAEHEIDA BACK TO 
 
 THINGVELLIR, ....... 91 
 
 X. RECENT MISFORTUNES IN ICELAND TRADE NEW CON- 
 STITUTION PASTORAL WEALTH CONDITION OF THE 
 
 PEOPLE, 106 
 
 XT. HOUSEKEEPING DINNERS OUR PARTY SOCIETY 
 
 MANNERS — LANGUAGE, . . . . .114 
 
 XII. KRISUVIK SULPHUR-MINES, ..... 122 
 
 Xm. VATNSLEYSI KIRKJUVOGR AND REYKJANES AURORA 
 
 HOME AGAIN HINTS TO TRAVELLERS, . . 127 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 XIV. A JOURNEY IN 1878 ULFJLOTSVATN GEYSIR, ANOTHER 
 
 ERUPTION GULLFOSS — HUNI THJORSA STORU- 
 
 VELLIR, ........ 138 
 
 XV. HECLA NEW VOLCANOES KIRKJUBAE FLJOTSLID, . ^ 149 
 
 XVI. MARKARFLJOT RIVER THORSMARK FLOODS AND 
 
 FORDS, ........ 157 
 
 XVIL OVER MARKARFLJOT NJAl's COUNTRY FLOA EYRA- 
 
 BAKKI TO REYKJAVIK, ..... 169 
 
 XVIII. HVALFJORD BORGARFJORD, . . . . .178 
 
 XIX. EGIL at BORGARFJORD, . . . . . .185 
 
 XX. STAFHOLT REYKIIOLT SNORRI STURLASON AND HIS 
 
 FATE GILSBAKKI PASS OF OK BENIGHTED, . 196 
 
 XXI. THINGVELLIR IN FORMER DAYS THE TALK OF THE 
 
 MAIDENS SOLITUDES BESSERSTAD DOGS — KRISU- 
 
 VIK HOME AGAIN, ...... 206 
 
 XXII. FAROES TO AKUREYREI STEINSTADR OVER OXNADAL 
 
 HEATH MIKLAB^ AND ITS GHOST SORCERERS 
 
 HIDDEN TREASURES THE SPECTRE LOVER, . . 222 
 
 XXIII. CHURCH SERVICES CLERGY MAGISTRATES — DRINK IN 
 
 ICELAND AND NORWAY TOBACCO BEAUTY, . . 238 
 
 XXIV. TO BAKKASTADR — TO THE HUNAFJORD THINGEYRI 
 
 VATZDALE, ....... 247 
 
 XXV. LEGENDS OF VATZDALE INGMUNDR THE OLD HAL- 
 FRED THE SKALD, ...... 255 
 
 XXVL OVER GRIMSTUNGAHEIDE TO KALMUNSTUNGA VARMA- 
 
 LEIK BENIGHTED MOSSFELL, .... 264 
 
 XXVH. EXCURSION TO REYKJADAL AND EYRABAKKI, . . 276 
 
I ^ ^' ^ 
 
 BY FELL AND FJOER 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 WHY WE GO THERE. 
 
 VERY year a few people go now to Ice- 
 land for their summer holidays ; they 
 are generally drawn there by one of 
 three attractions — the fishing, the geol- 
 ogy, or the old literature. It was the 
 literature that brought me — the vivid Sagas which set the men 
 and women of the past before us as if we had known them our- 
 selves, '' offering the truth of them," to quote Carlyle, " as if seen 
 in their real lineaments by some marvellous opening across the 
 black strata of the ages." Then there is the language, a dead 
 one now in its old Norwegian home, but the living speech in 
 Iceland still, giving the island the sort of interest for the student 
 of old Norse that classical scholars would feel if some lonely 
 island could be found where the Greek of Pericles or the Latin 
 of Augustus was still the common speech. All this had for 
 years invested Iceland in my mind with such a halo of romance, 
 that it is high praise of the country to say that the reality proved 
 equal to the expectation. 
 
2 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 As to the other attractions — and perhaps those who have not 
 a good working enthusiasm for at least one of the three, should 
 avoid Iceland — the salmon and trout fishing is sometimes very 
 good. It is said to have fallen off of late, especially in dry 
 seasons, though it was excellent again last year (1881). But 
 it will soon deteriorate unless the Icelanders are roused to the 
 necessity of preserving better, attending to close seasons, and 
 checking the take of fish in boxes and stake-nets at the mouths 
 of some of the rivers. There is amusing bird-shooting for those 
 who like to go over a great deal of ground, and do not care to 
 make big bags. There is, however, no ground game, and no large 
 game except reindeer, which are exceedingly difficult to kill. 
 
 Now for the third attraction. Intending travellers often ask 
 if there is fine scenery in Iceland. Yes, emphatically, for geolo- 
 gists ; but as regards others, it is difficult to say, for in more than 
 most cases the answer depends on taste. There will be time 
 on the voyage to appreciate the spirit of the bold mariners who 
 first crossed these waves, without charts or compass, guided only 
 by their brave instincts and the midnight stars, and to realise 
 what pluck and manhood is inferred by their choice of a 
 home. The modern Icelanders have ratified that choice. They 
 love their island, but it seems wonderful that they dare to 
 stay in that volcanic waste, north of the forests, north of the 
 corn, where only the hardy grasses clothe a fraction of the soil, 
 — a little handful of people in constant battle with the ele- 
 ments. How can they face the separation of that stormy sea, 
 the solitude of the winter, the darkness, the cruel frosts, the ter- 
 rible tempests? Those first settlers who chose the land were 
 men indeed — they feared none of these things if they had but 
 liberty ; and the stories of their voyages and wars, their home- 
 life and conversations, show them as above all strong — skorungr^ 
 they are constantly styled, a word meaning stirring, dominant, or 
 high-spirited. Defying the rude weather, the wild country, and 
 each other, they lived their lives thoroughly, even brilliantly 
 and gaily ; they could not afford, like the people of the South, to 
 rest and dream, and thus tend to become indolent and corrupt. 
 
WHY WE GO THERE. 3 
 
 Even the passing traveller shares something of that cheery- 
 defiance of grim surroundings as he rides along the almost track- 
 less ways that have yet been trodden by so many generations. 
 And the scenery, though often far from beautiful, and sometimes 
 downright ugly, is at least exciting and singular, and full of 
 interest to geologists. There are valleys to be traversed, many 
 miles long, all marsh-lands ; there are mountains to be crossed, des- 
 titute of any scrap of wholesome vegetation, with only occasional 
 patches of moss of an unnaturally vivid green to accentuate the 
 dark colours of the background ; there are stretches of country, 
 all black fissured lava, as far as the eye can see ; there are cold 
 black bogs, and hot blue bogs, ice -laden rivers, and boiling 
 streams. All this is not pretty, but it is stimulating. There is 
 something more sad and pathetic in the scenery the Icelanders 
 themselves most admire. The smooth patches of cultivated 
 meadow -land, the little lonely houses in the wilderness of 
 marsh-land or barren hills, the gardens where a few vegetables 
 and hardy flowers are tenderly shielded from the storms, the 
 sheepfolds by the farms, the stir of human life round the home- 
 steads, the simple industries surrounded by the outside formless 
 chaos. But the scenery is in some parts truly beautiful, in the 
 grand blending of mountain and sea views up the fjords : and the 
 sun, which in the South is sometimes an enemy, in the North is 
 always a friend. All the long summer day it causes the wild land- 
 scape to pass from charm to charm ; everything rejoices in the 
 perpetual sunshine ; the air is crystal clear, the colouring intense 
 beyond description. No wonder that Frey was a favourite deity 
 here in old days ; no wonder that they praised the sun in Iceland — 
 
 ' ' Oh Frey in the North lands, 
 Thou sweetest of powers, 
 
 Thy breath on the mountains 
 Turns ice into flowers. 
 
 Thy smile on the meadows 
 Is life to the fold, 
 
 Thy touch on the maid's hair 
 
 Oh Frey in the South lands, 
 How dread is thine ire ! 
 
 Thou lord of the death-bow. 
 Thine arrows are fire. 
 
 Thy light touch is madness. 
 Thy warm kiss is death. 
 
 Thy smile on the marshes 
 
 Turns flaxen to gold. \ The pestilence' breath. " 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 ON THE WAY THERE — FAROE ISLANDS. 
 
 Early in June 1875 we sailed from Leitli on a Wednesday at 
 noon, for the first time bound for Iceland. My friend and I were 
 full of joyous anticipations as we slipped down the Firth of Forth 
 in an oily calm. . Let those hardy mariners who are used to the 
 " roaring forties," and know all the humours of the sea in long 
 voyages, excuse us for writing down some of the details of our 
 little voyage ; for, though not the most unpleasant, it was the 
 worst we ever had. Happily ours is not a common experience 
 on this passage. 
 
 All through the first night the calm lasted, though I did not 
 like the look of the weather, the white light, the occasional 
 fitful puffs that wrinkled the sea, and the thickness that gathered 
 and grew around us. 
 
 We were ten passengers, English and Icelanders, in the little 
 steamer, only about 250 tons burden. She has now laid her iron 
 bones somewhere in the sea, so no one need be warned against 
 her more. None of the ship's company had ever been to Iceland 
 before. We especially liked the Steward, who, though he was 
 but a shrimp of a boy, with a sweet treble voice for singing, 
 deserves a capital letter ; for as Steward, he was a grave and 
 sharp official, and quite up to his business. By Thursday morn- 
 ing we were steaming up the Pentland Firth near the red wall 
 of cliffs, up which the foam was beginning to spring, and flash 
 ominously. The curious swirl of water that seems generally 
 
ON THE WAY THERE — FAEOE ISLANDS. 5 
 
 chnrning there was working more than usual, scuds of rain swept 
 from the thick weather to the east, and heavier blasts of wind 
 drove the seas up behind us, till by the time we had cleared the 
 Orkneys, the decks were all swimming, and very dirty weather 
 had set in. We ought, I believe, in prudence to have stopped at 
 Thurso, or at least run past Faroe — for all could see that a south- 
 easterly gale was brewing ; but some Danes had previously bar- 
 gained to be landed at Suderoe in Faroe, for a fabulous bribe, so 
 away we toiled in search of this island. 
 
 On Friday it blew worse — no observations could be taken; but 
 after dark we came upon shoaling water, and no doubt we had 
 reached the southern point of the island. But there was no 
 gleam of light in the sky, nor beacon on the land.. Within the 
 lighted cabin, which was rolling about as if a giant were using it 
 as a dice-box, I watched the officers of the ship poring over the 
 chart with anxious faces, and the lines of Allingham's sea-song 
 ran dismally in my mind — 
 
 " Now bring the chart, the doleful chart ; 
 See where these mountains meet — 
 The clouds are thick around their head, 
 The mists around their feet. " 
 
 The captain said at last, " Well, though we have got hold of 
 the land, I can't tell which side of the point we are on, so I shall 
 just put her head to the sea." 
 
 It is very disagreeable to have her head put to butt at such a 
 sea. How she shrieked and wrestled and tossed, as hour by 
 hour the fury of the gale increased, and with it the "deaf'ning 
 clamours," that still do not hinder sleep, till in the middle of the 
 night a noise beyond noises roused me ! Something broke open 
 the cuddy-door, and tore through into my little state cabin with 
 a rush and a roar ; a great wave had come in and filled the lower 
 berth. After the wave came the captain, saying, " No danger, 
 ladies and gentlemen — merely a blunder in the steering." 
 
 Then came two men with swabs and buckets and a light, 
 showing me the black water swaying about, that never left my 
 cabin-floor again. " Well, I call this labour in vain," said one. 
 
6 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 '^ You wouldn't have her water-logged ? " said the other. I fell 
 into a not cheering conversation with one sailor who came from 
 my own county. ^' You see, ma'am, she was built for the trade 
 between Kirkcaldy and London, and you know what that is : she 
 was never meant for these seas." And these words recurred in 
 the grim grey early dawn, when I thought that the port-hole 
 which opened into my berth ought surely to have had a dead-light ; 
 it went under water at every roll for quite an appreciable time, 
 leaving me in darkness, to which succeeded an awful view of 
 grey mountain waves, with foam like a drifting snowstorm 
 whizzing past — and this, too, in a deck cabin. It became too 
 dreary, so I contrived to jump over the water in the cabin, and 
 make a hasty toilet in the empty saloon. On looking out at 
 the door, it seemed as if the waist of the ship was a river, rushing 
 alternately to starboard and port, and foaming against the masts 
 and hatchways. In front a tall grey wave rose above the bridge, 
 and the steamer climbed straining up, and then rushed down into 
 a shadowed valley on the other side. I turned away remarking, 
 " And she was built for the trade between Kirkcaldy and London !" 
 " And I wish we were trading there," said a sailor. However, the 
 captain told me she was holding her own — which was something 
 to know, whatever was her own. But it was sad to think that all 
 this time we were going, if at all, the wrong way. They got a 
 sort of observation out of a brighter spot in the clouds, as it seemed 
 to me, and found we were sixty miles out of our course already ; 
 but we could not put about, and were thankful for sea-room. 
 
 At night, when we did put about, we were duly warned, and 
 yet, in spite of all precautions, I was jerked off the sofa on the 
 transom, where I had taken refuge from my flooded cabin. But 
 when we had a course our spirits rose, and all seemed pleasant ; 
 we admired the great rollers, called here Spanish waves, and 
 contrived to laugh at our numerous discomforts, except on that 
 fatal day when the salt water leapt into both the tea and the 
 soup. Our meals were like games at ball ; for in spite of guards 
 and fiddles, everything was flying. The swinging tray swung 
 things off. Soup or tea had not a chance except in the hand ; 
 
ON THE WAY THERE — FAROE ISLANDS. 7 
 
 bottles were only safe in the pocket ; and meat slijiped off the 
 dishes. 
 
 There were occasional rifts of blue in the stormy clouds when 
 we sighted to the south-east the gaunt blue precipices of the 
 southern Faroes. The islands rose in stupendous cliffs, their 
 steadfast lines contrasting grandly with the changing undulating 
 billows which broke high on their sides. We advanced between 
 two mountain-chains, separated by a stormy gulf, where rose the 
 two great rocks called Store and Lille Dimon. Store Dimon 
 is a great resort of puffins — about 5000 are taken there annually. 
 They say a basket of eggs can be let down straight from the top 
 to the sea, 1500 feet below ; and yet there are inhabitants, and a 
 clergyman visits them once a-year. His flock pull him up by 
 ropes, the only mode of access. On Lille Dimon there are only 
 four-legged sheep. 
 
 The Faroese cliffs, though smooth below, are often fantastic 
 above, broken into what the natives call troll kona fingers (troll 
 wife's fingers) which our sailors call devil's thumbs. One such 
 appeared at first like a gigantic black monk, with arms stretched 
 out as if in blessing; but as we advanced he lost grace, and be- 
 came huge, uncouth, and threatening — a good emblem of the 
 Dominican order, which began with theological learning, and 
 developed the Inquisition. 
 
 When we swung round the point into Hvalbae Bay on Suderoe, 
 we were in the so-called garden of the Faroes. There was a little 
 wooden village dotted irregularly over the steep shore, whence 
 the mountain rose abruptly in grassy slopes to the basaltic cliffs 
 above. There were waterfalls and little streams, and a few fields 
 of rye. Here are coal-fields also, which our Danish passenger 
 meant to work; but they lie inconveniently high up the hillside, 
 unless, indeed, the coal could be lowered down the cliff straight 
 to the sea. There were several fishing-smacks in the offing ; 
 and kindly-looking brown-clad inhabitants came down to welcome 
 us. It all looke^d sweet and peaceful to us storm-tossed mariners, 
 especially when lighted by a gleam of sun. We met some 
 Kentish fishermen, however, who evidently did not admire the 
 
BY FELL AND FJOED. 
 
 country. " Look at the apples and pears ! " they said ; " see the 
 crops ! " and then with sudden pathos, " Oh, ma'am, can you tell 
 us, are the cherries ripe yet at home ? " The captain allowed us 
 one hour ashore ; and an amiable man, who knew a little English, 
 came forward, took us to his house, gave us coffee and Muscat 
 wine and biscuits, showed us the tidy church and well-furnished 
 store, and did the honours with a simple courtesy that quite 
 
 pleased us. This island 
 is not without old ro- 
 mantic legends, many 
 of which cluster round 
 Sigmundur Brettisson, 
 a real hero, a converted 
 sea-king, who imposed 
 Christianity on the isl- 
 anders at the sword's 
 point. After many ad- 
 ventures he was assault- 
 ed by some traitors in 
 his castle, on an island 
 about four miles out to sea ; but he escaped through the sea 
 caverns and swam all the way to this island, where, unluckily, 
 he was found resting on the sea-weed by some thralls, who slew 
 him for his golden bracelets. His story has lately been retold 
 in a poem, written in a kind of modern Icelandic or archaic 
 Danish which some Norwegians are trying to revive ; a useless 
 effort — for one may as well try to stop the current of a river 
 as of a language. 
 
 It was very rough still when we steamed away to sea ; but as 
 we sat on the now dried quarter-deck, holding by a rope looped 
 to the mast, we thoroughly enjoyed the sailing and the view of 
 the islands till they sank behind the stormy horizon. 
 
 All went pleasantly on the following day ; and the day after 
 that, when I came on deck in the early morning, I found the sun 
 was shining ; the sea, though still high, was bright blue, and before 
 us rose Iceland. There was a peculiar effect of largeness in the 
 
ON THE WAY THERE — FAROE ISLANDS. 
 
 9 
 
 
 Faroe. 
 
 view, — the sky was so transparent, and the land on such a big 
 scale that the whole scene was sublime in its simplicity, and 
 in the contrast between the driving Atlantic billows in the fore- 
 ground, and the repose of the huge mountain-masses of eternal 
 ice and snow beyond. These mountains rose in long rounded 
 forms and shone with the glitter of ice : they formed part of 
 the great glacier system of 
 the Vatna and Oraefja Jokull. 
 As we drew nearer, the blue 
 shadow below the ice resolved 
 itself into high black cliffs half 
 veiled by the leaping foam of 
 the sea, while here and there 
 we could perceive the opening 
 of a dark-green valley leading 
 inland, and straight before us a 
 huge square rock called Ingolf's Head stood conspicuously out- 
 side a narrow bay. We were a good deal to the eastward of the 
 point usually first made, which was, however, very satisfactory to 
 those who had read the Sagas. Ingolfsh'dfdij or Ingolf's Head, 
 was the first point of land sighted by Ingolf, the earliest settler 
 in the island, and it was there also that the gallant Kari, the 
 avenger of Burnt Njal, was wrecked close by the home of Flosi 
 the Burner. Kari went up to his house, uncertain as to his recep- 
 tion ; but although they had been for years occupied in killing 
 each other's relations, the claims of hospitality were paramount, 
 and from that day they became the best of friends. 
 
 The weather was clear and bright, and it was most enjoyable 
 coasting along the shore, past the great wastes of the Vatna 
 Jokull which even then were being ascended by the only persons 
 who have ever explored them — Mr Watts, a member of the 
 Alpine Club, and six Icelanders ; past the great arched rocks of 
 Dyrholar or Portland, and the cliffs under the Ejarfjall Jokull, 
 where we could see the waterfalls connecting the upper snows 
 with dark-green valleys, scattered here and there with mounds 
 like mole -hills, which we were told were houses. Towards 
 
10 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 evening we passed the low lands where the Markerfljot river 
 runs by several foaming channels into the sea — the scene of the 
 Sao-a of Burnt NjaL On the other side the Westmanna Islands 
 rose in huge square cliffs out of the sea, and beyond them whales 
 were spouting. Meanwhile, as night drew on, the sky was again 
 breaking into windy flaws ; more water than usual came on deck, 
 and the coast and the islands were lost in drift. The strong 
 current that runs round Iceland met the sea and roused it into 
 foam, and then the south-easter tore down upon us again. 
 
 It was like the Pastoral Symphony, — peasants dance, and 
 shepherds pipe sweet music, till a few chords break it with 
 threatening significance, then suddenly the storm-music rolls 
 up terrible and overwhelming. The sea seemed to me quite 
 unnatural, sloping slightly upwards on one side and downwards 
 on the other till lost in scud ; it was all tilted to one side rather 
 than wavy, a slope that foamed like boiling water. We knew 
 the point of Reykjanes headed us, and that beyond the fairway 
 round it, a terrible line of reefs ran twenty miles out to sea — but 
 we could see nothing. No sailor on board had ever been there 
 before, and there are no lights on the coast, though if there had 
 been, I believe we could not have seen them two miles off. We 
 could, however, only go on as we were ; we tried to lay to, but 
 made very bad weather of that. 
 
 There was a little shelter from the projection of the quarter- 
 deck at the cuddy-door, and there, clinging to an iron railing, it 
 was interesting to watch the furious sea, and the sea-birds that 
 wheeled screaming over our deck. As they came driving into 
 sudden lamp-light out of the darkness, one excused them for not 
 respecting our deck ; for it was almost like the outer sea, black 
 water broken into foam, the stinging foam that drenched us all. 
 Depressing things began to occur. The little steward bustled 
 np, apparently in command of two or three seamen, and carried 
 off the cabin mattresses forward. ^' Is there water in the engine- 
 room?" I asked despondingly. " Oh no, ma'am, only a little com- 
 ing down the fore-hatchway." There was water in the hold, as 
 we afterwards found when we unpacked our trunks. Then a 
 
ON THE WAY THERE— FAROE ISLANDS. ' 11 
 
 ship's officer whispered to one of the gentlemen something be- 
 ginning with, "Don't tell the ladies," and of course the ladies 
 instantly wished to know everything ; but it was only what was 
 plain enough, that we had to drive on, and had to hit the right 
 channel, and did not know exactly where it was. Happily the 
 little steamer behaved bravely, and did not break her screw- 
 propeller till the next voyage ; but the motion was excessive, 
 and at last the swinging cabin-lamp, the last breakable thing, 
 smashed to pieces and left the cabin in darkness ; and the captain 
 actually wished to shut up the ladies "in that darkness ! But we 
 felt ourselves better off where we were, and would not go ; and 
 indeed, though the tension of nerves was great, it was not wholly 
 disagreeable. I can still see, in the first glimmer of morning, 
 or rather of ligliter weather, for there was no night, the face of 
 a young Icelandic girl, fair against the darkness, with floating 
 golden hair, as tranquil as the figure-head of a ship, or as any 
 of her sea-roving ancestors. And at last an Icelandic gentleman, 
 who had been all night on the look-out with the captain, swung 
 down from the bridge, and ran up to tell us, with a voice of 
 joyous congratulation, that he had seen the land close by — had 
 recognised a landmark, and knew how to steer. By 3 a.m. all 
 anxiety was over — wind and sea abated as the tide went down ; 
 and moreover we saw, blessed sight, a schooner before us in the 
 fairway — the first ship since Faroe. I went into the engine- 
 house to dry myself, and condole with a weary engineer, who 
 wanted to know if we were near a port, and began again to 
 suggest we ought to have been coasting between Kirkcaldy and 
 London ; but I would hear no more of that. We tumbled thank- 
 fully into wet berths, and slept till late morning, when we woke 
 near Keykjavik, just a week out from Leith. We were rolling 
 still in the swell, but in an arm of the sea running up to the 
 left under fine mountains. The morning was brilliant, and the 
 colouring of sea and land was intensely vivid. 
 
 Reykjavik lay to the right. It was like a small Norwegian 
 town, a cluster of black wooden houses scattered irregularly 
 along the shore and up a rising bank. Behind it lay a black 
 
12 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 flat, bounded by a fine range of distant volcanic hills — tlie sul- 
 phur-mountains of Krisuvik. To the left the purple mountains 
 trended westward, till sixty miles away the snows of the last of 
 the range, Snsefell Jokull, glimmered like a daylit moon. 
 
 There is no pier or inner harbour at Eeykjavik, only some wood- 
 en jetties, but usually there is a fair amount of shipping in the fine 
 roadstead. We were soon surrounded by small boats, and people 
 glad to welcome us in safety ; for there had been a gale in Ice- 
 land heavier than any that had been experienced since mid- 
 winter — most unwonted weather for June. Bad passages are, 
 however, like bad dreams when one awakes, they are forgotten 
 on arrival, or, at least, not remembered so as to deter people 
 from going to sea again. We landed, — and I may mention as 
 characteristic, that as our boatman had to carry our numerous 
 packages a long way up to our lodging, I paid the boy what 
 seemed to me about enough ; but meeting the man a few days 
 later, he insisted on returning to me one-third of the fee, as it 
 was too much. The next agreeable trait which met us was the 
 hospitality. We were asked everywhere to coffee, to dinner, to 
 tea, both by people to whom we had introductions and others, 
 and we were never a day on our own resources all the first week 
 we spent at Eej^kjavik. But such things belong to pre-guide- 
 book days, and will vanish before the advance of the tourist. 
 
13 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EEYKJAVIK AND THE PONIES. 
 
 There are three streets in Eeykjavik parallel to tlie shore, and 
 one leading up inland at each extremity of the town ; these are 
 nicely gravelled, and neatly kept. There is also a square, with 
 grass in the centre, in the middle of which stands a fine statue of 
 Thorwaldsen, the only ornament of the town. The rest of it is all 
 irregular, houses dotted about by twos and threes over a con- 
 siderable space of country. The public buildings consist of an 
 ugly salmon-coloured church they call the cathedral — a plain 
 whitewashed house for the governor — and a larger one, salmon- 
 coloured again, for the college. Most of the houses are of timber 
 painted black, picked out with white ; many stand in gardens 
 among hardy flowers, or, with a complete disregard for appear- 
 ances, turnips and potatoes. How I longed often to do a little 
 gardening, and square things up ! for the Icelanders have no ideas 
 about out-of-doors amenity. The houses are, however, generally 
 neat inside, and some of them are daintily pretty ; and they are 
 usually ornamented by roses, carnations, and geraniums, bloom- 
 ing in the windows — tender favourites, which are rarely exposed 
 to the open air. There are a few old turf-houses, which are 
 among the worst and smallest specimens of the genuine Ice- 
 landic hce or dwelling ; and of late many new substantial houses 
 of grey whinstone have been built. The red Danish flag flutters 
 from many a roof, and the whole place has a thriving air, and 
 an increasing trade and population. 
 
14 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 The two or three stores — which are like our Highland " general 
 merchants " shops, places where you can buy everything ratiier 
 dear — are crowded in summer. There are stacks of fish on the 
 shore which are built up in rain, and spread out to dry in sunshine. 
 The dried fish is made indeed, just as we make hay, by busy 
 women, while numbers of men are employed in plying with boat- 
 loads of fish to the ships in the roadstead. The women all wear 
 a pretty black cap, like a small Greek cap, with the same sort 
 of tassel falling over one shoulder ; and it sets them off not a 
 little. They have smartly fitting dark jackets and skirts, and 
 gaily coloured handkerchiefs and aprons ; and they wear Scotch 
 plaids over their heads in cold weather. The men have no 
 especial costume, except that their brown suits look very loose 
 and clumsy ; and in cold weather they pile clothes on above and 
 bel(3w till they have the figures of bears. The richer sort are 
 dressed like people elsewhere, only constant riding inclines them 
 towards wearing clothes to suit, and high boots. 
 
 There was no inn when we were there first — only a public- 
 house ; but though the town now boasts of a humble hotel, it is 
 better for ladies to lodge, as we did, in a private house. They 
 told us we could dine at the liospital. This sounded rather 
 melancholy ; but it proved to be a jovial sort of hospital — where 
 dinner-parties and balls were given, and where an excellent 
 cook provided dinners for many strangers. There were only four 
 patients there at that time, and when there are any infectious 
 cases, they are sent to a lonely house across the bay. An Eng- 
 lish gentleman I met at our liospital told me he disliked towns 
 in general, but he liked Eeykjavik certainly better than any 
 other town ; perhaps because it is as little of a town as a town 
 can be. It has the advantage of a very pleasant little society, 
 simple in externals, yet refined, and withal rather ceremonious. 
 
 Excellent bridle-roads run in every direction for a few miles 
 over country which, but for the distant views, is ugly. The soil is 
 disintegrated lava, and hardly to be distinguished from ploughed 
 fields at a little distance ; the cultivated grass meadows near the 
 town are edged by this brown waste, and, for some miles, the 
 
KEYKJAVIK AND THE PONIES. 15 
 
 natural grass only grows in a few sheltered places. But in 
 fine weather the views are beautiful. There is a pretty walk by 
 a little lake which bounds the town to the south ; but the best 
 views are westward, near a headland where we often strolled to 
 see the sunsets blazing away behind Snaefell Jokull. There are 
 grand mountains to the north-west ; a lower coast with strange 
 volcanic formations, trends away south, as far as the eye can see. 
 There in the spring-time the inhabitants watch day by day for 
 the first streak of the smoke of the steamer which returns from 
 the outer world after an interval of four months. The men 
 watch the sky with their glasses, and the boys are always 
 waiting ready to rush to the town with the good news of the 
 arrival of the mail. 
 
 The first ride in Iceland was memorable to us. We started in 
 the broad sunshine of ten o'clock at night in June, and rode a 
 few miles to a lonely sea inlet, where there was a drove of 250 
 ponies destined for our steamer. A bevy of wild lads and girls 
 on barebacked ponies, with bits of stick and reins of string, 
 careered about ; there was also our supercargo, mounted on 
 the pick of the drove, a most dainty high-stepping pony — too 
 good, as they phrase it, for himself; there was our engineer, 
 too, suffering great things, holding on to an animal that 
 " wouldn't steer ; " and our guide the Icelander, Oddur Gislason, 
 who seemed in command, — and we all proceeded to drive the herd 
 of ponies to Reykjavik. 
 
 A splendid sunset lighted the Faxafjord and surrounding hills, 
 and the brown stony waste over which we cantered, chasing 
 and driving the ponies, who, with their tumbling hog-manes and 
 wild heads, neighing, kicking, and scouring here and there, were 
 wonderfully picturesque. Then by our watches rather than the 
 sky, we realised for the first time in the north that it was mid- 
 night, broad " daylight," but hushed and still ; the little islets 
 in the neighbouring sea were covered with ducks, asleep on 
 their nests ; nothing stirred though all was bright. The red clouds 
 of the sunset still lingered in the north-west, and close by was 
 the clear pale-yellow light of dawn, marking the place where 
 
16 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 the sun would soon rise again over the mountains. And when 
 he rose, although there had been no intervening darkness, in 
 some subtle way the freshness of a new day succeeded to the 
 weariness of the night. 
 
 People sometimes complain of the restlessness induced by the 
 constant daylight in high latitudes. I cannot say I ever suffered 
 from it myself, though less sleep than usual seems required ; and, 
 on the other hand, it is said that men and women tend to hiber- 
 nate like other animals during the long winter darkness. 
 
 These ponies are so important to the traveller, that I shall say 
 something more about them here, especially as it was to us a 
 delightful novelty to see for the first time thorough equine hap- 
 piness, or ponies running free together by the hundred. In this 
 herd there were many shabby-looking little beasts, with tufts of 
 winter hair still hanging about them, and many ugly ones in 
 proportion to those that were handsome, but all had good legs ; 
 and there was not, I think, a marked knee among them. 
 
 All preconceived ideas of horse's manners and powers must 
 here be laid aside. One of the remarkable things about Eeyk- 
 javik is that you come across groups of shabby-looking ponies 
 about 12 hands high, lounging together, imfastened and un- 
 tended, some burdened, others free. Their good qualities are 
 hidden under masses of rough hair and a most phlegmatic de- 
 meanour. When you see a man of fifteen stone or so, jump on 
 one of these ponies and dart off at a gallop or a run, you long for 
 the Society against Cruelty to Animals. But a little observation 
 shows that the pony moves with ease. The rider, too, goes 
 easily ; never rising in the saddle, he sits close and glides 
 through the air with the still speed of a swallow-flight. The rid- 
 ing-ponies which are trained to the quick amble, when both legs 
 move together on the same side, are technically called thiedh or 
 skeidj in contradistinction to the hastur or trotting, and kid or 
 burden, horses. Whatever objection may at first be made to the 
 unaccustomed pace, it proves the best for pony and rider too in 
 the literal long-run. They are the easiest animals to ride that can 
 be imagined. Their small size and smooth amble makes riding 
 
EEYKJAVIK AND THE PONIES. 17 
 
 them seem like acquiring four active indefatigable legs of your 
 own. So docile and intelligent are the good ones, that you be- 
 come quite unaware of guiding, but go with a mere wish where 
 you will. I always rode without my third pummel in Iceland, 
 as it is more convenient for jumping on and off, and for lounging 
 on the saddle at times during a long day's journey ; and no Ice- 
 land pony wishes to throw a comfortable rider. Among the Very 
 many I have ridden and come across, I have only found one 
 vicious, and that was rather negative obstinacy than positive 
 malice. Some, no doubt, are lazy, and most go better in com- 
 pany than alone. Even the trotting ponies are generally smoother 
 than ours, and keep their easy speed up over wonderfully rough 
 ground ; and they are very surefooted and intelligent in finding 
 their way over lava, or bogs, or in the night. I never presume 
 to guide a willing pony in such places in detail, only giving 
 him the routes and allowing him to carry it out as he thinks best ; 
 and it is probably owing to this that my ponies kept fresh, 
 when sometimes their companions, who had been more interfered 
 with, were exhausted. Such ponies need no riding in the technical 
 sense ; all that is needed is the sympathy between horse and 
 rider — the comprehension of equine feelings that even unprac- 
 tised people may attain to. Yet I have heard and seen tourists 
 abuse ponies which I have found on trial quite willing and easy- 
 paced. Some tourists even tumble off such ponies, but for this 
 they have small excuse. 
 
 So far, I have been speaking of fair average riding-ponies, 
 such as may be hired by the traveller for from one and a half 
 to three krone a-day. But there are others which are seldom 
 exported, because they command a price in Iceland that could 
 hardly be got for them in England, owing to their small size — say 
 £18 to £25. These generally belong to farmers or gentlemen, 
 who take pride in them, feed them well during the winter, and 
 do not hire them out. They are often very well shaped, and 
 fine movers, with high crests and large quick eyes ; the neck 
 and chest much developed and broad; the legs fine, flat, and 
 clean. Every movement is alert, every nerve quivering with 
 
 B 
 
18 BY FELL AND FJOED. 
 
 spirit. It is difficult to exaggerate the merits of those little 
 animals when in their exhilarating native air, and fed on the 
 peculiar strong grasses of the country. Such will go over ground, 
 that would seem elsewhere almost too bad for any horse at a 
 foot-pace, with a gay snort at a hand-gallop. As a rule, they 
 wish to go fast wherever the road will permit it ; and unless in- 
 dulged in a rattling gallop now and then, can be decidedly skit- 
 tish, especially if they suspect another horse of a design of going 
 before them. Many such ponies have been lent me by their 
 owners ; and I know no greater pleasure in its way, than rushing 
 along over greensward through the pure air, mounted on one 
 of these horses, small yet vigorous, and so intelligent that his 
 •short ears prick at every sound of his rider's voice. Domestic as 
 a dog, he follows you when you are not riding, and rubs his wise 
 head confidingly on your shoulder ; for he is accustomed to run 
 loose by his master's side when he is riding another horse, and 
 when off duty to lounge about the farm as he pleases, grazing at 
 leisure, instead of being handed over to a groom and the dulness 
 of a stable. 
 
 Mr Slimon of Leith has imported several thousands of these 
 ponies during the last few years, — an excellent trade, which has 
 brought much specie into the country, and taken away in autumn 
 the surplus of the large young horse population which Iceland 
 is admirably fitted to maintain during the summer. Formerly, 
 before winter they had to destroy many horses and foals — now, 
 by selling some, they can buy more food for the others. Ponies 
 have in consequence risen in price, and the Danish monopoly in 
 this branch of trade, at least, is completely destroyed. 
 
 There are no sights in Eeykjavik ; we realised this with calm 
 pleasure — it was such a contrast to one's usual toil in a foreign 
 town. There is a small collection of old curiosities, then kept 
 in the roof of the church, but the choice antiquities of Iceland 
 have long ago been carried off by the Danes : there is hardly 
 even a valuable MS. left in the country which produced so many. 
 
 The only fine art which flourishes is decorative metal-work. 
 From the earliest times the Icelanders were clever iron and 
 
REYKJAVIK AND THE PONIES. 19 
 
 silver smiths : the old designs are very good, and the modern 
 work well executed. Many of the women are skilled in working 
 the beautiful embroideries in gold and silver which are worn on 
 the full-dress national costume. 
 
 The men are often very fair wood-carvers, and while away the 
 long winter nights by decorating bowls and boxes and chests 
 with the same style of ornamentation which we find on Kunio 
 stones and crosses. The design on the cover of this book has 
 been drawn after one of these boxes in my possession, evidently 
 a very old one. We have no means of fixing the date, but it 
 may well be two or three hundred years old. Most of these 
 things are carved in the driftwood which comes ashore in quan- 
 tities all round the south-west coasts. 
 
20 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 GEYSIR. 
 
 One lovely summer day we started from Reykjavik bound for the 
 Geysir,^ which every one goes to see, as it is only seventy miles 
 from the town, so that the trip may be made during the stay of 
 the post-ship ; but as Geysir does not always " receive," it may 
 prove a disappointing expedition. We were fortunate in our 
 guide, Mr Oddur V. Gislason, a theological candidate ; and the 
 success of our journey was greatly owing to his unfailing good- 
 humour, energy, and kindly care. He brought with him his 
 comfortable little marquee-tent, with divisions ; we took — besides 
 a tiny hatterie de cuisine — some provisions, cork mattresses, plaids, 
 and waterproofs, — so that, with the addition of a folding bath, we 
 had good furnished apartments wherever we went. As we did not 
 mean to hurry, we took only nine ponies this time, which gave us 
 four to ride, three for baggage, and two relays ; the fourth rider 
 being Skuli, a youth who drove for us. And so on the 2d of July 
 we started gaily over the brown desert bordering Reykjavik. It 
 has no beauty except the distant views over sea and mountains, 
 this day exquisite in tint. The salmon river, four miles off, was 
 of the deepest blue ; not less intense in hue were two lakes we 
 
 1 The name Geysir, which properly belongs to the largest of the hot 
 springs in the valley of Haukadal, is derived from the verb geysa, to rush 
 furiously ; and gey si, the adjective, is used commonly in the sense of vio- 
 lent, enormous, or gushing. Some trace of the word lingers in Scotland, 
 where the Icelandic gey si kaldur would be well rendered by "grey cavld.'" 
 
GEYSIR. 21 
 
 passed further on ; but for the extraordinary vividness of colour, 
 the landscape reminded me of our Hebrides. 
 
 The glory of Iceland is its colouring. With considerable ex- 
 perience of the finest scenery in Europe, I could not but feel that 
 even Switzerland, unless, perhaps, above the constant snow-line, 
 is not so clear and glittering ; Italy, with a stronger light, has 
 not its peculiar purity ; and Scotland, after it, seems toned down 
 with a damp sponge. The forms of Icelandic scenery are, how- 
 ever, more curious than beautiful, though they had for me a weird 
 fascination. There is often great width of contour ; the hills are 
 in long hummocked masses, with perhaps a volcanic cone sud- 
 denly breaking the outline ; there is a sort of disconnected un- 
 combined effect about the landscape, easy to perceive but difficult 
 to describe. Trees would not suit it ; and its wistful melancholy 
 grandeur is partly, no doubt, owing to the absence everywhere 
 of enclosures, square fields, roads — all lines, indeed, save those 
 curves which nature never draws amiss. The road, when there 
 is one, is generally a mere product of the hoofs of a hundred 
 generations of ponies, sometimes worn into a deep ditch or hollow 
 way, sometimes branching into a dozen little tracks, just large 
 enough for their small feet ; and it needs some practice to choose 
 the best line. It is merry riding in the pure light air : the loose 
 ponies rattle on before ; constantly one or another strays ofi* after 
 some fancy of its own, and has to be chased back by the drivers, 
 who, dashing up and down, cracking their whips and shouting, 
 adjuring the ponies by name to keep the path or beware of the 
 dogs, make the cavalcade lively ; and the way must be bad indeed 
 to reduce it to a walking-pace, which always causes the loose 
 ponies to stray more. We usually rode at a steady trot, but with 
 many little halts, now to adjust a box, now to mend a rope, or 
 perhaps to bait our little steeds on some choice bit of grass. 
 
 We had gone about thirty miles, and the evening had grown 
 cloudy, when we suddenly came to a deep cleft and rough 
 rocky steps leading downwards ; this was the well-known All- 
 manna gjd, or rift, a long split between two lava precipices. 
 We came out by a side opening into the solitary grassy valley 
 
22 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 below, the celebrated Thingvellir, all unchanged since the days 
 of the old commonwealth ; it seemed still ready for the booths of 
 the freemen who flocked here of old from all parts of the island 
 for their annual parliament. The only buildings are the little 
 timber church across the river, and the low turf- house of its 
 parson close by. We hurried to the church, eager for coffee and 
 supper, after our seven hours' ride. It may seem at first some- 
 what sacrilegious to sup in a pew and sleep in a church ; but 
 when my friend and I had shaken down our cork mattresses and 
 plaids on each side of the altar-rails, we thought it looked fairly 
 comfortable, and could not but approve of the custom of giving 
 the best buildings in the land everywhere to the church, which in 
 its turn lends them to strangers like ourselves. 
 
 The weather was unsettled, so we lingered all next day at 
 Thingvellir : rain came on in the evening, and continued till 
 noon the following day, when we started up the mountain-track, 
 and thence in three hours descended into the green valley of 
 Laugardalr. We rode close under wild impending mountains, 
 where black crags and red corries contrasted with tracks of most 
 wonderfully green moss ; on our other hand a lake lay in a wide 
 plain, far-off rivers shining in the distance below a range of misty 
 hills. We had been riding among the mountains again for an 
 hour or two before we reached a wide river swelled by the recent 
 rains, the Bruar-a, or Bridge Kiver — bridges being very rare in 
 Iceland. Midway across this stream its broken waters fall foam- 
 ing into a deep cleft in its rocky bed, and over this a few wet 
 planks were fixed, the ponies marching over them unhesitatingly 
 midway in the deep ford. The turbulent river, with its clear flash- 
 ing waters rolling down among the dark lonely hills, delighted 
 me : had it been a little later in the season we would have 
 camped there and tried the fishing ; but as it was, we rode on 
 to the church of Utlith, which we reached in the clear twilight of 
 11 P.M. The church was as small as it could be, and half full of 
 wool already ; but we took the rest of it, and some courteous 
 damsels soon served us with cofiee, good even for Iceland, and 
 there we slept hardly less quietly than the dead folk just outside. 
 
GEYSIR. 23 
 
 It rained in the morning, except when it was blowing very hard 
 indeed ; so, after breakfast, we went over to the neighbouring 
 hoer, or farmhouse, and into a cavern called the eldhus, or 
 kitchen, where, with patience, a person who can stand steadily on 
 one foot may dry the other over the few sticks that, crackling 
 between two rough stones, count as the kitchen-fire. Nice people 
 were there, who made much of us, and gave us excellent cream. 
 About one it cleared up, and we cantered off merrily, sometimes 
 over sound turf, but sometimes plashing through bogs, which had 
 drunk so much rain that I feared they -would swallow us down as 
 something solid. At length we came out from the hills on a 
 sloping plain, which, except where one snowy peak showed be- 
 yond it, melted into misty distance. Near us it was dotted here 
 and there with clouds of steam rising from the ground. We rode 
 over the soil blasted by sulphureous vapours to the farthest and 
 biggest of these clouds ; and this was Geysir, and here we dis- 
 mounted on a bit of greensward, and prepared to pitch our tent. 
 This may not read as if the place were pretty, nor was it — it 
 looked odd, and perhaps a little mean ; but then the day was 
 overcast, the lamps were not lighted. Soon we found much that 
 was curious. Hunger impelled us to the accredited kitchen, 
 Blezi, which is a pool like a wide, deep crevasse in a blue glacier: 
 the boiling water is so exquisitely pure that the silica rocks below 
 become bright blue through its medium. To Blezi we confided 
 a joint of lamb, a tin of preserved fowl, and a fish, tying them in 
 strings and lowering them. I regret to say he swallowed our 
 fish ; the string breaking, we beheld it deep blue in the depths, 
 and no doubt it is now a petrifaction. Eound the margin of this 
 pool ran a charming fretwork of petrified leaves, chiefly silver- 
 weed ; many we took away, but, like fairy-money, when we un- 
 packed them they were dust. 
 
 The crater of Geysir is a mound of siliceous rock, which has 
 been aptly compared to an inverted oyster-shell. The pool is 
 about sixty-five by fifty-five feet in diameter, and there the trans- 
 parent water simmered quietly, looking perfectly incapable of 
 any such frisky proceeding as springing into the air. Strokr, or 
 
24 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 the Churn, another hot spring that boils and tosses angrily some 
 way down a deep pit about eight feet across, looks far more vio- 
 lent and flighty, and some of the other smaller springs also boil 
 furiously close to the surface. Others only make a perpetual, 
 dull, thudding noise below, as if the dwarfs were forging metals 
 at the subterranean fires : others, again, look quite quiet and 
 limpid, and lie in little fairy arches or caves of greenish moss, 
 where bright flowers and little delicate ferns nestle in a southern 
 climate. About twenty of those hot springs are scattered over a 
 space of a few acres ; and there seems to be such a waste of heat 
 and energy, that we longed to give the water-sprites some useful 
 work to do. The water is not quite suitable for baths, for it has 
 a petrifying quality — and we discovered, with consternation, that 
 our hands began, after washing in it, to shrivel and harden like 
 parrots' claws. Still it might do some work. Hothouses perhaps 
 might be made here, and grapes and vegetables grown to supply 
 the island. As it is, the farmer who owns the land and charges 
 a trifle for the tent-stance, finds it not worth while to put up a 
 hut in the wilderness for the few travellers, who must therefore 
 bring a tent, or wander about all night. Three such homeless 
 beings rather disturbed our first night in the tent; they were 
 Icelanders, two girls and a youth, who beguiled the time by sing- 
 ing and talking, and causing Strokr to explode at the dead of 
 night, with thundering, hissing, and roaring. I was lazily glad 
 to hear it was only Strokr, whose explosions excite little interest, 
 as they can be produced at any time by choking the funnel with 
 turf. We could have an eruption whenever we wished, so there 
 was no need to turn out. 
 
 Next day the weather was lovely, the lamps were lit, and all 
 was transfigured. The distant snow - mountain gleamed with 
 opal lights, the ferruginous soil and dark colouring of the near 
 hills were glowing reds and rich purples, and the boiling water- 
 jets seemed like handfuls of diamonds tossed into the sunny air. 
 We now had the desert all to ourselves. We strolled about as 
 far as the river would let us ; we bathed, and dried all that was 
 wet, and cooked an excellent dinner. Moreover, we cut a pile of 
 
GEYSIR. 25 
 
 turf and flung it into Strokr, and in about twenty minutes the 
 fountain hurled up to a great height, I suppose from fifty to eighty 
 feet ; again and again it leapt into the sky, flinging down mud 
 and pebbles, and our turf thoroughly boiled. After nearly an 
 hour, when we thought it was all over, we were startled by the 
 most beautiful jet of all, because the purest, the water having 
 partly cleansed itself from the mud. 
 
 About six o'clock p.m., a low subterranean thunder made the 
 ground shudder, and Geysir rose a little in the centre in a pure 
 white jet glittering in the sunshine, in size and form like a veiled 
 white woman, reminding one of Fouque's " Undine " rising from 
 the fountain. It gently subsided, and the water brimmed over 
 the basin and ran down the rocks. That evening, one of the 
 loveliest sunsets I ever saw made the whole sky blaze with 
 splendid hues, which were variously reflected in the strange 
 water-springs. Even when we lay down in our plaids about 
 midnight, we could not persuade ourselves to close up the tent, 
 so warm was the daylight night, so brilliant the sky. Gislason 
 stood on the edge of the crater, and invoked Geysir by all sorts 
 of adjurations, ancient and modern, from Odin onwards, to appear. 
 Finally he threw in a silver coin as a bribe, and counselled us to 
 be on the alert. So twice in the night, when the underground 
 thundering roused us, we all ran out only to see the wan white 
 figure rise and fall again, but we remarked it had grown taller. 
 It was morning when the warning cannon went off again, and 
 this time, after the eight-foot rise, the fountain did not subside. 
 With a booming roar, not a mere central jet, but the whole of the 
 water to the very edge of the crater, rose majestically in a great 
 massive dome higher and higher, till it was lost in steam in the 
 sky. The height was said to be about a hundred feet, but what 
 with the noise and the steaming, the wind swaying the column 
 to leeward, and the torrents of hot water that were pouring down, 
 one did not know where next, I was thankful to be unscientific, 
 and to confine myself to looking and running out of the way. 
 The water sank and rose again five or six times, the later erup- 
 tions being lower, and the whole commotion subsiding by degrees, 
 
26 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 till at last all was calm, and there was not a drop of water left in 
 the crater. When it was cool enough to walk on, we went to the 
 brink of the well in the centre, and could only just see the boil- 
 ing water tossing far below. 
 
 The weather had now become cold and rainy, so we lounged 
 in the crater, enjoying the sort of comfort that can be derived 
 from sitting on a hot oven under a cold shower-bath. Moreover, 
 Gislason found the blackened piece of silver, which, from its posi- 
 tion, had evidently been erupted ; and now it decorates my watch- 
 chain as a memorial that, like some other Icelanders, Geysir, re- 
 fuses all payment from travellers. The water gradually filled up 
 the crater, which by evening was brimming over, and the ground 
 began to shiver again, just like the lid of a kettle of boiling 
 water. The crust above the springs is in some places only an 
 inch or two thick, and feels hardly safe ; but, as it has lasted 
 through stronger explosions than now occur, we may expect it to 
 serve our time. Judging from the accounts of early travellers, 
 these springs are evidently less active now than formerly; indeed 
 on the day we first arrived they were simmering low, and there 
 was little to be seen but pufis of steam. But now, as if fresh fuel 
 had been piled on the furnace, boiling jets and spurts of foam 
 rose and sank in every direction. A fountaici, called the Little 
 Geysir, pulsated up at short intervals ten or twelve feet in the 
 air ; all the springs seemed in mad commotion — in fact, it was a 
 general boil over. 
 
 The wind howled, the rain-storm slashed against our little 
 tent, where we reclined on our mattresses by the boxes which 
 served as tables, while every now and then the ground trembled 
 beneath us as the underground thunder rolled up and shuddered 
 away into the depths again. We made ourselves as comfortable 
 as circumstances would allow ; we brewed strong tea and weak 
 toddy with the boiling water of the Geysir, and as we had no 
 light literature we made it for ourselves, — verses among other 
 things, — when it appeared that Miss Menzies had quaffed most 
 deeply of the ethereal cup of Bragi, if not of sulphureous Geysir 
 tea ; for her verses were the best, and I give them here, as they 
 
GEYSIR. 27 
 
 seemed to me at the time to give a graphic description of the 
 
 place. 
 
 " Where the caldron of the North 
 
 Spouts its boiling waters forth, 
 
 From the caverns far beneath, 
 
 Where they ever lie and seethe. 
 
 And with steam, and hiss, and boom, 
 
 Send a tremor through the gloom. 
 
 Till, above, the solid ground 
 
 Vibrates with a dull rebound, — 
 In that place I stood, and saw 
 Things that filled my soul with awe. 
 
 Where the sunset of the North 
 Sends its radiant colours forth. 
 Turns the sulphur rocks to blood, 
 Glows upon the steaming flood, 
 Paints the pools with ruddy light, 
 Turns to brighter day the night, — 
 
 In that place I stood and gazed 
 
 Till my spirit was amazed. 
 
 Where the boiling torrent flies 
 Upward to the morning skies. 
 Shakes itself through air around 
 With a wild and hissing sound, 
 Wears a robe of mist to hide 
 All the angry rising tide ; 
 Till above the mist it parts. 
 And to earth repentant darts, 
 In her bosom to assuage 
 All the madness of its rage, — 
 
 In that place I stood, and found 
 
 That it was enchanted ground. 
 
 Where the vessel it has left. 
 Of its presence all bereft, 
 Feels itself exposed and have 
 To the unwonted summer air. 
 Deems it yet akin to death 
 To be cooled by such a breath ; 
 And with fierce and fervent heat 
 Scorches men's invading feet, — 
 
 In that place I witnessed how 
 
 Still thjB caldron seethed below. 
 
 Quivering with thwarted pride. 
 Wild to spend its seething tide ; 
 Still for ever bubbling up 
 Towards the margin of its cup, 
 
28 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 And with utmost speed and strain 
 Boiling to its brim again ; 
 Quiet then awhile to lie, 
 Till the secret sorcery- 
 All its former rage restore, 
 Bid it rise with hiss and roar, — 
 
 This I saw when to the North 
 
 Valiantly I sallied forth. " 
 
 A tent is delightful in fine weather ; but now, when the least 
 touch on the canvas was followed by a drip — when in spite of 
 trenching the ground inside was growing wet, and one had to lie 
 stiff and straight to avoid rolling into a puddle, — now one could 
 realise the value of everyday comforts, such as a mere house, 
 a commonplace bed, as never before. Twice the Geysir rose 
 pretty high in the night, and seemed to me nothing better than 
 a witch of the worst kind, as I waded through lukewarm water 
 under the heavy rain to see her ; but we did not like to miss the 
 chance of seeing another grand eruption. The rain continued in 
 the morning. The tent was now so saturated that it was diffi- 
 cult to pack, and a very heavy load. We tried to provoke 
 Strokr again by choking it with turf, but — a circumstance which 
 I have never seen noticed before — no eruption followed ; perhaps 
 because the Geysir was still greatly agitated, boiling over at 
 short intervals, and jetting up high in the centre. All we had 
 was wet, and nothing could be dried, so we started under slash- 
 ing rain to ride back to Thingvellir. The floods were out ; 
 sometimes we rode through wet morasses, sometimes along stony 
 tracks deep in mud, consoled by the reflection that we probably 
 owed the grand eruption we had seen to the bad weather. The 
 day cleared up at last, but the sunshine was still watery, and had 
 no drying power ; if it had been as warm as it often is in Iceland, 
 it would have saved me from the chill which I certainly caught 
 this day, for I had long been wet through aad now began to 
 shiver. This was the only time I felt at all ill in Iceland, owing 
 probably to the want of a complete change of warm clothing. 
 
 It was pleasant riding when we reached the green valley by 
 Laugevatn, where we were joined by a rural dean on his visita- 
 
GEYSIR. 
 
 29 
 
 tion tour, mounted on a very clever pony. At the neighbouring 
 farm, where we halted to rest, we were told that the road further 
 on had become almost impassable from the rain. Nevertheless 
 
 The Lake from the Hill of Laws. 
 
 we pushed on, diverging from the usual track to visit a very 
 curious extinct crater called Tintron. The black pit of unknown 
 depth is arched over by reddish-coloured lava of the most gro- 
 tesque forms, and it lies isolated in an ashen plain near a range 
 of cinder-crags. The road, when we reached it, was a mere 
 ditch of yellow water rising to the stirrups, flooding lava-boulders 
 about the size and shape of bolsters ; but the ponies felt through 
 the thick water for the lava with their little feet, and seemed 
 never at fault. Eain again before we reached Thingvellir after a 
 ride of nearly forty miles, at half-past ten ; the people had gone 
 to bed, and I thought the church-key would never come as we 
 stood at the door, battered by wind and wet like outcast spirits. 
 But here it is at last, and coffee, never more welcome. 
 
 The sun shone brilliantly during the three days which we 
 now passed at Thingvellir, with which we were charmed. Seldom 
 
30 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 indeed does a place visited for its historic interest so fulfil all 
 expectations. For nothing here is changed. Names and places 
 are all unaltered, and the old sagas are living realities, and our 
 best guides about these solitudes, which seem waiting for the 
 return of the ancient heroes. The grassy valley lies between 
 two long cliffs of lava : the one to the west is split up again 
 into a deep rift, forming a green fairy valley only a few yards 
 across, but more than a mile long ; and at one point the great 
 Ox Kiver flings itself over the western crag in one broad fall, 
 and, after a short course in the rift, breaks out into the broader 
 valley, and flows gently down half a mile to the lake. This lake, 
 about twelve miles long by ten broad, with a fine mountain- 
 barrier, is strangely lonely. No sail animates its surface, no 
 houses dot its solitary shores ; it is left to the swans and wild 
 ducks, and at this time to ourselves, to enjoy alone. Parallel to 
 the great rift, another long chasm has split up the opposite lava- 
 cliff, leaving a wall of rock running up the centre. This central 
 rock is the place whence the laws were promulgated of old, the 
 Logberg. Here, as you sit on the long grass facing the lake, 
 with mountains all round, you have on either hand a straight 
 cliff, down which you look thirty or forty feet into dark deep 
 water, reflecting the overhanging rocks with their lichened greys 
 and greenery, and flowing, like Dante's Lethe — 
 
 *' With a brown, brown current, 
 Under the shade perpetual which never 
 Ray of the sun lets in, nor of the moon. " 
 
 These chasms, into which the river flows by a subterranean 
 inlet, quite isolate the Hill of Laws except at one narrow neck 
 of land. At one point only the rocky walls approach within 
 eighteen feet of each other ; and here, according to ancient 
 tradition, Flosi, the burner of Njal, being hotly pursued by his 
 enemies, leapt over the chasm — and Lord Dufferin, not to be out- 
 done by an Icelander, wished to imitate the exploit. Looked 
 at in cold blood, there is a most awkward, narrow rocky shelf to 
 alight on ; but Flosi perhaps had the advantage of being in a 
 
GEYSm. 
 
 31 
 
 fright. Old lava lies for miles round Thingvellir ; it is all split 
 into fissures and chasms, but is full of pretty details from the 
 luxuriant growth of bog-myrtle, cro wherries, blaeberries, wild 
 thyme, and flowers ; here and there a cleft or pool of pure deep 
 water opens in the rocks. The variety of the place is one of its 
 many charms. It seemed wonderful that we should have it all 
 to ourselves — wonderful that there should be no house for miles 
 
 Kitchen^ Thingvellir Parsonage, 
 
 and miles round, but the tiny parsonage. There are many stone 
 foundations left of the booths, that used formerly to be built by 
 the people who flocked here for the annual alting or parliament ; 
 and in front of the church is an old stone marked with the stand- 
 ard measures, and supposed to date from the tenth century. 
 
 The sun was very hot during our stay, but there was always 
 a pleasant crispness in the pure air ; and each night a splendid 
 sunset lit the sky, the lake, the cataract, and the snowy and 
 purple hills, with a blaze of changing colouring. 
 
 It was with quite a wrench that we tore ourselves away from 
 the valley on the 12th of July, bound for Keykjavik by a longer 
 
32 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 and more interesting route tlian the one we had come by. The 
 weather continued beautiful. The riding was good, and much 
 of it over sound turf. We halted in a green pastoral valley near 
 a pretty little rocky lake. In the evening we reached the par- 
 sonage of Eennyvellir, and found the bachelor- parson who re- 
 ceived us, so occupied with his outside farming that he could not 
 attend to the inside of the house, which suggested the hole of 
 an untidy rabbit, much magnified. Yet he had a large house- 
 hold, and was draining his fine pasture-land scientifically into 
 the pretty river which runs through the valley. We improved 
 the guest-room by taking out the whole window, frame and all, 
 as it was not made to open ; and we longed further to improve it 
 by turning in the stream. Our host enjoyed the reputation of 
 being a very good scholar, and this was confirmed by the collec- 
 tion of books in Latin, Danish, English, German, and Spanish. 
 
 Next day a strange little mounted funeral procession came up 
 through the lonely grassy valley to the church, — some seafaring 
 men bringing for burial the bodies of two sailors who had been 
 drowned in the adjacent stormy Hvalfjord, in coffins balanced 
 on the backs of ponies. First the people sang in the church, 
 the clergyman in his ruff and gown standing by the altar ; then 
 they dug the graves, and then followed a service in the church- 
 yard, much resembling the Anglican funeral service, especially I 
 recognised the burial ritual of " Earth to earth." We began by 
 feeling respectful and interested at this funeral ; but as hour 
 after hour actually went by, and we went and came to find them 
 still at it, it became like a nightmare. Our quasi clerical guide 
 was in the thick of it, singing in the interminable hymns, blind 
 and deaf to our signals of impatience ; and indeed it would not 
 have been considered quite respectful to go till it was over. I 
 had caught a feverish chill in the bad weather, and this was the 
 fourth day that I had lived on air and water, happily both of 
 the best, and consequently, perhaps, I got well very soon ; but 
 this day I began to feel, though not tired, very dreamy and inco- 
 herent. Would these men never be buried ? And when could the 
 guests venture to hope for the funeral ale ? Nearly four hours 
 
GEYSIR. 33 
 
 went by and still the proceedings were not over ; so we ordered 
 our ponies and rode off with Skuli about four o'clock, leaving 
 Oddur to follow at his leisure. During the season of the long 
 summer nights, people seem to care little when they begin a 
 so-called day's journey. We cantered up a wild valley between 
 bare, scarped hills, and thence over a bright green bog, filling up 
 another dark valley. I have always stood in awe of bogs, and 
 there was a size, depth, and brilliancy about this one which seemed 
 to me almost sublime ; but I had not then ridden over Myra (or 
 mire) Sysslu. Following our guide closely, we did pretty well, 
 but a straying baggage-pony stuck fast for some time, kept only 
 by his boxes from sinking altogether. We halted for a while under 
 a pass over a spur of the mountain Eysja ; below rushed a great 
 river, heavy with melted snow ; the dark mountains on either 
 side had a good deal of lingering snow in their black ravines ; 
 there was no touch of vegetation, except some vivid green moss ; 
 and all looked very savage and arctic. The pass, though short, 
 was a steep zigzag, and from the top a wide expanse of hill and 
 sea was seen, with strangely-shaped rocks in the foreground. 
 Down we rattled, careless of the steepness of the way ; indeed 
 for the last few hours we rode at a good canter or hand-gallop, 
 sweeping the loose ponies before us, nothing loath as they were 
 going home, all the way to Eeykjavik, where we arrived at 10.30 
 P.M., glad for a few days at least to return to the comforts of 
 civilised life. 
 
34 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LOCAL ORIGIN OF ICELANDIC LITERATURE — FORMS OF SAGAS. 
 
 As the Icelandic literature influenced many of my impressions of 
 the country, it is time, before going on with the story of our jour- 
 ney, to give a slight sketch of its nature and history, — a sketch 
 which, however inadequate, shall not be a mere list of books, as I 
 shall dwell chiefly on those works which I have read in the origi- 
 nal, and am, therefore, best able to appreciate. For the old Ice- 
 landic will not translate without losing quality ; it is the expres- 
 sion of a different form of life and state of society from all that exists 
 now, and its strong individuality makes its spirit hard to render 
 in a modern tongue. And Iceland is chiefly curious and inter- 
 esting, because this language, stamped with the forms of ancient 
 days, is still there the current coin. It is no mere dead language 
 of the past, but living and flourishing now ; and any enthusiastic 
 student who wishes to follow Sir W. Hamilton's advice, and learn, 
 not for mere utility, but for the love of knowledge itself, cannot 
 do better than study it. Laing says in the introduction to Snorri's 
 * History of the Kings of Norway : ' " During the five centuries in 
 which the Northmen were riding over the seas, and conquering 
 wherever they landed, the literature of the people they overcame 
 was locked up in a dead language, and within the walls of mon- 
 asteries. But the Northmen had a literature of their own, though 
 a rude one." What, then, was the character of this literature, 
 and what its relation to the national life of the Icelanders ? 
 Iceland, as every one knows, was first peopled, not by savages, 
 
r 
 
 LOCAL ORIGIN OF ICELANDIC LITERATURE. 35 
 
 but by a race already advanced in civilisation, and not as most 
 colonies, by the mere overflow of the population of the mother 
 country, but by the most able and spirited of the Northmen, who 
 would not endure the feudal innovations of Harald Fair-hair, the 
 first king over all Norway. About a.d. 870, Iceland was an 
 uninhabited desert. By the middle of the next century the 
 emigration was over, the good land occupied, and the popula- 
 tion probably not much below its present number — about 70,000 
 people. This is a very small population for 38,000 square miles ; 
 but it is estimated that only a ninth, part of the land has ever 
 been permanently inhabited. Those colonists fled from feudalism ; 
 they clung to the alodial land law, and introduced it into Iceland, 
 where it is in force to this day. This odal land tenure did not 
 flow from a sovereign ; land was no gift of a master ; it was held 
 by no written title, no payment of service ; every right was in- 
 cluded ; the children were all equal heirs, and their rights inalien- 
 able, and though they might and often did sell these rights, by 
 repayment in full they might reclaim them. To this day the 
 title of a purchaser of land in Norway is for a given date of a 
 somewhat precarious nature, — a person odal born to the land may 
 return, prove his title, pay the price, and recover from any other 
 holder. 
 
 The Icelandic colonists, in order to avoid too large an accumu- 
 lation in one hand of even the barren lands of Iceland, made a 
 law that each new-comer should only claim the land he could 
 circle by fire — i.e., cause a man to ride round with a lighted 
 torch — in a day. The chiefs, however, often appropriated a good 
 deal more than that, and settled their crews round them. Each 
 chief consecrated a hof or temple near his own house, and exer- 
 cised some authority as its priest over the district. The later 
 arrivals were compelled to buy land from others, for then, as now, 
 the habitable lands were small in proportion to the wastes. 
 There were no castles, nor villages ; each honde or landowner 
 made his dwelling independent of the rest, had his cultivated 
 tun and his out-fields. Several farms constituted then a Mr ad or 
 hundred. Tiiere were various local things, where the business of 
 
36 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 the commonalty was despatched, besides the althing which met 
 at Thingvelhr and settled the government, and decided the law 
 cases for the whole country. Every honde had an equal voice 
 with all the rest at the althing. In Norway the king himself 
 appeared there like any other odal proprietor, and had to sway 
 the assembly by his own eloquence, or, as sometimes happened, 
 to see his plans defeated by the free speech of some unknown 
 peasant. How far such a system of odal land tenure could be 
 made to work in a dense modern population is a question, but 
 it is certain that it bred up a race of independent, free, and happy 
 people in these old days ; happy, indeed, if we contrast their 
 lives with those of the people in the rest of Europe in the early 
 middle ages. Elsewhere we find a very small free class, the 
 barons and free lords, and below them the villeins and the serfs, 
 with their dreary portion of bondage and want, and the peasant 
 hordes living in a condition of servility and deprivation that 
 was only rendered endurable through the mitigations afforded 
 by the benevolence of the seigneurs, and by the protecting power 
 of the Church. 
 
 The literature of Iceland, from the years 1000 to 1300 inclu- 
 sive, is the product of this free individuality of the Northmen, 
 and quite unlike everything else in Europe. It tells us of the 
 life of the farmer, the shepherd, and the sailor, as well as of the 
 exploits of the warrior and the prince. All who go to Iceland 
 should really know something of it ; for it gives the strange little 
 country, even in modern days, a peculiar interest to the English 
 traveller, explaining, above all, the true character of our Scandi- 
 navian ancestors who have made Great Britain what it is. For 
 from them we inherit our political freedom ; like them we excel 
 in literature ; and we are the true heirs of their empire of the 
 sea. 
 
 The outburst of literary activity which followed the introduc- 
 tion of writing into Iceland [circa 1100) has hardly a parallel 
 in history ; but we can, perhaps, trace some of the causes in the 
 situation of these colonists. The Norsemen of that day already 
 equalled, if they did not excel, the contemporary nations in many 
 
LOCAL ORIGIN OF ICELANDIC LITERATURE. 37 
 
 arts, as well as in arms. They were the best shipbuilders then 
 known, which infers skilled work in several trades ; they were 
 choice and graceful artificers in silver and gold, as their weapons 
 and ornaments are still here to prove ; they were beyond their 
 age in geography, the knowledge of stars, the flow of tides, and 
 all wave and weather lore ; and they were a law-abiding people 
 at home. Far more internal order seemed to prevail in this 
 strong race than among the Saxons, Franks, and Frisians, whom 
 they plundered. They were the terror of our coasts, and were 
 bracketed in our litanies with fire and famine ; but they have left 
 behind them poems, histories, and biographies, which show them 
 in quite a different light from that in which they naturally appear 
 in our monkish Latin chronicles. In fact, the Norse lion, unlike 
 his prototype in the fable, has painted his own picture. Most 
 of the old Norse books were, however, written in Iceland, or at 
 least by Icelanders ; and various causes, no doubt, contributed to 
 foster literary activity in that branch of the race. 
 
 The Norse chieftain found his position somewhat altered when 
 he settled in Iceland. There was no wood to build the Longship 
 (or war-ship) in which he was wont to go before on Viking cruisee. 
 The ship he bought abroad was necessarily a ship of burden, 
 because meal and wood had to be imported. He had wide lands, 
 and plenty of liberty and elbow-room ; but both the cattle and 
 the fishing, on which his welfare depended, needed industry and 
 attention during the summer. Then the winter was long and 
 restful. He had time to meditate on the deeds of the national 
 heroes and of his own ancestors, — time to turn some of his in- 
 tense energy into the form of poems and histories, and. to repeat 
 them to others, who learnt them by heart from his lips. His son 
 very likely went to Norway ; half a warrior half a poet, he lived 
 awhile in the king's court, had his strong imagination yet further 
 excited by change and wanderings, and returned to Iceland — 
 which then, as now, had for her sons an irresistible attraction — 
 able to tell a better story, and chant a finer poem, than before. 
 And so the light was kindled and spread from homestead to 
 homestead, and a class of men rose up, the poets or Skalds, who 
 
38 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 could repeat the sagas word for word for hours together. It is 
 mentioned of one Skald, but not as anything very extraordinary, 
 that he knew 250 long poems by heart, besides short ones and 
 sagas. The Icelanders still have excellent memories, if they 
 cannot quite rival their ancestors in that respect : and it is quite 
 credible that the histories generally first written down at the 
 close of the twelfth or the thirteenth century had been handed 
 down very correctly through one or two previous centuries. The 
 excellent and very detailed legal code was thus transmitted ; and 
 it was the duty of the " Speaker of laws," the president of the 
 althing, to know the whole of the code by heart. 
 
 The Icelandic family histories are unique in medieval litera- 
 ture, indeed there is nothing of any date quite like them. They 
 are often too diffuse as works of art. Besides the more stirring 
 adventures, they give us with the utmost detail, accounts of law- 
 suits, little household wrangles, boundary quarrels, stories about 
 lost horses, and pet lambs not properly marked, and such homely 
 matters, which all have a kind of value from their graphic truth- 
 fulness and antiquity. Some of them are at times rather dull, till 
 the reader has acquired that sort of taste which enjoys a certain 
 odd literary flavour — that degree of knowledge which delights 
 in a little more gossip about an old acquaintance. 
 
 They certainly make us better acquainted with the Icelanders 
 and Norwegians of seven or eight centuries ago, than we are 
 with any other people of the middle ages. 
 
 In one respect the sagas differ much from the early literature 
 of the rest of Europe — they are singularly pure, remarkably free 
 from grossness or coarseness of all kinds. Their authors seem to 
 take no pleasure in a bad story ; the morality is high, save on 
 the two points of manslaying and drink. A hero was expected to 
 be able to drink deep without bad consequences, and to go night 
 after night vel drukken — i.e., well drunk — to bed. And the ladies 
 served the ale — nay, they sat over the mead also — but happily 
 not so long as their lords ; like us, they went away after dessert. 
 
 No doubt a few of tlie songs of the Skalds are coarse enough. 
 The Skald who could compose a poem in honour of a friend, 
 
FORMS OF SAGAS. 39 
 
 would also deliberately use his power of song to vilify an enemy. 
 Scurrilous verses are to this day not unknown in Iceland. But 
 such verses are wrapped up, like riddles, in language which 
 makes them almost unintelligible ; and they lie about in the 
 literature like uncracked nuts among fruit, without imparting 
 any taint of their flavour to the rest. 
 
 The later Skaldic poems, whether good or bad, are all alike 
 in being difficult to understand. The words are tossed about 
 at random, with no regard to anything but alliteration and 
 measure ; and the periphrases are s6 far-fetched and bewilder- 
 ing, that only a good knowledge of the skaldskap or Skald's art, 
 as given in the ' Younger Edda,' will help the reader through their 
 intricacies. Icelandic prose is, on the contrary, easy to under- 
 stand. Of that it has been well said, that " in terse, picturesque, 
 and crystal-clear expression, it vies with Latin ; while it equals 
 Greek in distinctness and combination of words. 
 
 We have a long list of historical sagas, biographies, and also 
 romances and law-books, dating, in the form in which we have 
 them, from the first introduction of writing into Iceland. The 
 saga literature may roughly be said to have passed through three 
 phases : first, the sagas were said ; next, they were written down 
 as said — and many have come to us in that second form ; these 
 are more bald and archaic in style than the next group, or those 
 of the third phase, to which the finest sagas belong — such as 
 Njala, Laxdasla, Egil's Saga, and others. They have been edited 
 and made more artistic by authors in the thirteenth century. 
 We feel ourselves in the presence of fine writers dealing with 
 times and stories already two centuries distant from themselves, 
 and viewed through a halo of romance. 
 
 It is to those well-told essentially true stories that we may 
 ascribe the interest we take in the scenes of their events, similar 
 to that interest which has been conferred on Scotland by Sir 
 Walter Scott. In most countries the tide of modern life has 
 rolled over the past, obliterating all save its ruins. But here few 
 things change. Farms and names and manners remain much 
 the same ; the people know about the histories of their fore- 
 
40 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 fathers, and love to recall them. They point out the fords and 
 hillsides where the champions fought ; the site of the halls 
 where they feasted, and the graves where they are buried ; and 
 such associations with vigorous life, lend a charm to the wild 
 landscape, making one feel how, in spite of bleak surround- 
 ings— 
 
 *' Man is man, and master of his fate." 
 
 Like Scotland formerly, Iceland is still for practical purposes 
 divided into districts, consisting of the fertile lands by the side 
 of a river or ^ord, which originally were settled by some 
 chieftain, who drew friends and dependants round him, and 
 founded a sort of local magistracy. The sagas also are strongly 
 localised in districts. Thus the great legal "Saga of Njal" is 
 chiefly concerned with the wide flat land between Hecla and the 
 sea. " Floamanna Saga " is a history of the early settlers in the 
 Flottj or delta of the Thjorsa, in the south, and of their voyages 
 to Greenland. To the softer "Dales" of the west belong the 
 memories of the " Egil Saga," and the " Laxdsela " and "Gun- 
 lang Saga " — stories in which true love is mingled with hard 
 fighting — and various others. 
 
 In the north a whole group of sagas tell of the lives of the 
 men of Vatzdale or Waterdale, a valley which runs inland from 
 Skagafjord ; and other shorter and wilder narratives tell of the 
 people of the far north, such as the story of " Gisli the Outlaw," 
 translated by Dasent, "Grettir the Strong," and the Saga of 
 Viga Glum, also translated, and others. The east of Iceland has 
 been far less fertile in literary work than the other quarters. 
 
MAP SHOWING THE APPROXIMATE LOC 
 ARE SPECIALLY CONNECTED WITH 
 
 Jsafjord 
 
 Skaga Fjord 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF THOSE SaGAS WHICH 
 RTAIN DISTRICTS OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
 Dotted lines show the boundaries of the four quarters. 
 Names of localities printed red. 
 
41 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 '^ *^1DNAMAb6k' THE ^ 
 
 SAINTS BIOGRAPHIES MORALITY MODERN LITERATURE. 
 
 So far we have been dealing with anonymous literature exist- 
 ing as tradition, and written down, not by the authors, but by 
 clerks and compilers, one or two centuries after their date, who 
 could write what had originally been spoken. 
 
 ' Landnamabok,' or the Book of the Settlement of the Land, 
 is the first book we have written down in Icelandic by a known 
 author, Ari, called the Historian, who died in 1148, aged eighty- 
 two. He had great opportunities of collecting historical facts. 
 He was the great-grandson of Gudrun, the heroine of the " Lax- 
 dale Saga," and descended also from Hall of the Side, who 
 figures largely in the "Njal Saga," with whom he lived in his 
 youth for fourteen years. Hall was a clever man, who lived to 
 extreme old age ; he remembered the introduction of Christianity 
 into Iceland, and was well acquainted with St Olaf. Ari wrote 
 two other histories besides ' Landnamabok,' — ' Islendingabok,' 
 which is partly lost, and the ' Book of the Kings,' which served 
 as a guide to Snorri Sturlason in his history. G. Vigfusson says 
 of him : ^ " The true father of Icelandic letters, as well as the first 
 prose writer and the first historian, Ari's influence and example 
 kindled the flame which burns with no uncertain light in many 
 a noble story, and shines fairest and brightest in the works of his 
 true spiritual sons, the Sturlunga." 
 
 ^ Prolegomena — "Sturlunga Saga," 5 : Vigfusson. 
 
42 BY FELL AND FJOKD. 
 
 ^ Landnamabok,' written before 1140 a.d., treats of the whole 
 island, and might be a sort of guide-book to the traveller. It 
 is a fascinating record, telling of the pedigrees and exploits of 
 the first settlers, of the lands they found, and their adventures, 
 and letting in many a curious side-light on life as it was then. 
 Four thousand names are chronicled, one-third of these being 
 women, who, we may observe, took a prominent part in old 
 Norse history. 
 
 The outline of the story of the first settlement of Iceland has 
 been often told, but a slight sketch of it is almost necessary to 
 connect it with some other less known incidents that I shall give 
 out of ' Landnamabok.' 
 
 The time is the middle of the ninth century. First come the 
 discoverers. Gardarr the Swede is first named. He was driven 
 out of the Pentland Firth far to the north and west till he sighted 
 land. He sailed all round and found it was an island. He spent 
 a winter by a fjord, called from that first house he built on its 
 shores Husavik — good fishing quarters to this day. " And much 
 he praised the land." Then came Nadd-Oddur the Viking, who 
 dwelt alone on Faroe because he had made all other lands too 
 hot to hold him. He was steering for home when he was driven 
 out of his course by the waves — scehafi is the one word which 
 describes it — to a fjord in the east, where he landed, and climbed 
 the highest mountain near, but saw no smoke nor any signs of 
 man. But the snow fell, and he called the land Snjoland — and 
 praised it much. Next came Floki the Viking, who was the first 
 to sail in search of this much-praised Snjoland. He let three 
 consecrated ravens fly, after a time, to show him the way, " as 
 the loadstone was not then known," says the author, apologeti- 
 cally. The first raven flew back to the mast, the second flew 
 high in the sky, but returned again, but the third raven flew 
 far away, and Floki followed and found the land. With him 
 were Thorolfr, and Herjolfr, and Faxi from the Hebrides, They 
 stayed the winter, but found so much fishing that they neglected 
 to make hay in time — found no grass lived through the winter, 
 and thus lost their cattle. '' The winter was rather cold. Floki 
 
landnamab6k. 43 
 
 went up a high mountain, and saw a fjord to the north, full of 
 icebergs, and he named the land Iceland. The following year 
 they returned to Norway, and Floki said evil of the land. Her- 
 jolfr said the whole truth, good and bad, and Thorolfr said butter 
 dripped from every blade of grass." 
 
 Now came the first actual settlers — two foster-brothers from 
 Norway, who had got into manslaying troubles, Leif and Ingolf. 
 Of Leif it is briefly said that " he warred in Ireland, and found 
 there a great earth-house " — a tomb, or perhaps a Pict's house. 
 " He went in, and it was dark till he saw the glitter of the 
 weapon that the earth-dweller held. Leif killed the man" — 
 who had already been killed once before — " and took the sword, 
 and much property besides, and afterwards he was called Hjor- 
 leif, or Sword Leif." He married Ingolf 's niece Helga, who 
 sailed with him, and he brought besides ten thralls from Ire- 
 land. Ingolf sacrificed much to the gods, but Hjorleif would 
 never sacrifice. Together they went to Iceland, and first 
 settled the land a.d. 874. They settled in different places 
 on the south coast. Hjorleif was murdered by his Irish 
 thralls, who fled to the islands called after them ever since, 
 the Westmanna Islands. Ingolf followed them there and killed 
 them all. 
 
 Ingolf himself considered it a duty to settle where the wooden 
 pillars of his temple, which he had thrown overboard as guides, 
 should drift ashore. They drifted up in barren Reykjavik, much to 
 the displeasure of some of his followers. One — Karli — remarked, 
 " 111 we did in passing by the good lands to settle on this ut nes " 
 (promontory). And he went back to the Olfus river. Many 
 people have since echoed that remark, but destiny has been too 
 strong for reason, and Reykjavik remains the capital of Iceland 
 to this day. There Ingolf lived and prospered, much deploring 
 at first the fate of Hjorleif — " That good fellow who was vilely 
 slain by slaves ; thus, I see," he moralises, " what happens to 
 those who will never sacrifice." 
 
 Three religious types were already found in these early days : 
 the man who trusts to himself and ignores all power above him, 
 
44 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 the man who sacrifices much according to the forms of the day, 
 and the man who penetrates through that form to the ideal in all 
 religions — the pure life consecrated to the All Father. Of In- 
 golf's grandson, Thorkell Mani, it is said: ^' He was a heathen 
 man who lived as purely as the excellent Christian men of after- 
 times. When he was dying he told them to bear him into the 
 sunshine, and gave himself to the hands of that God who had 
 created the sun." 
 
 Many such vivid sketches of character are given in a few brief 
 words in ' Landnamabok.' I shall quote a very few more. " Hallr 
 the godless was the name of a man, he was the son of Helgi the 
 godless. Father and son would never sacrifice, and trusted only 
 in their own might." 
 
 The next settler is quite a variety. Orlygr was fostered in the 
 faith of Bishop Patrick, in the Southern Isles, and he took out 
 with him wood to build a church and bells, and consecrated 
 earth to put under the corner pillar of the church. The bishop 
 described the lie of the land where he was to settle, and through 
 storm and tempest he sought it, wintering in the fjord he called 
 after the bishop, Patrick's Fjord. At last he settled at Esjuberg, 
 under Kjarlaness, and founded the church still there, which he 
 dedicated to St Columba. 
 
 Another early Christian, called Asolfr, came out, who wished 
 not to eat with heathen men. Wherever he went he had good 
 fishing, thus exciting the not surprising envy of the neighbours, 
 who had no sport. They drove him from place to place, but 
 always with the same results, — his brook or waterfall swarmed 
 with fish, which disappeared, or at leapt were not caught, when 
 he was gone. However, he settled at last at Holmi, where the 
 church now stands, and was considered a holy if much -tried 
 sportsman. These were, I think, the only recorded Ch'ristian 
 settlers, except, indeed, the Lady Aud, the Deeply Wealthy, who 
 came round by Ireland and Orkney, bringing with her many 
 Christian traditions and a cross, which she set up, but which after 
 her death was desecrated. 
 
 Thorolf Mostraskegg, on the other hand, was a devout follower 
 
' EDDA.' 45 
 
 of Thor, to whom lie consecrated a shrine on tlie promontory run- 
 ning out beyond Breida^ord, where all was held most sacred. 
 Here he set up a Thor's stone, where men were broken in sacri- 
 fice, and a doom-ring, which men held when giving judgments, 
 and a place where the quarter thing was held. Both in heathen 
 and Christian times Church and State were well knit together in 
 Iceland. 
 
 Another settlement with a dash of legendary sorcery about it 
 is thus described. Grimur, who had come to the place hence 
 called Steingrimsfjord in the North, was out fishing one day with 
 his men. His son, Thorir, lay at the stern with a sealskin bag 
 drawn over his head, which irl those days was connected with 
 magic, perhaps as protecting wizards from evil spirits. '' Grimur 
 drew up in the net a sea-monster or merman, and as he came up 
 the captor asked him to give him a forecast as to where he should 
 settle." The obliging monster answered that he could say noth- 
 ing about Grimur ; " but as to your son, who lies in the seal bag, 
 he shall take land where Skalm your mare lies down under the 
 cliff." 
 
 They got no more out of the merman ; and " later in the winter, 
 when the son was ashore, Grimur and all his men were lost at 
 sea. Thorir and his wife followed the mare Skalm up and down 
 the land for long, until she lay down under a cliff, south, near 
 Borgarfjord ; and here, at Kaudamel, he settled and became a 
 great chief. In time the mare Skalm died, and was buried by 
 the spring still called Skalmarkeldu. " Thorir lived to be old 
 and blind, when one evening late he came out and perceived 
 [how ?] that an ill-looking big man rowed over Kaldaros, went up 
 to the farm of Hrifi, and dug there by the wall-side, and at night 
 the earth-fire came up there, and the great Borgar lava was spread 
 over the farms that now are all hidden." 
 
 This family legend has a touch of Southern folk-lore about it 
 which reminds us that many of the colonists, like the Lady Aud, 
 the Deeply Wealthy, came round by Orkney or Ireland, bringing 
 with theipfi Erse names and traditions ; bringing also, it is more 
 than likely, an infusion of the poetic Celtic temperament to blend 
 
46 . BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 with the realistic Teuton mind. For the earliest Icelandic poetry 
 is full of that magic charm of expression which, as Matthew 
 Arnold truly says, is the missing quality in the verses of the 
 purest Teutonic races. 
 
 The compilation of ancient poems called the ' Elder Edda,' has 
 been associated with the name of Saemund the learned (born 
 1056) : although first written down in Iceland, they are older than 
 its settlement, and the property of the whole Scandinavian race. 
 They are full of untranslatable beauty. The concise force and 
 fire of the language, where all sentence-formation is subservient 
 to the idea, makes that idea wonderfully luminous ; while the in- 
 flections render the meaning clear whatever may be the position 
 of the words. Good poets have in vain tried to translate them, 
 proving that though the sense may be rendered, the aroma, the 
 poetic fire, is lost. 
 
 Vigfusson^ is of opinion that these poems originated chiefly 
 among the Norse settlers in Ireland, Scotland, and the Western 
 Isles ; that they were chiefly composed about the time of Alfred, 
 in the very high tide of the Viking expeditions, and first recited 
 at the feasts or night-watches by sea or land of these wandering 
 warriors. He brings various philological reasons forward in proof 
 of this, and at least shows a connection between some of the songs 
 and Celtic lands. For instance, birds of the British Isles are 
 mentioned, and Scottish river names ; and there are Celtic turns 
 of expression. Even socially there is a description of the thrall 
 as an ugly person — a creature of a different race from the harl or 
 freeman. This points to a society in which the thrall was of the 
 captive Celtic race, a different race from the Northern conqueror, 
 and does not apply to either Iceland or Norway. Wherever these 
 poems were composed — and some date from Greenland — there is 
 no doubt the ancient Norse rovers were their authors, and they 
 form a fair poet's garland for any nation. Certainly these 
 Norsemen excelled the Saxons as much in song as in arms : 
 and one can easily imagine the spirit kindled by the Skalds 
 who chanted these songs of the heroes to the Vikings by the 
 ^Prolegomena — " Sturlunga Saga. " 
 
' EDDA.' ' 47 
 
 inland camp fires, or on tlie crowded decks when the wind was 
 good and the men were idle. 
 
 The ' Elder Edda ' may then be considered a fragmentary collec- 
 tion of the poetry of the Norsemen, unwritten when Iceland was 
 colonised, but known there as in Norway, chanted at the meetings 
 of the dividers of the land, and over the cradles of the next gener- 
 ation, and written down by Saemund or some other Icelander two 
 centuries later. Some of the poems, as Voluspa, tell of the old 
 mythology, or, as Morris puts it — 
 
 * ' Tales of the framing of all things, and the entering in of time 
 From the halls of the outer heaven ; so near they knew the door ; 
 Wherefore uprose a sea-king, and his hands that loved the oar 
 Now dealt with the rippling harp-gold, and he sang of the shaping of earth, 
 And how the stars were lighted, and where the winds had birth. " ^ 
 
 Many lays tell stories about the Asa or gods, and through the 
 veil of the fairy tale a hidden meaning of deep significance can 
 often be traced. They are not always respectful in tone towards 
 the Asa ; indeed some of them are full of jests at their expense. 
 Words of wisdom and counsel are the subject of other lays ; and 
 others, the most beautiful of all, are stories of the heroes, and of 
 the proud and faithful ladies who were their queens and compan- 
 ions. Such are the lays of Sigurd, the fragmentary remains of the 
 oldest form of the Nlhelungen Lied, the ' Lays of Helgi,' and sev- 
 eral more. It is worth while learning Icelandic, if merely to read 
 these fine poems, as only they can be read, in the original. The 
 women are there represented as brave and true, and as willing 
 to lay down their lives in a just cause as the men. Vindictive 
 and merciless to their foes, yet intensely affectionate and true 
 to their friends, they were worthy of the high respect in which 
 they were held, and of the love of the heroes. In the ' Lay of 
 Helgi ' for instance, it is related how Helgi had slain the father of 
 Sigrun his wife, to rescue her from an abhorred marriage ; but in 
 due time her brother was forced to avenge the father by slaying 
 Helgi, and tells her regretfully of the deed. She breaks into a 
 terrible denunciation. A few lines will show something of the 
 1 * Sigurd the Volsing, ' Book I. , by W. Morris. 
 
48 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 concise force produced by the negative form of the verb — the 
 suffixed t which reverses the action, e.g., making renna (may it 
 run) into rennat (may it not run) — 
 
 ** Skridat that skip May that ship not sweep onwards 
 
 er und th^r skrida That ought to sweep on with thee, 
 
 Thott oskabyrr Though the wished-for wind 
 
 Eptir leggast. Blows straight behind it. 
 
 Rennat sa marr May that horse not run 
 
 er und th^r renni That ought to run for thee, 
 
 Thottu fjandr thina Though from thy foes 
 
 fordask eigir. Thou hast need to fly. 
 
 Bitiat that sverd May that sword not bite 
 
 er thii bregdir That thou shalt draw, 
 
 Nema sjdlfum ther Except against thine own self. 
 
 Syngir um hofdi," &c. It sings round the head, &c. 
 
 Then one of Sigrun's maidens tells her how she has seen a 
 great sight near Helgi's mound — a company of horsemen — of 
 men who had departed ; was it the twilight of the gods already ? 
 or had the dead heroes leave to revisit their homes? Sigrun 
 after this stayed always by the mound haunted by Helgi, who 
 said that all his grief was owing to the cruel tears wept by his 
 tiue wife ; " every tear falls on the breast of thy lord, cold- wet 
 and bitter-sharp, heavy with sorrow." But Sigrun's plaint goes 
 on, " Now the night has come, and the earnes sit on the ash- 
 boughs, and all the folk drift to the Thing of dreams," and yet 
 Helgi comes not." And so she dies beside him, assured that, as 
 he said, they should yet be happy together, though they had lost 
 both lands and life ; " for now are brides abiding in the mound, 
 king's daughters sit beside us." 
 
 The ' Younger Edda,' was written by Snorri Sturlason, perhaps 
 the greatest writer Iceland ever produced — born a.d. 1178 — died 
 1248. It is a sort of handbook of the old mythology, written in 
 his own beautiful prose, with many fragments of the old lays in- 
 terspersed. He gives, besides, a kind of dictionary of the expres- 
 sions and periphrases used by the Skalds, with examples from 
 their poems. From this book we derive almost all the knowledge 
 we possess of the Northern myths, and the inner meaning of the 
 Northern poetry. Snorri wrote, besides, the great history of 
 
WOMEN OF THE SAGAS. 49 
 
 Norway called the ' Heimskringla,' elsewhere spoken of. Several 
 other histories and many historical biographies were written 
 about this date ; of which the ' Orkneyan Saga ' is especially inter- 
 esting to us ; and the brilliant era of the ancient literature was 
 closed by the history written by Snorri's nephew Sturla, henc« 
 called the ' Sturlunga Saga.' 
 
 One notable point on this whole literature is the light it throws 
 on the position of women in the North. Originally, here as else- 
 where, the woman was the ward of her father or husband or 
 brother. The daughter was indeed the property of her father, 
 often his most precious possession, but there is no trace of pur- 
 chase of the woman from her father by the bridegroom, as in most 
 early societies. It is evident, from the very meaning of the 
 word for marriage, Brudlaup — i.e., hride-rurij that there was a 
 time when the bride was carried off by force from her home ; and 
 many marriage customs point to such an origin. But in histori- 
 cal times, marriages were carefully arranged with the consent of 
 the heads of both the families concerned ; and the greatest sensi- 
 tiveness was shown in the matter of honourable courtship, though 
 the youths and maidens were allowed to meet each other freely. 
 The bride brought her dower with her, sometimes a rich one, as she 
 shared with her brothers. And in case of widowhood or divorce, 
 she reclaimed all the property she brought with her, though, if 
 divorced, she had to leave behind her the property settled on her 
 by her husband, called the morning gift. Divorce had to be 
 taken into consideration, for it was very easy in heathen times. 
 A few angry words, or a slap on the cheek, were grounds enough 
 — the wife could in such a case call witnesses, declare herself 
 divorced, and go away with her dowry. The wife, it is said, 
 often threatened to divorce her husband, if he would not act 
 according to her wishes ; for it was not difficult to find a pretext, 
 although divorces were not, after all, nearly so frequent as one 
 might have supposed from their facility — a certain discredit was 
 attached to them. If a man wore a woman's dress, or vice versa, 
 it was ground for a divorce ; the same if a woman wore her hair 
 cut straight across the brow like a man. Such a law might 
 
 D 
 
50 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 liberate a good many couples in this country now. Even in 
 present days the Icelanders are at liberty, like other Lutherans, 
 to divorce each other, for vi^hat seem to us small causes, such as 
 mere incompatibility of temper, but they have to give notice of 
 their intention two or three years before the law can take effect ; 
 and meanwhile both the clergyman and the magistrate have to 
 be called in to adjust matters if possible : and often before the 
 required time has elapsed, the couple have made friends again, 
 and live together happily ever after. 
 
 To return to the days of the sagas. After a woman had been 
 once married, whether she was a widow or divorced, she became 
 a free agent. The married woman was, from the earliest times, 
 the true household leader, the queen or companion of her lord. 
 The sagas tell of the same freedom of the wife in her own sphere, 
 and association with her husband's life and pursuits, which is the 
 ideal of wedded life now in this country. She was not, like the 
 Greek wife, doomed to a narrow life in her own side of the house 
 apart from the interests of the men ; still less was she like the 
 plaything of the Eastern harem ; and old age did not deprive 
 her of her influence, while it added to her dignity. Her words 
 were often then held sacred, her influence grew paramount, as 
 one to whom the gods had imparted a more than human wisdom. 
 The wise women of the North were old ; they did not need to en- 
 hance their power by the young beauty of Pallas Athene. A glance 
 at the respective mythologies will show us the contrast between 
 the stories of Frigga, pure and strong, the ideal of the married 
 women, Iduna, the tender goddess of youth and spring, and 
 Freyja, the honourable northern type of Aphrodite, and the im- 
 pure legends that have gathered round the names of the divinities 
 honoured by ancient Greece and Rome. 
 
 The power of the Asa^ or Summer Gods, satisfactorily summed 
 up, I am bound to think, in the name Asvaldr or Oswald, is almost 
 always in Norse mythology on the side of right and justice. 
 But that power is limited and foredoomed to an overthrow, when 
 
 ^ Os = Asvaldr, meaning power of the Summer Gods, was much used by 
 the Teutons as a name of dedication, and especially popular in Northumbria. 
 
MORALITY OF THE SAGAS. 51 
 
 the giants, or the blind natural forces, and Loki and his children, 
 or the evil forces, unite, and all is crushed into ruin in the " twi- 
 light of the gods." Hope lives on indeed, like a streak of morn- 
 ing dawn in the horizon, the hope of some brighter and calmer 
 existence beyond that darkness ; but all that is definite in the 
 thought of the Norseman about life and futurity may be summed 
 up in the ideas of combat, and of all-conquering fate. This fight- 
 ing ideal no doubt reacted on the character of the Norsemen ; 
 it naturally fostered their cruel propensities, and also, as they 
 were used to consider the combat in its essence as an almost 
 hopeless struggle against blind fate, that idea blunted their con- 
 science with regard to treachery, their greatest and deepest 
 defect. May it not be allowable to take any advantage that can 
 be snatched, when, in the long-run, one is sure to be so terribly 
 overmatched ? Luck and ill-luck were tremendous factors in all 
 actions ; and the lucky man might steal the horse, while the un- 
 lucky man was bullied for looking over the hedge. The gods 
 themselves were not incapable of availing themselves of rather 
 unfair stratagems ; and Loki, who exhibited the very acme of 
 treachery, was more laughed at than reprobated by the more re- 
 spectable inhabitants of Yalhall. There was, however, a great 
 deal of redeeming humour about Loki, some of which has no 
 doubt been passed on to the devil of Norse and Scottish popular 
 stories, who is in some respects a personification of mischief 
 rather than of evil. And in spite of the many fine qualities of 
 the Northern race, their qualities of cruelty and treachery in due 
 time bore their own bitter fruit. The fierce warriors who owned 
 the " White Christ " as their master, but imported into his service 
 the wrath of Odin and the delight in battle of Valhall, destroyed 
 each other by their own ferocity, and in time affected the national 
 character in the manner they would least have liked, exhausting 
 its energies, so that the spirit of gallantry and enterprise seems 
 to have died away with the warlike instincts which were once so 
 powerful. 
 
 The beginning of the end is to be seen in the ^ Sturlunga 
 Saga,' — a history of Iceland from circa 1100 to 1263, by 
 
62 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 Sturla, — told chiefly as centred in the great Sturla family. The 
 style is so vivid that the events seem to pass under our eyes ; 
 but they show a terrible condition of public affairs. One chief- 
 tain rivalled another, maintaining a court of followers who knew 
 no law but his word. Law cases were indeed decided at the 
 annual things ; but the criminals constantly received the protec- 
 tion of some chief, who by favouring reckless outlaws hoped to 
 add to the number of his lawless followers. And so it went on, 
 till the best men, weary of the hopeless state of affairs, flung 
 their free republic into the arms of Norway, — and Iceland fell, 
 never to revive. It is an interesting study of the result of too 
 weak an executive, — the political freedom was absolute, but the 
 State too weak to defend individual freedom. 
 
 The bad times may have been partly produced by the cessa- 
 tion of the Viking expeditions, which cessation certainly brought 
 dire confusion into Norway. There was no European outlet for 
 the warlike chiefs, little provided for by the odal laws of the 
 division of land ; and they worried each other like wild beasts in 
 a cage. The division of the landed estates among all the children 
 of the owner, which worked well in a small population, and with 
 resources beyond seas, showed its weakness in other circum- 
 stances. It has probably prevented Norway from ever develop- 
 ing into a great nation, and may be one of the causes of some- 
 thing there is disappointing in the otherwise excellent modern 
 Norwegian national character. There is in it a low level of toler- 
 able contentment, but a want of dash and enterprise — of briskness 
 — a want, indeed, of men who can show the way ; perhaps to be 
 summed up in the want of an upper class, or of leaders. And the 
 Icelanders may have suffered in the same way. The habitable 
 lands were getting narrow for the inhabitants in Sturla's time ; 
 yet we read of parties of six or seven hundred armed men riding 
 together. It is difficult to understand how they could have been 
 fed by their leaders. No doubt, before Newfoundland stock-fish 
 and southern whales, not to say gas, were in the market, Ice- 
 landic produce, such as dried fish and oil, was far more valuable 
 than now. In the numerous petty wars not many men were 
 
BIOGRAPHIES. 63 
 
 killed, but numbers were kept unsettled and idle ; and the best 
 were killed — there was no survival of the fittest in the struggle 
 for existence. To do the leaders justice, the men who made the 
 quarrels were the foremost in the fight : the old families were 
 mostly stamped out, and Iceland began to deserve the reproach 
 of a Norse lord in the ninth century, who said he would never 
 settle in a mere fishing station. 
 
 Before the heroes were all gone, it fortunately occurred to some 
 excellent contemporary authors to write their biographies. These 
 lives of the great men and bishops, written in the thirteenth and 
 fourteenth centuries, are somewhat realistic narratives, evidently 
 aiming before all things at truth ; but they often show great 
 dramatic power, bringing out the character as well as the history 
 of the men they tell of, reminding one rather of Plutarch than 
 of any medieval writers. We become well acquainted with such 
 persons as Aron the brilliant warrior, Gudmundur Dyra the fierce 
 chieftain, Hrafn the man of many accomplishments. Hrafn, for 
 instance, " was mighty in metal and timber work, as Volundur 
 the smith, poet, lawyer, and the best of doctors ; learned in all 
 wisdom, elegant and winning, a great bowman, and the best of 
 spear-throwers ; a tall man and strong, with straight fair features 
 and dark hair, kind, and of noble disposition." Who would not 
 wish to read the checkered life of such a hero ? 
 
 Among the most salient characters set before us in the bio- 
 graphies is the blessed Gudmundur the Bishop. The country 
 abounds in local legends connected with him : the churches are 
 still shown that he consecrated, the wells that he hallowed. 
 Bishop Gudmundur just missed being canonised, — he never passed 
 the examination at Eome for full saintship. And indeed no 
 wonder, — the devil's advocate might have easily held a brief 
 against him ; he remained, therefore, in the lower rank of Blessed. 
 He flourished in the thirteenth century, and first took the priest- 
 hood owing to a shipwreck in which he met with an accident 
 which made him a hopeless cripple. All the same he was a most 
 stirring personage, and he left his mark on the land. He at- 
 tracted to him a company of devoted followers, especially wild 
 
54 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 young men. He lavished the money of the see upon troops of 
 idle vagabonds, who followed his fortunes wherever he went ; 
 he only just did not fight himself, but was the cause of many 
 a fight between the secular chiefs and his followers, in which, 
 however justice might be divided, pluck and self-devotion were 
 never wanting to the bishop's men. One of his last retreats, 
 the lonely island of Grimsay, far to the north of the northern 
 coast, was the scene of a most exciting fight between the 
 bishop's men, who held the island, and the Sturlinga, who 
 assaulted it by sea. The bishop's party were overpowered, and 
 he himself was carried off a prisoner ; for his person was always 
 respected, though his followers were slaughtered by his fierce 
 enemies. 
 
 Iceland boasts of two full saints. Bishop Jon and Bishop Thor- 
 leikr, who were duly canonised. They were, however, compara- 
 tively tame characters. There was far more enthusiasm for the 
 memory of St Olaf, or even our own Orkneyan St ^Magnus, whose 
 life in Icelandic is a good specimen of a later form of literature 
 which succeeded the spirited biographies of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury. The influence of the Church and the cloister now began to 
 be felt, and the life of St Magnus is in style a curious mixture of 
 the saga and the " Golden Legend." 
 
 We are told that " Magnus the Saint, Earl of Orkney, was a 
 great warrior, and successful in war, handsome, just, and valiant, 
 and so popular that his cousin, the rival Earl of Orkney, who had 
 equal odal rights, murdered him out of pure jealousy, a.d. 1115." 
 The saint may have been rather provoking, as when he was 
 quite a yoimg man, cruising in English waters with his cousin, 
 Magnus Barefoot, King of Norway, and a fight began between 
 the Northmen and Hugh, Earl of Chester, Magnus spoke up, 
 and said nothing would induce him to fight against people with 
 whom he had no quarrel. " Go down below, then," said the irate 
 king, " and do not lie about among the feet of the men who will 
 fight, if you dare not fight yourself, for I do not believe that 
 religion has anything to do with this affair." Magnus, however, 
 sat where he was, "took up a psalter, and sung psalms all 
 
SAINTS. 55 
 
 tbrough the battle, not guarding himself at all. The battle was 
 both hard and long, and for a while undecided, but at last Earl 
 Hugh was slain, and King Magnus conquered. This was a fair 
 miracle, for all might see how, in the midst of the heavy on- 
 slaught, when armed fighters were falling all round him, he 
 remained unhurt." 
 
 We are told how, long afterwards, " this knight of heaven went 
 to his death as if to a festival," encouraging the reluctant execu- 
 tioner, only directing him that he should strike him on the head 
 with his battle-axe ; " for so should princes die, not hit on the 
 neck like common men." Perhaps the Viking spirit needed some 
 such valiant protest against it as that of the psalm-singing St 
 Magnus, who seems, indeed, to have been an excellent man. 
 Twenty years after his death, his murderer, Hakon, laid the 
 foundations of the fair cathedral St Magnus in Kirkwall, which 
 still preserves his memory fresh in Orkney. 
 
 It would take too much space if I were to follow the history 
 of this literature beyond the point where it lost its unique char- 
 acter and became similar to the contemporary literature of the rest 
 of Europe. There were always good writers in Iceland, if they 
 ceased to be so original as their predecessors. But the lamp of 
 literature has never gone out, it has been handed down through 
 the darkest times, and now burns again clear and steady. The 
 beautiful religious poem of the ^'Lily" was written in the 
 monkish days that first succeeded the enthralment of Iceland : 
 then the ballads were made, and many religious books were 
 written. About two centuries ago some of the old literature was 
 examined, rescued, and printed. In spite of the poverty into 
 which the land had fallen, the establishment of two printing 
 presses caused a great revival of literature. 
 
 Henderson, in 1812, speaks, indeed, of good writers toiling 
 hard for their living in the hay-fields ; of clever MSS. that never 
 saw the light owing to the poverty of the authors. 
 
 Brighter days have now dawned, and good writers, both in 
 prose and verse, are to be found in large proportion to the 
 population. Above all, the grand old literature is more and more 
 
56 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 attracting the attention both of landsmen and foreigners. Ice- 
 landic has been placed in the curriculum of the Norwegian 
 universities, and the language has even been named as an 
 alternate subject in the examinations offered by the London 
 University. 
 
 It is a constant pleasure, while travelling in Iceland, to hear 
 the old inflected language on every side. Every peasant knows 
 the grammar, and runs through the complicated inflections of the 
 nouns and pronouns with unfailing accuracy. Our experience is, 
 however, that very little of the language can be picked up during 
 a summer tour ; but although it requires hard study, it also 
 rewards it. Within the last ten years some books have been 
 published that make it not difficult to acquire enough Icelandic 
 to enable a tourist to understand a good deal, and make good 
 progress when in the Country. Chief among these is the ' Ice- 
 landic Prose Header,' by Vigfusson and Powell, Clarendon Press, 
 which every tourist should possess. For more advanced work, 
 there is the excellent ' Icelandic-English Lexicon,' Cleasby and 
 Vigfusson, and a fine pew edition of the ' Sturlunga Saga,' both 
 Clarendon Press. In illustration of the low estimation in which 
 Icelandic has long been held by the Danes, I may mention that 
 a leading bookseller at Bergen, at whose house I dined, informed 
 me that his grandmother, who was daughter to the then Governor 
 of Iceland, was forbidden by her parents to learn the ''peasant 
 dialect of the country," meaning the classic Norse, from which 
 Danish has been derived and has declined. He was greatly sur- 
 prised on being shown the above-mentioned works. There is, 
 however, an old Norse Society in Norway, which encourages 
 the writing of books in an archaic dialect, verging on Icelandic. 
 It may be more to the point, perhaps, for scholars to promote the 
 study of the classical language itself, and to preserve it from the 
 foreign admixtures and Germanisms which have injured the 
 Danish language. Three newspapers are published in Iceland, 
 which are useful to the traveller, as they contain plenty of modern 
 words which are not to be found in the sagas. 
 
 The modern books are more difficult to the foreigner than the 
 
MODERN LITERATURE. 57 
 
 sagas ; and many recent books are translations, which, of course, 
 do not count as literature. The translation of Milton's ' Paradise 
 Lost ' is, however, said to be remarkably fine, and quite like an 
 original work. There are one or two novels, rather wordy and 
 German in style; but the one said to be the best, ^Piltur og 
 Stulka,' I have not read. There are several modern poets and 
 good song - writers, such as Bjarni Thorarensen, Steingrimur 
 Thorsteinson, and Mattias Jochmundsen, the last a living writer. 
 
 Modern editions of several of the sagas can be procured at 
 Keykjavik ; and the ' Heimskringla,' or History of Norway, by 
 Snorri Sturlason, and the ^ Eddas,' can be purchased at Copen- 
 hagen. 
 
 A learned society, the Islenzha Bokmentafelag, has existed in 
 Iceland since the year 1852, which issues three or four books 
 annually, including generally, besides a resumd of the news of 
 the year and other official pamphlets, an edition of some old 
 book, often printed for the first time from the original manuscript. 
 
58 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 MOSSFELL HVALFJOKD AND ITS LEGENDS REYKHOLT KALMAN- 
 
 STUNGA — CENTRAL LAVA SURTSHELLIR. 
 
 We left Reykjavik for Aknreyrei, the chief northern port of the 
 island, on the 22(i of July, expecting to meet there the Scottish 
 steamer. As it happened, neither we nor the steamer ever 
 reached that port, as she broke down at sea, and had to be towed 
 ignominiously home ; and we in consequence had to return to 
 Reykjavik, and put off our departure for six weeks. But we saw 
 all the more of the country ; and our journey back by another 
 route left us nothing to regret. The start was a prolonged 
 amusement of two hours : our twelve ponies collecting at the 
 door with much stamping and bustle ; friends inviting us to 
 farewell coffee -parties in their houses ; everything we wanted 
 appearing too late ; our guide's pretty wife running down with 
 her little children to see her husband off; — in short, we had in- 
 tended to go at six in the evening, and rode off at eight, and we 
 considered ourselves punctual — so demoralised as to time-keeping 
 had we by this time become. But what matters time, when no 
 one . is kept waiting, and there are no trains to catch, and it is 
 light all night ? Besides, here no one really knows what o'clock 
 it is. Those who like to feel that they are punctual, may make 
 it whatever time they like, as at sea, and regulate all matters by 
 their own watches. It is much more important to keep temper 
 than time, as fussy tourists will soon discover. A genuine Ice- 
 lander will not be hurried, and resents any incivility, probably 
 
MOSSFELL. 59 
 
 making no reply, but letting things quietly go all wrong with 
 an air of imperturbable innocence. 
 
 One is sometimes inclined to envy the frankness with which 
 the Americans describe their friends in print, but without ventur- 
 ing to rival them, we may say of our guide, that he proved on 
 better acquaintance to be quite a character. He was so versa- 
 tile : there was the clerical side — for he had completed his the- 
 ological course, though he had hovered for years outside the 
 clerical profession ; then he was a keen sportsman and clever 
 shark-fisher ; he spoke idiomatic English, and had translated 
 the ' Pilgrim's Progress ' into Icelandic ; his cod-liver oil had 
 gained a prize at the French Exhibition ; he was a hard rider, 
 and often shod the ponies himself ; he knew botany, and was so 
 medically inclined, that the old women used to run up from all 
 sides to consult him and receive his homoeopathic medicines ; — in 
 short, he was a host in himself, and an excellent guide, as he not 
 only knew the country well, but, it appeared to us, every one in 
 it. At eight in the evening he called for us, with Skuli and all 
 the cavalcade ready at last ; we were at a final entertainment at 
 a friend's house, and rode away, followed by the farewell greet- 
 ings of all the company. 
 
 The way to Mossfell, whither we were bound, is a pretty ride 
 to the north-east, and may be recommended to any one staying 
 at Eeykjavik. Where the path skirts the sea-shore we passed 
 some fishermen dividing their newly caught grilse and herring 
 into shares, after the old fashion called kjosa og deila (choice 
 and deal) — one man dividing, and another with his back turned 
 assigning the lots. We bought some herring as a change from the 
 usual salmon, and rode on to Mossfell church, which we reached 
 exactly at midnight. 
 
 There is something rather eerie in this kind of arrival till you 
 are used to it. No inn appears with kindly lights and welcom- 
 ing voices, but you grope up to the churchyard gate, and dis- 
 mount among the graves like Leonore and her spectre lover, and 
 a silent little black church receives you and offers you for all 
 entertainment a floor. But the " missionary mattresses," as our 
 
60 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 cork pallets are called, and the good Scottish plaids, soon make 
 the floor comfortable ; and we rested well, till a lovely morning 
 lured ns out into the sunshine. 
 
 Mossfell church and parsonage are prettily situated on the first 
 slopes of the mountain -chain of Eysja, among steep meadows. 
 We breakfasted under the shade of the haycocks ; for all the hill- 
 slope was astir with haymaking. These grassy hills rise above 
 into bare precipices of pink or white marl and clay, remind- 
 ing one in appearance of some of the Apennines. Indeed both 
 the colouring and the temperature recalled the mountain-lands 
 of central Italy. The day was so hot, and the pastor and his 
 family so pleasant, that we lingered till 1 p.m., and then rode off 
 in a blaze of sunshine. We crossed the pass over Eysja, the moun- 
 tain which is conspicuous from Reykjavik, and enjoyed a beautiful 
 view before descending into the valley of the great bog which had 
 seemed so formidable on our way from Rennyvellir ; but it was a 
 trifle in this dry weather. We then went over a second mountain- 
 ridge, under lava-crags, — wreathed masses of wrenched, distorted 
 stuff, which looked as if, when liquid and boiling high, it had sud- 
 denly been turned into stone. Presently a fine view opens of the 
 beautiful Hvalfjord — or whale firth, which is well worth visiting. 
 It looked like a bit of the evening sky lying among the high purple 
 crags which enclosed it. When we reached the shore about ten 
 at night, we had to wait some time for the tide to go down, to 
 enable us to take a short cut to the other side, through the head- 
 waters of the fjord. The scene was exquisitely beautiful. On 
 one side stretched the fjord, narrow between the hills, and lighted 
 up in bars of red and gold by the sunset ; on the other side a 
 good-sized river fell in an unbroken sheet of foam between two 
 grand, dark, square, basalt cliffs, and a distant pink-tinted snowy 
 hill showed over the black rocks of the foreground. Thence we 
 scrambled on towards the head of the longest branch of the fjord, 
 and when the tide was low, turned into the sea and rode through 
 the shallows for more than a mile to the opposite mountain. 
 The night was only a stiller and more mysterious day. Hundreds 
 of sea-birds slept on the dim water, but as we roused them, they 
 
HVALFJORD. 
 
 61 
 
 rose with shrill clamours, and broke it into long lines of silver. 
 Then a clear yellow light began to peer over a mountain, it 
 looked like a fire at first, but there appeared at last the very- 
 brightest moon I ever saw — too bright by far, said our guide, as 
 it foreboded wind, which was already making the riding less 
 pleasant. On we cantered over rough tracks, the morning 
 brightening over the night sky, which was never at all dark, 
 and the wind growing furious, screaming in our ears, and blow- 
 ing up our sleeves. I had reached that dreamy state when the 
 
 mind refuses all fresh ideas, and I seemed to have been riding 
 for a time beyond reckoning on a cream - coloured pony, in 
 pursuit of a clattering drove of loose ponies, dreamily shifting 
 before me, when at half-past one we stopped at what looked 
 like a grassy mound, which was the farm of Hrabnarburg. After 
 long knocking, a tall man doubled himself up sufficiently to get 
 out at a very low door and helped to raise the tent, a matter 
 of no small difficulty. They brought us hot coffee ; and in spite 
 of straining ropes and storm and cold, we slept comfortably till 
 morn in 2:. 
 
62 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 This day's ride was really beautiful in the summer weather, 
 but in this odd climate a change of wind to the north, such 
 as had now occurred, brings sudden winter. It froze in the 
 night outside our tent, and the gale continuing in the morning, 
 made our further journey impossible. You could lean quite 
 comfortably back on the wind. Everything not tethered was 
 flying : my handkerchief went away into space. Washing in the 
 little inlet which lay among the rocks could best be managed by 
 tying a long string to a big sponge, and throwing it out beyond 
 the froth to fetch water. We piled turf high round our tent, 
 but still feared that it might take to flight ; and Miss Menzies was 
 rather inclined to take shelter in the house at night, until it 
 was clearly ascertained that this meant either sleeping in the 
 hadstofa — a room like a ship's cabin, with a double row of berths, 
 the sleeping-place of the whole household — or on the kitchen-floor, 
 which was of earth, and sloped away ominously into darkness 
 and the unknown. This hadstofa was just like a cuhiculum in a 
 Roman catacomb, and might have confirmed the views of a party 
 whom I had met in much the same sort of room in the Catacomb 
 of St Calixtus. They had evidently just landed in Italy, and 
 when the guide explained that in this cemetery the holy Pope 
 Damasus and other martyrs were interred, the family all turned 
 with eager questions to the young lady of the party who obvi- 
 ously had learned Italian, and was their trusted interpreter. But 
 her mind evidently still ran on the recent voyage, and with some 
 gentle hesitation she explained, pointing to the largest grave, 
 that, " Early Christians once lived here, and that,^^ she faltered, 
 " is the berth of the papa." " To be sure," said another, with 
 fine faith ; " and the little ones had the smaller berths. Poor 
 things, how crowded they must have been I " 
 
 And crowded the folk of Hrabnarburg must have been ; but 
 though their house was so poor, they had several horses and 
 cows, and they were not poverty-stricken. Ulfheldur, the hostess, 
 made signs of great amity ; but we could hardly talk together 
 then. Four years later, when we passed that way, she told us 
 she had always thought us charming people, and longed for 
 
LEGENDS. 
 
 63 
 
 our return, — perhaps the more, as she had only once had visitors 
 since. On our last day's journey we had met no one but the 
 postman with his three horses, although this route is considered 
 to be frequented. 
 
 The scenery was grand. Two mountain cliffs stood opposite 
 each other like huge threatening castles — one called the Eagle 
 Rock {Arnafjall), the other Raven -burg (Hrabna-burg) ] grass 
 slopes descended steeply from them to the basalt cliffs of the 
 shore. In these cliffs were deep crannies where the wind could 
 
 
 Hvalfjoj-d. 
 
 not disturb us, though it flattened the water before us, tearing 
 the foam up into the air, which was salt with sea-drift. A place 
 of tempests this from the earliest recorded times. The first 
 settler here — a thousand years ago — a man called Kalman, from 
 the Soder Isles, or South Hebrides, lost two sons in a storm in 
 the fjord, and then moving inland gave his name to Kalman- 
 stunga, whither we were bound. Drowning, however, seemed to 
 run in his family, and who can escape his fate ? He was drowned 
 in the ford of Hvita, a river which we were soon to cross. The 
 sailors whose funeral we had attended the other day at Renny- 
 
64 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 vellir were already not the last of Hvalflord's victims, for on this 
 day another boat was lost. 
 
 Opposite lay the large rocky island, inhabited in the heroic 
 times by Hord and Geir, the chiefs of a stirring party of out- 
 laws, with their wives and families, whose adventures are told 
 at length in the Holmveryja or Island Defence Saga. It is an 
 old story of heathen times, and gives a graphic picture of the 
 manners and customs of Vikings at home. 
 
 Hord and Geir were foster-brothers. Hord was of good family ; 
 but his father, who was already an old widower when he married 
 his mother, the proud Signy of Hvalfjord, was never much loved 
 by her. Signy possessed two treasures which she valued beyond 
 all else — her horse Svartfaxi (dark-mane), and a certain necklace. 
 Svartfaxi, on the journey to her wedding, fell over a cliff and 
 was killed, and Signy wished much, therefore, to turn back, but 
 was overruled by Torfi, her brother. Afterwards, when her son 
 Hord was three years old — a fine child, but slow in walking — as 
 she sat in the middle of the room in her best attire, prepared to 
 attend a sacrifice, he tottered for the first time alone across the 
 floor, grasped her necklace and fell, breaking it in three places. 
 So angry was the father, that he sent Hord to be brought up 
 by Geir's parents, who were peasants. Signy later went to visit 
 her brother Torfi, and there she died after giving birth to a 
 daughter. This child was therefore hated by Torfi, who desired 
 that it should be exposed to perish ; but it was so pretty that his 
 servant spared it, and Torfi discovered, to his great wrath, some 
 months afterwards, that it was alive. It had also been named 
 Thurida, and water had been poured over it ; and as it would 
 have been counted murder to kill it as he wished after these 
 ceremonies, he packed it on the back of a beggar-man, and sent 
 it to its father. However, Thurida grew up into a fair woman, 
 and in due time she married Hlugi, who lived on the shore of 
 this fjord. Hord^ and Geir became great warriors, and were 
 
 ^ Hord is not the most dignified form of this name, but it, or rather Hordr 
 is the nominative form, Hardar being genitive, Herdi dative, and Hord 
 accusative ; and it seems incomplete and unfamiliar without its declensions. 
 
HARDAR SAGA. 65 
 
 liegemen of Harald Greyskin, King of Norway, and friends of 
 Hroar, Earl of Gautland. Hord married fair Helga, his daughter, 
 and she sailed with the champions ; and they won fame and pro- 
 perty on all the seas. Then comes the beginning of the end — a 
 chapter ominously headed " Drink." Very likely this was the 
 first cause of Herd's misfortunes, if not exactly as related in the 
 saga, which now goes on to tell, with considerable force, one of 
 the stock heroic achievements. 
 
 On the first night of Yule they were all drinking hard in the 
 earl's hall, when Hord stood up and vowed on the pillar of the 
 high seat, "Here I swear that before next Yule I shall have 
 broken up the burial-mound of Soti the Viking." The earl said, 
 " A mighty vow, and not easy to keep ; for Soti was a great troll 
 while living, and is one half more so since his death." 
 
 Herd's friends, however, swore to follow him, and the saga 
 tells how, in a thick wood, they found a great mound ; but only 
 after five days of digging did they reach the timber burial- 
 chamber and break open the door. Hord bade all beware of the 
 evil odour that would come out, and he waited behind the door 
 till it dispersed ; but tw^o careless people died of it. Down then 
 went Hord, lowered by ropes, into the darkness ; he found a second 
 door, and then came an earthquake, and all the lights went out. 
 Geir now came down also, and brought wax and fire, while those 
 above held the ropes ; and then they broke open the door and 
 found themselves in a ship. Soti sat by the mast in the midst 
 of his treasures, and was fearful (ogoliger) to behold. Hord now 
 began to collect the gold, when Soti sprang on him. Hord 
 called from under him to Geir to kindle the wax-light. ''Bring 
 light," he shouted, " and let Soti see how lovely he is ! " and 
 whenever the light shone on him the vampire slid downwards. 
 And Hord got much gold and a splendid sword and helmet ; also 
 a ring sure to bring ill-luck to the w^earer unless it were a woman. 
 " No longer shalt thou enjoy the gold of the sea, thou over-old 
 wretch " (skaud afgdmul)^ said Hord, as he came out of the tomb 
 to find that some of the people outside had gone mad with 
 
 E 
 
66 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 horror, and were struggling with their braver comrades, who 
 wished to prevent them from running away. 
 
 Hord now returned to his hereditary estate here at the head 
 of HvalQord, but nothing went well with him. His household 
 were too rich and too powerful not to excite jealousies. The 
 neighbours quarrelled with them about horses, about games, 
 about everything, and banded against them, including even 
 Illugi, his brother-in-law, till they were fain to retire to the 
 island, where they lived by plunder. There were always from 
 eighty to a hundred people on the island, and they held it long 
 against all comers. But there was one foe with whom they 
 could not cope — Thorbjorg Katla, an old sorceress. When she 
 waved her staff over her head darkness and wild weather was 
 wont to follow, and confusion fell on her foes. One might well 
 suppose Katla still dwelt, a skaud af gomul, by Hvalfjord, so 
 strange are the caprices of the storm here. Years went by and 
 Geir at last was caught by treachery, and Hord next day was 
 lured to the land by a false friend, Thorstein Gold-clasp, suspect- 
 ing nothing till he beheld drifting on the low skerries the corpse 
 of Geir. It only remained to sell his life dearly, and all his men 
 were also slain or dispersed. 
 
 The women now come to the front. Helga stood on the 
 island and saw her husband's betrayal and fall, but she would not 
 fall into the foeman's hands. A Roman matron would have killed 
 herself, but the Northern spirit never despairs till, as the proverb 
 says, all the refuges are choked with snow. She cast herself to 
 swim off to the land at night, and carried with her her four-year-old 
 son Bjorn. She landed him and returned to meet her eight-year- 
 old son Grimkell, who was sinking exhausted in the sea, and 
 brought him in. Carrying one boy and leading the other, she 
 walked far to the house of Illugi, where she sat down under the 
 tun wall, and sent in little Grimkell to ask his aunt Thurida for 
 protection. " When she saw Helga she could not speak, it was 
 so much to her. She led her and the children into the out-bower 
 (uti-bur), and in the evening home came Illugi and many men 
 with him ; and they all talked joyfully of the death of Hord, and 
 
REYKHOLT. 67 
 
 how Thorstein Gold-clasp had slain him. In the night Thurida 
 came with a short sword and aimed it at her husband as he lay 
 in bed ; and his hands were much wounded by grasping the blade. 
 She said : ' All is past between us, yet if thou wilt have peace 
 between us again, bring me the head of Thorstein Gold-clasp.' 
 And Illugi consented. Next day he fought with Thorstein, and 
 brought the head to his wife, who loftily remarked that she cared 
 nothing for it now it was off his shoulders. ' But further,' she 
 continued, ^ you must be a friend to Helga and her sons if ever 
 I am to love you again.' He replied that doubtless they were 
 drowned, as they were not on the island, and had no boat ; 'but 
 willingly will I promise thee this, as nothing need be done about 
 it' Then Thurida brought them forth. ' I have said too much,' 
 said Illugi, 'but my words must hold.' All thought Thurida 
 had shown herself great-minded." 
 
 Next day we rode over the low mountain-pass which separates 
 the Hvalfjord from the Borgarfjord district, the pass over which 
 poor Helga had toiled with her children. The wind was still 
 furious, but we faced it, which would not have been possible the 
 day before. The valleys on the other side were all covered with 
 fine grass. Several lakes lie among them, lashed this day into 
 waves of steely blue — the last one, Skoradalvatn, was edged by 
 welcome birch-trees, and recalled a Scotch Highland loch. Not 
 so the pretty valley of Keykholt, which we reached towards 
 evening, — it could only have been in Iceland. The sun shone out 
 and showed puffs of smoke and jets of steam, or leaping fountains 
 of boiling water, glittering here and there all the way up the 
 broad grassy valley. Several farms were visible on the slopes, 
 and haymakers were at work near them. Cattle and horses 
 grazed about ; and fiery little bulls galloped up to inspect us, and 
 had to be driven off by a firm countenance and cracking whips. 
 The abundant river ran in loops and curves all along the valley, 
 while we rode quite straight, and forded it thirteen times. The 
 hot springs which we passed were various, and quite unlike each 
 other. One rose in an intermitting column of steam from a 
 kind of boiling bog ; another burst in a beautiful fountain of hot 
 
68 
 
 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 water out of a rock in the middle of tlie ice-cold river. It was 
 also slightly intermittent, sometimes bubbling low, and then 
 again leaping six feet high for a few beats. Another was a kind 
 of double spring with two jets, which worked alternately. I 
 wished that invalids could come here and enjoy the sweet air of 
 this lonely valley, and the hidden and unknown virtues of these 
 doubtless healing mineral springs ; but it is a long way to Eeyk- 
 holt, and there is no inn to receive such patients as might chance 
 to survive the journey. 
 
 We were received by the profastur or dean at Keykholt, who 
 lives by the church ten or twelve miles up the valley — a fine-look- 
 ing cheery man, but reminding one of a jovial skipper rather 
 than of a clergyman. He gave us the guest-room, where my 
 companion at once nestled under the eider-down duvet to warm 
 herself ; for it was cold, and there are only two means of warming 
 yourself indoors in the summer-time — to put on eider-down or to 
 cook. I chose cooking, and must apologise for saying something 
 
 about it; for I should convey 
 little idea of our wandering, 
 if I did not mention a matter 
 which was of such great im- 
 portance to us, and the first 
 excitement wherever we ar- 
 rived. Anything hot we had, 
 except coffee, was almost 
 always cooked by ourselves 
 with varying success. Be- 
 sides the methylated spirit 
 can which cooked the soup, 
 and the kettle, we had a frying-pan with tripod, which was 
 my special pride, bought at Silver's, Cornhill — a shop, by the 
 way, that makes one long to rush to some wilderness to try its 
 gipsy luxuries. It only cost 5s., and all shut up into the size of 
 a small soup-plate, and was supposed to cook mutton-chops and 
 steaks, &c., with only newspapers and rubbish for fuel. I had 
 made what might have almost been called a sacrilegious attempt 
 
 JO^ 
 
 ,p^ 
 
A BATH. 69 
 
 to fry trout in Thingvellir Church, which had consumed at a 
 blow all our packing-paper and the rubbish wedged in our boxes, 
 and with the poorest gastronomic results. This morning we 
 had game, and once more the pan was started, with bits of 
 peat and sticks for fuel. There rose a great smoke and a strong 
 smell of burning ; all the inhabitants, headed by the profastur, 
 rushed to see what was the matter — to witness our failure, a 
 cold, smoked, singed bird, which Oddur carried off with others to 
 simmer in the hot spring. But hot-spring cookery certainly 
 destroys the flavour of wild ducks and plovers ; besides the sodden 
 effect, a certain suspicion of sulphur can be detected For the 
 benefit of other travellers, I may add, that after giving up the 
 newspaper-fuel idea — which is not likely to be successful, as 
 there are probably no newspapers in a camp — I succeeded in 
 frying well in the pan, by cutting up the game, adding French 
 mustard and seasoning, and cooking briskly over the spirit-lamp ; 
 at least the dish used to taste delicious in a tent after a long 
 day's ride. 
 
 Eeykholt was the home of the historian, Snorri Sturluson, in 
 the thirteenth century. His history of Norway is generally 
 allowed to be the best chronicle written in the middle ages ; and 
 indeed for animation and interest it is unsurpassed in the whole 
 range of historical literature. He wrote also the ' Younger Edda,' 
 a book to which we owe all our systematic knowledge of the 
 myths and religion of the old Scandinavians. Close by is the 
 church on the site of one he built consecrated to SS. Mary, Peter, 
 and Barbara. Some Kunic stones in the churchyard are said to 
 be of his date ; the church bells above the lych-gate are old ; but 
 the chief relic of his time is a circular bath which he is known 
 to have built, and the excellent masonry of the thirteenth century 
 is still in complete repair. It is about sixteen feet in diameter, 
 and water-burdock and dock leaves droop over the brimming hot 
 water. If used as a bath, it is necessary to stop up the inlet 
 for a while, to let the water cool ; but there is a conduit, originally 
 intended for cold water, which is now choked up. Why is there 
 but one good bath in Iceland, and that one six hundred years 
 
76 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 old ? Yet it is known to have been otherwise in former times, 
 and the chief bedroom of a house is still called the ladstofa or 
 bath-room. Now it may in some cases pass as a grisly sort of 
 vaponr-bath, owing to damp and crowded humanity. 
 
 Once upon a time, many hundred years ago, there lived a 
 Norse Viking and hero called Ulf Usvo, which means the Un- 
 washed Wolf. He was killed in a sea-fight, but apparently left a 
 numerous race, — so numerous, that to this day it is to be feared 
 his sobriquet would be no great distinction up the country in 
 Iceland. It is no doubt difficult to keep an earth-house clean. 
 Washing would only produce mud, and the deposit of peat-smoke 
 within is warm, and gives a fine bit of colour ; but the other fact, 
 the personal dirt, in presence of plenty of fresh cold water, and 
 often of hot water, laid on by Nature herself, is inexplicable, and 
 really the worst drawback of Iceland. Still there is improvement 
 here as elsewhere; cleanliness is more insisted on in the schools : 
 and the houses of the better sort of people, to whom what I have 
 said does not apply, are often beautifully kept ; but I have been 
 told by several ladies that it is achieved by dint of a hard struggle, 
 with servants brought up in the dirt, and apt to feel chilly and 
 uncomfortable when required to clean and be clean. 
 
 We were now travelling inland towards the icy hills, which 
 loomed larger and larger before us ; passing sometimes over 
 stony wastes, sometimes over old lava pleasantly covered with 
 birch copse six feet high. We forded the wide and rapid Hvita, 
 whose white waters told of the neighbouring glaciers, and came 
 pretty late to a grassy knoll, encircled by a rivulet, where stood 
 the farm of Kalmanstunga. 
 
 It was too late to pitch the tent, so we decided on sleeping in 
 the farm, and made our way into a dingy guest-room, with two 
 beds and a box in it, and a low beam across it, which caught 
 your head with a good rap every time you passed under without 
 remembering to stoop. A good deal of roughing and fatigue are 
 no doubt involved in Icelandic travel, but they are generally 
 easily borne, owing to the pure wholesome air, which soon puts 
 the traveller into first-rate condition. It was most pleasant to 
 
KALMANSTUNGA. 71 
 
 wake in the tent to its morning freshness, and the scent of grass 
 and thyme ; and the churches, too, are at least airy : but in an 
 average farm like Kalmanstunga, the little window of the guest- 
 room will not open, and the air has to pass through low winding 
 passages among ever-increasing odours, before it reaches the bed- 
 room door. We sometimes broke the window and paid for the 
 accident ; but this place was too far inland, and glass too precious 
 for that resource. The guest-room was not, however, as bad as 
 it looked : it was not peopled by small pests ; and the depressing 
 closeness of the night made the icy freshness of the morning air 
 outside the more delicious. 
 
 The interior of Iceland, as is generally known, is a great un- 
 inhabited grassless desert, for the population is mostly confined 
 to the sea-shores and neighbouring valleys. In travelling from 
 coast to coast this desert must be crossed ; it edges the inhabited 
 land, as the sea surrounds it on the other side, and gives it a 
 strange charm — for us who suffer from over -population. We 
 were now on the borders of this region, crossing a great valley 
 or plain of old lava, with a background of snow-capped moun- 
 tains. The lava was like a very rent and crevassed glacier, but 
 all black, the sombre colouring being only relieved by the patches 
 of grey and yellow lichen. Eight in the middle rose the isolated 
 conical hill, Erich's Jokull, with dark crags below, and perpetual 
 snow and ice above. The Bald and Lang Jokulls, chains of 
 ice-crowned hills, stretched away to the west — a great glacier- 
 system ; and a high yellowish table-land, with purple hills beyond, 
 rose to the north. 
 
 The formless, unsubdued, terrible element of Nature was here 
 in its unshaken majesty. All round was a repose which hinted 
 of fearful activities. The icy domes rest on rocks whose configu- 
 ration tells of the fires tossing not far below. The lava is full 
 of cavernous hollows, where a whole river has lost its way and 
 wanders unseen, till it rushes into daylight where a misty foam a 
 few miles off marks a waterfall. Certainly this is a land of the 
 giants still unsubdued by Thor, though he has made some not- 
 able conquests in Iceland. Of such places as this the Skalds 
 
72 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 thought when they sang how Thor left the Asa at their heavenly- 
 feasts, to go out into the waste lands to assail the giants in their 
 fortresses — Thor, who represents the ordered force that makes 
 the rude world fit for man, the patron of the pioneer and peasant. 
 Even on that sunny day the scene conveyed the strongest im- 
 pression of vast, weird, remote desolation ; and while we cantered 
 over the last bits of grass that lay by the lava, we might well 
 recall the Eddaic tale of Geirod the frost-giant, and his fire-palace, 
 — for we were bound for the lava- cavern of Surtshellir — ie.j the 
 cave of Surtr, the fire-demon, who leads the van of the unchained 
 forces of destruction in the twilight of the gods. 
 
 Some critics think the " Lay of Geirod " is a kind of parable 
 about the fires of Iceland : it seems probable that the recently 
 explored volcanic island was in the mind of the Skald who first 
 sang it. "Loki, the beguiler, flew off one day in quest of 
 adventures in Frigga's falcon dress. He flew from curiosity to a 
 huge castle over the seas. There he saw a great hall, alighted, 
 and looked in at the window. Geirod saw him, and ordered 
 them to catch that bird. The messenger climbed with difficulty 
 up the wall, it was so high. Loki liked to see the trouble he 
 was put to, and resolved not to fly up till he had led him all the 
 bad way. As the man caught at him, he spread his wings and 
 spumed away : but he was too late ; his feet were caught, and 
 he was brought to Geirod the giant, who, when he looked in his 
 eyes, suspected he was human, and bade him answer, but Loki 
 was silent." 
 
 Loki could only regain his liberty by promising that he would 
 lure Asa Thor to the fastness without his hammer, when Geirod 
 made sure he could destroy him. Thor was easily beguiled into 
 accepting Geirod's invitation, and started unarmed ; but luckily 
 a friendly and powerful giantess, called Gridr or Grace, in whose 
 house he lodged for the night, lent him her staff and iron gloves. 
 Then it is told how Thor waded the sea, and though opposed by 
 Geirod's daughter Gjalf ^ or Yelp, who flung the waves at him, he 
 pitched a rock at her, and he never missed what he cast at ; and 
 1 OjcU/r means the din or roar of the sea. 
 
SURTSHELLIR. 1^ 
 
 SO by the help of the borrowed staff he won his way to land. 
 Here he grasped a friendly rowan - tree, and got safe ashore. 
 (The rowan is the only tree that attains any size in Iceland, and 
 ever since has been sacred to Thor.) Having won his way into 
 the fire-castle, the Asa was invited to take a seat. No sooner 
 had he done so than it flew up to the roof of the hall, where Thor 
 would have been crushed had he not, with the giantess's staff 
 planted against the roof, pressed downwards so effectually that 
 he was the death of the two raging water- storm daughters of 
 Geirod, who had tried thus to blow him up. If they were the 
 Geysirs, the next foes were the Volcanoes ; for Geirod now 
 challenged him to fight in the hall, which was all lined with fire. 
 Thor caught the red-hot weapons in the iron gloves of the wise 
 woman, and hurled them back on Geirod, who in vain crouched 
 under an iron pillar to defend himself; for Thor crushed the 
 demon of underground fire into black rock — into lava, in fact — and 
 flung the fire-caverns open to the day. And when the demon is 
 crushed small enough, the triumph of Thor is complete ; for 
 there is no better soil than thoroughly disintegrated lava. So 
 runs the old fairy tale, but underneath its extravagances lies the 
 true idea of a never-ending struggle between the lower destruc- 
 tive forces and the higher vital and intelligent powers. 
 
 We left the beautiful grass which edges the lava, the product 
 of its crumbled dust, and rode over the black rock till we reached 
 a yawning cavern leading underground, where we dismounted. 
 The cave had a floor of pure transparent ice, covered with some 
 inches of water. We drew fishing-stockings over our boots and 
 waded in. Fishing-stockings thus worn, are, by the way, an 
 excellent protection for ladies who have to ride through deep 
 fords. We often kept our feet dry and warm by wearing them, 
 though the struggles we went through in our efforts to take them 
 off when well wet and clinging tight over heavy boots, may be 
 imagined. The last sight of daylight, looking back to the mouth 
 of the cavern, reminded me of the blue grotto at Capri ; for the 
 ice below gave a perfect reflection in blue of the over-arching 
 rocks. We lit candles, and slid down a sloping floor of ice, 
 
74 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 under beautiful archways which seemed all set with diamonds, 
 from the frozen water which had percolated through. Tall spires 
 of ice touched it from the floor ; while down in the clear depths 
 below we could see the black shapes of the lava, as Dante saw 
 the traitors, like flies in amber, in the ice of his frozen Inferno. 
 All these caverns, which are said to run two miles underground, 
 must once have been great gas-bubbles in the boiling lava, and 
 the fantastic boulders scattered about in them flung from some 
 furious volcano. Then came the frost-giants and made the place 
 their summer palace. We lit a torch where the cavern was 
 highest, and the ice rises in tall columns all round, and huge 
 fantastic icicles depend from the roof, — the whole place flashed 
 back prismatic colours with a blaze of light which made our two 
 little candles seem very dim when it was out. At the far end 
 of this cave, in a hollow rock, we found seals, and coins, and 
 carved names left by former travellers, some of them dating from 
 early in the century. We added our names, as we were the first 
 ladies who had been in the caverns, — not that there is any special 
 difficulty about going there, but that hardly any ladies do travel 
 in Iceland. We went about a quarter of a mile underground, 
 perhaps further ; but I am diffident about giving distances where 
 there is no map to measure — time, not length, being the measure 
 of distances in this country. We were certainly a good while 
 scrambling through the caves, and decided that the outlaws who 
 once inhabited them must soon have become the most rheumatic 
 of men. 
 
 We returned to Kalmanstunga for coffee, and started thence 
 again at 5 p.m., nothing loath — for though the situation is beau- 
 tiful the house is not, and the inhabitants are rather like the 
 Swiss, without their cleanliness. Our way lay along a hillside, 
 down which Oddur rattled with a complete disregard of any track, 
 which was sometimes his style of riding. On such occasions, 
 when we had picked out our way more slowly down loose stones, 
 over lava, or through bogs, as the case might be, he would ask 
 with sarcastic interest if the ponies were lazy, as if a round trot 
 or hand-gallop were the usual way of descending a rough hill- 
 
GILSBAKKL 75 
 
 side, or crossing a bog up to the knees. We crossed the valley 
 below of mingled grass and lava ; we should have kept to it, but 
 we went up the opposite hill instead, and the ponies dispersed 
 over a shaking morass — as disagreeable a bit of riding as I 
 can remember. There are no worse bogs than on the high table- 
 lands, always to be avoided if possible. On rushed Oddur, 
 sinking, splashing, now finding a passage, now failing and trying 
 another place. I was not near enough to profit by his lead, for 
 my pony was timid in bogs, and kept refusing to advance, smell- 
 ing the ground, and neighing wildly to his companions, who were 
 scattered far and wide. Glad were we when we had succeeded 
 in scrambling over to the priest's house at Gilsbakki, where we 
 were introduced into a clean timber room, and presented in form 
 to a humorous-looking old parson. Presently entered a pretty 
 but very little woman, who gave us coffee and then retired into 
 the corner of the room. I took her for the youngest daughter ; 
 but the old priest, nodding towards her, said, " Kona min " (my 
 wife). She was a very retiring third wife, and we tried in vain 
 to bring her into the lively conversation. The priest was making 
 game of the ecclesiastical intentions of our guide, who indeed 
 has since been ordained. " A first-rate lad for riding ; but for 
 preaching — save us ! " While Oddur explained that his view of 
 parochial work was not so much standing in a pulpit preaching 
 as going about the parish, knowing every one, and being ready 
 to help when wanted. " Running about ! that you will do," 
 said the old parson, who further cordially pressed us to stay the 
 night, but we were anxious to get on. 
 
 Our plans were altered, for we had met a postman who said 
 our steamer was certainly to touch at Bordeyrei on the Hruta- 
 jQord, in the north-west, instead of Akureyrei, and that she was 
 already due there. We had now settled to wait for the next 
 steamer six weeks later ; but it was necessary to send letters 
 home by this one, and needed hard riding to meet it, so we 
 turned out into the chill evening air. 
 
 Our way grew very desolate over stony plains, between shape- 
 less hills, swept by the keen north wind, which blew up our . 
 
76 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 sleeves and sought out weak places in our wraps as if it were 
 an enemy armed with a dagger. A brown desert strewed with 
 stones often succeeds a plain of rich grass in Iceland with as 
 sharp a difference as a ploughed field borders a meadow, and we 
 passed several such alternations this day. Latterly the country 
 improved. Fine-shaped hills appeared in the west. We forded 
 the Nordra salmon - river, and were glad, after ten hours of 
 travel, to halt at the farm and chapel of Nordtunga. They 
 opened the cold little church and lit the altar candles — the first 
 day (26th July) we had needed lights, even at midnight ; and we 
 wrote our letters while Oddur prepared for a further journey of 
 twelve hours. He set out at midnight driving a relay pony 
 before him, while we in the church nestled into our plaids to 
 sleep. Next day the weather was miserable, with a dull un- 
 changing pewter-grey sky above, and a never-ceasing blast, 
 flowing rather than blowing, from the north-east, like the strong 
 current of an icy river. My friend and I asked each other if this 
 was July, and why we came to Iceland. The cold drove her at 
 night to sleep in the house ; but I, having her plaids (which I 
 borrowed) besides my own, remained in the church. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 NORDTUNGA — BORGASYSLU — HOLTVORDSHEIDE- 
 NORTHERN COAST. 
 
 -THE 
 
 HE wind died away in the night, and 
 when I woke a bright sunshine 
 poured through the little square 
 windows on either side of the hum- 
 ble altar, which, however, was duly 
 railed off from the rest of the build- 
 ing. The church was about forty 
 feet long by fifteen wide, built of 
 single overlapping planks like a 
 shed, and it was very cold, as the 
 damp of the piled-up churchyard out- 
 side had rotted the lower boards. 
 But it was ecclesiastical in plan, 
 with pews to the west, and a pulpit 
 in front of the chancel. The hinges 
 and bolts of the door, of well- wrought 
 iron, were the only handsome things in it, and probably they 
 had descended from the richer days when the islanders gathered 
 wealth on the high seas. 
 
 I have often been asked how the day goes when the inn is a 
 church, so I shall give fuller details than usual from my journal 
 of this day's history from dawn till midnight. I spring up 
 dressed — for we do not undress in a church, though we change 
 
78 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 clothes for the night — and with some difficulty open the 
 massive bolt and pass through the dewy churchyard, over the 
 wall, and down a steep bank to the salmon-river that swirls past 
 in a glitter of sunbeams. Here, in a secluded creek, I have a 
 bath ; the pure cold water is most invigorating, and fortified 
 against all cold, I regain the chapel and put on my habit. By 
 this time Miss Menzies appears, and with her the farmer's wife, 
 bearing hot coffee and cream. So far good ; but of farinaceous 
 food there remains only some shortbread, which did not go well 
 with our plover-stew the night before, and some biscuit-crumbs, 
 reduced by shaking on horseback to the finest powder. The 
 sugar in another box is quite a geological study ; it has assumed 
 the forms of river-shingle, and has a uniform brown tint, which 
 we look at with much suspicion, till we remember that it is all 
 that remains of some chocolate-cakes once packed with it. There 
 is no bread at all at the farm, and rice will take long to cook, so 
 we stir up our biscuit-powder with cream, and resolve to go to- 
 day where sea-biscuits are said to be — to the Scotch salmon- 
 fishery on BorgarQord, about eighteen miles to the south. 
 
 Nordtunga stands in a wide strath, through which winds the 
 Nordra salmon-river, which has worn down a channel with low 
 steep banks, in the alluvial soil of the valley. All round is a 
 circle of more or less distant mountains ; for to the north the 
 rocky spurs edge the flat about a couple of miles off, while to 
 the south the serrated blue range beyond the Borgarfjord is 
 more than twenty miles away, clearly as every indentation shows 
 through the transparent air. The strath, where stony tracks lie 
 among grass-lands and great sweeps of emerald-green bog, is 
 good for riding, but nowhere pleasant for walking, all is so rocky 
 or so miry. 
 
 A dozen people or so are tossing hay in the tun: they all 
 sleep at the little farm whose low out-buildings face the main 
 house. It is like a ripple of mole-hills magnified, with its grass 
 roof and sides, and bulging walls, some six feet high, rising to 
 fifteen feet at the three gables. To enter, you must stoop low 
 in the doorway, nor must you walk rashly upright in the dark 
 
NORDTUNGA, 79 
 
 passage within, or you will soon hit your head against a rafter 
 spanning the cave. The floor is of trodden earth, the walls of 
 untrimmed turf, and you grope your way through the darkness 
 into a higher cavern, the eldhus or kitchen, where a stick-fire 
 burns amid stones, and some of the smoke wanders out through 
 a hole in the roof. Clothes, stockings, fish, all that is wet and 
 needs to be dried, indeed, hangs suspended on the smoky rafters ; 
 a big pot boils rice and milk on the fire. There are no chairs, but 
 you may sit on an inverted tub and warm yourself, and admire 
 the rich brown shadows and blue smoky lights, which set off the 
 clear complexions of the children who lounge about, while the 
 mistress prepares the dried fish, which is the substitute for bread: 
 and a very aged party, a poor relation, who in this busy hay-time 
 is her only indoor assistant, and has become, like some insects, 
 just the colour of the smoke and earth she lives in, potters about, 
 almost indistinguishable in the dim light. To the right the 
 passage leads to the family room, where on one of several box- 
 beds some one is always sleeping; for they seem to rest in turns 
 as on board ship. Fish-bones ornament the floor. By a ladder 
 you reach the loft where the londe and his wife live ; by a door 
 the wainscoted guest-room, Miss Menzies's abode, where a good 
 bed, some chests, a table, and four battered chairs, which look as if 
 they had walked here in the rain, make up a very tolerable room, 
 if the window would open, and if the air were not the mere leav- 
 ings of the family den. This is hardly an average farm. And 
 as regards our host, I shall only mention the trait we most liked 
 in him, his careful attention to his delicate but kindly wife. 
 
 It was good practice for us to have to make our own arrange- 
 ments in very broken Icelandic, in the absence of Oddur Gislason. 
 We contrived to make Skuli and the honde understand us, and 
 soon started with the latter and his wife for Borgarfjord. She 
 rode a neat chestnut pony, on a saddle like an arm-chair with 
 rich brass mountings : a gaily coloured cloth was first laid over 
 the saddle, and then wrapped round her knees like a railway 
 rug. No wonder ambling ponies are so esteemed here for women ; 
 trotting with such a saddle would be most uncomfortable. 
 
80 BY FELL AND FJOED. 
 
 The air was so fresh and light that we felt twice ourselves 
 in strength and spirit ; it seemed a joy to breathe — far more 
 to ride across the trackless plain, cantering over -unenclosed 
 reaches of fine turf, splashing again and again through the river, 
 or feeling our way carefully over the bogs, — for they are appal- 
 ling, miles long and miles wide of alternate tussocks of bog 
 vegetation, pools of dark water, and shaking quagmire. Leirljos, 
 my pony too, good in all other difficulties, is nervous about them. 
 First he stops, then smells, then tries one foot, withdraws it and 
 tries the other. At last, with a despairing neigh, he perceives 
 the rest are far ahead, and stimulated by his rider's hunting-whip, 
 plunges on a little further, when the whole begins da capo. I 
 feel afraid we shall vanish altogether, and that I shall be pre- 
 served for a few hundred years as a very bad specimen of the 
 costume of the nineteenth century. However, on good ground 
 Leirljos can make up for lost time. This is Myra — or Mire 
 Syslu, and is worthy of its name. The Mire men and Mire 
 horses have proper local instincts, but for the rest of the world 
 it is pleasanter to have land and water separate, instead of mixed 
 in equal parts. There is a farmhouse every six miles or so, — a 
 large population for Iceland ; — and at every farm our honde liter- 
 ally runs to earth, for they are turf-houses. First comes a good 
 deal of the usual kissing, regardless of age, sex, and appearance 
 — then comes coffee, and then brandy ; the people admire my 
 big knife and our little watches, and read aloud the newspaper 
 we bring ; and then we are off again towards the southern hills, 
 which now rise high before us. 
 
 At last we drew rein at what Scotch ballads would call " a 
 wan water," — the turbid white waves of the Hvita or white 
 river, rolling down in a broad current, heavy with melted snow. 
 Skallagrim and his followers who first settled this part of the 
 country a.d. 878, gave the river that name, '•'' as they had never 
 seen before waters which fell from ice-mountains, and thought 
 the river marvellous," says Egil's Saga. We who knew Swiss 
 rivers yet thought it rather marvellous to ride through this long 
 ford, the only one for many miles, as advantage can be taken of 
 
BORGARFJORD. 
 
 81 
 
 two sandbanks in the middle. So we crossed successively four 
 streams of cold rushing water, about as deep as the ponies could 
 manage without swimming, and so rapid that it was needful to 
 look at the bank or leading horses to avoid giddiness. 
 
 Trotting over meadow-land, and splashing through another 
 brighter river, the Grimsa, we arrived finally at an iron house 
 with two large rooms one over the other, where a Scottish 
 merchant often spends the summer superintending the salmon- 
 fisheries, living, like an otter, just where the salt water begins to 
 touch the fresh. The workmen, including one Scotsman, re- 
 ceived us kindly. The two gentlemen were from home, but it did 
 not matter. Those who have read the legend of little Silverhair 
 and the three bears, can imagine what we did, — we ate their 
 dinner, and sat in their arm-chairs, and read their books ; and 
 as there was no third 
 bear with especially 
 choice and brittle 
 possessions, we did 
 no particular harm. 
 Then we climbed up 
 among the tumbled 
 grey rocks which 
 overhung the clear 
 waters of the river, 
 and gave a fine fram- 
 ing to the noble view of the hills and sea-reach of BorgarQord. 
 Far-off puffs of vapour marked the hot-spring valley of Eeykholt : 
 the view all round was exquisitely clear, and glittered in the 
 western sunshine. The honde and his wife had gone on to see 
 some friends, rather to our relief; two chatty Icelandic girls 
 strolled about the rocks with us, till we returned to the house 
 for tea. Evening was now drawing on, and with eighteen miles 
 or more between us and home, we began to wonder what had 
 become of our guide ; without him we could not have ventured 
 over these bogs and fords, and in him we had little trust, though 
 more in his wife. As we sat at our tea above, we heard, through 
 
82 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 the open boards of the floor, the men below at their tea, dis- 
 cussing him, — the foreboding questions of the Scotsman, and the 
 canny reply of the Icelander. 
 
 However, he came back, and we carried off as a gift a good 
 deal of biscuit and some salmon, feeling rather like Vikings 
 " acquiring property," as their mode of helping themselves with- 
 out paying is delicately put in the sagas. This was after seven 
 o'clock on as sweet an evening as I have ever seen. We rode 
 alongside of Grimsa, whose waters lay like another sky on the 
 dark ground, reflecting the celestial tints. The nearer mountains 
 were deep blue in colour ; there was a bright red gleam on the 
 glacier hills, and on the cone of Baula ; the lower sky of tenderest 
 green was varied by rose and topaz clouds ; and at last, when 
 the sun was gone, a glow of crimson light and a gloom of alter- 
 nate purple shadows spread over all the heavens in ever chang- 
 ing darkening beauty. We rode fast, except where the dark 
 morasses hampered us. The honde got again into every farm, 
 but, with the help of his wife, we tore him from his friends, and 
 cantered away again into the rising wind, which was increasing 
 to a gale from the north. Every wrap went on and was insuf- 
 ficient ; and glad were we to get to our own farm at 11 p.m., 
 where, after a cup of hot coffee together, my friend and I said 
 good-night, and I returned to the lonely chapel. 
 
 Now we had slept contentedly in churches before, but till last 
 night we had been together, and our guides in the gallery, and 
 it had never struck me it was an eerie thing to do till to-day, 
 when the Scotsman had remarked that nothing would induce him 
 to sleep alone in that chapel. And now when the heavy key 
 turned with a resounding clang, it felt lonely indeed. A round- 
 headed white gravestone seemed by the light of the candles 
 within to be peering in from the darkness through the little 
 window, reminding one how all the company of dead folk lay 
 between one and the living. Moreover, as I walked up the aisle, 
 heavy footsteps seemed always to follow me ; it was only the 
 wind, but never till that night did I know what pranks a gale 
 of wind could play in the way of mysterious noises, — howling, 
 
NIGHT IN A CHAPEL. 83 
 
 stamping, shrieking in the rafters, and shaking every creaking 
 plank of the little wooden building. I arranged my cork mat- 
 tress on our boxes so as to get my head into the comparative 
 shelter of the pulpit floor, and slowly shook out the plaids to 
 postpone the bad moment of having to extinguish the candle, 
 which flared in the chilly draught. At last I lay down to try if 
 my couch was firm, and flapped the end of my plaid accidentally 
 into the candle, which went out, and I had quite forgotten where 
 I had put the matches. But with the darkness, and after a short 
 sleep, came a new sensation, — an indescribable sense of utter 
 loneliness, combined with a suspicion of some presence beyond 
 the roaring blast and creaking timbers. Of old the vampires — 
 the wicked corpses with some hideous half-animation — were said 
 here to " walk the roofs : " was not the stamping overhead just 
 such a noise ? The cairn of Glaumr, a vampire of fearful fame, 
 was not so many miles away over the desert waste to the north, 
 — he of whom the proverb goes, if any one looks scared or 
 frightened, " he has seen Glaumr's eyes." Why, also, would Sir 
 Walter Scott's really unpleasant ballads come into my head? 
 What had possessed me to learn them, or at least to know them 
 by heart ? " The Baron of Smaylho'me " was bad enough ; but 
 " Frederick leaves the land of France " was so much worse, that 
 I quite dreaded thinking to the end of it, which, however, I was 
 irresistibly impelled to do : — 
 
 " Weary, wet, and spent with toil, 
 
 Where his head shall Frederick hide ? 
 Where, but in yon ruined aisle " — 
 
 just my chapel. 
 
 " Thundering voices from within 
 
 Mixed with peals of laughter rose. " 
 
 So they did, quite distinctly. 
 
 High their meagre arms they wave, 
 Wild their notes of welcome swell 
 
 Welcome, traitor, to the grave ! 
 Perjured, bid the light farewell ! ' ' 
 
84 .BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 Worse and worse — and no possibility of changing the subject. 
 And there are surely footsteps approaching. I can see nothing 
 for the pulpit. It is coming round though, and soon Its eyes 
 will meet mine. I make a movement, and there is a sudden 
 startling clang. Curiously enough that culminating crash seemed 
 to restore me to myself. I guessed with truth that I had knocked 
 over the brass candlestick — went comfortably to sleep ; and I spent 
 the following night alone in this church, with no sensations of 
 nervousness ; but I took care to have the matches within reach, 
 for in such cases light makes might. 
 
 The next morning we were much surprised to find that our 
 guide had not returned ; however, we had our ponies driven up 
 and loaded, and were just starting when he arrived, bringing 
 with him no bread and no jam, to our great disappointment. 
 The steamer, which had been hourly expected at Bordeyrei for 
 the last week, had never arrived, and he had waited as long as he 
 could in vain. He had made one interesting purchase, a nice 
 little iron-grey mare with a white tail, which I bought from 
 him for my own riding, as she was very smooth-paced and 
 gentle. We returned with him as far as Hvamr, a parsonage 
 situated in a pretty narrow grassy valley about eight miles off, 
 where the clergyman and his young wife received us cordially. 
 We slept in the church, I in my favourite place in the pulpit, 
 but I was woke by the plash of rain on my face ; it was pouring, 
 and the roof leaking so much that I dragged my mattress for- 
 lornly up and down for long in search of a dry spot. It rained 
 hard all day, and everything was wet, including the house, 
 which received you with a deep puddle just inside the outer 
 door. But it was clean further " ben," and the mistress of the 
 house showed us stores of old and handsome jewellery stowed in 
 a curious ancient coffer. She dressed one of the girls in her own 
 Sunday costume of green cloth and velvet, who looked in it like a 
 stately heroine of a saga, and I recognised a resemblance to the 
 costume of recumbent figures on old tombs of Normandy. The 
 helmet-like cap was bound across the brow with a fillet or coronet 
 of wrought silver-gilt ; the green cloth bodice was embroidered 
 
HOLTVOKDSHEIDE. 
 
 85 
 
 richly in gold down the front and round the sleeves ; the skirt 
 was similarly embroidered up to the knees. A belt of beautifully 
 wrought silver-gilt went round the waist, and fell in a pendant 
 below the knees, like a 
 medieval girdle. The 
 costume was finished by 
 a cloak of green velvet, 
 fastened (by large silver- 
 gilt clasps and chains) 
 across the shoulders. A 
 long lace veil softened 
 the glitter of this charm- 
 ingly picturesque cos- 
 tume, which perhaps 
 looked rather incongru- 
 ous in the shabby little 
 room. Probably, in this 
 fashion, the dresses of 
 our ancestors were far 
 more beautified than their 
 ordinary living - rooms. 
 Now we have pretty 
 rooms and plain or too often ugly clothes. 
 
 Next day we started in mist and rain ; but when we got out 
 of the valley, as our guide had prophesied, this ceased, and we 
 found the weather pleasant though cloudy. The path was very 
 picturesque, rising above a tumultuous river, leading over a 
 dizzy ridge called the Cat's Back, and gaining a solitary high 
 table -land — Holtvordsheide, the waste land between the West- 
 ern Dales and the northern shore. During the whole day we 
 passed only one dismal little house : there lived a woman, earth- 
 red in colour, strange in manner, a sort of mountain -gnome. 
 She examined our hands and ears, in search, she said, of gold. 
 In Italy one would have suspected bandit relatives lying in wait 
 further on, but in Iceland it was mere feminine curiosity — the 
 only womanly trait visible in the gnome. She brought us into 
 
86 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 her cavern, and after a while produced good coffee and sugar- 
 candy. Still I can see the dim room, the little window looking 
 down the waste we had ridden over, where whirled the fantastic 
 mists that seemed this day to be always pursuing us as we 
 rode on into clear weather, and the queer old woman with wild 
 eyes, like Noma of the Fitful Head, staring at us fixedly, while 
 Oddur, very mucli of the present and the ordinary world, was 
 making himself agreeable to her after his usual debonnaire 
 fashion. As a rule, Oddur kissed all the hostesses, as in duty 
 bound, but I am not sure if he rose to the situation this time. 
 
 We met nobody all day, and there was hardly any track. We 
 plodded as best we could across the table-land, over bog, or rock, 
 or stones. Snow had fallen there during the late northerly 
 storm, which Oddur had encountered in full fury the night he 
 had left Nordtunga, and he had had some trouble in forcing the 
 loose ponies against it. Most dreary must this way be in bad 
 weather, though this day it was not without its own wild charm, 
 especially when, from the upland ridge, we sighted the long 
 narrow Hrutafjord, which opens into the Arctic Ocean. Thence 
 the ride by a river with many waterfalls was less dreary than 
 above, though the wide red channel, worn or rather torn by 
 the river, would have certainly looked more cheerful had there 
 been a little vegetation on the bare soil. In our latitude this 
 would have been a beautiful den ; here it was a good study for 
 a geologist. 
 
 We stopped at a large tidy farm in the valley, at the head 
 of the Hrutafjord, called Melar ; such a usual halting-place for 
 travellers that it is almost an inn. 
 
 The charges, usually so moderate, were here high enough to 
 make us criticise our accommodation ; for there was no " gift 
 horse" in the question, and the bonde, a rich fellow who saun- 
 tered about with a perpetual pipe in his mouth, watching every 
 one else hard at work in the hay, has not fairly grasped the 
 traveller's side of the innkeeper's trade. 
 
 The 1st of August, Sunday, was a lovely day ; and in the 
 afternoon I rode with Oddur the ten miles to Bordeyrei in an 
 
HRUTAFJORD. 87 
 
 hour, taking our swiftest ponies, which hardly slackened the pace 
 over sea-weed and rocks and shallows in the sea. The ancient 
 port of Bordeyrei, which is printed in large letters on the map, 
 consists merely of a big store, a merchant's house, and a flag- 
 staff. The merchant, who has lost a leg, and who has a special 
 regard for Scottish people from grateful memories of the late 
 Professor Syme, asked me in to luncheon w'ith the ladies of the 
 family. Being then on very short commons, I enjoyed it as 
 we people of the comfortable classes rarely have the chance 
 of enjoying a refection. It seemed strange to see fashionable 
 wall-papers and white -and -gold shutters in this remote corner 
 of the world. 
 
 The ride back to Melar that sunny evening was delightful. 
 The path overhung the narrow sea, so lonely as regards human- 
 ity, but all alive with birds — eider-ducks, sea-gulls, wild duck, 
 and swans. The great northern diver laughed, the lesser diver 
 wailed, and every discharge of the gun woke on all sides a start- 
 ling clamour. Oddur shot a few wild ducks, which were not 
 easy to pick up. Skuli gallantly swam his pony right out into 
 the sea to retrieve one bird; for in this hungry land one can ill 
 afford to lose any addition to the dinner. 
 
 We rode through the head waters of the fjord to where a herd 
 of three hundred ponies was grazing, waiting, like us, for the 
 steamer. They were of all colours and qualities ; and tossing 
 their bushy manes as they chased each other over the grass, or 
 standing reflected in the river in the intense sunshine, they 
 made a charming picture with the background of hills and rock- 
 bound sea. 
 
 Next day was oppressively hot, and we rode to a neighbour- 
 ing river, where it was very pleasant fishing down in the deep 
 clefts of the rocks. When we came back, the post had arrived. 
 The postman had tucked himself up in the bed supposed to be- 
 long to our men ; and the bags and a crowd of people — all the 
 neighbourhood, in fact — were settled, unbidden guests, in the 
 other room, for which we had at least paid. The honde was 
 slowly reading out addresses and papers to his audience, — 
 
88 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 spectacled, composed, not to be htirried. After waiting some 
 time and seeing no cliance of recovering our room, we went off 
 next door, only ten miles, to Bordeyrei to dine, returning at 
 midnight, though not in the dark, to our room at Melar, which 
 had now ceased to be a post-office. 
 
 No steamer appeared, for indeed she had broken her screw- 
 propeller off the Faroe Islands, so on the third day we continued 
 our journey to the north, up the Hrutafjord. We were accom- 
 panied a good way by a calm -minded eagle, for Oddur shot 
 him on the wing as he slowly sailed by, and we saw he was 
 touched by the feathers that fell ; but the gun was loaded with 
 very small shot, and he seemed to despise us too much even 
 to avoid us, continually perching near us, a little out of range, 
 and keeping in sight of us for miles. Two more eagles came 
 close to us this day, and the birds on the heath above seemed 
 remarkably tame. 
 
 Then we turned west over waste lands and quaking morasses, 
 commanding latterly fine views of the Breida^ord. It was a grand 
 though gloomy journey ; for the day was cloudy, and the landscape, 
 vast in scale, seemed utterly desolate. Towards evening the 
 sky lighted up behind the mountain-chain to the west, showing 
 range beyond range of the wild hills which defy the Atlantic 
 waves in the north-west promontory of Iceland. The country 
 seemed to us like the end of the world, and yet it was once the 
 centre of much intellectual life. Out- yonder in Breidafjord, 
 among, many other islands, is Flatey, once the site of a monas- 
 tery, where many learned men lived, and some valuable manu- 
 scripts were preserved. Among the fjords which intersect those 
 piled-up mountains, lie the scenes of the " History of Gisli the 
 Outlaw," a man of noble disposition, whose hard fate made him 
 an avenger of blood and an outlaw for many years : his faithful 
 wife shared all his perils, and fought by his side at the last. 
 One of his fatal quarrels rose out of a game at ball on the ice, 
 evidently a sort of hockey on skates, in which the people then 
 delighted. Much is also told of this district in the authentic 
 
NOKTHERN COAST. 89 
 
 biography of Gudmundur of Dyrafjord, a stirring chieftain of 
 the twelfth century. The saga begins with a lawsuit, which 
 rose out of a ghost-story. 
 
 Teitr and Oddkatla were a young married pair, rich, hand- 
 some, and much attached to each other, when Teitr went away 
 on his first voyage beyond seas. On a day of early spring Odd- 
 katla was giving an entertainment to her father and various 
 relations. The tables were set, the board spread, and with the 
 other women she was entering the hall, where the men were 
 already placed on the benches. Suddenly she stopped, turned 
 pale, and refused to go further. There, she said, among the 
 other chiefs, she saw Teitr her husband, but even as she looked 
 he vanished away, and she knew he was dead beyond seas. She 
 declared herself separated from him, and requested her father to 
 take her, with her dowry, back to her old home again. All 
 were surprised, as the husband and wife were known to be much 
 attached to each other ; but she said, gladly would she return 
 to him if ever he came back. In the summer a ship came from 
 Norway with the tidings that Teitr had died that^pring day of 
 the festival, and the lawsuit followed about his property, of 
 which, however, Oddkatla had already secured her own share. 
 
 As some of the finest scenery in Iceland is to be found up 
 Isafjord, it seems a great omission not to have seen it ; and we 
 longed to ride over the peninsula, but there were good reasons 
 against it. There is no straight track over the inland waste of 
 stones and ice-mountains ; the pathways all follow the lines of 
 the converging fjords, for only along their shores is inhabited 
 land to be found, so it is best to visit them by sea. The bogs 
 also were very difficult on the narrow neck of land where we 
 were ; and last, not least, we had not been able to reprovision 
 ourselves at Bordeyrei, and it is hardly safe to depend too much 
 on birds or fish taken by the way. So we turned regretfully 
 south, looking wistfully at the mountains, w^ith an unappeased 
 craving to explore them. 
 
90 
 
 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
91 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FISHING IN ICELAND LAXDALE AND ITS SAGAS KVENNA- 
 
 BREKKA BLASKOGAEHEIDA — BACK TO THINGVELLIR. 
 
 SHALL not follow my diary 
 closely for the next ten days. 
 The reader, should such a being 
 exist, has probably had enough 
 of it ; for there is great same- 
 ness in the record of a very 
 varied life. Fishing looms large 
 in it, and so does poetry. We 
 wandered about to visit good 
 pools and scenes of the Lax- 
 dale Saga ; towards evening we 
 pitched our little tent, and made 
 a home of the homeless wild. 
 We were contented with little 
 to eat and coffee to drink, and 
 pitied travellers who go from inn to inn. 
 
 Something should be said about fishing in Iceland, even by a 
 lady who only aims at trout. I have to confess to a great liking 
 for fly-fishing, and am ready to defend the sport as suited to the 
 quietest ladies, — those who are the reverse of sportswomen ; 
 though how any lady can look a bird or beast in the face and 
 then kill it, unless merely to put it out of pain, I cannot under- 
 stand. But with fish it is quite different. In their relations to 
 
92 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 XLS they are evidently made to be eaten, more emphatically so 
 than poultry, cattle, sheep, or game, for which we sometimes 
 contract most inconvenient friendships. Fish are outside our 
 circle altogether; and we may have the further satisfaction of 
 thinking, that though they seem to live particularly careless 
 jolly lives, they all end in being eaten, either by us or by each 
 other, unless they meet with great ill-luck, such as chemical 
 waste in rivers, and are poisoned. Now, for every big fish we 
 kill, and it is these we aim at, a number of merry little fishes 
 have longer lives ; so we anglers are really benevolent institu- 
 tions from a purely fishy point of view. Keal fish, too, as dis- 
 tinguished from whales and seals, have no attachment to each 
 other — ^they are only rivals ; witness the fighting for bait in a 
 shoal — witness the withered old carp wrestling with each other in 
 ancient palace waters ; therefore, in catching a fish you make no 
 home desolate, you bereave no fond creature of a friend. Cool, 
 calm, and selfish, the fish goes on his glittering way like a 
 regular man of the world ; he misses nobody out of his water 
 home, and when he ends an easy life by an easy death, nobody 
 misses him. 
 
 Then there is the pleasantness of fishing — evidently generally 
 felt, as is proved by the many delightful books about it ; and yet it 
 is hard to say why it should be so very enjoyable. Perhaps it is 
 because no out-of-door pursuit lets the spirit of nature so imbue 
 and saturate the mind as the gentle craft. Gardening, compared 
 to it, is too active in its continuous work ; sketching is a struggle ; 
 the scene is changed too rapidly in travel ; a book, of course, 
 brings its own thoughts ; and doing nothing brings a kind of rusty 
 retribution ; but while lingering beside still or rushing waters, 
 occupied but not absorbed, the whole power of the scene and the 
 season seems to sink into our very heart. Thus, though the 
 angler may enjoy good sport, we find he or she is generally con- 
 tent to do without it ; the spaces when nothing happens are so 
 pleasant, that a rush of fish becomes sometimes even rather a 
 trouble, and were it continuous, would spoil the delicate flavour 
 of the sport. It is whispered that on some of the upper waters 
 
FISHING IN NORWAY. 93 
 
 of beautiful Highland salmon-rivers, when a fish is killed after 
 many blank days, the bells are rung, and bonfires lit, and the 
 gillies are all treated. And if that is not exactly true, something 
 like it is, proving that the pleasures of the higher and more skil- 
 ful sort of fishing are independent of " good sport." We are of 
 opinion that fishing from the bank is much pleasanter than from 
 a boat, though, of course, a lady, as she does not wade, is more 
 likely to take a large fish from a boat. But there is a touch of 
 monotony in rowing to and fro over much the same sort of water, 
 perhaps getting chilled, and having little to do but look out for 
 a rise ; while wandering by the river-side from pool to shallow, 
 from shallow to run, is most fascinating, even if it infers wet 
 feet, possible falls, and more trouble in securing the fish. But 
 why do I speak of fish, when so often it is rather 
 
 " The water- spirits are singing 
 Their melodies unto me " 
 
 while loitering on a sweet June day by one of those beautiful 
 streams, whose ripple flows through one's summer dreams like 
 delicate music? Yes, believe me, you people who glance with 
 incredulous contempt at the literature of the gentle craft, the 
 sweetest fancies haunt the still or running waters, the fairest 
 imaginations people the solitude. Let it be a solitude — angling 
 is no social sport. You may have a friend within call — probably 
 you will forget whether you have or not ; but a friend beside you 
 is likely to be a disturbance or a rival. 
 
 Nowhere is fishing pleasanter than in the Scotch Highlands ; 
 but it must be owned, though you pay for it in privations and 
 discomforts, as well as in money, that sport is better in Scandina- 
 via. In Norway, for instance, — land of streams, paradise of fisher- 
 men, though almost in scale beyond the powers of fisherwomen, — 
 the rivers are so huge, so turbulent, and roll down to the sea 
 with such a rush of water, bearing with them such enormous 
 fish that they call for heavy rods and tackle, and mighty men 
 to wield them, and deftly-managed boats to cross the heavy 
 currents — that is, as far as they are salmon-rivers, for, owing to 
 the steepness of the mountains, they average shorter than our 
 
94 BY FELL AND FJOED. 
 
 Scottish streams. Soon you come on most of tliem to a thunder- 
 ing waterfall which no salmon can mount. In the upper waters 
 the ladies' sport may fairly begin ; there trout abound and many 
 excellent fish. And trolling for sea-trout in the inland reaches 
 of one of the grand fjords is not to be despised. Magnificent 
 mountains enclose you where eternal snow rests above, and the 
 birch-trees clothe the lower slopes, and seem to have descended 
 in a graceful fantastic dance down the grey cliffs whose base is 
 washed by the salt sea-water and lapped in amber-coloured sea- 
 weed. It is very pleasant to fish there, even from a leaky boat, 
 with your feet on the thwarts, and some one constantly baling — 
 a not uncommon state of affairs in Norway, where familiarity with 
 the deep sea about the doors has certainly induced some contempt 
 of its dangers. The fishing in these fjords is very miscellaneous, 
 — our hopes may range over such wide possibilities of fresh and 
 salt-water fish that they need never flag — indeed, we are pretty 
 sure to catch something. 
 
 There are many good rivers in Iceland, but one seemed to me 
 quite ideal, yet it is a river with a name — a name known in 
 legend and chronicle for many hundred years. It runs through 
 a fair far lonely land, and falls into the sea, no matter wliere. 
 At its mouth the salmon linger in shoals, and the seals swim 
 about with wistful, solemn eyes, as if they were poets rather than 
 the poachers that they are. Some way up the river is a pretty 
 little waterfall, where you can watch the salmon mounting. They 
 leap first to a back-water half-way up to rest, and thence either 
 gain the top by a desperate dart or fall back into the foaming 
 pool below. I have seen ten or fifteen leaping at once at this 
 fall, and often failing to get up. Many fish do surmount it, 
 however, and till a second higher fall a good many miles off 
 there is fine fishing along the solitary shore. No houses, no 
 people, no cultivation to be seen, only the glittering water, 
 gliding or rushing between grey rocky banks, clad with bog- 
 myrtle and low birchwood. Only a great blue mountain above, 
 with a greater snow one peering oA^er its shoulder, till you come 
 to the ravine in the black basalt, where the river rushes in a 
 
FISHING IN ICELAND. 95 
 
 mass of foam from the upper falls, which no salmon can stem. 
 I shall say no more, for as the simple grandeur of the scenery 
 almost spoils one for other landscapes, so does the sport spoil 
 one for other fishing, and the recollection for other memories. 
 For we who know where it is and how to get there, even we 
 can hardly hope to find the river we left — the ideal is seldom 
 twice attained ; the weather will be less fine, some one else may 
 have found the place ; at any rate, we ourselves shall have grown 
 older, perhaps lazier. All the more do we treasure the memory 
 of that river. And as it may be said that, in speaking of fishing 
 for ladies, I have spoken chiefly not of fishing but of its acces- 
 sories, let me add this last touch to the sketch of my ideal river, 
 that we do not loiter there for mere idle sport ; we are probably 
 very hungry, and fishing anxiously for dinner. After all, none 
 know what fishing really can be except those who kill for food, 
 and will get less or worse food if they fail to kill. 
 
 It is curious how seldom the Icelanders fish with the rod. 
 They take the salmon in boxes in the most wholesale unsports- 
 manlike manner. I have seen from forty to fifty fine grilse 
 and salmon taken at one time out of a little box — the accumu- 
 lation of twenty-four hours. In very hot weather we have seen 
 the men lower little hand-nets under the rocks in the salmon- 
 rivers, and then scare with stones and shouts the salmon, which 
 generally thereupon enter the nets by twos and threes, — I could 
 not clearly understand on what principle. It has also struck me 
 that what we consider good fishing weather is comparatively rare 
 in Iceland ; if cloudy, the weather is apt to be too cold — if fine, 
 too bright, for good fly-fishing. But sometimes there is splendid 
 sport — lively sea-trout, and large salmon-trout, rising freely and 
 rushing about in the swift currents in the most exciting way. The 
 absence of all trees gives one a great advantage in securing fish. 
 
 The fishing here goes with the land, and leave should be 
 obtained from the farmer or parson who owns it. Some rivers, 
 as Ellida, near Keykjavik, are closely preserved ; and it would be 
 better for the fishing in the long-run if more were. There are 
 great complaints of the falling off of the takes in the upper 
 
96 BY FELL AXD FJORD. 
 
 waters. No wonder, considering the number of salmon netted at 
 the mouths of the rivers. But there are trout-streams every- 
 where, and, far from all habitation, there seems no reason against 
 fishing them freely. The Grimsa, the Nordra, the Western 
 Laxa, and the tributaries of the Hvita, are all good for trout as 
 well as salmon. The salmon, as far as my experience goes, 
 average smaller than our Scottish fish ; whereas the trout and 
 char, both in the rivers and the lochs, are very large and heavy. 
 They are extraordinarily bright in colour — rose-pink and deep 
 yellow. The sea-trout are simply first-rate. There are very few 
 places where tolerable lodgings can be found near rivers, so that 
 the sportsman should be prepared to rough it in a tent, and say 
 farewell to luxuries, even more emphatically than in Norway. 
 
 We were now in the district called The Dales, among soft 
 pastoral valleys and rounded grassy hills. We descended on the 
 Hvamm^ord, a branch of the Breidafjord, which runs far inland 
 between high mountain promontories that melt in the distance 
 to the west. How peaceful and remote all must have seemed to 
 the early settlers ! how far away from the harassing wars of am- 
 bitious kings and their rivals ! In winter the inhabitants would 
 have all these fertile valleys, from the seas to the waste lands, 
 to themselves ; the ships would be drawn ashore and turfed up 
 till the path of the sea opened again in summer, connecting them 
 with the south and its wealth. One can understand the attrac- 
 tion of Iceland in those days when the trouble of life was, not 
 that there were many wars, but that there was never thorough 
 peace, except in such solitary places as these remote valleys. 
 
 This district round Hvammfjord was first settled by a woman, 
 Aud the Deeply Wealthy, whose stately figure has been handed 
 down to us in a lifelike word-picture. She was the daughter, 
 the wife, and the mother of sea-kings, and used to sailing in 
 ships. She came from Norway with her husband Olaf the White, 
 who warred in the west viking ^ took Dublin and much of Ireland, 
 till at last he was killed there. Aud lived for a while with their 
 son Thorstein the Bed, who ruled Katanesi (Caithness), Suther- 
 land, Boss, and Merrhafi (Moray), till he too fell in battle in 
 
LAXDALE SAGA. 97 
 
 Katanesi. She then built a cutter, and sailed to the Orkneys 
 with many followers and a large party of grandchildren. One 
 granddaughter she married in Orkney, and one in Shetland, 
 coming finally to Iceland and choosing land for herself. She is 
 said to have landed on the promontory yonder in Hvammfjord, 
 where she dropped her comb, and hence it is called Kambness. 
 She took all the land hereabouts, assigning estates to her fol- 
 lowers and grandchildren. She married them all off as they 
 grew up. At the wedding of Olaf, her youngest and favourite 
 grandson, she made a great feast for all the country, to last for 
 several days. She had now grown large and heavy and '' weary 
 with age ;" but she came into the hall, stately as ever, to receive 
 her guests. She bade them not wait for her to begin the 
 carousal another day, nor shorten the feast which might perhaps 
 serve both for the wedding and for the drinking of her funeral 
 ale. Next day the old chieftainess was found, richly clad, sitting 
 upright in her bed, as she had died all alone. She had said she 
 would not lie in unconsecrated ground, and therefore had ordered 
 that she should be buried within the flood-mark, that the sea 
 might come and go over her grave. Did some idea of consecra- 
 tion belong to the sea, or was it only that the old sea-king's wife 
 loved to think that the stir of the waves should still visit her last 
 resting-place ? 
 
 Hoskuld, her grandson, bought a lovely slave in Norway, a 
 Viking's captive. He paid little for her, because she was said 
 to be dumb. But some years afterwards he overheard her talking 
 by the brook to her little son Olaf, telling him what her sad pride 
 had revealed to no one else, that she was the King of Ireland's 
 daughter, a royal lady who never condescended to speak to her 
 captors. Then matters mended for her, and when her handsome 
 son Olaf — surnamed P^, or the Peacock — grew up, he went to 
 visit her old parents in Ireland. It is told how he took his 
 mother's old nurse on his knee and showed her the knife and 
 jewelled belt she had put on her fosterling long ago. He offered 
 to take her to Iceland, but she was too old to venture on the 
 long voyage. Olaf s son was Kjartan, the handsomest and plea- 
 
98 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 santest man in all the North — the hero of Morris's charming 
 poem " The Lovers of Gudrun," which is a versified expansion of 
 an episode of the Laxdale Saga, full of love and passion. 
 
 These histories, so long past yet so living still, haunted me as 
 we rode down to the shores of the Hvammfjord, just " where Lax 
 river joins the Western Sea," and went along the bay. The even- 
 ing was splendid, and most impressive was that lonely sea rolling 
 in heavy breakers on the lonely shore. A dark-purple mountain 
 rose on one side, and it was shrouded above in a cloud blazing 
 with those celestial colours that one can only remember dimly 
 and never describe. Little islands showed in dusky purple where 
 the fjord opened into the wider Breidafjord, and the far mountain- 
 peaks of the north-west peninsula rose beyond. To the south- 
 west, the fine mountain-range ending in the consecrated Helgaflall 
 closed the prospect. Many swans were sporting on the sea, and 
 gulls wheeled and dipped all round ; otherwise with all this ex- 
 tent and beauty we saw no signs of life. The bright waves broke 
 with strange effect upon black instead of yellow sands, consist- 
 ing (as is often the case here) of comminuted lavas. Sometimes 
 the scenery reminds one of our Highlands, of Shetland, or of 
 Norway ; and then, again, comes the difierence, that sort of weird 
 element of diahlerie, which it owes to the volcanic forces. 
 
 The fair Gudrun, the heroine of the Laxdale Saga, lived at 
 Laugerstadr, not far from this sea ; and her lover Kjartan's 
 Hjardarholt is a farm about eight miles distant and three inland 
 on a bleak hillside, but commanding a fine view of the flord and 
 hills beyond. We were - hospitably received by the priest who 
 lives there, and who was very busy making hay in the pretty 
 grassy valley below the church. Opposite, across the river, is 
 Hoskuldstadr, where I stood by the burn that runs below the tun, 
 where Hoskuld first heard his supposed dumb slave speak, eight 
 centuries ago — but the centuries make few changes here. Fortu- 
 nately they have laid the vampires, or walker s-again^ as ghosts 
 are called here. A very bad one lived hereabouts, Hrapp. He 
 was most unpleasant in life, and when he died his family were 
 weak enough to fulfil his desire that he should be buried " head 
 
BAD COMPANY. 99 
 
 upwards at the kitchen-door, that he might still be able to take 
 a look round." And a pretty life he led them, frightening the 
 maids, chasing the men, and making the byres and outhouses 
 a terror with his hauntings, till the body was dug up and burnt. 
 A horrible but homely ghost, and not without a dash of humour 
 in his pranks. 
 
 All the people were making hay in the fine August weather. 
 The tun hay w^as mostly garnered and thatched wdth turf, and the 
 out-hay was being brought in : towards evening long files of 
 laden ponies were to be seen converging towards every farm. 
 However it may be at other seasons, there seemed at this time a 
 want of hands rather than of labour or pay ; good wages (about 
 2s. 2d. a-day for a man, less in proportion for a woman) were 
 within reach of all : and at some farms we only found a very old 
 woman at home, past all work, but watching the big pot, in 
 which rice and milk boiled for the haymakers. The day we left 
 Hjardarholt on our way back to Keykjavik, we reached towards 
 evening the last valley farm close under the hills we had to cross. 
 The weather was splendid, and all the folk were up on the hillsides 
 haymaking, except the usual old woman, and a rather tipsy man, 
 who gave us a maudlin welcome. We had to dine here on our 
 own provisions and their coffee ; but afterwards when we were 
 about to start, the man appeared mounted, and what we call 
 "roarin' fu'," swaying about on his pony all over the place, 
 charging the baggage-ponies, and insisting with a kind of friendly 
 fury on escorting us over the pass. We told our guide nothing 
 would induce us to consort with such company ; but the man was 
 proof against Gislason's mild representations : he swore he would 
 go. So our guide detained him talking by the wayside while we 
 rode past, and with Skuli driving the ponies in front, we ambled 
 easily up a beautiful glen. Cascades fell straight down the 
 square black basalt cliffs. The way grew steep — the cloudless 
 sky widened as we rose out of the valley ; and by a slightly traced 
 zigzag we reached the table-land at the summit of the pass of 
 Kvenna-brekka — a waste of stone, over which the track was marked 
 by little stone-cairns, called from their appearance kerltng, or old 
 
100 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 wives. The view was magnificent, owing to the extraordinary 
 splendour of the sunset. One side of every block of stone seemed 
 golden, the other blue. All round us were mountain-tops, pointed, 
 jagged, or square ; some turned a deep pink, others purple, in the 
 evening sky, which changed from ruddy gold to deep crimson, 
 and cooled into ambers and yellow-green as evening stole on. 
 At one point the light glittered on a glimpse of sea. All was 
 utterly barren, for the vegetation was hidden in the valleys, which 
 were mere clefts of purple shadow from above ; and all that 
 stirred were the ravens croaking over some horse-bones, and an 
 eagle, which sailed about as if it were lord of the land. We had 
 to dismount to scramble down into the valley below, which seemed 
 dark and dim after the blaze of light on the hill-top. We puzzled 
 our way among a confusion of horse-tracks over a river, and 
 wondered where our guide was. It was past ten o'clock, and 
 Skuli, who had never been there before, was not so sure that we 
 had not got into the wrong valley. Of course we had met no 
 one to ask the way, but I did imagine that through the dim light 
 I could make out horses ; and away I cantered through the river, 
 and reached horses indeed, but no riders — mares and foals, which 
 were living here alone. They made the solitude of the desolate 
 valley more emphatic. On one side rose the conical mountain 
 Baula in strange white tints. It consists chiefly of a peculiar 
 whitish basalt, and is a geological curiosity. 
 
 Till lately no one had ascended Baula, which was formerly 
 considered one of the gates of fairyland : and it is still whispered 
 that those who go up the right way, and in the right frame of 
 mind, may meet the elf-folk. Anything seemed possible, as we 
 picked our way after dark over the rocks, guided chiefly by the 
 glitter of the little river. And indeed it is not surprising that the 
 old superstitions should still linger in these solitudes where man 
 is so insignificant and nature so powerful. 
 
 It was quite dark when the clatter of horses' feet announced 
 our guide's return — our tipsy friend, he said, had insisted on rid- 
 ing up the pass with him, and asked also a ransom for the coffee 
 we had had from him. As accusations of drunkenness are some- 
 
KVENNA-BREKKA. 
 
 101 
 
 times brought against the Icelanders, I may say here, this was 
 the only time we came in contact with anything unpleasant of 
 the sort ; but the standard of public opinion on this matter is not 
 high in any part of Scandinavia. 
 
 We pitched the tent near the first farm beyond the pass, 
 rousing, the good-natured inhabitants, who made coffee for us, 
 though morning was hinting its approach in the sky. Next day 
 was Sunday. We had had twelve hours of travel the day before. 
 
 Baula from Hvassburg, 
 
 and Hvassburg, our camping-ground, was very pretty, so we 
 lingered till 5 p.m. The farm, though small, turned out several 
 well-dressed and well-mounted men and girls, who rode off to the 
 distant parish church. We pursued our way in the evening 
 across some low rocky picturesque hills, past pretty lakes, down 
 to the salmon-river, our old friend the Nordra ; fording it, we 
 went to another Hjurdarholt, the residence of the magistrate for 
 
102 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 the west. Here we were received with warm hospitality, taken 
 to a pretty drawing-room by pretty ladies, and joined the party 
 at supper — to us a feast. I am afraid we looked like vagrants 
 indeed, in spite of all efforts to tidy ourselves up ; and I know 
 that a closed bedroom with a curtained down bed, was far too 
 luxurious for me to sleep in well, for I had not been in a real bed 
 for a fortnight or more. And how little it matters ! how much 
 pity is wasted on tramps which might be bestowed on sleepless 
 people in feather-beds ! 
 
 The next day we forded Hvita at the long ford where we had 
 previously crossed it from Nordtunga. The current was very 
 heavy, and the water as deep as we could well manage without 
 getting it over the saddle. All day we rode among bogs, and at 
 one place, with a plunging struggle and a snort, my pony subsided 
 altogether. I sprang off on the shaking morass, and still remem- 
 ber the despairing expression of the hill-pony's face as his chin 
 rested on the soil. The lowland ponies mind much less being 
 stuck in a bog ; and I have seen them coolly eating all round 
 while waiting for help. If you have to leave a bogged pony to 
 get help, it is well to leave a cloak or something beside him as 
 a pledge of your return, and then the sagacious beast expects 
 you to come back, and will not struggle. Luckily some peasants 
 were passing, and soon hauled out my cream-colour none the 
 worse, except in colour. 
 
 We refreshed ourselves at the farm of Varmaleik, and then 
 pressed on through the grassy valley watered by the Grimsa, 
 and camped by the farm of Elngland — i.e., meadow-land. There 
 is good fishing in Grimsa. We made a long day's journey from 
 here to Thingvellir, from 1 p.m. to nearly midnight, — a beautiful 
 mountain-ride, first by the upper waters of the Grimsa which 
 leapt in many cascades down the rocky valley that divided two 
 hills. Further on the view opened to the glacier hills — Lang 
 JokuU, Bald Jokull, and Ok ; glittering white mountains with airy 
 pink and blue and ice-green shadows, the colours below them deep- 
 ening from the pale gold of the distant wastes, to the stronger 
 browns and greens of the foreground, where the ponies grazed 
 
blIskogaeheida. 103 
 
 among the crowberry and jumper bushes. Most remarkable was 
 the delicate alluring colouring of ground which we knew might 
 be called a hideous waste ; but Nature will not be baffled in her 
 contrivances for beauty, — she can make the wilderness as lovely 
 as the rose, and only with our help succeeds in attaining ugliness 
 — as, for instance, in a stretch of good flat arable land highly 
 farmed and cropped in " roots." We had some scrambling riding 
 across country, latterly by preference down the bed of a little 
 river, till we emerged on a trodden horse-track, which, by com- 
 parison with what went before it, quite deserved its name of the 
 People's highway to the North. Before attaining the lava-valley 
 of Thingvellir, there is a lake called Sandkletteir-vatn which had 
 then receded quite into one corner of its basin, though sometimes 
 its waters fill the whole of the sandy bed, over which we rode as 
 fast as the most tired of our ponies could go, for night was coming 
 on. The lava-crags on each side close in at the head of this 
 lake, leaving a narrow cleft between. It seems as if you could 
 in passing almost touch the cliffs on each side ; and all is black, 
 unrelieved by any other tint, grim and sombre to a degree. For 
 a while a pleasant riding-path among low birch-trees runs along- 
 side of the lava that fills the valley into which the defile opens ; 
 but soon it becomes necessary to turn on to the lava, which, 
 after nightfall as now, is very difficult riding, as it is full of 
 cracks and fissures, often masked by willow and birch and 
 luxuriant blaeberry -bushes. Happily horses see much better 
 than human beings, or we should never have reached Thingvellir 
 church, as we did just before midnight, without the least accident, 
 — our surefooted little animals, that seemed sometimes to smell 
 out their way, not having made even a serious stumble. 
 
 It rained in the night, and in the morning I went to wash in 
 a deep shady pool of Oxera. The sponge fell in and settled on 
 a point of lava-rock far below. Being a swimmer, and having 
 a bathing costume, I rather rashly jumped down into the water, 
 which was far beyond my depth, to rescue it — but never had I 
 imagined any water not ice could be so cold. I scrambled out as 
 quickly as possible ; and as I was warmed by the bath for the 
 
104 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 rest of that cold day, I recommend it to other travellers — perhaps 
 it was the rain that made it so very exciting. We rode back to 
 Keykjavik on the twenty-second day of this expedition. We had 
 only calculated on about ten days of travel, as we had meant to 
 sail from a northern port. And our appearance was now very 
 suggestive of wear and tear ; we were battered by rain, and burnt 
 by sun. Moreover, straps and ropes had almost ceased to exist — 
 we could only just manage to cord our baggage on to the ponies. 
 Gislason had contributed to this his last saddle-girth, and kept 
 his saddle on by the stirrups, firing, too, occasionally from his 
 pony's back, which always then swerved violently; strange to say, 
 he never quite slipped off. My bridle had become so short that 
 I could hardly get hold of its knotted remains. Of food, we 
 had had cofiee, black bread, and curds for breakfast that day ; 
 and for dinner there was a little bit of cheese, and some very old 
 black bread which, judging by the flavour, had been kept in a 
 tobacco-jar, — and yet we were well and flourishing, and I never 
 felt stronger in my life. Each long day's ride only gave the 
 pleasurable fatigue that brought sound sleep at night, however 
 hard the couch; and the good air and good appetite made any- 
 thing palatable that we could get to eat. At least we had always 
 had good coffee. Never in the East, whence, like so many other 
 good things, coffee first came, nor in France, where all things 
 gastronomic reach their full peifection, — never have I tasted better 
 coffee than in many a primitive, lonely, Iceland &«, far from all 
 the luxuries of high civilisation. The art of making coffee is 
 thoroughly understood in Iceland, and no doubt the excellent 
 cream counts for much in the final result. 
 
 The ponies, knowing the journey was nearly done, ran gaily 
 and willingly till we reached the Artun, a cottage about four 
 miles from Keykjavik, where we had calculated on our evening 
 coffee. But there were sounds of music and dancing, and a large 
 tent was erected in front of the little house — some people of Eeyk- 
 javik were entertaining the ofiScers of the Danish war-ship, and 
 we felt far too travel-worn to join the party ; but with a shyness 
 for which we were afterwards much reproached by the hospitable 
 
REYKJAVIK. 
 
 105 
 
 entertainers, we retired to another farm, where we reposed our- 
 selves on the grass, enjoying coffee and biscuits, which tasted 
 delicious on that austere day, and watched the revellers riding 
 home along the road not far off. A picnic and a dance is rather 
 a favourite summer amusement at Keykjavik, and seems to create 
 great hilarity, ending with a gallop home in the evening, and 
 sometimes, as now, the entertaining spectacle of sailors on horse- 
 back. We were glad in the evening to find ourselves comfortably 
 at home in the house of our guide and his wife. Below is a 
 sketch of Eysja mountain and the roadstead, from one of the 
 windows of our pleasant apartments. 
 
106 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 RECENT MISFORTUNES IN ICELAND TRADE NEW CONSTITUTION 
 
 PASTORAL WEALTH CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Eeykjavik, where we spent at different intervals as much as a 
 month, was unusually lively that year, owing to the sitting of 
 the first Allthing or Parliament of Iceland, since the recent grant 
 of a constitution. Till the other day the Danes, though their 
 own government is constitutional, were despotic in Iceland, not 
 from right of conquest, or any other right — for when they acquired 
 the island by treaty they were pledged to uphold its old laws 
 — but simply because they were stronger. Indeed the history 
 of the connection between Iceland and Denmark was, till quite 
 lately, a mere history of wrongs. When, with Norway, the island 
 passed by treaty under their power, there was a thriving popula- 
 tion, much wealth in cattle, and a trade in woollen cloth, fish, 
 and oil, which brought a good return in specie. It should be 
 remembered that besides the Danes there were at least two other 
 causes of decadence — the destructive volcanoes, and the decrease 
 in value of Icelandic exports. This was owing to the discovery 
 of the Newfoundland fisheries, and to rival cloth-manufactories 
 elsewhere. But if early travellers are to be believed, the Danes 
 are responsible for a series of acts of tyranny and oppression 
 that would indeed, if they had been perpetrated in some less 
 out-of-the-way district, have roused the indignation of Europe. 
 
 About the end of the fifteenth century the Danes first checked 
 the brisk trade between Iceland and England, forbidding its 
 
BAD TIMES. 107 
 
 ports to all English vessels, and allowing a most oppressive trade 
 monopoly to the Hanseatic Towns. A country dependent on 
 trade for all its corn, for the very necessaries of life, especially 
 requires free trade ; but in the seventeenth century the Danes 
 imposed on Iceland a commercial bondage almost incredible in 
 its injustice. The Government sold to certain Danish merchants, 
 at a high price, the absolute monopoly of the Icelandic trade ; 
 no Icelander was allowed to trade with any but a Dane, not even 
 with a countryman. He could not legally sell a fish at sea to 
 another ship. The Danes imposed their own prices on exports 
 and imports ; what these were we may judge from an instance. 
 The shippund (a certain weight of fish) was in 1782 worth from 
 thirty to forty dollars in the outer markets, but in Iceland it had 
 to be sold to the Danes at seven dollars. No wonder that the 
 population diminished, that lands were deserted, enterprise lan- 
 guished, and the deep-sea fishing fell entirely into the hands of 
 foreigners, where it remains, to a great extent, to this day. Tlie 
 wonder seems, not that the country retrograded, but that it ex- 
 isted, — that the love of it was strong enough to enable the people 
 to fight the battle at all against such a severe climate and such 
 disastrous laws. The year after this monopoly was first im- 
 posed, it is on record that three hundred people died of famine. 
 But when, more than a century later, the misfortunes of the 
 great volcanic eruptions of 1783 were added to the other burdens, 
 and nine thousand people perished from want, at last the Danes 
 consented to relax their code so far as to make trade legal with 
 all Danish subjects, an enactment which had an immediate good 
 effect. 
 
 " Previously the natives," says Henderson,^ '' were in a state of 
 absolute slavery to foreign merchants. They were prohibited, 
 under pain of whipping and slavery, from repairing to any other 
 mercantile station than that in the district to which they be- 
 longed, and if they chanced to come there after the ship had 
 completed her cargo, they were compelled to sell their goods for 
 a mere trifle. Chiefly to these circumstances we ascribe the com- 
 ^ Henderson's Two Years in Iceland : 1812. 
 
108 BY FELL AND FJOKD. 
 
 parative want of spirit and poverty which characterise the present 
 race of Icelanders nnder the iron yoke of oppression. All spirit 
 of enterprise is damped." 
 
 /When, in the wars of Napoleon, our ships swept the Danes 
 from the seas, the Icelanders were in real danger of starvation. 
 Both warlike and peaceful efforts to relieve them were made by 
 the English, not, by all accounts, encouraged by the Danes. 
 
 The few Englishmen who visited Iceland early in this century 
 speak in strong terms of the misery and squalor they found 
 there. Mr William Hooker, F.L.S., who was there in 1809, 
 when the island was suffering from the famine caused by the 
 war, and things were at their very worst, tells us that the starv- 
 ing inhabitants were prohibited from buying provisions from 
 English ships then lying in the harbour, under pain of death. 
 Of all the valuable cargo offered for purchase by the supercargo 
 of an English ship, then at Reykjavik, only salt and grain were 
 to be had elsewhere, and these, being entirely monopolised by 
 the Government, were only to be purchased at considerably more 
 than twice the price asked by the British traders, yet no one 
 dared to buy at the cheaper market. Such things as these 
 brought about a little bloodless revolution. He says that although 
 assistance was given by an English privateer, it was virtually 
 accomplished by twelve men ; not a drop of blood was shed, 
 not a gun fired, nor a sabre unsheathed, but the inhabitants 
 seemed satisfied with the change. A certain Jorgensen (a Dane) 
 was proclaimed protector, and the chief object of this mild revo- 
 lution was to upset the Danish Government and have free trade 
 with England. Unfortunately Jorgensen' s position was con- 
 sidered contrary to the law • of nations by the commander of a 
 British war-ship — he was brought back a prisoner to England, 
 and the Danish governor was restored. However, public atten- 
 tion was turned to the starving Icelanders, and Sir Joseph 
 Banks succeeded in getting leave from the British Ministry to 
 open a trade between Iceland and England, and also an order to 
 permit ships of other countries to trade there freely. For a time 
 these measures gave great relief. 
 
TRADE RESTRICTIONS. 109 
 
 Hooker speaks in 1809 of people wandering from farm to farm 
 to beg for a little food. Our experience is that we have never 
 once seen a beggar, nor have we met with any one who asked for 
 charity in any form. He says that people in good position, and 
 priests, were so reduced by famine in bad winters, that they 
 not unfrequently died of sheer starvation. The population was 
 rapidly diminishing. Barderstrand Syslu in the year 1749 con- 
 tained 3000 inhabitants, and nine years later 2175. Heavy as 
 were the taxes, there were no hospitals : " the sick and lame are 
 seen crawling about in almost every part of the island, present- 
 ing most pitiable objects of distress and misery." " In former 
 days wrestling and various feats of strength used to occupy 
 their attention. Chess was much practised ; cards, music, and 
 dancing diversified their leisure hours ; but all these are now 
 scarcely heard of." Hooker has mentioned the usual amusements 
 of the Icelanders at the present day, which shows that the 
 country has revived like a flower from the old root. He, how- 
 ever, sees no good future for Iceland except in a union wath 
 Great Britain. The English merchants from this time till 1815 did 
 carry on some sort of trade, underselling the Danes. But after 
 the peace this beneficial trade was once more stamped out by the 
 Danes, who required from foreign merchants a prohibitive licence. 
 The Icelanders had now, however, acquired wider views, and 
 they extorted from the Government some relaxations of the trad- 
 ing code ; and in 1830 the Allthing was re-established, though at 
 first only as a powerless council. Irreparable mischief had in- 
 deed been done. The Daues always bartered their goods ; and 
 by paying no specie into the country, they made trade with 
 other countries very difficult at first, and entangled the people in 
 meshes of debt. The cloth-manufacture had been almost de- 
 stroyed long before by the monopolists, who found they got a 
 better price by exporting the fine "wool, bought much under its 
 value, and importing manufactured, cheap, and inferior cloth. 
 The English travellers speak of misappropriation of the confis- 
 cated church property, and also assert that a large collection, 
 which was made in Denmark and other countries for the relief of 
 
110 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 the starving population, after the volcanic eruptions of 1783, 
 was detained in Copenhagen, and only doled out by dribblets to 
 the people for whom it was intended. But such statements must 
 be received with caution, as we were then at war with Denmark. 
 
 Happily these bad times are past. The trade restrictions have 
 been gradually removed, and since 1854 trade has been free. In 
 1874 the present King of Denmark, who is very popular, restored 
 in great measure the legislative power of the Allthing, and Ice- 
 land enjoys home rule. The population, in spite of a good deal 
 of emigration, is steadily on the increase : the revenue is good, 
 and the country thrives. 
 
 Now that it forms so large a part of the territory of the 
 reduced Danish monarchy, it is to be hoped that the Danish 
 Government will in all ways foster and develop the island instead 
 of actually preying upon its resources. Perhaps it is only fair 
 to the Danes that we should remember that they were hardly 
 worse than some of their neighbours in their misgovernment of 
 their provinces. The Icelanders would perhaps have fared as 
 badly had they, as some of them wished, been subject in early 
 days to Great Britain — witness the history of Orkney and Shet- 
 land. At least the Icelanders were only plundered, they were 
 not harassed and enslaved like our northern islanders. There 
 was never there an Earl Robert Stewart to make a capital offence 
 of a journey in the country without his passport ; never an Earl 
 Patrick to torture innocent people into confessions of impossible 
 crimes, that he might murder them with forms of law, and seize 
 their goods. 
 
 The contrast between the story of the free national life of 
 Orkney and Shetland, as told in the Norse " Orkneyinga Saga," ^ 
 and the misery and slavery of the inhabitants in the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries, is as striking as in the corresponding 
 history of the decline of Iceland. 
 
 For the last forty years the Icelanders have demanded the 
 privileges of self-government from the Danes ; and this is now 
 in a great measure granted. The Allthing, which now legislates 
 1 Written before a.d. 1230. 
 
MODEKN CONSTITUTION. HI 
 
 for the country, is divided into two chambers, — an upper one of 
 six nominees of the king, and six deputies from the lower cham- 
 ber, which latter consists of thirty members, elected by the 
 people. The king, however, appoints a Governor, a Secretary 
 of State for Iceland at Copenhagen, and most of the officials ; 
 and it does not appear on the surface what means the Allthing 
 has for giving effect to its decisions. As long as the Executive 
 works with it, of course all may go smoothly ; and the restora- 
 tion of a public assembly of the people is in itself a great benefit. 
 
 No country can be expected, however, to recover at once from 
 centuries of dependence on an alien government, and old habits 
 of restricted trade. There is steady progress, no doubt ; and in 
 each of my visits I have observed many signs of advance, many 
 improvements ; but there is still a good- deal of sluggish adher- 
 ence to old ways, and a great deal to be done. The real wealth 
 of the country is in live-stock. The grass in the inhabited parts 
 is beautiful, and in many places would support far more sheep 
 and cattle than it does in summer ; but the winter keep, depend- 
 ing now entirely on hay, is the difficulty. Bound each farm is 
 a well-manured tuuj or infield, yielding a heavy crop of hay ; 
 beyond are the unmanured fields, where inferior wild hay, called 
 out-hay, is gathered : and there is generally, besides, a great range 
 of summer hill-pasture. In this farming, the hay crop, always so 
 dependent on weather, is too important : there should be two 
 strings to every bow, and that second string might surely be 
 found in the turnip. It grows well in patches about Eeykjavik, 
 and would only need ploughs, which are very rare, and sustained 
 labour, which is also not common, to succeed in many places. 
 The summer, though warm, is too short ; and the frost is too long 
 in the ground for any sort of corn, even fast-ripening rye, to be 
 a safe crop ; but a store of turnips to help the live-stock through 
 the winter would be invaluable. Lately, many thousands of the 
 small Icelandic sheep, which make first-rate mutton, have been 
 brought to Leith in the autumn — an excellent trade, which will 
 cause the sheep-farming to become much more profitable. 
 
 There is a good deal of annual emigration to the New Iceland, 
 
112 BY FELL AXD FJORD. 
 
 in America, from the more remote districts of the country ; but the 
 Icelander, unless quite young, is not well calculated to succeed 
 as a woodsman and corn -grower. Some have much regretted 
 that they ever left the old island, which has its advantages over 
 the remote shores of Lake Winnipeg. It is always well that the 
 door of emigration should be open to restless spirits, especially 
 in a country without corn ; but there is a want of hands rather 
 than of labour in Iceland in summer. We came upon none of 
 those signs of over - population too common here in our own 
 country. Wages are good, at least in summer, and steady work 
 would probably be as well rewarded there as in the locust-haunted 
 plains of the far west of America. Only within the last few years 
 has Iceland had a chance of retrieving itself from the distress 
 produced by the burdens on trade. Farms which were known 
 before these burdens were imposed to keep forty cows, now keep 
 six or seven ; but they might keep forty again, it is said, if 
 people worked hard in summer to provide their winter food. 
 The fisheries, also, are not half worked. There is a great deal^ 
 of inshore fishing, and a good trade in salt fish with France 
 and Spain, bringing, among other things, good cheap wine to 
 Eeykjavik ; but the very profitable deep-sea fishing is virtually 
 in the hands of the French. This is ohiefly for want of large 
 fishing-vessels, and in these the Icelanders dare not invest till 
 some safe means of insurance ^ are provided. There is no bank 
 on the island; and the hondes are said to be rather attached to 
 the unprofitable form of stocking-heel and teapot investments. 
 A better style of house - building in the country is the most 
 needed improvement, but of course the scarcity of fuel and 
 timber makes that difficult to attain ; though the coasting 
 steamer, which has begun to ply regularly, and can bring mate- 
 rials more within reach of the farmers, will be a great con- 
 venience. 
 
 Improvements — all we who write of Iceland seem ready with 
 
 ^ An insurance company now exists, and the number of Icelandic decked 
 fishing-boats is largely increased, and they pay very well. There is also a 
 thriving herring-fishery lately established. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE. 113 
 
 our suggestions of improvements, but are we sure, after all, on 
 which side the balance really weighs? It would be a dull 
 world indeed if we were all improved to the same point. On 
 landing again in Scotland, it certainly struck us that the people 
 looked clean — and unhappy. As refreshing as the uncontami- 
 nated air, is the absence of that money-winning, money-loving 
 care which weighs upon our people. An Icelander may be a 
 sharp hand at a bargain, but he is soon content with his posi- 
 tion ; if he have enough to put him beyond the fear of want, he 
 neither covets, nor esteems, nor requires wealth. The bondSj 
 however poor in money, is generally well of in the essentials of 
 life ; his farm gives him good meat and dairy produce, good 
 clothing and wool for trade. He is owner of wide lands, and 
 has the independent dignity of the lord of the soil. He has his 
 fishing and shooting, and his long pleasant rides, not over dull 
 highways, but across the free country " beloved of horses." His 
 servants, if independent in their ways, are educated companions ; 
 their indolence may hamper him, but on their honesty and kind- 
 liness he may rely. Crime, stealing, and violence are almost 
 unknown ; gay and easy tempers are the rule. 
 
 We saw no abject poverty, no one even insufficiently clad ; 
 those who are not well off themselves, seem at least to have 
 well-to-do and helpful cousins, for the people are within reach of 
 each other and know each other. The country can never be rich 
 or support a large population ; all the more refreshing is it to be 
 able here to realise the advantages of the earlier simpler forms of 
 life, — the real pastoral age, when wealth meant sheep and cattle, 
 and people felt to each' other as friendly neighbours, not as com- 
 peting rivals. So let us hope that Iceland may improve by 
 developing, not by changing, and that our feverish civilisation 
 may never destroy the charm of this rough and simple land. 
 
lU 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 HOUSEKEEPING — DINNERS — OUR PARTY— SOCIETY— MANNERS- 
 LANGUAGE. 
 
 We were invited to various entertainments during our stay at 
 Eeykjavik, and something may now be said of them, and of what 
 I gathered about social matters, not only then, but in my two 
 other visits. 
 
 The day always begins with fragrant coffee ; and it could not 
 do better. We British are accused of being morose and ill- 
 humoured, but compared to the Latin races and the Icelanders, 
 we have not a fair start in the morning. They would never think 
 of beginning the day's troubles unfortified by the most reviving, 
 inspiriting, and sustaining of all drinks. Early tea, with a heavy 
 breakfast following soon afterwards, may be a nerve-destroying 
 luxury, but coffee before a late breakfast is a wholesome w^orking 
 stimulant. Biscuits come with the coffee, or sometimes delight- 
 ful little rolled-up pancakes. Second breakfast at about 11 was a 
 serious meal ; frequently we had, when travelling, nothing more, 
 except a stray cup of milk or coffee, till about 9 or 10 p.m., when 
 sTcjer and fish, or perhaps meat, formed our supper. At Reykjavik 
 we dined at about five, and had a good meat tea in the evening. 
 The Scandinavians certainly do not eat so much as the English, 
 or, more emphatically, the Germans, and, as a race, they are 
 more slim and spare. The women are sometimes stout, perhaps 
 because they stay so much more indoors. The ladies do the 
 housekeeping — at least all are expected to understand it. There 
 
DINNERS. 115 
 
 is sometimes in a good family a working housekeeper, often a 
 relation, who lives with the family as an equal ; and young girls 
 frequently make a stay at friends' houses to be trained in house- 
 wifely duties. The servants in the town are generally young 
 lasses, well-mannered, and treated almost as equals, but usually 
 quite untrained to service, and apt to go home or marry as soon 
 as they become valuable. They are generally trimly dressed in 
 the costume, and look very nice. At Reykjavik the ladies dined 
 with us, but almost everywhere up the country they served the 
 dinner, and only the women who were guests sat down with the 
 men. This old Scandinavian custom goes much against the 
 grain of courteous Englishmen, who sometimes quite fidget the 
 society by springing up to prevent some fair Enid from fetching 
 and carrying the dishes for them. But I am bound to say the 
 ladies do not wait respectfully — they join in the conversation, and 
 give their orders, and are considered the givers of the feast. As 
 soon as it is ended, every one rises and shakes hands with the 
 mistress of the house, saying, '' Thanks for the meal," to which 
 she answers, " May it do you good ; " and then there is often 
 hand-shaking all round, like the last figure in the lancers. At a 
 formal dinner the gentleman who takes a lady in to dinner also 
 takes her out again, even when he returns later to the wine, 
 which did not occur often when I was present. Then we used 
 to have talk, and sometimes good music, just as at home. 
 
 The soup is often sweet soup, made with sago, claret, and 
 cinnamon. I acquired a taste for it, and much more easily a taste 
 for the national dish slcyr^ a sort of sour curd, like the lahoun 
 of the East, but very superior in that it is eaten with plenty of 
 rich cream. When well made it is very good and also nourish- 
 ing, and is a staple dish at every dairy farm. 
 
 Fish and mutton, both excellent, are the standing dishes. 
 Many little condiments, or appetite-whetters, are about on the 
 table to amuse the intervals, such as thin slices of raw salmon, 
 sausage, caviare, odd pickles, cheese, and even whale ; and there 
 are plates of bread in slices, alternately black and white. A 
 quantity of butter is consumed, even by children, as it is good 
 
IIG BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 heat-producing food. A dinner generally concludes with a large 
 crisp cake, new out of the oven, which is made by one of the 
 ladies and placed with some ceremony on the table with the 
 dessert wine. 
 
 Dinner-parties are too like each other all the world over for 
 these to call for any special remark, unless that the people 
 we met were many of them very agreeable. The hospitable 
 bishop and his pleasant family were especially kind to us, and 
 also the sub-governor and his graceful wife. All the English 
 praise the genial old Doctor Hjaltalin, who loves our nation, — 
 a handsome old gentleman, whose youthful freshness and bril- 
 liancy of complexion has survived more than seventy years of 
 work and wear. He and others entertained us well, but our 
 own small attempt at a return entertainment to our friends 
 was much more out of the common. It was meant to be a 
 kind of garden-party in the meadow rented by our guide, 
 which commanded a beautiful view. We had pitched the tent 
 over the cakes and tea-kettles, when, at the very last moment, 
 down came the rain. We had all to run a long way too, between 
 the tent and the house, to save the good things ; and finally, we 
 carried them, cakes and coffee, biscuits and champagne, tea and 
 shortbread, up into my bedroom, as the only resource. This was 
 luckily a good room with four windows ; and its only bedroom 
 feature, the little camp-bed, was hastily smothered in a plaid and 
 made to do duty as a sofa. But the access was quaint, being 
 up spiral steps, which only one person could mount at a time. 
 That person, unannounced of course (for there are no door-bells 
 in Keykjavik) emerged like a spectre up a trap-door in a melo- 
 drama. It is difficult to receive society which comes straight 
 up like that ; you are not always sure till the shoulders appear 
 who it is, and if you bow too soon the rising guest cannot re- 
 spond gracefully. However, we had, thanks to our visitors, a most 
 cheerful afternoon. These included some pleasant French naval 
 officers from the frigate in the bay — Normans and Bretons of the 
 fine type of the French gentlemen of the past rather than the 
 present. 
 
OUR PARTY. 117 
 
 We did not expect any countryman of our own, but much 
 eclat was given to our party by the unexpected arrival of one — 
 Mr Watts the explorer, the greatest lion then in Iceland. And 
 if anything could have added to the interest with which he was 
 regarded, it was that rumour had once said he was lost ; and 
 again, that though he was alive, he was detained in the north, 
 utterly shattered and unable to move. This had appeared in 
 print, so with all the more distinction he rose upon us, a little 
 lame from a frost-bite, but otherwise sound and strong — a regular 
 athlete. Mr Watts had crossed the Vatna Jokull, and had thus 
 drawn a line over a district of absolutely unexplored glacier 230 
 square miles in extent. Two years he had been baffled, but this 
 third time he had succeeded, though he had suffered great things 
 in the remarkable storm which we had encountered at sea, and 
 which detained the part}^ for several days in a hole under a 
 snow-drift. His success had delighted every one, the more 
 as only Icelanders had accompanied him ; and he certainly had 
 the power, valuable for an explorer, of inspiring his guides, or 
 rather followers, with a personal enthusiasm which would have 
 made them dare anything for him. Those who wish to know 
 about these explorations will find his book, ' Across the Vatna 
 Jokull,' good reading. 
 
 Mr Watts was also one of the very few who had explored the 
 district where some new volcanoes had appeared. There had 
 been an alarming eruption in the spring of this year, chiefly of 
 ashes, pumice-stone, and hot water. The ashes had destroyed the 
 grass of six farms in the east ; but just when a terrible calamity 
 was expected, the disturbance moved westward into the deserts of 
 Odada Hrann or " terrible lava," which was already nothing but 
 volcanic debris^ and could not be much worse. A succession of 
 new craters erupted one beyond another in this district : we 
 had seen the vapour from the far distance when we were in 
 the centre of the country. Mr Watts had camped near these 
 new volcanoes, which were then glowing, steaming, and smoking, 
 throwing up showers of boiling water and ashes, accompanied 
 by strange sounds and horrid smells. It may be imagined how 
 
118 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 anxious every one was to hear his views as to whether the dis- 
 turbance was increasing or subsiding ; for though the volcanic 
 fires to a certain point are beneficial to the soil and climate, 
 it is a matter of great anxiety when the natural furnaces begin 
 to glow, — for who can tell what destruction they may not work 
 before their terrible energies are spent ? 
 
 After many lively evenings, with no lack of laughter, and 
 persiflage^ and interesting conversation, we were surprised to 
 read in some books of travel that the Icelanders, whose society 
 we had found so pleasant, were a gloomy, melancholy race, who 
 could not understand a joke. Captain Burton, for instance, whose 
 book came out shortly after our return home, informed us that 
 " chafi" is unknown in Iceland, and gives terrible offence." How- 
 ever, on the next leaf, he names a certain well-known Icelandic 
 gentleman, oddly enough in connection with the following re- 
 mark : " He first showed me the popular habit of making un- 
 pleasant and antipathetic, if not rude, remarks ; this mordant 
 tone is still a mania in Iceland." This looks as if the natives 
 had ventured to chaff the author; and it is the more likely, 
 as there is no doubt that the Icelander alluded to could hold his 
 own in any conflict of wits all the world over. However that 
 may be, such broad assertions, based on small premisses, are too 
 common in books about Iceland, perhaps because so few foreigners 
 understand the language, — and without at least some knowledge 
 of that, it is impossible to judge of the social character of the 
 people. This would seem too obvious to be worth mentioning, 
 but for the remarks sometimes published by hasty tourists, who 
 scamper through the country for a few weeks or days, and talk of 
 the people as if they knew all about them without understanding 
 a word they say. The Icelanders, as a race, have the complexity 
 of an old civilisation, and differ widely from each other, as we do. 
 Some are brilliant, others are dull ; some unite with a sad brow 
 no small share of what we are wont to call Scottish humour. 
 As far as my experience goes, I have found them at least prompt 
 to enjoy a joke, though not always an English one, especially 
 when they do not understand the language, and a good deal 
 
THE LANGUAGE. 119 
 
 inclined to good-humoured raillery. Indeed they are sometimes 
 irreverent enough to amuse each other at the expense of that 
 august being, the Great British Tourist himself. 
 
 Danish, English, and French are much understood at Reyk- 
 javik ; but all, even the first, are of little use up the country. 
 Often the people there, who at first seemed indifferent and re- 
 served, when they heard our Icelandic, which was no doubt 
 enough to make them laugh, at once became kindly and inter- 
 ested. They would compliment our lame efforts, and teach us 
 more ; and we used to have plenty of lively talk. 
 
 Having now spent six months in the country, and made some 
 progress in talking and reading Icelandic, I must still own to 
 finding it a very difficult language. The nouns are of three 
 genders, without rule or reason apparent to foreigners, and have 
 many declensions ; the dative and accusative are carefully distin- 
 guished; everything is declined, even some of the numerals, 
 and all proper names, as in Latin; and the root-vowels often 
 change with the cases. The definite article, or whatever the 
 new grammars call it, is suffixed to the noun, and modifies its 
 declension. The pronouns are the worst of all: sd, 'Hhat," 
 odrunij " other," and many more, have twenty forms or modifi- 
 cations, according to case, number, and gender; and so have 
 many adjectives ; and to add to the difficulty, everybody but the 
 puzzled foreigner speaks good grammar. There is no low Ice- 
 landic, though there is a slight difference of pronunciation in 
 different districts. The general tone of voice is soft and refined. 
 The language, at a distance, sounds like well-spoken but rather 
 slurred English; while many old words still used in Scotland, 
 which have dropped out of modern English, strike familiarly 
 on the Scottish ear. People who are intimate say thee and thou, 
 as in Shetland. Acquaintances who wish to become intimate, 
 "drink thou" to each other, and are then considered sworn 
 friends. Icelandic is very rich in all but modern scientific terms, 
 which, however, can easily be supplied by the formation of 
 compound words. In the old language words are found that 
 require a paraphrase to translate them; and it has great force 
 
120 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 and musical expression when properly declaimed in a speech, 
 though it must be owned that too often in common conversation it 
 is slurred and murmured in the back of the throat in a manner 
 that is disagreeable to foreigners. 
 
 Education is universal in Iceland. It is part of the busi- 
 ness of the clergy to see that every one is taught at least to read 
 and write. And parents are bound either to teach their children 
 themselves, or to send them to school in the winter, should there 
 be one near enough. Eegular schools are becoming much more 
 numerous, and in them Danish is always taught besides Ice- 
 landic. Judging by the results, good manners are also taught ; 
 though, perhaps, it may be partly owing to race that the people 
 are so free from boorishness. Even the children are not rude, 
 but respond prettily when spoken to ; and are always ready with 
 thanks and a little hand, if not a proffered kiss, in return for 
 a sugar-plum. Bad manners, when they do exist, take the 
 passive form of a heavy, stony stare, which, especially if united 
 to great nonchalance about ascertaining your wishes, is some- 
 times rather provoking. We once met at a farm a very com- 
 posed boy, who seemed indeed to be the master of the house. 
 His father was dead, and his mother subservient. He questioned 
 and patronised us, and then gazed at us with such a long, steady 
 stare, that we all — four English people — agreed to try to look 
 him out of countenance, but we quite failed. Then our guide 
 asked him how old he was. "Twelve," he answered. "And 
 how old are you ? " The guide being no longer quite young, the 
 boy had the best of it. 
 
 To conclude, Iceland and Norway are the two countries where, 
 as far as my experience goes, the stranger feels most at home, 
 and most thoroughly protected. Everywhere there is com- 
 plete safety — nothing to fear in the way of rudeness or dis- 
 honesty from the inhabitants. Doors are left unlocked at night ; 
 valuables may be left about without fear of loss, — indeed it is 
 difficult to get rid of anything ; and old rubbish, as well as articles 
 of value, that may be left behind in a journey, pursue you relent- 
 lessly all over the country. The people are honest in their deal- 
 
HOSPITALITY. 121 
 
 ings also, though, of course, as elsewhere, bargains should be 
 arranged and well understood on both sides. The charges in 
 Iceland are generally very moderate. The traditional habit of the 
 people is to entertain strangers freely for a night ; but, except where 
 the means are evidently ample, I do not think it fair of tourists to 
 avail themselves of a custom which is a good one only when 
 there is a prospect of the hospitality being returned. We met 
 with much real hospitality, and with kindness that could not be 
 paid for, even when we gave money. Often in good houses they 
 took nothing ; but generally we gave a fair equivalent for food 
 and trouble. Twice or thrice there was an attempted overcharge. 
 Travellers would do well to ascertain the fair prices, so as not 
 to be either mean or lavish when no definite charge is made ; 
 and yet something is expected by people too poor to give away 
 the provisions which, through long transport, become pretty 
 expensive. 
 
 I have said that the people are well-mannered ; but there is, 
 both in Iceland and Norway, a strong feeling of equality — the 
 employer is not considered privileged to treat the employed as 
 an inferior. But a courteous traveller in Scandinavia need not be 
 on the defensive ; he will probably meet with true friendliness 
 and warm hospitality, and can confidently rely on the honesty 
 and kindly disposition of the people. 
 
122 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 KRISUVIK — SULPHUR-MINES. 
 
 The range of purple hills at Krisuvik rises about twenty miles to 
 the south of Reykjavik, in pleasant contrast to the dark flats 
 which intervene. We longed to see the hills nearer; and so, 
 with no small satisfaction, one fine morning we started with nine 
 ponies on a three days' excursion to their recesses. First, by an 
 excellent bridle -road, we reached Hafharjjord, a village seven 
 miles distant, prettily situated on a sea inlet, which is so much 
 safer for shipping than the more open roadstead of Reykjavik 
 that it has been suggested to transplant the capital to its shores. 
 There are many wooden houses and stores dotted along the edge 
 of the sea ; but the lava -rock, over which some of the road is 
 carried on causeways, crops out everywhere, and gives little 
 room for building. There are some small houses built into this 
 lava, which is very dry, but so hard to work that the inhabitants 
 must just accept its natural fantastic shape if they make use 
 of it. 
 
 Beyond this little fjord, with its bustle, shipping, and neat 
 houses, we came out on the great lava-stream which spreads over 
 most of the south-west promontory of Reykjanes, and our ponies 
 had to pick their way up and down rocks, and over perpetually 
 recurring rifts and crevices. I had formerly stood on the edge of 
 the red lava-streams on the side of Vesuvius during an eruption, and 
 thus I could easily imagine the scene when all this enormous extent 
 of lava was liquid fire and glowing red. The rocks often lay in 
 
OLD LAVA. 123 
 
 round swirling ripples, and circular bubbles, and twisted spires 
 — to all appearance suddenly petrified while boiling high. In 
 places they are forced into strange contortions, where some 
 fresher fire-fall has crushed the half-cooled masses ; sometimes 
 a series of cracks, made in cooling, will stretch, widening across, 
 till they enlarge into gaping caverns, where delicate ferns and 
 yellow cistus nestle, while above nothing grows but the melan- 
 choly grey lichen, planting a seal of long ago on the lava which, 
 with all these signs of violent motion, is now so changeless and 
 stilL 
 
 We found ourselves about mid-day reclining on a green slope, 
 an oasis in the desert. Grass and crowberries grew around, 
 and we gazed as we sat there at the magnificent prospect before 
 us. Looking back to the north-west, the great tract of lava, 
 variegated here and there with pale yellowish-green moss, was 
 in the foreground ; then came the sea, which was quite calm and 
 a deep blue, and beyond it the long mountain-range which skirts 
 the Faxafjord, with the Snsefell Jokull towering above all in its 
 snow-capped splendour. All this, with the contorted black rocks 
 across which we had ridden, presented a contrast of vivid colours 
 never to be forgotten. These large masses of lava appear often 
 in grotesque and distorted forms, which suggest to the imagina- 
 tion demons or wizards ; they seem to triumph over the waste 
 places of the earth, devoured by fire, and their fertility stamped 
 out for ever. 
 
 All those wild shapes were black — and the Krisuvik hills, so 
 softly purple in the distance, now we neared them, resolved them- 
 selves into gigantic cinders, still smoking in places. They looked 
 as if they were the ashy remains of fires lit by the giants of the 
 Edda. We crossed them where a cone had evidently fallen in 
 and formed a caldron-shaped valley or crater called the " Kettle." 
 On the other side steaming yellow streamlets with red mud banks 
 ran down black gullies, shapeless blocks of lava strewed the 
 valley, jets of steam and trailing folds of mist confused the dreary 
 scene. There was a forlorn horror about this burnt-out place, 
 which looked like a lunar landscape in a telescope ; and the 
 
124 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 Danish proverb, " God made tlie world, but the devil made Ice- 
 laud," which had seemed such a libel among the soft valleys in the 
 west or the fine hills in the north, we felt at last was in a degree 
 accounted for. A rain-storm added to the mess ; but we splashed 
 through a dismal marsh, which, being green, seemed comparatively 
 cheerful, to the little farm of Krisuvik, beneath a startling hill 
 which rears right up in a cone in front of it. Here we took 
 refuge in a tiny chapel where service is held once in six weeks. 
 M'Kenzie says it is eighteen feet by eight, and he is probably 
 right. Viewed ecclesiastically, it seems calculated for one hermit 
 only ; but it reminded us rather of an old - clothes shop from 
 the garments hanging from the beams. We shut the shutters, 
 lit the candles, unpacked the bread and ham, while hot coffee 
 and sTcyr came from the farm, and we thought ourselves most 
 comfortable, reading aloud from a saga till bedtime, when my 
 friend spread her cork bed on a bag of beans, and I poised mine 
 on the top of the family chest, while the wind and the rain 
 battered outside, and before long lulled us to sleep. 
 
 News of a fine day came with the lassie who brought the 
 morning coffee, and we were soon afoot looking at the then un- 
 worked mines, and very curious they were. A valley and hill- 
 side of hot white clay were traversed by a little yellowish stream- 
 let, above were black rocks, and red mud banks sloped down 
 to the white mud below. Bright- coloured varieties of stones and 
 clay were strewn about, formed no doubt by the play of sulphur 
 and ferric compounds ; and the whole place was dotted with puifs 
 of vapour, in which some of the sulphur was escaping into the 
 air, in combination, to judge by the smell, with hydrogen — but 
 a good deal was deposited in powder or crystals round each little 
 crater, and more no doubt might be condensed. In the wide 
 valley below lay a little lake of as intense a blue-green as any 
 in Switzerland ; great boulders strewed in verdureless shores, 
 and cinder-like hills trended away northward, glowing red and 
 purple in the brilliant atmosphere. Following carefully in our 
 guide's footsteps over the white clay and the red mud, we 
 climbed to the top of the little hill. The ground was every- 
 
SULPHUR-MINES. 125 
 
 where hot and treacherous ; sometimes we sank in deeper than 
 was pleasant, in spite of little planks with which we bridged the 
 worst places ; and we hardly knew whether it was singeing or 
 scalding that was to be dreaded — our boots suffered from both. 
 We gathered some specimens of the mineral called here krisuvik, 
 copper carbonates, and pretty crystals of sulphur ; and we also 
 cooked a nice hot little dinner just below the surface, — it was 
 slightly flavoured with sulphur, but we hoped only the more 
 wholesome for that. 
 
 These mines were not worked at that time, though the sulphur 
 is plentiful^ and of excellent quality. The difficulty of transport 
 on horseback over the bad lava was a serious drawback. Circum- 
 stances had, however, altered ; the neighbouring lake of Kleyfir- 
 vatn has been obliging enough of late years to sink so much in 
 its bed as to leave a good route round by its shore — a far easier 
 way to Hafnarfjord than over the lava, which was formerly the 
 only one. The mines have been profitably worked of late by Mr 
 Paterson, a Scotsman, who puts his own shoulder to the wheel ; 
 and so much sulphur has been found that a company has just 
 been formed called the " Icelandic Sulphur and Copper Company," 
 which is likely to prove very remunerative as soon as the first 
 expense of laying down a tramway about twelve miles to Hafnar- 
 fjord has been surmounted. 
 
 Next day we returned to Reykjavik, by the shores of the clear 
 green lake of Kleyfirvatn ; and it was a very pretty ride on that 
 lovely day, though nothing could be gloomier than the scarred 
 barren mountains all round where no grass grew. Beyond 
 the lake we stopped on the grassy slopes, lit an aromatic fire 
 of bog-myrtle and juniper, and dined there, reclining luxurious- 
 ly in the enjoyment of a beautiful view, a good appetite, and 
 food that seemed excellent under the circumstances. Thence 
 we cantered gaily over sound grass between low lava -cliffs, 
 accompanied by some unbroken colts that frolicked alongside, 
 
 1 Professor Geikie, who inspected the mines last year (1881), estimates 
 the total quantity of ore in sight as 250,000 tons — roughly equal, according 
 to the average quality of the ore, to 120,000 tons of commercially pure 
 sulphur. 
 
126 BY FELL AND FJOED. 
 
 till we reached the flat country and stopped by the edge of the 
 Kallira or Cold water — a mysterious river which, after a brawling 
 course, disappears suddenly into a cleft in the lava-ci-ust, and 
 finds some unknown way to the distant sea. The people of a 
 neighbouring little farm brought out fragrant coffee and cream, 
 and set the tray before us on the grass, and we loitered there 
 till the twilight warned us to go on to Hafnarijord. There it 
 became quite dark, but as the road was excellent it did not 
 matter. Fireworks disputed the empire of the sky with the 
 Northern Lights — the former the farewell salute of the departing 
 French frigate, the latter the first greeting of winter, for August 
 was nearly gone. As we rode by an inland creek, the rockets 
 and the merry dancers looked beautiful reflected in the water, 
 and cheered all the dark way to Reykjavik. 
 
127 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 VATNSLEYSI — KIRKJUVOGR AND REYKJANES — AURORA HOME AGAIN 
 
 HINTS TO TRAVELLERS. 
 
 September had come, and the days were shortening fast ; but at 
 night the stars were wonderfully lustrous and glittering, and the 
 Northern Lights were beginning to hold high festival in the 
 autumnal skies. One night the display was magnificent — a great 
 cuitain of light seemed suspended from the zenith, waving towards 
 the earth. It was not stretched straight, but seemed gathered 
 in deep folds, changing, but not rapidly, as if it were indeed a 
 texture woven in delicate colours shot with silver, and swaying 
 with the wind. The night sky looked the blacker from the con- 
 trast with these exquisite veils of many-coloured light. Then 
 suddenly all the drapery was gone — it had flashed into a thou- 
 sand spires and sheaves of light that darted upwards and down- 
 wards all over the heavens. What matter if the night be long 
 that is spent in the excitement of such glorious caprices ! 
 
 The night had indeed come, " and the longer night was near." 
 It was time to consider how to return home. The uncomfortable 
 little post-steamer was known to be so crowded with Danes flying 
 from the winter solitude that we, with Mr Watts, had almost 
 settled to sail for home in a small Scottish schooner, commanded 
 by a master well known as a dashing seaman. Fortunately the 
 Queen steamer arrived, with three or four tourists, to fetch away 
 a last cargo of ponies, and we all resolved to return with her. 
 Meanwhile, not to lose time at Keykjavik, we started with Mr 
 
128 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 Watts, and one of the newly arrived gentlemen, to explore the 
 promontory of Reykjanes to the south-west. It has been the 
 scene of recent, as well as ancient, volcanic agitation, there 
 having been a great disturbance here in the year 1831, at which 
 time a new island appeared, and one of the Garefowl skerries 
 tumbled into the sea. 
 
 As usual, when the time came for starting, some of the ponies 
 had run away. Ponies from the country dislike the barren 
 environs of Reykjavik, and are very apt to scamper off a hundred 
 miles more or less back to their native farms. So we were 
 delayed ; and when we w^ere about seven miles beyond Hafnar- 
 fjord down the coast, the gathering twilight warned us to stop 
 at a place called Vatnsleysi, where two good farms stood by the 
 sea. We were a large party, for Mr Watts's head guide. Pal 
 Palson, a merry young fellow, was with us, besides Oddur Gisla- 
 son and another man. The people at the farms seemed delighted 
 to have us, and could not make enough of us, especially " Vatna 
 JokuU," as Mr Watts was called, from the scene of his exploits. 
 Miss Menzies and I were considered very adventurous also, for 
 ladies. And here, as elsewhere, I often received a little gift as 
 a keepsake from some Sigurd or Gudrun I had never seen before, 
 and probably will never see again — kindly little memorials of 
 warm-hearted people — a horn-spoon, a carved wooden bowl, a 
 curious stone, a silver button, or an ornamented box. I have 
 gone over a good part of the European playgrounds without ever 
 getting a present from any one, except a bouquet from some 
 wealthy landlord after the bill was paid. Soon perhaps progress 
 will bring about the same results in Iceland. Yet I wrong 
 Italy. Once, near Amalfi, two of us were so tired of being 
 begged of, that we agreed to beg ourselves from the very first 
 passers-by. Three ragged girls came by, and we tapped our 
 mouths with the usual remark. How were we overwhelmed 
 with confusion when the girls gave us oranges and a blessing, 
 and passed on ! 
 
 From Vatnsleysi we followed next day the line of coast over 
 dull unpicturesque lava, disintegra];ed into a stony flat, and 
 
KIRKJUVOGR. 129 
 
 bearing the same relation in interest to the lavas at Krisuvik 
 that a moraine does to a glacier. 
 
 The track was like a furrow of yellow mud drawn over piles of 
 loose stones, wearisome in the extreme ; for while it was not bad 
 enough for the smallest excitement, it was generally too bad for 
 fast riding. This ought to have been most dreary; but even 
 this dull district was transfigured by so pure an atmosphere 
 that the smallest details of the distant mountain- range were quite 
 interesting from their clearness, and so bright a sunshine that 
 the browns and greys of the rocky waste showed in vivid colour- 
 ing against the deep blue sea. The grass, the usual wealth of 
 Iceland, only grew here in scanty patches, for the country is ill 
 off for water 5 yet we passed several farms by the sea, more tidy 
 and thriving than any I had hitherto seen in the south. The 
 wealth of this district is the fishing ; and numbers of people come 
 every spring from the inland parts of the country to earn a share 
 in the cod-fishing, which is generally exceedingly productive. 
 Six-oared open boats with sails are chiefly used. They seem but 
 small craft to go out on the wild Atlantic waves that thunder down 
 all the coast ; but they often do sail out till they sink the land. 
 
 The shark-fishing, which requires some adroitness and daring, 
 is especially popular; and the sharks, when taken, yield better 
 cod-liver oil than the cod : an interesting fact for invalids, who 
 are often, when they least know it, feasting on the fierce shark 
 instead of the mild cod. We had a refreshing little scamper 
 over the sands and shallows to Holmbud, a pretty farm, where 
 we stopped for our afternoon coffee. It was situated on a creek, 
 where two or three small decked vessels were beached, their 
 brown sides heeled over in the bright sea-weed. A high rocky 
 headland sheltered the inlet from the breakers of the open sea 
 to the south. Towards evening we got on grass, and went racing 
 over the turf with much satisfaction till we stopped at the hospi- 
 table doors of Kirkjuvogr. 
 
 Here, as is often the case in Norway, Ave found several farms 
 clustered together for company : three large timber farmhouses, 
 each with its own out-buildings, and a good-sized, well-kept, black- 
 
 I 
 
130 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 and-wliite church. Everything looked neat and thriving. The 
 turf-walls were trimmed to the utmost straightness, the houses 
 were clean, the wind, even after it had blown over the farms, 
 was deliciously fresh, and laden, doubtless, with ozone ; for close 
 by the Atlantic waves were riding grandly in from the west, 
 and dissolving on the low red rocks in clouds of foam which 
 sprinkled the houses and dimmed the windows looking seaward, 
 while the air was filled with the concussion of the sea. Two 
 sweet little piebald lambs, white with brown tippets, sat on either 
 side of the front door 5 geese strayed over the grass, mingled 
 with flights of long-winged sea-gulls ; people bustled to and fro, 
 and the owners of the farms received us with a hearty welcome. 
 Three brothers had lately occupied these farms : one, Vilhjalm, 
 had lately died, but his widow, who was our guide's mother-in- 
 law, received us most kindly, while the rest of our party were 
 put up at the other farms. The hondes were fine powerful- 
 looking men, great fishers of shark and cod, and bold sailors ; 
 on the walls hung medals and testimonials for the lives they 
 had saved in shipwrecks. We all had a merry supper in the 
 widow's house, and played at whist till bedtime. Morning 
 dawned grey and threatening, but I took heart and bathed in a 
 creek of the roughening sea, and, thoroughly warmed up, started 
 after breakfast to ride with the gentlemen to the point of Eeyk- 
 janes. We galloped over the grass-land to a desolate region 
 of lava-rocks. Paul called on us to admire the finest church in 
 Iceland, and I was quite taken in for a moment by a huge archi- 
 tectural-looking pile, very like Winchester Cathedral, rising in 
 the misty distance. It was, however, really a hill. Near it rose 
 a pyramid so geometrical that it was hard to believe that it was 
 no hand of man but the wild volcanic forces that had piled it up. 
 Meanwhile the ground had changed from rock to sand of a deep 
 purple brown, like gunpowder ; it made an effective background 
 for the one break in its unity, a long pale-green grass, growing 
 so sparsely that the single blades knotted themselves in grace- 
 ful curves loosely over the dark sand. It would have been an 
 excellent pattern for furniture cretonne. 
 
REYKJANES. 131 
 
 Deeper among the overhanging lava-crags we rode. Far and 
 wide all was a mountainous desolation, till at last the air grew 
 warm, the ground smoking and treacherous, and the ravine 
 opened on a green hillside, sloping towards the cone of a recent 
 volcano, where abundant clouds of steam rolled up in various 
 places. Here we dismounted among all sorts of queer surround- 
 ings. There was a crater or caldron, some fifty feet in diameter, 
 of boiling bluish mud, bubbling and wreathing up in circular 
 ripples. The overhanging sides were jagged, and the groimd 
 above was rotten — a regular boiling bog, in which you sank 
 through cohesive hot mud, into thinner, more scalding stuif, 
 and might easily sink too deep to be pleasant. Gislason being 
 tenant of the place, and having at one time worked a quarry here, 
 knew his ground as far as so shifting an affair could be known, 
 and we followed him carefully ; but we were all more or less 
 in the hot mud. Little craters opened here and there, going 
 deep into the ground, and in another great caldron red mud 
 boiled instead of blue. In the middle of all this steam a great 
 rock stood out : above it was brilliantly white, and of some 
 very light stuff; lower down it was pink and white, layers of 
 hydrated silica, mixed with some iron, friable above but growing 
 harder as you dug deeper. Perhaps a fine porcelain-clay may 
 be found here, and Iceland may some day produce her own 
 choice china. We saw a pretty piece of chemical action going 
 on where the red vapour was rolling out of some mud which 
 impinged on the lava-rock. The men broke the earth off the 
 rock with their pickaxes, pulling a little rapidly down though 
 it was almost too hot to touch. Then as the vapour rose and 
 condensed rapidly in the cold air, we saw the lava-rock glance 
 over, apparently in the very act of being silver-plated. This X 
 was, I think, owing to the iron in the vapour being, through 
 contact with the air, precipitated and deposited on the lava, sil- 
 vering it over while we watched. Some of the plating rubbed 
 quickly off, but I have other specimens which still glitter. 
 
 On remounting we went towards the point of Eeykjanes, so 
 well remembered as a peril of the sea in our late stormy voyage, 
 
 
132 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 and those weird rocks like giant buildings, which had been in 
 sight all this time. But the grey weather was changing for the 
 worse : a sea-fog rolled up, thick rain set in, and it was of no use 
 to go any further ; we could have seen nothing, and the trackless 
 solitude we had crossed would have been bad riding after dark, 
 so we turned reluctantly homewards. We made a halt to collect 
 the company by the last of the daylight, and I thought we did 
 not look like a party it would be pleasant to meet on so dark 
 a night as this threatened to be. We were armed with pick- 
 axes and hammers ; we were dripping and dirty, smeared with 
 red and blue mud, with lank waterproofs, and rain streaming off 
 the brims of our hats — one especially, who wore an Icelandic 
 knitted cap of many colours, whose face was now streaked with 
 all the tints of the soaked wool, and whose clothes hinted of 
 long sojourn in the mountains, presented an appearance which 
 would have been scorned by a civilised scarecrow. One gentle- 
 man alone, who had only been five days in Iceland, retained the 
 ordinary form of the point-device traveller, and gave far too high 
 a standard by which to measure the rest of us wanderers for long 
 in the wilds. We rode hard in the twilight, my pony springing 
 over the obstacles I could not see, till none too soon we hit on 
 a real track — for then, though it was dark, we could still canter 
 over grass full tilt for the lights of Kirkjuvogr. The rain and 
 the wind and the bleak night seemed the bleaker from the con- 
 trast of the light which streamed from the friendly shelter. It 
 was half-past eight, and I had had nothing since an early break- 
 fast, so coffee was welcome, while I dressed and substituted 
 borrowed Icelandic shoes for my boots, which had been utterly 
 wrecked by the boiling mud. These shoes are green — made of 
 soft sheepskin — pointed, without soles, and tied on by thongs 
 bound round the ankle. They rather resemble moccasins, and I 
 have seen them used in Shetland. The wearers must, I suppose, 
 resign themselves to wet feet. That rainy night, as the supper 
 was spread in another farm, I had to be carried over the worst 
 places on my way there, as my green shoes were no protection. 
 Kettil gave us the feast that night. We sat down to a great 
 
GOOD QUARTERS. 133 
 
 spread in a comfortable dark-wainscoted room in his liouse, the 
 dash of the sea outside, and the rattle of the wind and hail at the 
 casements, only adding zest to the mirth within, though the 
 weather made us rather anxious about our plan of returning to 
 Eeykjavik by sea on tlie morrow. Oddur Gislason acted as host, 
 while Kettil sat apart looking with quiet satisfaction at the noble 
 justice we were doing to our excellent fare. He once got up 
 and pointedly removed our own wine which we had placed on 
 the table, substituting some excellent Bordeaux of his own, also 
 cherry - brandy and other liqueurs. It was not till half-past 
 eleven that the idea of a six o'clock start next morning made us 
 break up the entertainment with hand-shaking all round, and 
 grope through the black rainy night in search of our own 
 quarters, guided partly by the dimly discerned foam of the roar- 
 ing breakers. 
 
 By morning, however, the wind had abated, and the sun shone 
 brightly on the wet fields and subsiding sea. We went to look 
 at the church, which was far too neat and ecclesiastical within 
 for any one to venture to use it as a bedroom. We returned to 
 a great breakfast, concluding with prolonged adieus to a number 
 of people — toasts, songs, speeches in English and Icelandic, and 
 clinking of glasses all round. So far good ; but we were rather 
 surprised to hear that we had to drink farewell at Kettil's farm 
 too, whither we adjourned, to find more company, more wine, 
 and more food. I contrived by means of keeping my mind 
 on the future, like Dugald Dalgetty, to partake of some excel- 
 lent pancakes, and drink a hesta sJcdl, or stirrup-cup ; and so we 
 cantered off, though some of the party remained to take leave 
 at the third farm also. We rode in two hours to Njardvik, 
 almost a village, by a creek, where our boat waited for us. In 
 going to it we passed some hideous sharks not yet cut up, about 
 six or seven feet long — a most evil type of animal life. The 
 boat was a large open one with two masts, with a crew of six. 
 One of these men We could have declared was Irish, but he was 
 a born Icelander. He had the short round face, regular features, 
 black hair, and blue eyes with long black lashes, which form the 
 
134 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 most accepted type of Irish good looks. Oddur Gislason took 
 the helm ; we cleared the land with oars ; the men took off their 
 hats for a minute of silent prayer, according to custom ; we 
 hoisted sail, and were soon making good way over the tumbling 
 blue waves. We discussed our last bottle of champagne ; a song 
 was called for — many songs, till intense sleepiness reminded me 
 I had been up since five in the morning, and I only woke up 
 among the shoals and skerries near Eeykjavik, after a very quick 
 run of five hours. 
 
 This was our last expedition that year; for directly after, on 
 the afternoon of the 7th September, all the half-dozen English 
 people in Eeykjavik embarked on board the Queen steamer, 
 accompanied by many Icelandic friends. We pledged each other 
 in a parting skdl, their boats pushed off, and before they had 
 reached the jetty we were gliding away from Eeykjavik. How 
 different it looked to my eyes in the afternoon glow from the place 
 I first saw in the chill early morning ! Then it seemed small, 
 remote, and cold — now it appeared an important town, and 
 favoured by a delightful climate. The- real balance may be 
 struck between those two opinions, but it is the last which 
 remains my own as regards the climate. The wonderful benefit 
 my health received from its influence, in spite of some fatigue, 
 hard living, and exposure, proves that this is no mere fancy of 
 mine, but that there is some truth in the graduated scale of 
 the value of fine air which places the Engadine at the foot of the 
 list, Sweden next, and Iceland as superlative — best where all 
 are good. 
 
 The night we sailed the aurora again lit up the sky and 
 dimmed the stars ; besides the splendour, it was so fantastic and 
 surprising that it kept all the wondering passengers on deck till 
 long after midnight. The captain, however, did not share our 
 delight. " I don't like it so high in the sky," he said. Next 
 day we were battling with an equinoctial gale, which, though it 
 did not much interfere with the comfort of the small and pleasant 
 party of passengers, kept us out two days over our time, and 
 cost us the lives of forty of our cargo of ponies. The poor little 
 
A WRECK. 135 
 
 beasts had not sufficient space, and chiefly in consequence of 
 that, I think, could not stand the rolling of our most lively 
 steamer ; but the transport of ponies is now better understood, 
 and they are usually landed quite safely and in fair condition. 
 The sea was nothing like so high as on our outward passage, 
 and my own pony, which was favoured with much notice and 
 occasional tit-bits, was none the worse for the voyage. 
 
 The communication with Iceland is now more frequent and 
 regular than in the year 1875. Slimon's steamer the Camoens 
 begins at the end of June to run about every three weeks, from 
 Granton to Iceland, till the beginning of September. The Dan- 
 ish mail-steamer runs from March to November about once a 
 month between Copenhagen and Iceland, calling at Leith on her 
 way. Last year a midwinter mail-steamer was sent, but it may 
 be discontinued, as the Phonix s.s. was lost on the voyage out 
 on the 31st of January last, in the Faxa Floa, through sheer 
 stress of weather. A furious gale and snowstorm prevented her 
 from making the port of Keykjavik, and the snow and sea-water 
 freezing on the deck canted the steamer over so much to one 
 side that she became unmanageable, and ran on the skerries out- 
 side the coast of Snsefellness, where the crew contrived to get 
 ashore, but the vessel soon went to pieces. This sharp warning 
 against the winter seas, which were never faced in old times by 
 Viking or merchantman, may induce the Icelanders to submit 
 again to their usual deprivation for the four winter months of all 
 communication with the outer world. 
 
 HINTS TO TRAVELLERS. 
 
 I have been asked to give a few practical hints to intending travellers, 
 especially ladies ; and remembering how puzzled we were what to take on 
 our first journey, and how much experience has taught us, I believe they 
 may be found useful. 
 
 A lady should bring her own saddle. It should be a light one, and can 
 hardly be too much padded, to suit small ponies. It is well to bring a 
 
136 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 single rein also ; but the ponies go best with the Icelandic bit. Little 
 preparation is needed for the expedition to the Gey sir, which is all 
 arranged for, and for which a tent can be hired ; but people who go 
 further, especially ladies, should take their own tent — one of Edgington's 
 smallest-sized marquees we have found excellent, and much better than 
 any bell-tent in bad weather. A very light mattress of ribbed cork 
 makes a good enough bed, especially in a War Office valise — a delightful 
 invention I used on my last journey, which has waterproof sides lacing 
 up, so as to give great protection on damp earth or windy floors. This, 
 with a Scotch plaid and a waterproof sheet, is very comfortable, and it 
 serves as a packing-case by day. Very little luggage can be taken across 
 country, so woollen clothes are to be preferred. A short habit that will 
 easily loop up to a walking length, and a woollen gowTi as a change, are 
 needed ; and a good gown for Reykjavik. The habit should have a 
 warm outer jacket ready to slip on, for the change of climate from even 
 the sunny to the windy side of a hill is very great, and in a day's ride 
 the glass may vary nearly forty degrees. Strong walking boots and soft 
 leather gaiters are needed ; fishing-stockings to go over all are a great 
 protection if the route leads over many rivers. Some tins of preserved 
 meat or soup should be taken, as there is very little choice at Reykjavik. 
 
 As to expenses, it is difficult to mak-e an estimate, as, except for the 
 excursion to the Geysirs, for which there is a regular tariff", so much 
 depends on the number of the party, the route they follow, and the 
 degree to which they are prepared to rough it. Two or three persons 
 pay more in proportion than a larger party, but are more comfortable, 
 and more sure of finding pasture for their ponies. 
 
 We two sometimes travelled with fourteen ponies, which is as many 
 as can be comfortably disposed of at night on some farms. At other 
 times, for short distances, we had only seven or eight ponies, thus greatly 
 reducing the expenses. The hire of the ponies is from one and a half to 
 three krone a-day, a Icrone being equal to Is. l|d. They may be bought 
 from 100 to 200 krone — more for a fancy pony; and it is well to buy at 
 least one, if any stay be made in the country. There are not many very 
 competent guides. Some student will always be found who will be glad 
 to accompany a traveller as interpreter ; but very possibly he may not 
 know much of the country, and be obliged to hire a local guide at every 
 turn, or chance finding the way. We once met a party travelling with 
 a guide who asked ours a thousand questions ; he knew nothing of the 
 route, but with admirable presence of mind never allowed his party to 
 guess his uncertainties. The best guides are generally young men of 
 good position and education, and are excellent companions. An under- 
 man or driver is needed besides, if there are many ponies. Our guide 
 the first year was familiar with" all the ways, but he is no longer avail- 
 
HINTS TO TRAVELLERS. 137 
 
 able, having become a clergyman. Mr T. Gudmundsen, who accom- 
 panied us on all our other journeys, knows the island far and wide, 
 and has the real enjoyment of travel, which makes him suit this pro- 
 fession admirably. 
 
 Though a short excursion may be done pretty cheaply, extensive tra- 
 velling in Iceland is a good deal dearer than most foreign travel, though 
 not dearer than travelling on horseback elsewhere, which is always an 
 expensive if a very pleasant way of exploring a country. The life is 
 wholesome and strengthening, though perhaps it might be rather a 
 heroic remedy to recommend to a really delicate person. Such little 
 comforts as a folding india-rubber batlj, and a railway travelling lamp 
 should not be forgotten : a puggery is useful for the sunshine ; for 
 the rain an umbrella is useless ; and a good macintosh ulster, though it 
 is heavy to walk in, resists the weather much better than the lighter 
 waterproofs. 
 
138 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 A JOURNEY IN 1878 — ULFLJOTSVATN GEYSIR, ANOTHER ERUPTION 
 
 GULLFOSS HUNI TIIJORSA STORUVELLIR. 
 
 It had long been my wish to visit the south of Iceland, the chief 
 scene of the Njal Saga. This fascinating story has been well 
 translated by Sir G. Dasent ; but to be thoroughly appreciated, 
 should be read in Icelandic. It was written about 600 years ago, 
 and is a model of prose-writing, vivid and idiomatic — throwing 
 great light on the character of the North, showing, not only what 
 people really were in the eleventh century, but what the author 
 thought they ought to be. Gunnar, the hero, is the ideal char- 
 acter ; his bad beautiful wife works him all evil but that of lead- 
 ing him to act wrongly himself. Njal, his best friend, the man 
 of wisdom and peace, is also surrounded by relations who are the 
 cause of his downfall — fierce sons, who are wrought upon by 
 Mord, the evil genius of the story, to deeds of violence and in- 
 justice. The death of Njal and the innocent women and children, 
 brought about by Flosi, a man also of noble nature, on whom the 
 obligation of a blood-feud had come with a heavy weight, is 
 grandly tragic. The whole is a reliable history of some families 
 who inhabited this district from about a.d. 950 to 1010, condensed 
 and heightened into a sort of prose poem by an unknown author 
 circa 1250, and it should be read by all travellers to Iceland. 
 
 The journey to this district was achieved in the summer of 
 1878 in spite of weather; and it was fortunate that the lady who 
 joined me for the expedition, the Honourable Emily Cathcart, 
 
THE RIVERS. 139 
 
 was not to be easily daunted by climate, for it seemed as if we 
 had offended the guardian water-spirits, so persistently were we 
 persecuted by the rain. First, while the island was basking in 
 sunshine, our steamer was groping about in quest of it in a dense 
 fog ; then when at last w^e had arrived, we came with the long- 
 absent clouds. After waiting during several days for the threaten- 
 ing weather to pass off, on the 18th of July we took heart at the 
 sight of some blue in the sky, and left Eeykjavik. We engaged 
 Thorgrimur Gudmundsen as our ^uide, and Haldor as our 
 driver. We had fourteen ponies in all — each two to ride, and the 
 rest for relays and luggage. I took my little marquee tent, 
 which could hold two people comfortably, and two more in the 
 outer porches if required, and we set off, bound for Ulfljots 
 Lake and the Geysirs ; thence we meant to go to Hecla, where 
 there had been a recent eruption ; and then to the south-east 
 coast and the scenes of the Njal Saga. 
 
 The ladies at Eeykjavik shook their heads, and spoke of the 
 wild rivers we had to cross ; people were drowned in them every 
 year. They had indeed been very low in the past dry weather ; 
 but if it rained we would see what they could be — and it did rain, 
 and we saw what was meant. But the gentlemen at Eeykjavik 
 cheered us up. The people drowned every year were generally 
 tipsy ; we, seeing it was not creditable, determined certainly not 
 to be drowned. Moreover, they said we had in Thorgrimur one 
 of the best of guides, cautious as well as daring — and that also 
 turned out to be true. 
 
 As to possible dangers in riding across Iceland, Henderson, 
 whose book, though somewhat out of date, gives more real in- 
 formation than all the others I have seen put together, is on this 
 point an alarmist ; mountain perils were more dreaded then than 
 in our days of Alpine clubs and rough travel. Still he was never 
 deterred from going where he wished, though by his own show- 
 ing often in a mortal fright ; he threw his heart over the rivers 
 as the hunters say, and duly followed with his ponies. Captain 
 Burton, who did not succeed in his explorations, goes to the 
 other extreme, laughing, not always without reason, at the perils 
 
140 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 imagined by former travellers, and talking contemptuously of the 
 hills of Iceland, because they are not the Andes or Himalayas. 
 But if you do fall over a precipice, it does not matter much how 
 far, to a few thousand feet. It is enough, as Mercutio says ; and a 
 mountain-land without roads worth mentioning does require care- 
 ful riding sometimes, but of course in perilous places every one 
 takes care not to fall. 
 
 The rivers are sometimes dangerous, and cause a certain annual 
 loss of life. Captain Burton, who travelled in an exceptionally 
 cold and dry summer, makes light of them also, saying that they 
 are crossed by ferry-boats when more than three feet deep. Of 
 course that means in the fords, from which a small deviation may 
 plunge you into very deep water ; and a ford even three feet deep 
 in a very heavy current is quite enough for a little pony. Many 
 rivers are too swift for ferrying, and often there are no boats ; 
 and if they cannot be forded the traveller has to wait till they 
 subside, for they vary much on different days, and even at 
 different times of the day. The sudden mists which sometimes 
 descend from the mountains may also make travelling unsafe 
 unless with an experienced guide. The country is very solitary. 
 Often there are no tracks at all, and the compass is of little use 
 owing to magnetic disturbances. The ponies are often the best 
 guides in a mist ; and indeed, unless they are biassed by a wish 
 to return to a wrong farm, are very reliable for finding the way, 
 either in a fog or in the dark. 
 
 A sunny morning wiled us away from Keykjavik on the way 
 to the lower end of the Ulfljot Lake, but wild rain overtook us 
 on a stony plain which lies beneath the volcanic hills we had to 
 cross. The rain and hail cleared off when we reached the hills, 
 but the sky was grey, and grey too, the shale and rock over which 
 we clambered into small circular valleys, apparently old craters 
 surrounded by contorted hills. On every side forms like slender 
 spires, or wedges, or round towers, rose black into the clouds. 
 One could imagine that hooded figures, or deformed dwarfs with 
 outstretched arms, had been turned to black stone, so strange 
 were the weird shapes of that region of spent volcanoes. The 
 
ULFLJOTSVATN. 
 
 141 
 
 ponies clambered clown impossible places, so steep that I almost 
 lost sight of the neck of the one I was riding ; but the rough lava 
 rock gives good footing, and is not so bad as it looks. When 
 we emerged into flat land under more reasonable hills, we rode 
 long before reaching the lake called Ulfljotsvatn, and a little 
 farm beneath a grassy mound, which was crowned by a black- 
 and-white wooden church. There we took up our quarters. I 
 cooked some soup, and we shook down our plaids and mattresses 
 on the floor. The men found room &^t the farm, the ponies on the 
 tun ; and so we rested till morning came in storm and rain. The 
 
 farm is a poor one. The honde was from home, and his wife had 
 added a baby to the household the day before, so we were rather 
 left to our own resources. 
 
 One of these was the river Sog, which tore down into the lake 
 not far off, to which I crossed in a leaky boat. There was no 
 lack of fish, but it was not easy fishing for a lady — the grass was 
 so long, the banks so broken ; the water, too, was very strong 
 and swift, and the wind and rain importunate. But a heavy 
 sea-trout was soon on my fly — he was not mere sport, he was 
 dinner, and the moment was proportionately agonising when, as 
 I gave him line, there was a check, a spring of the rod, and he 
 
142 
 
 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 Thurida. 
 
 was gone. That reel had not been looked through since our Nor- 
 way fishing days of the previous year, and there was a tangle. 
 Deeply repentant, I sat down on a wet stone and sorted it. The 
 fish had fortunately only carried off the fly, and soon I secured 
 
 another, which showed much sport, 
 and proved to be nearly three pounds 
 in weight, and enough ; and as I was 
 now very wet, I came home and crept 
 into the farm kitchen, the entrance to 
 which was just three feet high. Here 
 I sat on an inverted tub and sketched, 
 while several inhabitants and two dogs 
 also contrived to squeeze in, and we 
 whiled away the time with stories, 
 reading, and talk. The Icelanders are 
 so superior to their surroundings that 
 their culture constantly takes one by 
 surprise. But of course to appreciate this, one must at least 
 understand something of their language. 
 
 The next day the weather was even worse. It needed some 
 patience to put up with the clammy church, or the other alterna- 
 tive — the stuffy farm ; but outside the air seemed about as wet 
 as the lake. We were not, however, so out of the world after all 
 — we actually received a morning call. A being entered the 
 church clad in a macintosh, once white, and possibly elegant, 
 but now all stained and frayed into fringes and holes, and girded 
 with a rope. With a Parisian air he took off a very bad hat and 
 
 introduced himself as an American gentleman, Major M ; 
 
 and a very pleasant gentleman he proved to be in spite of his 
 articulation, which had been affected by a wound in the mouth 
 received in the American war, and his attire, which, however, 
 was only the natural result of two months' travel in Iceland, and 
 which then contrasted unfavourably with our fresh apparel, but 
 would have been no contrast a fortnight later. 
 
 The next morning was our first lovely day. The hills were 
 purple, the lake Mediterranean blue : grass and buildings glit- 
 
GEYSIR. 143 
 
 tered in the sunshine. We crossed the lake in the boat ; the 
 ponies had to swim the river Sog ^ lower down, but we found them 
 when we landed grooming themselves by rolling in the bog- 
 myrtle and juniper, and away we rode over the untracked heath 
 towards the richly coloured hills above Langavatn, the lake on 
 the road from Thingvellir to Geysir, The ride was delightful. 
 We lunched on the grassy slopes above the lake near some 
 caverns, and then went on again by the usual road to Geysir. 
 Haldor had gone back to fetch something we had forgotten, so 
 we did not quite see our way to camping at Geysir ; for it takes 
 two men to put up the tent, and I was not sure if the united 
 strength of two ladies was equal to another man. The people of 
 Utlith cordially invited us to stop there as I had done before ; but 
 though a few stars began to show themselves, the ponies were 
 fresh, the riding good, and we pushed briskly forward. It was a 
 time of keen enjoyment. Grand hills were round* us, their lower 
 slopes pleasantly clothed with birch and juniper-bushes ; far 
 white mountains shone in the sky ; there was nothing but the 
 plaintive cry of the bittern or the plover to break the silence- 
 nothing to contaminate the delicious breeze, which was scented 
 with the fragrance of aromatic plants drawn out by the heat of 
 the past day. 
 
 Now the white steam rolls up from Haukadale, the open land 
 before us, and plunging through bog and river, we ride up to 
 the hot springs at about 11 o'clock at night, finding there not 
 absolute solitude. A little tent like a dog-kennel was pitched 
 near the Great Geysir, and out of it crawled, on all-fours, what 
 seemed like a polar bear, but proved to be our friend the Major. 
 
 ^ I observed this day what I had been told before, that but for the drown- 
 ing rain I could not have fished in the Sog. The " fly " was out in swarms, 
 in clouds, in atmospheres. I thought, as they do not sting, they would be 
 contemptible — and so they are, meanly contemptible, and yet more than a 
 match for man and horse. They are large and lazy, and walk in dozens 
 into your eyes and nose and ears, or they cover your veil and blind you. 
 They make no effort to escape ; their long legs come off at a touch, and you 
 can kill any number, but merely add corpses to the crowds jostling for a 
 place. Though they are without the malignant power of the mosquito, 
 and very local, so that you can step out of them easily, if they are on the 
 river, there is no help for it — you must go away. 
 
144 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 A stroke of good luck for us, as otherwise we could hardly have 
 pitched the tent, which he helped Thorgrimur to raise, and then 
 we soon nestled into our plaids, and slept well after forty-five 
 miles on horseback. 
 
 How different would my impressions of Geysir have been had 
 this been my only visit ! Honest souls who tell the truth are as 
 misleading as the idealists who try to see what they expect. 
 And that may be nearer the truth, after all, than the prosy facts 
 which happen at the moment to be before them. Perhaps there 
 is something ridiculous in the very position of waiting in humble 
 attendance on a fountain in hopes of an explosion, never daring 
 to go half a mile away for fear of missing the sight, and having 
 only the comforts of a tinker to fall back upon. Besides, not 
 only did it rain next day, but other tramps came with their pots 
 and kettles, — first an English party of sportsmen, and then some 
 Danes. Probably they were just as good as we were, and I own 
 they had as good a right to be there, but from our point of view 
 they were quite de trop. Had we come out into a desert and 
 camped on an explosive hot-water bog to be haunted by the 
 ordinary shooting-coats and small-talk of society? The Great 
 Geysir also did not show, though at night it gave various false 
 alarms, booming and boiling over, and inducing people to emerge 
 from the supposed shelter of the tents into the chill wind and 
 rain. Strokr of course exploded to order ; but who that has seen 
 the Geysir cares for Strokr ? 
 
 But on the third morning, when the Englishmen and the Danes 
 were gone, and we were packing our traps, — after a preliminary 
 underground roar, and # swirl all round the crater, up went 
 Geysir in a great blue-black sloping wave, high into the sky — 
 seventy or eighty feet up — dissolving into foam and steam, and 
 descending all in whiteness. The explosion, which repeated 
 itself several times, was certainly less beautiful than the one I 
 had seen before, when the water rose like a dome before break- 
 ing. But it gave a very impressive hint of the hidden powers 
 that are seething and struggling below the thin earth -crust. 
 Meanwhile the Little Geysir, half a mile off, played with great 
 
EASTERN HVITI. 
 
 145 
 
 regularity in a pretty jet of about fifteen feet, and the other springs 
 were all in agitation. So we left them, sending Haldor with our 
 luggage and spare ponies to Huni, while we ladies, with Thorgri- 
 
 mur and Major M , took a circuit by Gullfoss, which I should 
 
 recommend to all travellers. We first crossed a bad bog which 
 stretched far and wide, having to scramble from tussock to 
 mound of grass, plunging through deep pools, and trusting much 
 to the ponies. We rode through a deep ford on Arbrandsa, where 
 the water rose over my saddle, and on over trackless desolate 
 places, till the roar of water was in our ears, and grew and grew. 
 At last we dismounted in the long wet grass, and scrambled on 
 
 
 foot to the edge of the swollen Hvita, or white river, which here 
 hurls itself down in the Gullfoss (pronounced Gudelfoss), or 
 Golden Fall. 
 
 Few will cross the marshy desert to visit these grand falls, but 
 these few, especially after rain, are well rewarded. The river is 
 very wide, like the Tay at Perth, but far more rapid. Against 
 the horizon it comes down in a broad short fall, then swirls away 
 in broken water, sweeping in a magnificent curve to the great 
 
146 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 main plunge of the whole river, quite even and unbroken, down 
 into a mist of foam veiling an unseen abyss. It is golden in 
 colour — a tawny gold ; it reappears again raging between the 
 basalt walls, tearing an angry way out of the deep prison, and 
 speeding off from the barren wilderness above to the solitudes 
 below, for here the Hvita flows through quite uninhabited land. 
 
 With some difficulty we scrambled down to the edge of the 
 furious river some way below the fall, and there, though splashed 
 and deafened, I was delighted with the grandeur of this, in some 
 respects, the finest waterfall I have ever seen, and among those 
 may be included the grandest both in Norway and Switzerland. 
 We had a rough ride of some hours, always in rain, till we halted 
 at a ford by the farm of Tungafelli, on the other side of the 
 Hvita. A frail leaky little boat put across for us, and we 
 achieved a haphazard sort of passage, albeit carried far down, 
 spun in the current, obliged to bale out water, but arriving — 
 which is, after all, the main point in a voyage — without having 
 to swim like the ponies. Tungafelli — associated in my mind with 
 a wise man who figures in the Njal Saga, Asgrim Elligrimson — is 
 the only habitation in the neighbourhood, and the only place for 
 many miles round where the Hvita is more or less fordable, — less 
 sometimes, for many accidents have happened here. Thence we 
 went over prettily diversified country among rocks and meadow- 
 land to the parsonage of Huni. Here its owner, Sira Johannes 
 Briem, received us hospitably ; he spoke English well. Two 
 guest-rooms were prepared, and a real supper on a table, prettily 
 served, and real beds, did feel very pleasant after several rough 
 nights. 
 
 Next day, the 24th, we took a wet walk in the morning on the 
 pretty grassy hills near, and starting on horseback at twelve, we 
 rode by thriving farms through a pleasant land ; but our usual 
 companion, the rain, did not desert us, coming in showers and 
 scuds and increasing the river-floods. A farmer lent me a choice 
 pony, as swift as sure, which carried me gaily over the rough 
 ground, till towards evening we reached the Thjorsa, Thor's 
 river, our Thurso. We sat down on the bank and watched the 
 
CROSSING THJORSl. 
 
 147 
 
 somewhat anxious process of getting our ponies across. Their 
 loads were placed in a scrap of a boat, and they were expected 
 to swim this great rapid river. " He rode over Thjorsa " is an 
 ever-recurring sentence in the sagas ; for whether encountered 
 high up, as here, or near its mouth, the Thjorsa, in the absence 
 of aU bridges, or even of fixed ferries, divides Southern Iceland 
 into two parts. People meet easily or not, according as they 
 live on the same or opposite sides of Thjorsa. 
 
 Again and again our ponies refuged to face the yellow waves. 
 
 '""^ - -^ 
 
 i ^--' 
 
 Ferry on Thjorsa. 
 
 while our men, aided by some volunteers from the nearest farm, 
 made a ring round them, cracked whips, flung stones, and at 
 length succeeded in launching the whole fourteen. Two cream- 
 colours, brothers, well known for cunning, laziness, and strength, 
 soon turned and swam back ; the other twelve by degrees won 
 their way across, their little heads sometimes quite disappearing 
 among the waves, which carried them more or less down the 
 
148 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 river. One known as the weak piebald, in spite of a rest on a 
 sandbank, was carried a mile down, and we were very anxious 
 about him ; but at last all were safely landed and collected on 
 the opposite side. We fastened the refractory creams to the 
 stern of the little boat which had returned for us, and pushed off. 
 But the brothers made a good fight, — working together like one, 
 they dragged us ashore again several times. Helped by allies 
 on the shore, we at length conquered, and dragged them out 
 into mid-stream. Thorgrimur let go their halters when it was 
 easier for them to go on than to turn back. They, snorted and 
 rolled their eyes and splashed, but as they really could swim as 
 well as the rest, at last we were all safe across. The evening 
 grew bright, and the ride was merry, now over a great mountain- 
 bordered plain, Storuvellir, or the big valley. We came to a 
 large comfortable parsonage, the abode of Sira Asmundur, well 
 known to all travellers to Hecla. He gave us good quarters, and 
 with his daughter I took a pleasant stroll in the sunshine late 
 at night. 
 
149 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 HECLA — NEW VOLCANOES — KIRKJUBAE— FLJOTSLID. 
 
 Now we were under the snowy cone of Hecla, for the snows, 
 which later in the year dissolve in the hot ashes, lay still in 
 thick rounded forms above the black volcanic rocks. Hecla, 
 which in the old geography lessons of one's childhood meant 
 Iceland, was rather disappointing as being only one of so many 
 volcanoes, and neither among the finest in appearance nor the 
 most active in work ; even the volcanic action of this year was 
 fully eight miles from Hecla, nearer Kratatinkr to the north. 
 Hecla has the advantage of appearing the first advanced-guard 
 of the various mountains which rise in this district of hidden 
 fires. To-day she generally (for she is feminine in Icelandic) 
 wore the cloud-cloak, Hecla, whence her name is derived. 
 
 The eruption which had occurred three months before our 
 visit, had first startled the nearest inhabitants, who were about 
 twenty miles off, by a blaze in the sky, which had not continued 
 long, but a stream of lava, from ten to twenty feet thick, had 
 been erupted, that had filled up much of a waste valley among 
 the cinder-hills. There is always alarm in Iceland when the 
 ash -showers and earth -fires show themselves, — the terrible 
 weather, which takes its origin, not in the heavens above but 
 in the earth beneath. This time the fire-forces had expended 
 themselves in the desert land which stretches north of Hecla for 
 200 miles, and which cannot be worse, indeed might be the bet- 
 ter, for the slow-consuming fires and the feeding volcanic ash. 
 
150 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 At noon our party, including Major M , started to explore 
 
 the new volcanoes. We took a little food, some wraps, and my tent, 
 and the cream-coloured brothers to carry the baggage. The way 
 led first through a birch-wood four or five feet high, and thus to 
 the last farm, where we were regaled with chocolate, and picked 
 up the honde who was to guide us — one of two or three men who 
 knew the way. Then we went over a great ashy plain ; on one 
 side thundered the Thjorsa, sometimes in noteworthy rapids, on 
 the other Western Kanga ran. Above it rose Hecla's black 
 buttresses and icy cone, on the other side rose Gullfjall, a great 
 wedge of a mountain, utterly bare and the colour of old gold — 
 awful in the sunshine. In front, trackless dark sands swept 
 towards the blue and snowy hills in the northern horizon. The 
 rain had, happily for us, hardened the sands which often rise 
 here in dust-storms. They sang Grimur Tomsen's riding-song 
 as we cantered gaily forward — 
 
 ** Ridum ok ridum^ reylcjum yfir sandum,'' &c. 
 
 The beginning may be roughly translated — 
 
 " Ride we and ride we, dash across the wide sand, 
 Low sinks the sun, now west by Arnafell, 
 Strange things uncanny out about the wild lands. 
 Haunt the desert ice-hills — ride we swift and well. 
 On with you, ponies, keeping up the speed ; 
 Nothing evil overtakes the fast-running steed," &c. 
 
 We turned to the north about four miles beyond the last spur of 
 Hecla, as if to go round the mountain, and reached, about 7 p.m., 
 a last little knoll of verdure. Here we took the burdens off the 
 cream brothers, and tied each one's head to the other one's tail, 
 and so left them. These brothers were so attached by affection 
 also, that if either missed the other he even lost his natural 
 laziness and would rush in wild pursuit ; but together they en- 
 joyed a placid content that nothing seemed to disturb. Now we 
 and our ponies climbed, separately of course, a steep cone of 
 ashes like that on the top of Vesuvius, only longer ; it was strewn 
 with fresh pumice and erupted matter. I was glad at the top to 
 remount my chestnut, who, though bad in bogs, was distinguished 
 
NEW VOLCANOES. 151 
 
 on the hills. We were now in a confused scene of hills and 
 valleys, rocks tilted all ways, and lava currents and ashes flung 
 over them, the scene of grand volcanic action. There is some- 
 thing like it on Vesuvius, but on a smaller scale, for there the 
 volcano seems an accident in a fair habitable country, like a 
 forge in a village ; but here Nature is triumphant, — few eyes have 
 seen these furnaces, no touch of man's hand has ever been felt. 
 There was not a scrap of verdure, hills and valleys alike were 
 reddish-brown or black ; but streaks of red occurred, and yellow 
 stones were strewn about. The contrast was wonderful between 
 the unity of the colouring and the mad diversity of form ; between 
 the shapes which were molten and twisted, and the matter which 
 was hard still stone. 
 
 We halted in an ashy valley, where further riding was impos- 
 sible, for we were on the edge of the field of new lava, every- 
 where cloven and broken ap, and of a reddish hue. Across the 
 valley was a finely shaped mountain-range, the extinct volcano 
 of Kratatinkr, and a series of new low volcanic cones still smok- 
 ing and streaked with yellow and red incrustations. The lava- 
 bed was about twenty feet deep at the edge — the gentlemen re- 
 ported it as deeper further on. But I did not go far, as, though 
 it was very rough and distorted, it was also so brittle as to be 
 hard climbing, so I preferred making a sketch of the wild place. 
 It was now about 10 p.m. They said we had ridden twenty-eight 
 miles. 
 
 We had to return, and how we found our way over the lava- 
 valleys I hardly know ; but in due time we got back to the cream 
 brothers, who had valsed amicably a few hundred yards on 
 their way home, with the double motion of a planet on its axis 
 and in its orbit. As no water was near, we rode on in the 
 darkness, trusting much to the ponies, till in about an hour we 
 reached grass and heard running water. Here, therefore, we put 
 up the tent, I holding the little lamp to the pegs, to help the men 
 to drive them in, for it was quite dark. The little tent had a 
 cheery effect, shining golden-brown in the night when the lamp 
 was hooked on the pole. The cold meat was unpacked, and a good 
 
152 
 
 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 brew of hot tea, for which we had brought cream, was made over 
 the spirit-lamp. Life needs no more. Why do people live in 
 houses all the summer time ? Why do they go to big hotels for 
 pleasure ? Why have we made life so cumbrous, and our wants 
 so many and intractable ? Mr Watts, who knew the Icelanders 
 well and liked them much, remarks that contentment is the curse 
 of Iceland. So the Bedouin, the dweller in tents par excellence, 
 needs little, cares for little, has few ambitions, and much true 
 peace. He, too, is content with the content that bars all progress ; 
 so let us, who belong to the race which marches in the van, 
 shake off this unnatural calm that belongs to the solitudes of 
 nature, and go back to our crowds and struggles, to society and 
 its joys, such as bitter mournful pictures, and craving weary 
 
 music of the future — to science, and politics, and competitive 
 examinations. 
 
 A lovely morning shows us how pretty is our camping-ground. 
 Hecla's northern shoulder, and the adjacent hills, are decked in 
 soft pink and violet, as if one did not know what grim wastes 
 they really were. The poor honde is very sleepy, as he has had 
 to watch the ponies all night. We eat up our provisions, every 
 scrap of them, and have a pleasant canter of four hours back to 
 Storuvellir, where the kind family welcome us warmly. 
 
 All thoughts of ascending Hecla next morning were set at rest 
 by the clouds on its summit. So saying farewell to our American 
 
KIRKJUBAE. 153 
 
 friend, who was bound for the coast, we rode off for Kirkjubae, 
 fording a pretty deep river, the Laxa, and cantering once more 
 over meadow-land. But at my desire we made a circuit which 
 brought us again over ashes and cinders. What destruction fire 
 has worked here ! — frost is nowhere in the battle. In the year 
 1302, one of the most fertile districts in this country, Skard, was 
 overwhelmed by lava and cinders. Might not an old homestead — 
 a northern Pompeii with MS. in it — be discovered by explorers ? 
 The difficulty would be to know where to excavate ; for there is 
 nothing like a volcano for destroying landmarks, as I thought in 
 my heart while riding with apparently undoubting faith to see 
 the spot where Gunnar fought one of his hardest battles. There 
 was the broken bank of Knaferholar, where thirty men lay in 
 wait for three. And we rode as Gunnar did to the Ness, by 
 Kang river ; and Haldor was in his element, showing the stones 
 they piled after the fight, where one brother of Gunnar' s was 
 slain to fourteen men on the other side, — one of whom said at 
 last, " Let us fly now ; we have not to do with men but with 
 fiends." — Vide 'Njal's Saga.' The mountain Thrihyrning (Three- 
 corner) rises here, edged by Eastern Kanga; and further on, 
 near a pretty little lake, stands a good farm, where they asked 
 us to come in. We sat with the old bonde in a wainscoted room 
 painted bright blue, while the daughters of the house brought 
 delicious coffee. Haldor, I may mention, as it has all ended well, 
 was suspected of having lost his heart somewhere in this farm, 
 and looked anxious and wistful in consequence. He asked leave 
 to stay here over the next day — Sunday — which we ourselves 
 had settled to spend at Kirkjubae. 
 
 They showed us the church, where there was a fine medieval 
 salver and a beautiful cup, said to have been forged by the elves, 
 but probably brought from the far south by some roving Viking 
 or Skald long ago. There was a new handsome cope of embroid- 
 ered crimson satin, and also an altar-cloth richly worked in gold, 
 both presented by the old bonde, who was evidently something of 
 a ritualist. No one would venture to use this pretty little church 
 as a bedroom, I should hope. Happily it is out of the track of 
 
164 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 tourists. I have known them make quite a grievance of not 
 being permitted to sleep in a church, after having made various 
 irreverent, if very mild jokes, about the trifling incongruities aris- 
 ing out of a practice which comes as a matter of course to the 
 natives. 
 
 But they do respect their churches ; and now that some 
 money is coming into the country, we often find improvements, 
 and even costly decorations, taken in hand by parishes, or, as in 
 this case, by individuals. 
 
 Leaving Haldor, whose courtship we believe prospered apace, 
 we rode on about eight miles to Kirkjubae, the house of the 
 priest of the parish. His other church lies about equidistant in 
 an opposite direction ; so Sira Isleif Gislason has a good deal of 
 riding, and rides good horses too. No doubt our wanderings 
 would be much more entertaining if I could tell more about the 
 home life of the hospitable houses where we were received ; but 
 though there is little one can say without indiscretion, all the 
 east country knows how Sira Isleif is a good musician, with a 
 charming tenor voice. The evening was cheered with part-sing- 
 ing of Icelandic, Swedish, and Danish songs, to which Thorgrimur 
 contributed a deep bass, and a small boy a silvery treble. Music 
 lies deep in the Icelanders, and the misfortunes of two hundred 
 years have not stamped it out, though the howls of old bodies 
 in churches would sometimes make one think so. The art is 
 reviving. Beautiful voices are common, perhaps from the purity 
 of the air, and the people have the Teutonic gift of harmony, and 
 easily learn part-singing. 
 
 On Sunday it rained as usual. I had an early gallop on a fine 
 strong chestnut pony, with a hook-shaped blaze, hence called 
 Krokur, which I bought for my own riding, as, though not pretty, 
 he was indefatigable, and a perfect kelpie in the water. Then we 
 all rode eight miles to church through two swollen rivers. The 
 little wooden church was already surrounded by people, many 
 of whom came from afar; others were arriving on horseback, 
 delivering their ponies outside the churchyard wall to some boys, 
 who, helped by the noisy dogs, kept them from running ofi" home. 
 
gunnar's farm. 155 
 
 Neighbourly greetings and kisses were exchanged. The women 
 often carried children on their knees as they sat in their Spanish 
 saddles. Some of the lassies rode astride ; but with short stirrups, 
 and a fold of cloth in front, they managed quite nicely. The 
 young men showed their ponies' mettle as they dashed up ; and 
 the whole scene was lively and neighbourly. The church was 
 crowded in spite of the weather ; the singing was very fair, and 
 Sira Isleif gave an interesting sermon. 
 
 We raced back with eight or ten of the congregation, who rode 
 through the swirling Ranga, and came'our way. Sira Isleif rode 
 on in the opposite direction to christen a child, and got home 
 late in the drenching rain. 
 
 When it rained hard on the Monday, we were told it was a 
 clearing shower. It was much to be hoped that this was the 
 case ; but we rode our day's journey for all that in the rain, 
 through the once fertile district of Fljotslid, halting at a poor 
 farm, Hlidarende, because Gunnar lived there 900 years ago. 
 I could only catch glimpses of the wide view from it through 
 driving vapours and rain. When in the evening we reached the 
 farm of Barkkarstadr, I felt rather chilled and weary with wet 
 (for which Icelandic has one word, vdsmodr), and very thankful 
 to get under cover. They were kind people at the farm. I had 
 set my heart on going next day up a mysterious valley called 
 Thorsmark, of which people told wonders. But "no," said the 
 farmer's wife, Fru Ingebjorg ; " on that wild journey you shall 
 not fare to-morrow. Stop here two nights, and I will lend you 
 a fine pony, and you shall visit the falls where Bjarni Thoraren- 
 sen saw the fairies, and Njal's upland farm." So" it was arranged. 
 She lent me a handsome young grey, and we went over the flat 
 lands, skirting the abrupt line of cliffs which border all the wide 
 valley below, called the Land isles, in distinction to the Westmann 
 isles, just visible out at sea — the sea itself being about twenty- 
 five miles distant. The cliff is like a wall broken into occasional 
 rifts. Down these several remarkably pretty waterfalls come 
 foaming; and winding hollow ways run between the rocks, lead- 
 ing to dry caverns tasselled with ferns. One, to which I scram- 
 
156 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 bled up twelve feet of perpendicular rock, was curtained inside 
 with a delicate fern like maiden-hair — a fit retreat for the elves. 
 Haldor, who was merely a rough working man, told old legends 
 so well, that we fell to talking over fiction in general. He had read 
 several of Scott's novels in Danish, and liked them much, but 
 was especially fascinated by Bulwer Lytton's ' The Last of the 
 Barons,' and, I think, * Harold.' " These were the books to give 
 one something to think of on a winter night," he said. In the 
 evening I found at the farm a copy of Bjarni Thorarensen's 
 poems ; he who saw the fairies, and who lived some fifty years 
 ago at Hlidarende. Fru Ingebjorg, seeing how much I liked 
 the book, gave it to me. His occasional verses and short songs 
 are often charming. One which I translated as rather appropriate 
 is entitled " Written in dejection by the Sea " — 
 
 *' The skerry away in the fjord, 
 So deep in the sea's unrest, 
 In silence endures for ever 
 The foam that beats on its breast. 
 
 Mean is the man who is weaker 
 Than senseless rock in the strife, 
 And yields to the clash of the billows, 
 The countering currents of life." 
 
157 
 
 CHAPTER XYL 
 
 MAKKAEFLJOT EIVEE — THOESMAEK — FLOODS AND FOEDS. 
 
 If you make up a hot fire, and put on a kettle of water, and 
 then bank up the fire so as to conceal all but the smoke ; if you 
 then pile ice on the lid of the kettle, and add a pipe to drain it 
 downwards, you will produce a condition of what chemists call 
 unstable equilibrium — in short, there will soon be a great splutter 
 of some sort. Keep piling on the ice, and do not let the fire go 
 down, and the whole will fairly represent the condition of the 
 southern mountain-system of Iceland just now. You hardly can 
 tell whether ice, or boiling water, or ashes, or molten metallic 
 substances, or some, or all together, will be the next destructive 
 agent or agents liberated. 
 
 Sometimes, as when Breidamark glacier overwhelmed Svinadal, 
 the internal heat causes whole glaciers to precipitate themselves 
 into the valleys ; as if the ice melting below slipped in a mass off 
 the lid of the kettle. Sometimes there is an eruption of boiling 
 water only, often preceded by the disappearance of a glacier 
 river. This happens, I suppose, when the ice on the lid of the 
 kettle melts into the kettle instead of dripping into the pipe. 
 The pipe dries up, and the kettle hurls off its lid, and boils over. 
 All sorts of things, indeed, may happen so as to make it a nice 
 stirring sort of country for a picnic on a summer's day. But we 
 were bent on a picnic up the formerly mentioned valley of Thors- 
 mark. Once twelve good farms had flourished there; but the 
 land had been all wasted for centuries by a succession of volcanic 
 
158 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 and icy devastations. Now there are no inhabitants, and scarcely 
 any one had seen it. An English painter had written enthusi- 
 astically about its wonders ; and so had an Icelandic poet, who, 
 while owning that the waters " stormed on either hand, and that 
 neither horse nor rider would survive a stumble in the terrible 
 fords which were like waterfalls," yet counselled his countrymen 
 by all means to go there, especially if out of spirits. Its 
 entrance, as seen from Barkkarstadr, looked alluring. The blue 
 mountains seemed wilder as they ran inland until they reached 
 a climax of frosted silver glacier ; and two dark-blue cliffs stood 
 like a gateway, leaving between them a narrow way by which 
 the wild Krossa flung itself into Markarfljot. 
 
 An Icelandic river could not be symbolised by a nymph re- 
 clining by a water-urn, sending a gentle streamlet down to widen 
 and broaden into a smooth river, carrying ships down to cities 
 on its shores. Eather we may imagine one of the frost-giants 
 crouching in a glacier-cavern, and hurling rocks and ice and 
 debris down the furious turbid waves that burst from the moun- 
 tains already a destructive full-grown river. 
 
 The rivers which drain the glacier-system to the south are 
 especially short, broad, and furious. They are sometimes as broad 
 as they are long, — mere outlets, flowing over changing quicksands 
 two or three miles in breadth. And there is not a frost-ogre in 
 all the land who despatches a wilder, wickeder river to the sea 
 than the one who presides over Markarfljot. 
 
 This great river has sorely injured the once fertile strath over 
 which our way led. Volcanoes and glacier-floods have caused it 
 to make a track about three miles across, down which it runs 
 in many changing channels. It is very capricious ; sometimes 
 it may be waded, and sometimes it is a serious and even im- 
 passable barrier between the south and east country. In the Njal 
 Saga it is told how Gunnar, when he was exiled, rode over this 
 country towards the sea with his brother. His horse stumbled 
 and fell, and as he rose he looked back on the valley. " Fair," he 
 said, " the corn grows on the river-banks ; the meadows are cut, 
 the whole country is ready for harvest ; here will I end my days." 
 
THE RIVER. 159 
 
 His enemies took care that these days should not be many. 
 This was 900 years ago, but of that verdure there is still left 
 here and there an island of green grass and some patches of wild 
 rye. The soil is very good, and the warm sun might still ripen 
 grain here, I believe, but for this terrible river, which has strewn 
 woods and fields with its wreck of sand and boulders, aided by 
 its tributaries, well named Cross river, Thwart river, and Wrong 
 river — Krossd, Thverd, and RangcL. 
 
 Besides the ordinary causes of spates j these glacier-rivers have 
 another peculiar to themselves called the Jokull hlaup, or glaciei*- 
 leap. As far as I could ascertain, this is caused by an accumu- 
 lation of water somewhere on a glacier-surface. When it accumu- 
 lates beyond a certain point it overflows, or, it may be, rushes 
 through a glacier-arch deep in the bed of the river, causing a 
 furious short inundation. In a short broad glacier-stream of two 
 to six miles long the traveller may be surprised by this glacier- 
 leap in mid-stream, converting in a moment a fordable river into 
 a furious cataract hurling down ice -fragments and boulders. 
 In some rivers these inundations are periodical, in others they 
 seem to depend on the weather, but they must be taken into 
 account by the traveller. 
 
 Sinister reports of the condition of Markarfljot had reached us — 
 the mild rains had swelled the water ; but a farmer in the neigh- 
 bourhood, to whom the river was but a familiar tricky spirit, 
 came early, pronounced it all safe, and himself undertook to pilot 
 us through the fords of the day — for the fords are always chang- 
 ing. When we came to the river, it seemed as if we had miles 
 to ride before reaching the other side of that network of white 
 wavy currents. Jon the farmer directed the lads how to take 
 the water with the loose ponies ; and in they went, I following 
 with Jon by my side. He talked with a kindly patronage of the 
 river, as Undine talked of uncle Kiihleborn ; and he told me a 
 story, interspersed with poetry, in mid-stream, while I glanced 
 anxiously at the men shouting to the struggling swimming herd 
 of ponies in front, and the whirling white water that eddied 
 round the neck of my little steed. We crossed the river in 
 
160 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 seven branches, landing on spits of sand or gravel islets ; and it 
 took us three-quarters of an hour before we had, without accident, 
 gained the side of Eyjarfjall JokuU. Here we sent on a lad with 
 the loose ponies to a farm beyond, and we two ladies, with 
 Thorgrimur and Haldor, turned up the water-side towards Thors- 
 mark. The scene was beautiful as we cantered by the river over 
 bog-myrtle and blaeberries, and such low luxuriance, towards the 
 mountain gates and silver peaks beyond. On the left hand, as 
 we rose, the desolation wrought by Markarfljot became a net- 
 work of glittering water, enlivening the dark land. Away below 
 stretched the great flat, edged by the low foam of the bright sea, 
 only broken by one volcanic rocky crag called Dimon. 
 
 To the right was Eyjarfjall JokuU, crested with ice, and as we 
 advanced the cliffs closed in to the left till we were riding in a 
 narrow valley, which would have been fertile but for the restless 
 river. The place was really extraordinary ; there were only rocks 
 and glaciers to the right, and yet grassy nooks and lawns, 
 sprinkled with birch-trees, opened between the basalt cliffs to the 
 left. The Krossa seemed to have a wicked personality of its 
 own : now it foamed against the rocks to the right, now it flung 
 debris on the green slopes to the left, — the valley was not wide 
 enough for its caprices ; sometimes it broke into many channels, 
 and then again rushed into one. We forded and forded again to 
 win our way up the valley. The glaciers now almost reached it, 
 each pouring its tributary torrent into the river. We turned for 
 a little way up one branch of it, a cleft between two black walls 
 of basalt which almost met overhead, a complete picture of moun- 
 tain gloom, saddened still further by the one living thing we 
 saw all day — a lamb with a broken leg dying by the stream. 
 Haldor gave it a kindly coup de grace, and we heard the scream 
 of the gathering eagles. Morris in his story of Sigurd the 
 Volsung describes such a landscape as this with both graphic 
 power and scientific accuracy. I remembered the lines as I 
 went : — 
 
 " Day long they fared through the mountains, and that highway's fashioner 
 Forsooth was a fearful craftsman, and his hands the water were, 
 
A BAD FORD. 161 
 
 And the heaped-up ice was his mattock, and the fireblast was his man, 
 And never a whit he heeded though his walls were waste and wan, 
 And the guest-halls of that wayside great heaps of the ashes spent. 
 But, each as a man alone, through the sun-bright day they went. " 
 
 We stopped for dinner on a pretty sheltered lawn where a little 
 brook flowed gently. It was not at all cold in spite of the masses 
 of glacier over the way ; too mild indeed, for the mountains were 
 pulling down their mist-caps, an(i then the rain began small and 
 thick. 
 
 There were water-worn boulders below, but the rocks seemed 
 chiefly igneous ; there was lava too, and the bright blue of glacier 
 spires and fissures contrasted strongly with the black crags. The 
 ice was splitting and cracking with a sound like great guns, 
 and falling in large pieces into some of the white torrents which 
 streamed from its lower edges. Never did I see such a debacle ; 
 decidedly it was time to return. We had forded the river seven 
 or eight times that morning, and once we scrambled over a point 
 of rock, making the ponies swim round ; and now the water was 
 higher than ever. We climbed on foot up the heights to the 
 left to turn some of these fords ; and what it was to walk up-hill 
 in deep cinders, clad in a wet macintosh, through heavy rain, 
 can only be imagined by those who have done it. All looked 
 now "Ugly and dreary ; and difficult as it had been to get into 
 the scrape, it was evidently going to be more difficult to get 
 out of it. I felt like that old w^oman of Servia who paid five 
 marks to go to the merry-making, but offered twenty to get away 
 from it. For two hours we kept on high ground, and then we 
 had to come down to the main ford. There was the white water 
 tearing down in several channels. Some were easy enough to 
 pass, but we tried the main stream in several places in vain. 
 The men's ponies wrestled in the waves at different points 
 and were beaten back, and they shouted to each other iifaer 
 (impassable). But we were bound to get through ; for the only 
 alternative would have been to pass the night in a damp cave 
 without food or wraps, till the cold had diminished the rush of 
 water from the glaciers. As I watched these attempts for half an 
 
 L 
 
162 
 
 BY FELL AXD FJOKD. 
 
 hour, I observed that the middle of the stream was pushed up 
 by the velocity of the current, so as to be decidedly higher than 
 the sides, as it rushed and roared past us, rolling and grinding 
 stones and lumps of ice. Thorgrimur at length placed Krokur 
 between his pony and Haider's, and said, " We will try, and turn 
 if we cannot do it." And the three ponies did it, though with 
 a great struggle ; they seemed doubled up by the force of the 
 current, and Thorgrimur was almost under the waves, which were 
 
 " All crested with tawny foam, 
 Like the mane of a chestnut steed." 
 
 Then I watched with much interest my companion crossing be- 
 tween the men, and admired the pluck of both riders and ponies. 
 
 Thorgrimur looking for a Ford. 
 
 We had one other bad ford, and it was darkening before we 
 cleared the domains of the Krossa. A loose pony joined us : he 
 was streaming wet, evidently just out of a river, and had not 
 even a halter on. Rather an anxious circumstance, as he looked 
 as though he might have lost trappings and rider in the river, 
 like "Chiquita the Beauty." But we heard afterwards he had 
 been lent by a farmer to help a party over the river, and then 
 had been sent home to his farm by himself. Presently he turned 
 another way, and we saw him no more. At 11 p.m. we had 
 
NUPERKOT. 163 
 
 escaped from the valley, and rode through the rainy darkness to 
 a farm, which we reached at midnight — four dripping vagrants on 
 weary horses. 
 
 However, the honde roused up directly, but the womankind 
 and the lights only appeared half an hour later, and till then we 
 sat in the darkness with only a dim window-square visible. The 
 quaint thing was that all this time our guide and the honde kept 
 up a conversation, in which I joined to the best of my powers on 
 the pluie et le heau temps, as if it were a morning call ; as if we 
 were not sitting in the dark, and ridiculously hungry, muddy, 
 and sleepy. At last a slight supper came, and lights, which of 
 course at this season are rarely required ; and then, as our mat- 
 tresses were not here, I took my courage with both hands, went 
 into the little guest-room, and plunged into the bed. Something 
 rattled, and I hunted it out : it proved to be a plate of fish under 
 the duvet. I dared not ponder on what more there might have 
 been, and soon lost all anxieties in sleep. 
 
 We were glad to welcome a fine morning, and to ride away 
 betimes. The weather was improving at last, and the country 
 was very attractive. 
 
 A strip of fertile flat land two or three miles wide runs be- 
 tween a range of steep crags and the sea. A waterfall we 
 passed to-day, Seljandsfoss, looked especially pretty — it comes 
 down in one sheet of unbroken silver 300 feet ; and on this sunny 
 day two rainbows played in the foam that rose high above the 
 pool below. We climbed up behind the cascade, which falls a 
 good way in front of the cliffs, and would no doubt be illuminated 
 and surrounded by cafes if it were in Switzerland. We lunched 
 at the parsonage of Holt, in the midst of grassy bogs that 
 look as if some draining would convert them into first-rate pas- 
 ture ; the people were busied in trying to save and dry some very 
 wet hay. Here we met with a cheery farmer, Thorwaldur, who 
 asked us to his house, Nuperkot, and rode with us thither in the 
 evening. Behind it on one side the crags rise in a fine precipice, 
 and on the other they open towards the mountains of the interior, 
 letting in a view of glaciers, waterfalls, and lower green hills, 
 
164 
 
 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 over which the bonders ponies wander. He owns about fifty, some 
 of them very handsome. Twelve cows came in to be milked, 
 
 and I went with the workwomen into the dairy, which was unique. 
 A clear swift stream ran round it inside, and went out under a 
 bridge at the door, — most handy for washing the dishes, and 
 keeping everything pleasantly cool. 
 
A FARM. 165 
 
 Next clay I walked up to some folds, and saw a good many 
 of the young ponies which range the hills in the summer time. 
 Even in the winter only a few are kept up at the farm. Square 
 open folds of high turf-walls with one entrance, are constructed 
 for their shelter in bad weather. There they keep each other 
 warm, and are fed when necessary ; they would be too hot with 
 a roof over them. The finest riding-ponies only are kept near 
 the house in winter, and have hay, and even corn. In summer 
 all alike feed on the rich grass. The winter sheep-houses are 
 roofed in, but are as usual empty in the summer time. Only 
 the ewes whose lambs are weaned come home to the fold to be 
 milked every evening, and are sent to the nearer grazings under 
 charge of shepherds ; the rest of the sheep are far on the hills, 
 where an occasional hut or selar-hus gives them shelter in bad 
 weather. 
 
 In the afternoon the honde lent us excellent ponies. One was 
 a great favourite — twenty-five years had not quenched its spirit : 
 mine was young, and went like a bird, speeding over rock and 
 shingle as if they were grass. His paces were deliciously smooth, 
 his mouth and manners excellent. Thorgrimur was so pleased 
 with a colt he rode that he asked me to change ; but the " Four 
 winter" had no mouth at all, and ran away with me, and I 
 could only rein him in when he led the company. This was 
 now numerous, — among others Thorwaldur came with us, and 
 two young men, twin brothers, who had spent the night at the 
 farm ; one was travelling our way eastward, and the other came 
 to see him across the next river. The only difference between 
 them was that one was a priest and the other a doctor, so to 
 new acquaintances they were difficult to distinguish apart. We 
 stopped for luncheon on the grassy bank of the river, and had a 
 merry picnic. 
 
 Jokulsa-i-lon has a very short but violent course of six miles. 
 It rushes full grown out of the neighbouring glacier, and this 
 day was rather wild, rolling big stones with an ominous grind 
 beneath its milky waves. It is in some unholy alliance with 
 volcanic forces, for its waters smell strong of sulphurets — hence 
 
166 BY FELL AND FJOKD. 
 
 its other name Fullisd or fetid river. There was something 
 uncanny about this river from the earliest times. Landnama 
 book says, Lodmundr, called the Old, first took the land to the 
 west of it ; he was much addicted to sorcery, indeed a sort of 
 " half troll." He had as neighbour on the other side of the river, 
 another wizard called Thrasi. " One morning Thrasi saw a great 
 rush of water (glacier-leap) ; he turned the water by his spells 
 towards Solheima, Lodmundr' s abode. A thrall saw this, and 
 told Lodmundr how the sea was falling from the north over the 
 land towards them. Lodmundr was then blind. He bade the 
 thrall guide him to the bucket of water that he called the sea. 
 When he came, he said, * I do not consider this to be sea.' He 
 bade them lead him into the water, and planted his staff in ; a 
 ring was on the staff, and Lodmundr held it with both hands, 
 and bit on the ring. Then the water began to fall towards 
 Thrasi's land." Thus each diverted the water from himself, till 
 they met by a chasm, and agreed that the river might run 
 through it the shortest way to tlie sea. It is now called Jokulsa, 
 and divides the southern from the eastern quarter of the land. 
 
 After our meal we remounted, my companion on Thorwaldur's 
 strongest pony, while I adhered to my amphibious Krokur. Our 
 Haldor dashed into the river, and when he had got over to the 
 opposite shallows, he returned to pilot the twin, who in mid- 
 stream allowed his pony's head to be turned for a moment down 
 the stream, thus giving us, especially his brother, an anxious 
 minute, till, guided by Haldor, he struggled round and got out 
 on the other side, apparently rather wet. 
 
 In a bad ford the only duty of the rider is to keep the horse's 
 head up-stream, otherwise the less he is meddled with the better. 
 Haldor came back for us — but now my companion objected 
 to cross, and Haldor owned that the river was rising fast, so 
 although I was anxious to reach our night quarters on the 
 other side, where all was prepared for us, I could not but yield. 
 So we all rode five miles back to Skogar, a very clean parsonage, 
 where we passed the night. 
 
 Sira Kjartan the old priest here was quite deaf to every voice 
 
SKOGAR. 
 
 167 
 
 but that of a little grandson with a piping treble ; but he loves 
 talk, so the small interpreter was kept busy. The parsonage 
 is situated among grassy hillocks near a burn with little falls 
 and secluded pools. I went to sketch a noble waterfall, Skogar- 
 foss, whose roar sounded like a sustained chord on the pedals of 
 an organ, behind all the farm noises, and the shrill shouts of the 
 boys and women who screamed against it, on the chance that 
 Sira Kjartan might hear what they said. Has this waterfall. 
 
 i 
 
 perhaps, deafened Sira Kjartan by its never-ceasing din? The 
 approach to the falls is striking, for they are invisible, till on 
 fording the river you come round the face of a high crag and see 
 them close before you, and from the best point of view. 
 
 Haldor, who had ridden down to FuUisa, came back and 
 reported that the glacier-river had fallen as usual in the night, 
 and was now easy fording ; but it seemed as though the spells 
 
168 BY FELL AND FJOKD. 
 
 of the old wizards haunted the river still ; for while I, like the 
 X blind wizard, considered it a mere bucket of water, Miss Cath- 
 cart took the other view, that it was more like the sea, and 
 declined to put it between us and Reykjavik. I certainly re- 
 gretted turning back at such an interesting point, as the 
 weather was now brilliant, and seemed to be settled ; but it 
 must be owned that there was something to be said for her 
 point of view. So Sira Kjartan rode with us back to Nuperkot, 
 where we dined with the hospitable Thorwaldur, and again he 
 lent me the fiery little pony, from which I was loath to part. We 
 visited some caverns beyond, like great sea-caves, which no 
 doubt they once were, as this country shows marks of upheaval, 
 and the sea rolled up to the cliffs over the broad grass -lands 
 of our day. One of these caves was long the retreat of an 
 ancient Viking or " half troll " named Hrutr. There is a dry 
 large upper cavern draped with ferns, where at last his enemies 
 surprised and slew him ; and a range of lower caves, now used 
 as barns for hay, and winter stables. They were more like 
 castle buildings than natural rock, — the isolated cliffs rose in 
 such straight walls from the grassy valley, where hay-making 
 was now going on briskly. We stopped for the night at the 
 parsonage of Holt. Supper was served in a little room which 
 formed the end of the hadstofa — the loft in the roof, which is 
 the usual family sleeping-place in a hce. It was reached by a 
 ladder, and there was a bed between each of the upright posts 
 supporting the rafters. The men's portion is divided from the 
 women's room by a door ; and at one end a little room for the 
 master and mistress is often partitioned off. On the cross-beams 
 are shelves for books, &c. ; and the clothes are kept in chests. 
 In this house all was clean. After supper we sat on the beds, 
 which are all covered with gaily coloured worsted quilts, and 
 used as chairs by day, while Thorgrimur read aloud from Njala. 
 The women paused in their work to listen, the men drew near 
 from the other end of the room, all intent on the old story written 
 in the ancient Norse language forgotten in Norway, but the living 
 Icelandic still. 
 
 lU 0-<^/Lt i ItCLV^ CUr^^ - (^^-^^ 1t^ ^ 
 
 
169 
 
 CHAPTEK XYIL 
 
 OVER MARKAEFLJOT — NJAL's COUNTRY — FLO A — EYEABAKKI — 
 TO REYKJAVIK. 
 
 Next day being Sunday, a large congregation rode in and 
 crowded the church. The parson, Sira Sveinbjorn, who seems 
 very popular, gave us after service a good dinner, and himself, 
 w^th several other people, escorted us on our way to Bergthors- 
 hvol, on the other side of Markarfljot. Haldor had gone on early 
 wdth the baggage-ponies, and if he found the water impassable, 
 he was to be by the river-side to tell us, but the men thought 
 that two dry days would have put the river into a better humour. 
 Besides, near the mouth where we meant to cross, the current 
 would be less heavy ; but I heard tiie Icelandic word for quick- 
 sands mentioned. 
 
 Even fine ponies usually stand quite still when they do stand 
 in Iceland, but I had noticed one pawing and prancing by the 
 churchyard gate, which the owner Thorwaldur, who the year after 
 travelled with Miss Menzies and me, offered to lend me. It was 
 a fiery little thing, and, excited by the loose ponies, carried me 
 like a swallow — in just such short swift flights. It was useful, 
 as our two best ponies, which had been bought in this neighbour- 
 hood, had laid their heads together, and finding we were going 
 the wrong way for them, set off homewards ; and there was a 
 great deal of spying with the field-glass and running and riding 
 before they were found and driven back. They were mistaken. 
 
170 BY FELL AND FJOllD. 
 
 as both have found excellent homes in this country, and are 
 petted favourites now. 
 
 We rode in a merry troop over the flats till we reached the 
 river, and then the rest of the party said farewell to us after 
 having shown us the first ford. Here, in the gatheriiig twilight, 
 caused partly by a sea-mist coming up, rolled Markarfljot wider 
 than ever, but with a far quieter current, down to the neighbour- 
 ing sea. The foam-belt, where the waves met the river, was 
 visible. A philanthropist who lived hard by and knew the 
 river, oiTered to pilot us through, and would take no remunera- 
 tion, and again there was talk about quicksands. He told us 
 Haldor had passed in the morning, but mentioned that as the 
 fords were variable from shifting sands, he would drive in our 
 loose ponies first, to watch the wa}^ they got out. We had five, 
 all unburdened, our own '^ second horses," and the two deserters. 
 
 " Now, Thorgrimur, no paragraph for the newspapers," I said ; 
 " we are sober people, who expect to get through," — and he 
 explained that all precautions meant safety, not danger. 
 
 We crossed the river in three branches ; the third is some 
 miles beyond the others, and is called Afall. It was now dim 
 twilight, and a scene of utter dreariness. We were on a little 
 island bank of shingle, into which our ponies subsided gradually ; 
 before us rolled the broad turbid stream, its further bank almost 
 lost in the grey gloom, only the sea-birds, tossing and shrieking, 
 showed white against the misty colours. Our loose ponies were 
 plunging about or swimming in the current, till they all came 
 aground on a sandbank, and stood there planted, a melancholy 
 row in shallow water. Then the river-guide showed his pluck : 
 urging in his pony, half fording half swimming, he drove them 
 determinately forward — and one here and one there, some with 
 a great struggle, they all got out on the other side. 
 
 The men observed which ponies had made the best landing, 
 and thither we rode, cautiously feeling our way through a deep 
 ford. We had a great scramble close to the bank, as our ponies' 
 hind-legs sank in bad sands. It did not come quite so far as 
 dismounting in the river, for which disagreeable possibility I 
 
FORDING MARKAEFLJOT. 
 
 171 
 
 
172 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 held myself ready ; but still we were pretty wet when we arrived 
 at Bergthorshvol, which is close to Afall, at half-past ten. Haldor 
 had preceded us ; and we found a kind young prestur and his 
 wife had got supper ready, and delicious down beds. 
 
 I left mine early to go out on the dewy tun on a beautiful 
 summer morning. It is the historical background that gives 
 such interest to travel in this pastoral land 5 peaceful and simple 
 as all was here, the association was with fierce passions, and 
 heroic virtues, and noble endurance. For here was the dwelling 
 of Njal, the hero of the grandest saga — a remarkable character 
 indeed in these fierce times — a man who never bore a weapon, 
 and yet was respected by all. There can be no doubt about the 
 locality ; the long knoll is the only rise in the plain, which 
 stretches from the sea to the hills, thirty miles to the north. 
 Eastward, at about the same distance, the ice-crested mountains 
 extend to the sea. Close by the knoll one branch of Markarfljot 
 runs sulkily among its shifting sands. Seawards rise the West- 
 mann Islands — about twenty purple cliffs set in silver : and all 
 was silence this summer morning except the bleating of sheep, 
 the barking of dogs, and the cries of the sea-birds. 
 
 The description of the burning of the homestead here, a.d. 
 1010, is terribly graphic. I seemed now to see the hundred 
 burners surrounding it in the windy autumn night, to let no 
 fighting man escape, though they called on the women to come 
 out and save their lives ; for they believed themselves to be 
 no murderers but lawful avengers. " Go thou out, housewife," 
 says Flosi, their chief; "far be it from me to let thee burn 
 within." But Njal's wife was worthy of him. "Young I was 
 when I was given to Njal," she says, " and always promised that 
 one fate should befall us both." So the old pair lay down quietly 
 in their bed, with the little grandson, Kari's son, between them, 
 who refused to leave them ; and there they were foimd under 
 heaps of ashes, but untouched by fire, in the morning. 
 
 When the roof had crashed in, and the ring of burners had 
 backed a little from the fire-flakes on the wind, and the spears 
 still flung by the dying men within, Kari, Njal's son-in-law, 
 
THE BURNING. 173 
 
 asked Skarphedinn, Njal's poetical unlucky son, to make an effort 
 to escape by running up a beam, which had fallen from the gable 
 but still rested on the wall. " Run up here, and I after you, and 
 we may both get oif, for this way lies all the smoke. But Skarp- 
 hedinn said he would follow. Then Kari took a flaming bench 
 in his hand, ran up the fallen beam, and flung the bench down 
 from the roof and it fell among those outside, who ran back. 
 Kari's clothes and hair were all in a blaze, he flung himself down 
 and ran low with the smoke." (Poor Kari first introduced sailing 
 on the poop of his war-ship, " clad in scarlet, with much hair like 
 silk flowing under his golden helmet.") '' The nearest man said, 
 * Did not a man leap down ? ' 'No such thing,' said another ; 
 Hhey are casting firebrands at us.' Kari ran down to a bog, 
 still to be seen a furlong ofl' below the knoll, cast himself down 
 in it and slaked the fire, then running in the smoke reached 
 a little hollow, still called Kari's hollow, and rested himself, 
 and as soon as he was breathed he sped away till he met a 
 friend. Flosi and his men stayed by the ruins, when still ' the 
 flames leapt up occasionally and then fell low,' till the morning 
 was well advanced, when a horseman came up who said, 'You 
 have wrought a strong deed here.' ' Men may call it both a 
 strong and an ill deed,' answered Flosi ; and then they told over 
 the slain, and among them Kari Solmundarson. Said Geirmund 
 the new-comer, ' You call him dead that I have chatted with this 
 morning. Kari had met my neighbour Bardr, who gave him a 
 horse ; and his hair and clothes were burned off him.' ' Had he 
 any weapon ? ' said Flosi. ' He had his sword, Life-luller,' said 
 Geirmund, ' and both its edges were blackened, and Bardr said it 
 must have been softened in the fire ; but he answered that he 
 would harden it in the blood of the sons of Sigfus and the other 
 burners.' Flosi said, 'You have told us news that shows we 
 shall have no peace more, for that man has escaped as avenger 
 who is most like Gunnar of Lithend in all things.' " ^ 
 
 Kari avenged his kindred, but when justice was done, he and 
 Flosi became reconciled. This is the true spirit of the North. 
 1 See Burnt Njal (Dasent's translation), chap. i. p. 29. 
 
174 BY FELL AND FJOKD. 
 
 There is not the Eastern tendency to indiscriminate massacre. 
 We find even amid the fury of battle and revenge some self- 
 restraint — respect for women, and respect for law. Njal's sons 
 were outlaws at this time. 
 
 Nothing could be more peaceful than the scene before us ; the 
 little girls sat on the bank by the river, singing part-songs 
 prettily, and the snow-buntings twittered in reply, while I 
 thought out a ballad about Flosi and Kari, in which this scene 
 blended with recollections of the storm encountered three years 
 ago on the now calm grey sea about the Westmann Islands. 
 
 THE END OF THE FEUD. 
 
 A TRUE STORY OF ICELAND. 
 
 A.D. 1017. 
 
 An autumn gale and a darkening night, 
 
 O'er mountainous waves the foam flies white ; 
 
 Swift are clouds in a ivindy sky — 
 The ship is battered and tempest-tossed, 
 And ever she drifts on the Iceland coast ; 
 
 List to the sea-yulVs hungry cry. 
 
 The white waves break on the mariners' dread. 
 The terrible island, Ingolf's Head ; 
 
 Cruel is death on our native shore — 
 And straight above on the upland fells 
 Our mortal enemy, Flosi, dwells. 
 
 Cruel are foes that were friends before. 
 
 Kdri looks at the sea and the land, 
 
 ' ' For good or for ill is the end at hand ; " 
 
 Waves will laugh at the mariner^s skill — ^ 
 
 The ship is shattered and melts away. 
 The crew come forth from the stinging spray. 
 
 The sea may spare what the foe may spill. 
 
 *' Many a time have I thought to slay 
 Him we shall meet at home to-day ; " 
 
 Fierce are the storms that men can raise. 
 *' Sworn to revenge and not to spare. 
 Dreamt of my home in a fiery glare." 
 
 When will it die — that bitterest blaze ? 
 
 "Well may ye deem my sword is good. 
 Softened in flame and hardened in blood ! " 
 Ashes are black where once was home — 
 
THE END OF THE FEUD.. 175 
 
 ** Life for life has this conquering brand 
 Counted my dead out of Flosi's band. " 
 Ever shall murderers meet their doom. 
 
 ' ' The feud is fought to the bitter end, 
 
 And yet we may meet as friend meets friend ; " 
 
 21ie homeless toinds are abroad alone. 
 *' And yet he may only thank the wave 
 That spares his foe for a bloodier grave." 
 
 ^Tis quiet below the sculptured stone. 
 
 * ' We fear no foe nor any fate, 
 
 Let us then knock at Flosi's gate ; " 
 
 Hark to the tvind on the upland fell — 
 * ' We are worn-out men and the night is blind, 
 We'll prove the mettle of Flosi's mind. " 
 
 Hark to the dash of the thunderous swell. 
 
 Flosi came to the wind-shook door, 
 
 " What voice is that in the tempest's roar? " 
 
 Oh fires within are bright and warm. — 
 *' Who stands so dark against the snow ? " 
 "Kdri it is, thy deadliest foe." 
 
 Holdfast the doors against the storm. 
 
 ' ' Thou com'st unarmed, a shipwrecked guest, 
 Kdri, avenger, come thou blest. " ^ 
 
 Cruelest storms at last will cease — 
 *' Revenge is past, and love shall live ; 
 Ah, doubt not, but the dead forgive." 
 
 Under the grass mounds cdl is peace. 
 
 From Bergthorshvol our day's ride was to Odde, which from 
 the most ancient times has been a well-known place. The first 
 author who wrote books in the country, Saemund the historian, 
 lived here. He is supposed to have compiled the ^ Elder Edda.' 
 
 Here Snorri Sturlason the historian was brought up by Jon 
 Loptson, also a man of mark. Mackenzie found a good house 
 here, and a handsome church, in 1811, when Iceland was at its 
 lowest ebb. We were a large party, and had a charming even- 
 ing, entertained by the kindly and merry old Dean, Sira Oud - - ^ 
 ^aa^trr^trr This house had what is rare, a regular dining-room and 
 drawing-room ; and my little bedroom, all to myself, was most 
 
 1 " Come thou blest " is the Icelander's welcome when guests come to 
 his house. 
 
 fX 
 
 
176 
 
 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 comfortable. So large and fine a house represents a good deal 
 of expenditure, both to build and to keep it up, in this treeless, 
 roadless land. 
 
 Next day tlie Dean rode with us to show ns the way over 
 Western Kanga. He lent me a nice pony, but so fat that, after 
 much balancing, round came the saddle and I with it to the 
 ground ; the only form of accident I have ever met with in Ice- 
 land. The journey seemed nearly as much by water as by land, 
 for after Eanga came endless fording of a little river which 
 seemed not to know its own mind as to its course ; I lost count 
 of the fords after the fourteenth. Then we had to cross the great 
 Thjorsa. This we did in a ferry-boat, having a row of a quarter 
 of an hour to a spit of gravel near the western shore. The 
 ponies swam and landed here, and we remounted and forded the 
 rest of the stream. The ponies rolled in the black sand to dry 
 themselves, and it may be imagined what figures they were when 
 they had thus groomed themselves entirely to their own satis- 
 faction. 
 
 After Odde the country was less pretty. There were still far- 
 off hills to the right, Hecla among them ; but the path lay 
 
 over old lava, mostly crumbled small 
 into black earth or black sands 
 edging the neighbouring sea. To- 
 wards evening we reached Litla 
 Hrauni, the house of the old Si/ssel- 
 man or county magistrate, our guide's 
 father. Here again we were ex- 
 pected and entertained as guests, and 
 there was every comfort for weary 
 travellers. The kind people would 
 not let us go next day, but we visited 
 the station of Eyrabakki, called on 
 the merchant there, whose daughters 
 gave us good music, and played whist in the evening, spending 
 altogether a most civilised day. The following day the weather 
 relapsed into its former evil ways. We rode to Keykjavik in 
 
TO REYKJAVIK. 177 
 
 ten hours, plodding on all day in a sort of shower-bath. Nothing 
 remarkable was visible but the Olfus river, and when we came 
 to it we could just perceive it was rather wetter than anything 
 else. It looked like an arm of the sea, for there was not much 
 current, but low sea-waves. That dim rainy day it looked 
 miles across ; by the map it is about two English miles. I 
 pitied the ponies, for some of them showed great reluctance to 
 swim out to sea, and were rather exhausted on first landing. 
 Not so the amphibious Krokur, nor the malingering cream 
 brothers, who, as usual, had to be towed behind our boat. 
 
 The weather had now spent its fury, and cleared up thoroughly ; 
 all our damp possessions were spread out to dry in the sun, and 
 I basked in it myself. Some pleasant days went by in hospitable 
 Keykjavik, — and then Miss Cathcart sailed for Scotland ; but it 
 illustrates the odd attractiveness of Iceland, that, undeterred by 
 the wretched weather we had encountered, she returned there 
 again another and a sunnier season. 
 
 As I was now alone, I asked Sigrida, a young Icelandic friend, 
 Thorgrimur's sister, to ride with me west, to the scenes of the 
 Egil Saga. 
 
178 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 HVALFJORD — BORGARFJORD. 
 
 The last excursion had no doubt been very interesting, but it 
 was sometimes a strain on one's endurance, as it was to outcast 
 volcanic regions, over wild rivers that have wasted tlie land, and 
 through much bad weather. The next was a thorough contrast, 
 for it was through the dales of the west, the softest part of the 
 country. Day succeeded day of unclouded loveliness, evening 
 twilight brightening into morning dawn. The way was chiefly 
 through green pastoral valleys, and I generally stopped at the 
 farms and shared the life of tlie people. It was as if one had 
 stepped out of the restrictions of modern life into a simple Ar- 
 cadia. I took no tent this time, and only one baggage-pony, 
 letting the relays carry some light wraps. Sigrida, a merry girl 
 with a sweet soprano voice, rode along carolling like a bird, often 
 driving the loose ponies, like Enid in the poem ; while her brother 
 ranged about with his gun after wild ducks and game, and I kept 
 up the communications, having many a solitary ramble across 
 country ; for I found that I had now become experienced in find- 
 ing tracks, crossing bogs, choosing fords, and all the incidents 
 of Icelandic riding. 
 
 The brother and sister were popular people, and so warmly 
 welcomed wherever we came, that our journey seemed to be 
 always, if a picnic by day, a little festa in the evening. There 
 wns no getting the kindly hosts to receive any money, — whether 
 rich or poor themselves, they made us welcome to their best. 
 
NEIGHBOURS. . 179 
 
 Of course I lived with them and behaved as a guest, and also we 
 often brought game or soup to help out the dinner. 
 
 The first day we rode over the Pass of Eysja to Kenny vellir. 
 I had been there twice before, but never in such magnificent 
 weather, which elicited fresh exclamations of delight at every 
 turn. There is no use attempting descriptions. It suffices to say 
 th^t the great bog formerly mentioned on our first return from 
 Geysir, is now much more passable, turf and stone causeways 
 having been built across the worst, parts. The bachelor parson 
 had been succeeded at Kennyvellir by a married pair, who had 
 greatly improved the house ; and two comfortable beds were 
 made up in the guest-room for Sigrida and me. 
 
 Next day we rode straight over the barrier of hills — a steep 
 scramble — down to the edge of the lovely Hvalfjord, fording half 
 a mile of sea, as formerly described, and arriving in the evening 
 with plenty of game at the parsonage of Saurbse. It is a bow- 
 shot from the fjord, which here opens to the sea, into which the 
 mountain Akranes runs in a promontory. Towards the head of 
 the fjord the mountains are piled up, looking like a grander Scot- 
 land, but for the snow-hill stained with evening red which peers 
 above the rest. The parsonage-house, where several grown-up 
 sons and daughters lived, besides working people, was pretty 
 full ; but as Sigrida and I sauntered on the meadow we saw 
 another party of travellers ride up — three men and two women. 
 The young lady, who rode a very handsome pony, I was sur- 
 prised to see, as only the previous Sunday we had ridden to- 
 gether at Eeykjavik, when she said she meant to go abroad. 
 Here she was, looking rosy and pretty, riding with her since 
 then betrothed bridegroom — his sister, a young man, and a friend 
 making up the party. It had all been settled since we met, and 
 instead of staying at home to receive congratulations, she had 
 started off with her betrothed to visit her relations in the north. 
 Her mother had started with them, but by this time they had 
 dropped the mother, and I can imagine no more enjoyable expe- 
 dition than this summer ride in the 
 
 " Happy hours of golden prime, 
 The affluence of love and time. " 
 
180 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 But now the house was brimming over. The bride-elect and I 
 shared the little room, with a big bed off the guest-room, which 
 is found in many houses. It is timber-lined, but the turf-walls 
 are about eight feet thick. Half the thickness of the wall forms 
 a table in the window, on the other side a dog often sleeps as 
 in a cosy kennel, and talks to you in the morning. Often this 
 window will not open ; but it is easy to take it out altogether, 
 as my companion and I did the following morning; and the 
 guest-room being full of men, we got out thus and down to a 
 ravine where the stream falls in a little cascade into a beautiful 
 pool for a bath. The bride was a fair sight when her abundant 
 hair of ruddy gold was shaken down in the sunshine. She was 
 an old friend, being the imperturbable damsel who had shared 
 our bad voyage in '75. We had a most lively breakfast together, 
 then rode off on our several ways. My way was among birch 
 and willow growth, still to the north-west, flat land with abrupt 
 hills rising from it. There were flights of golden plover, but 
 the birds were packing, and shy, — stalking was needed to get a 
 shot at them. We stopped for coffee at a new well-built house 
 with gold wall-papers ! beside a new church, with a dash of 
 architecture about it. Iceland is progressing. 
 
 In the afternoon we gained Hofn, a farm on the edge of the 
 Borgar^ord. The farmer was a very handsome man, six feet 
 three, and grandly proportioned. It was sad to hear that drink 
 had got hold of him. He has since died in the prime of life. He 
 sent a man to drive our ponies round the fjord to the first ford — 
 a long night-journey — while he undertook to put us straight 
 across to Borg, some two miles over the water. 
 
 We shoved off in a rickety boat. The water spurted up 
 through the holes so violently that I thought the plugs were out. 
 Not at all. And the honde, who steered, when I asked how long 
 she would float without baling, said, as a matter of course, ^' Oh, 
 twenty minutes ! " Luckily we had always one man baling, 
 generally three, and also the weather was perfect. Still the 
 boat became very wet, while the honde talked incessantly, and 
 cared not for the water lashing about his feet. Leaky boats are 
 
FIRST SETTLERS. IBl 
 
 as common in Iceland as in Norway, where there is not the same 
 want of wood as an excuse. A Norwegian will put off in any- 
 thing that will keep afloat by means of constant baling. With 
 a birch-bush for a sail, a dipper, and an oar, he will shove across 
 deep arms of the sea ; and this is the more hazardous, as neither in 
 Norway nor Iceland are the people generally able to swim. In 
 old days it was considered an almost necessary accomplishment. 
 
 These old days seemed very present as we sailed up this beau- 
 tiful flord, which is minutely described in the Landnamabok and 
 the Egil's Saga. These first settlers, who came in a.d. 878, 
 headed by Skallagrim, Egil's father, were terrible fellows. Skal- 
 lagrim was a first-rate smith, but apt to split his anvil ; a fierce 
 combatant, who, even when wrestling in sport, when his blood 
 was up killed his son's companion, the young champion of the 
 district, and nearly killed his own son, — would have done so but 
 for the intervention of Egil's foster-mother Braka, "a woman 
 strong as a man, and mighty in spells." But even on her he 
 turned when she interfered, and she fled to the fjord pursued by 
 him, took to the water and swam for life, while he hurled a rock 
 after her that struck her between the shoulders, and she sank 
 to rise no more, and ever since the sea-reach has been named 
 Brakarsund. Skallagrim inherited some of the " evening fierce- 
 ness" of his awful father, Kveldiilfr, who became at nightfall 
 wolfish in mind, if not a were-wolf outright. 
 
 He was, however, a poet, and some of the very earliest Visa, or 
 short songs improvised for different events, are believed to have 
 been really composed by him. He was fond of his sons too, this 
 ravening old sea-wolf. One of them, Thorolfur, was handsome 
 and debonnaire, and became a liegeman of Harald Fair-hair ; the 
 other, Grimur, called afterwards Skalla, or bald Grimur, was 
 strong, surly, and ugly like himself. Owing to a complicated 
 quarrel, very curious, but too long to tell, Thorolfur was slain by 
 some of the king's men in a fight. The fury of old Kveldulfr 
 was terrible. The following song has been handed down as com- 
 posed by him. In translating it I have preserved the alliteration, 
 single and double, on alternate lines :— 
 
182 BV FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 " Thorolf, war-thunderer 
 Thou on the island, 
 Far from us found thy death, 
 Few were thine years then. 
 I by Thor's conqueror 
 Kept from the camp-crowd, 
 Cannot avenge thee so 
 Swift as beseems me. " 
 
 Defying old age — " Thor's conqueror " — he met two young sons 
 of Harald with their retainers by sea. The Berserker fury seized 
 him, and he assaulted and killed them all save two, swept the 
 ships from stem to stem, and then sang this song of triumph, 
 which he forced the two survivors to learn by heart to sing to 
 King Harald. It is said to be the first Northern song in rhyme, 
 perhaps the better to impress it on the minds of the two unhappy 
 prisoners ; and it has in it something of the scream of a triumph- 
 ant eagle : — 
 
 " Vengeance for Hersir sing, 
 
 We're even with the king ; 
 
 Wolf and earne come and go 
 
 O'er Yngling's sons laid low. 
 
 Shrill whistled sword-stroke free 
 
 O'er Hallvard by the sea ; 
 
 And the grey eagle tore 
 
 Snarfari by the shore. " 
 
 The weakness which was said to follow the " Berserker rage " 
 seized the old man, and he never recovered, but died on the 
 voyage out to Iceland, which he made in another ship at the 
 same time as his son Grimur. 
 
 Kveldulfr is buried on yonder point ; for when dying he re- 
 quested that the kist in which his body was put might be thrown 
 overboard, "for I think that I shall reach Iceland yet before 
 you ; and where I drift up, there make your abode." Accordingly 
 he was found below the point and buried, as were the family after 
 him, on the windy height. 
 
 The description of the country in the brief Icelandic of the 
 twelfth, and also of the present century, might well serve for it 
 still : Var thar myrlendi mikit ok skogar vidir, ok langt i milli 
 f jails ok fjoriij selveidar gnogar, ok fiskifang mikiL " There were 
 
BORG. 
 
 183 
 
 great morasses and woods, and a good space between the hills 
 and the foreshore ; plenty of seal-hunting, and excellent fish- 
 ing : " though but remnants of the birch-woods remain under the 
 hills. 
 
 Skallagrim guided his ship's boat into the mouth of a little 
 stream, and set up on the hillside above it the dwelling still 
 called Borg. We, too, landed there, and went up to Borg, now a 
 peaceful parsonage, close to a little church of turf, so old and 
 small that it seems as if it could not much longer expect to be 
 
 distinguished from the churchyard. Beside it lies a grey stone, 
 graven with almost illegible Runes, which have, however, been 
 deciphered as follows: "Here lies the brave Kjartan, slain by, 
 treachery." The last part of the inscription is doubtful ; but all 
 tradition confirms the Laxdale Saga in the assertion that here 
 Kjartan, the lover of Gudrun, was buried. He was laid there 
 when the church was still decked in white in honour of its con- 
 secration. Turf churches do not last long, so probably there has 
 been a succession of them since the original building, and the 
 shabby little chapel before us has not even the merit of being 
 venerable. 
 
184 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 The Dean was at Borg on a visit to the priest ; and the follow- 
 ing day being a Sacrament Sunday, the little church was packed 
 to overflowing. I sat among several women in full costume. 
 The old ones wore dark cloth or velvet bodices, set with silver 
 clasps, and laced with silver chains. They had stiff black collars 
 round their necks, embroidered in gold or silver, and short Zouave 
 jackets, also embroidered, and high black head-dresses, rather like 
 an ancient Greek helmet. An average old woman becomes quite 
 an imposing personage when thus accoutred. 
 
 The priest's handsome young daughters wore the dress in a 
 modernised form. The embroidered jacket was fitted to the 
 figure, and was finished off by a silver belt. The head-dress was 
 the white helmet or faldr, ornamented by a sort of circlet on the 
 brow, and softened by an ample white lace veil. 
 
185 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 EGIL AT BORGARFJOKD. 
 
 Before the service was half over, I left the church overpowered 
 by the heat, and observed that some of the shrewder members of 
 the congregation were sitting on the 'turf by the open windows, 
 and thus attending the service most comfortably. I wandered 
 up the hillside, gained the shadow of a rock, sketched, and read 
 in the Egil's Saga, which was written about 1170, till I was quite 
 lost to the present. The thymy cushion on which I lounged 
 was deliciously fragrant; the insects hummed drowsily in the 
 warm air ; and perhaps I slept, as certainly Sigrida did, who 
 went out to look for me, and was found fast asleep nestled among 
 the rocks in the opposite direction. It was no wonder, for the 
 weather was indeed hot. 
 
 I had, however, read that day a great deal of the saga which 
 had been our first Icelandic reading-book in former years. Vig- 
 fusson says : ^ " It is a complete embodiment of the aristocratic 
 spirit of the great Norse families in the early middle ages ; the 
 hatred of royal encroachments, above all of personal subordina- 
 tion or feudal innovations, which drove so many men from the 
 continent to the islands, is well shown therein." The character 
 of Egil, its chief hero, is well brought out. '' Steadfast in love 
 and hate, cool and yet sometimes passionate to madness, crafty 
 and reckless, grasping and generous, he passes through a check- 
 ered life as poet and pirate chief; . . . the henchman of 
 1 See Vigfusson's Sturlunga Saga, Prolegomena, 47, 48. 
 
186 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 King Athelstan of England, and hereditary foe of King Erick of 
 Norway; now an honoured guest at court, now a helpless 
 prisoner, now a powerful leader, as fits the typical Northman of 
 our traditions." 
 
 Some of the episodes woven into the history are very curious 
 and interesting, and have every claim to be true, down to the 
 smallest details. The author says he only records his facts after 
 consultation w^ith old and wise men ; and it is curious to observe 
 how he owns now and then that some point is uncertain, and 
 gives the different versions with his own opinion. I shall give 
 here an abridged translation of a few chapters of the Egil Saga, 
 which throw much light on the position of the women of the 
 north in the early middle ages. 
 
 The date is about 908, the chief hero, Egil, is a boy of ten, 
 here at Borg. In Norway Harald Fair-hair had brought all the 
 country -ander his power, and many of the great chiefs who 
 would not submit to his rule had turned sea-kings, or settled 
 in Iceland, Faroe, Shetland, or the Hebrides. 
 
 He was now in the prime of life and the height of fortune ; 
 his eldest son Erick was a boy of twelve. In England Athel- 
 stan reigned, a great king, but much harassed by Danes and 
 Northmen. In France Hrolf or KoUo had seized Neustria or 
 Normandy. Elsewhere in the confusion following the break-up 
 of Charlemagne's empire, no nation was pre-eminent on land, 
 but the Northmen were masters of the seas. 
 
 At this time, Brynjolf the son of Bjorn was a rich man who 
 lived at Aurland, a district still known by that name near the 
 upper waters of the Sognefjord in Norway. 
 
 Those who have sailed up one of the higher reaches of that 
 grand fjord where sea-waves break on precipices which rarely 
 give space for any dwelling on the shore, may remember the 
 broad green valley of Aurland which contrasts so pleasantly 
 with the barren rocks around. 
 
 The valley is traversed by a swift river, which some miles 
 above flings itself down the mountain in one of the finest falls 
 in Norway. There is still a group of wooden houses called 
 
IN NORWAY. 187 
 
 Aurland, and probably since the days of Brynjolf little has been 
 changed. We can easily imagine his long low wooden hall, the 
 main-door porch at one end, the women's door at the other. 
 Within it is all one room : the heavy rafters above are black with 
 the smoke of the fire which in cold weather blazed all the way 
 down the centre of the hall. Across one end was the high seat 
 and the cross bench where the ladies sat, and the chief men on 
 special occasions ; but more often the men all sat at the evening 
 carousal on long benches opposite to each other on each side of 
 the fire, and handed each other the mead and ale across the 
 blaze. Down the sides were wooden partitions, and beds witliin 
 enclosed by movable shutters. Outside a separate building 
 was called the dyngeye or bower, where the women wove and 
 worked. Store-rooms, stables, byres, and sheep-cots surrounded 
 the great hall, forming part of the tun or town, as we still say 
 in speaking of a Scotch farm. 
 
 Hersir Brynjolf had at this time two grown-up sons, Bjorn and 
 Thord. " Bjorn was a very travelled man, sometimes on Viking 
 cruises, sometimes on merchant voyages. He was a very able 
 man. It happened one summer that Bjorn was in the North- 
 fjord, attending a crowded feast. There he saw a fair May who 
 struck his fancy much. He asked of what family she was, and it 
 was told him that she was the sister of Hersir Thorir, Hroald's 
 son, that her name was Thora, and she was surnamed Lace-hand. 
 Bjorn courted her and asked her in marriage. And Thorir con- 
 sented to his suit, and said that so it should be. That same 
 autumn Bjorn collected some followers, and sailed with a swift 
 cutter fully manned north to the flord district." 
 
 We know the beautiful voyage that he would make out of the 
 Sognefjord and between the grand island mountains and the 
 mainland, till, where there was an opening seawards, and, as the 
 Norsemen say, the eye of the sea looks in on the land, he would 
 turn in to the lovely Northfjord, and probably go up to what is 
 now called Eide, as there the district Earl, which Thorir was, 
 usually lived. It must have been a great disappointment to the 
 expectant bridegroom to find that Thorir was not at home. His 
 
188 BY FELL AND FJOED. 
 
 promised bride, was however, very glad to see him. And now 
 they made a great mistake which brought lawsuits and blood- 
 shed down on two generations. Considering that they were 
 aflSanced with Thorir's full consent, and that no one could tell 
 when a Viking would return from a cruise, if he ever did, it 
 does not seem at first sight so fatal an error as it proved, that 
 Bjorn, who had already earned the nickname of Holdfast, showed 
 himself worthy of it by persuading Thora to sail off with him and 
 let their wedding be celebrated at his father's house at Aurland. 
 When he brought her home it was winter, and he wished the 
 marriage to take place. But the Saga goes on. " Brynjolf 
 liked this ill, and thought it shameful, considering the family 
 friendship between himself and Thorir. ' It will be long before 
 you hold your wedding with Thora in my house without her 
 brother's leave,' he said ; ' but she shall be here in all honour 
 as though she were my daughter and your sister.' And so was 
 all in that household as Brynjolf commanded, whether Bjorn 
 liked it well or ill. Brynjolf sent men to Thorir to offer him 
 peace and compensation for the journey his son had made. 
 Thorir bade Bjorn send home Thora, saying otherwise there 
 would be no peace. But Bjorn would by no means allow her 
 to be sent away, not even though Brynjolf ordered it. 
 
 " So the winter passed ; and when spring began, Brynjolf and 
 Bjorn one day talked over their arrangements. Brynjolf asked 
 what he wished further. Bjorn said that he wished to go abroad : 
 
 * It would best suit me if you would give me a long ship and a 
 crew, and let me go off on a Viking expedition.' Said Brynjolf, 
 
 * It is not to be expected that I should give you a war-ship and 
 strong body of fighting men, as I do not know but that you 
 might come back upon me and take me by surprise : already our 
 home is quite disturbed by you. A merchant-ship I might give 
 you, with wares ; with that you might go south to Dublin — that 
 is now the most profitable Voyage ; and I will give you a good 
 following.' Bjorn answered that he must take up that which 
 Brynjolf desired. So a good merchant-ship was got ready and 
 manned. Bjorn made all preparations for the journey, but was 
 
IN SHETLAND. 189 
 
 not early ready. But when all was right, and the wind suited, 
 he got into a boat with twelve men, rowed in to Aurland, went 
 up to the dwelling, and to his mother's bower. She sat within, 
 and many women with her. Bjorn said that Thora should go 
 with him, and led her away, and his mother bade that no woman 
 should be so bold as to warn the men of it in the hall ; she said 
 that Brynjolf might make a bad business of it if he knew, and it 
 would bring about much discord between father and son. Thora's 
 clothes and jewels were all already packed and ready to be 
 carried oft by hand, and Bjorn took all with him. They went 
 in the niglit out to the ship, spread sail, went down the Sogne- 
 fjord, and then out to sea. But they had a bad wind, and made 
 great leeway, and long they tossed on the sea ; but their hearts 
 grew the cheerier the further they got from Norway. One day, 
 while sailing from the east to Shetland in stormy weather, the 
 ship struck land on Mosey. They bore out the cargo, and went 
 up to the castle near, and carried thither all their goods, drew 
 the ship ashore, and repaired the damage." 
 
 And here Bjorn and Thora may be said to sail into sight. 
 Mosey or Mousa island, still uninhabitedj lies off the Shetland 
 coast, and gives a little shelter to the channel between it and 
 the mainland in a westerly gale, though the dangerous Sun- 
 borough Roost may make it but a treacherous refuge. However, 
 there is a sandy creek between the cliffs where a ship could be 
 safely beached, and there still stands the " burgh," the most entire 
 Pictish fort in Shetland or perhaps anywhere — a grim, squat, small, 
 round tower, the staircase and the little cells of rooms constructed 
 in the thickness of the wall, the centre court open to the sky ; 
 most dreary, but in these old days impregnable. No doubt 
 Bjorn covered in the centre space with the ship's tents, and made 
 all as snug as he could for his bride. We can imagine the fair 
 maiden worn and sea-weary, yet peaceful when she felt herself 
 safe within these thick walls ; we know she had her gowns and 
 jewels with her, and no doubt she made the dim rough burgh 
 beautiful to Bjorn, as they lived there with their crew, the wild 
 winter sea dividing them from all the rest of the world. If 
 
190 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 Bjom carved a Rune inside, it may yet be found. The Vikings 
 have left many such tokens of their presence in the recently 
 excavated Maes-Howe in Orkney. One Rune tells how '' Ingeborg 
 the Fair" rested there after long wanderings ; another tells of 
 some one " in search of the fairest of women." One man tells 
 of his shipwreck, another blames the captain for negligent loss 
 of their ship — a regular court-martial verdict. The good Ork- 
 neyan stone has preserved for us the very touch of the hands 
 so far away in the past. But in Iceland, scarcely a Rune sur- 
 vives — the unkindly lavas and basalts give us no records of the 
 old times. 
 
 The Saga continues: ''A little before winter a ship came to 
 Shetland from the south from Orkney. They brought tidings 
 tliat a war-ship had come in autumn to the islands. On board 
 were messengers from Harald the king, with the errand to Earl 
 Sigurd, that the king desired that Bjorn Brynjolfson should 
 be slain wherever he could be taken ; and the like orders had 
 been sent through the southern isles (Soder) all the way to 
 Dublin. Bjorn heard all this, and also that he was outlawed in 
 Norway. But when he got to Shetland he married Thora, and 
 they stayed the winter in Moseyjarburg. And in spring, when 
 the sea began to grow calm, they sailed out to sea. They had 
 a storm-wind, and were but a short time at sea : they drove from 
 the south to Iceland. Then the wind changed, and they bore 
 west by the coast, and so out to sea. And when they got a 
 wind back again they sailed up to the land. There was no one 
 on board who had been to Iceland. They sailed into an awfully^ 
 big fjord, and bore along its western strand. They saw that 
 landward was only one fairway and no harbour. They went 
 athwart east by the land and round back up the fjord till it was 
 all shut in by skerries and breakers, then they brought up under 
 a cape. An island lay outside, and a deep sound between : they 
 anchored there. A creek went up west of the headland, and 
 some way above it stood a great dwelling. Bjorn got into a 
 boat with some of his men ; he told his followers to beware how 
 1 "Awful " is evidently classical slang. 
 
GUESTS AT BOKG. 191 
 
 they talked of the cause of the journey, as they stood in danger 
 about it. So they rowed to the dwelling-place, and met men 
 with whom they spoke, asking first to what land they had come. 
 The men said it was called Borgar^ord, and the house that they 
 saw belonged to Skallagrim bonde. Now Bjorn knew all about 
 him, so he went to meet him, and they talked together. Bjorn 
 named himself and his father, and Skallagrim was well acquainted 
 with Brynjolf, and offered Bjorn all that he needed. Bjorn took 
 that gratefully. Then Skallagrim asked what people of note 
 were in the ship. Bjorn said that there was Thora, Hroald's 
 daughter, sister of Hersir Thorir. Skallagrim was very glad, 
 and said that all that she could want or he could give was at the 
 disposal of Thora the sister of Thorir his foster-brother ; and 
 he invited them both and all their crew to come and stay with 
 him. Bjorn thanked him heartily, so they brought their cargo 
 up to the tun at Borg, and the ship was drawn up into a creek, 
 which may yet be seen. And it is still called Bjorn's Meadow, 
 where Bjorn set up his booths ; and they all stayed with Skalla- 
 grim. He had never fewer people staying with him than sixty 
 fighting men. 
 
 " But in the autumn a ship came to Iceland from Norway, and 
 the gossip came over that Bjorn had run away with Thora with- 
 out the consent of her family. When Skallagrim was aware of 
 it, he asked Bjorn how it was that his marriage was without the 
 relations' consent. 'I never expected,' he said, 'that from the 
 son of Brynjolf I should not hear the truth.' Bjorn answered, 
 ' I told you the truth, Grimr, and you should not blame me 
 though I may not have answered further than you questioned 
 me ; but now this is to be owned that it is true what thou hast 
 heard, that this marriage was not made with the consent of 
 Thorir her brother.' Then said Skallagrim in great anger, 
 ' And how wert thou so foolhardy as to come to me in that case ; 
 or was the warm friendship between him and me unknown to 
 thee?' Said Bjorn, 'I knew that ye were in brotherhood and 
 warm friendship, and for that reason I sought you at home as I 
 was brought by the sea to this country, and I knew that I should 
 
192 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 not succeed in escaping from thee. Now it lies in thy power 
 what my fate shall be, but I expect all good from thee as I am 
 thy guest at home.' Then came forward Thorolf, Skallagrim's 
 son (a little boy), and entreated his father not to blame Bjorn for 
 it, although he had received him. And many others put in a 
 word ; and so it came to pass that Grimr was satisfied, and said 
 that Thorolf should have his way — ' So receive Bjorn, and look 
 after him as thou wouldst to the best fellow going.'" Thora 
 had a child in the summer, a daughter ; she was sprinkled with 
 water, and called Asgerd. Bera, Skallagrim's wife, adopted her. 
 The following year, through the intervention of Skallagrim, Bjorn 
 and Thora were reconciled to all their relations. They sailed to 
 Norway, leaving their little daughter behind them. A meeting 
 was held by the Sognefjord at which Thorir delivered over to 
 his sister all the property to which she was entitled, and gave 
 her his full friendship. Old Brynjolf was also present, and they 
 all held a reconciliation festival, and Bjorn and his wife returned 
 to Aurland. 
 
 This would seem to have ended the whole trouble. Not at 
 all. Seventeen years have passed away ; many other events 
 are told in the Saga, till once more we return to the Iceland farm 
 of Borg. Thorolf, who had lately returned from the wars at sea 
 and in Norway, told his father one day that he wished to sail out 
 again in summer. 
 
 " Said Skallagrim : ^ The saying goes, " Happy is he who leads 
 the harvest-cart at home." Thou hast wandered abroad much, 
 but take now rather as much property as thou thinkest may make 
 thee a man of substance here.' Thorolf answered that he wished 
 to go but one journey, but that was on a necessary errand. 
 ' When I return another time I may settle, but Asgerd thy foster- 
 daughter must first go oiit with me to visit her father. He asked 
 me to bring her when I came from the east.' " 
 
 The voyage was therefore undertaken, Thorolf s wild younger 
 brotlier Egil forcing his company upon them for his first flight 
 from home. On reaching Sogne^ord, they found that Brynjolf 
 had lately died, his son Thord had inherited Aurland, and Bjorn 
 
EGIL IN LOVE. 193 
 
 had another rich estate. Thorolf brought Asgerd, now a fair and 
 wise maiden, to her father, and there was great joy at their meet- 
 ing. He then went off to the Northfjord to visit Hersir Thorir. 
 There should be no mistake this time about the wooing of Thorir's 
 relations, and Thorolf asked his consent in form to his marriage 
 with Asgerd his niece. That obtained, he returned to the Sogne- 
 fjord and asked Bjorn's consent to his daughter's marriage, which 
 he willingly granted. 
 
 Thorolf seems to have been much in love with the young lady 
 who was brought up in his home, and the wedding was held to 
 be magnificent. Thorir and his son Arinbjorn, the finest char- 
 acter in the Saga, came south to the Sogne^ord for it ; no one 
 was left at home save Egil, who contrived to get into consider- 
 able mischief in consequence. 
 
 Thorolf brought his bride back to their friend Arinbjorn's home, 
 %ho soon succeeded his father as lord of the Fjord district. But 
 no peaceful return to Iceland was in Thorolf 's mind. Every sum- 
 mer, leaving his wife in Norway, he went off on a Viking cruise 
 with Egil, and three years after his marriage he fell in England 
 in the battle of Brunaburgh, fighting on the side of King Athel- 
 stan. Egil — who, to do him justice, felt his brother's death 
 deeply, though much consoled by two chests of silver given him 
 as compensation by the king — insisted on returning to Norway 
 to take the bad news to Asgerd, now the mother of two little 
 daughters. " She was very sad, but yet glad to hear all." 
 
 " As autumn went on," says the Saga, " Egil became very sad, 
 drank little, and sat with his head drooped in his cloak. Arin- 
 bjorn asked at last what ailed him. ' Now though thou hast had 
 a great scathe in losing thy brother, it is manly to fight well 
 against it. Man lives after man. Or what hurts thee now ? Let 
 me hear.' " 
 
 Egil replies by two songs, as a Skald in love was bound to do, 
 and at last shyly breaks to Arinbjorn that he was desperately in 
 love with his friend's cousin, Asgerd, his sister-in-law. Asgerd 
 was, by Arinbjorn's advice, sounded ; she advised that her father 
 Bjorn should be consulted. Egil and Arinbjorn went to the 
 
194 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 Sognefjord, obtained his consent, and the following year Egil 
 and Asgerd were married, and sailed back to Borgarfjord after 
 an absence of five years. Great deference seems to have been 
 shown to the ladies and their families in all these marriages, and 
 no trouble spared to make them honourable. But it was all 
 needed, as the next part of this family history shows. 
 
 " Four years went by at Borg, and then news came from Nor- 
 way that Bjorn Holdfast had died, and that Bergonundur, who 
 had married his other child, a daughter by a second wife, a man 
 in high favour with Erick the king, had seized Bjorn's whole 
 property, both land and loose money, in right of his wife. So the 
 following year Egil and Asgerd sailed to Norway, and came to 
 Arinbjorn's house on the Northfjord. There the friends consulted, 
 and considered the case was so clear that Bjorn's property should 
 be divided between his two daughters, that King Erick would 
 not venture to refuse to give a lawful verdict, even against his 
 friend. Egil therefore travelled to Bergonundur's property, and 
 there demanded his wife's legal half of the property, ^for they 
 ought to share alike, though Asgerd is of much higher lineage 
 than Gunnhild thy wife.' Onundur replied very sharply, ' Thou 
 art an awfully daring fellow, Egil ! thou the king's outlaw, thou 
 comest to his land and wishest to attack his friends. Dost thou 
 suppose thou shalt meddle with my affairs, and make such de- 
 mands for thy wife, when all the world knows she is thrall-born 
 on the mother's side ?' Onundur became quite abusive, and Egil, 
 seeing he would not give way, summoned him to defend his case 
 at law at the Gula Thing. ' Yes,' answered Onundur, * I shall 
 come to the Gula Thing, and make it my business that thou 
 shouldst not go unscathed away.' Egil said he would come to 
 the Thing all the same. When he told Arinbjorn what had 
 happened, Arinbjorn was very angry that his father's sister 
 should be called a slave." 
 
 Then follows a stirring description of the Gula Thing, where 
 the king presided and heard the case on each side, surrounded 
 by armed retainers. Fortunately Arinbjorn had provided ships 
 enough, all ready to sail, to carry Egil and himself and all their 
 
A CHALLENGE. 195 
 
 followers beyond the fury of the king, when the Thing came 
 to a stormy end. Egil, indignant at hearing his wife's mother, 
 Thora Lace-hand, stigmatised as a captive won in war, and her 
 daughter therefore declared illegitimate after the complete family 
 reconciliation which followed her marriage with Bjorn, left the 
 Thing, after hurling the following challenge to the king and to 
 all concerned : — 
 
 "I call thee to witness, Arinbjom, and thee Thordr, and all 
 these men who hear my words, landsmen and lawmen, and all 
 the people, that I forbid in all these lands that Bjorn Brynjolfson 
 owned, settlement and work, and all uses whatever ! I forbid 
 them to thee, Bergonundur, and to all other men, countrymen or 
 foreigners, well-born or low-born ; and whoever touches them I 
 lay under the penalties of breach of the laws, wrath of the gods, 
 and breach of the truce ! " 
 
 It would take too long to tell all the stirring events that fol- 
 lowed ; enough to say that Egil, before he quitted Norway in his 
 single ship, slew Bergonundur and his friends on an island, and 
 ran down the ship of one of the king's sons at sea. The property 
 he never wholly recovered ; but Arinbjorn, who was as open- 
 handed as Egil was the reverse, begged Egil to take from him 
 the value of his Norwegian lands in money, as he could not 
 get justice for his friend in Norway. Egil did so ; but the feuds 
 which rose around the case were never healed, and all because 
 Bjorn Holdfast so many years ago did not wait the return of the 
 brother of his affianced wife from the war cruise before he cele- 
 brated his marriage. 
 
196 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 STAFHOLT — REYKHOLT — SNORRI STURLASON AND HIS FATE GILSBAKKI 
 
 — PASS OF OK BENIGHTED. 
 
 In the cool of the Sunday evening the old profastur lent me a good 
 pony, and we all rode off together to his parsonage of Stafholt, 
 across the Hvita. 
 
 Here is a large new timber church standing on a height above 
 the river, commanding a wide view of the hill-ranges all round. 
 Many acres of level sward bear excellent hay crops. The little 
 hillocks having be.en all carefully levelled with the spade, and 
 .the land well drained, its productiveness is immensely increased. 
 Indeed some more labour bestowed on the land at home would 
 probably make emigration unnecessary to any great extent If a 
 plough were driven through some of the uneven grass-lands, and 
 a few drains constructed, the hay crops would be twice as heavy, 
 and more sheep and cattle could be kept through the winter. 
 
 Next day we parted with, I think, mutual regret from the 
 pleasant family at Stafholt, and rode to the valley of Lundr. The 
 owner of a very small house courteously asked us in to take 
 coffee. The rooms were so small that only two people could sit 
 in each : as to the kitchen, I believe it held the coffee-pot, and 
 the hostess made the coffee, crouching in the passage outside. 
 Yet there was another guest, the priest of the parish, an old 
 acquaintance in his lay days, now a rather fast priest, especially 
 on horseback ; but he and Thorgrimur had to sit in the opposite 
 room to ours. We might have been in opposite cells in a Koman 
 
 J 
 
GRIMSl. 197 
 
 catacomb, the whole place being hollowed in the earth, and yet 
 the inhabitants looked healthy. It is whispered that they eat 
 horse-flesh, and nothing is better for the complexion. 
 
 The prestr insisted on our coming home with him, and he 
 pitched a comfortable tent for Sigrida and me near his house, 
 tiUed it with fragrant hay, and made it pleasant quarters for a 
 lovely summer night. We were close to a deep circular hollow, 
 which is all that remains of a heathen sacrificial temple. I 
 looked out of the tent the last thing at night on the still valley 
 and the surrounding hills, and could just discern the churchyard 
 wall below us, and then a misty whiteness, that elevated itself 
 to a preternatural height above the wall, with a most eerie effect 
 in this haunted place. But after hovering there for a minute, 
 down came, with a palpable plump on the ground, a white 
 pony which had been poaching on the long grass of the church- 
 yard. 
 
 There was a good garden here where common vegetables grew 
 freely, and even rye was in the ear. It had grown rather stalky, 
 but seemed promising enough to encourage the planting of quick- 
 ripening grain. We were hospitably pressed to stay another 
 day, and all rode out to fish near a waterfall in the upper waters 
 of the Grimsa. The priest mounted me on a fine pony, sent to his 
 care as being too fiery for Reykjavik : it bucked so high when 
 held in, that I thought it best — having no third pommel — to let 
 it go and choose its own way over the rough boggy country, 
 which it did with great intelligence, only it mistook our route, 
 — and when it discovered that the rest of the party, far behind, 
 were deflecting in another direction, it dashed across country 
 in a most reckless style to rejoin them. Constant solitary 
 wanderings give these ponies extraordinary dexterity in getting 
 over rough ground : most English horses would not have dared 
 to put one foot before another in some places where this little 
 Icelander went on without a moment's hesitation, and at a good 
 round pace. He broke through the river at no particular ford ; 
 but happily it was low, — too low for fishing. We saw many fish 
 but got few ; the weather was also too sunny ; and where was 
 
198 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 the rain ? Did it ever rain here ? and was that never-ending rain 
 still falling in Eangavallasysslu ? 
 
 The following day our host mounted me again on his gay 
 pony, and guided us straight over the hills to the north, to the 
 parallel valley of Keykholt, a route which I recommend to no one. 
 We went through desperate bogs. My pony went like a bird, but 
 the rest got into great difficulties. The worst morasses are not 
 generally in the valleys, where there is some drainage into the 
 rivers, but on the wide table-lands, where the wet accumulates 
 hopelessly and dangerously, and only the great sagacity of the 
 ponies makes it possible to get across them. 
 
 By evening we had reached familiar quarters — the Dean's 
 residence at Keykholt. It is a good house in its way. There are 
 several wainscoted rooms, and through the shapeless entrance- 
 cavern you enter the inner kitchen - cave, which is clean and 
 tidy, and the fire there actually sits in a grate ! Outside the 
 women were washing in water drawn from the old stone-bath 
 formerly described. I sat on the steps and flirted careful fingers 
 into the scalding water, and wondered about Snorri Sturlason. 
 A little way off some pretty fountains leapt in silver spray into 
 the clear air, hills edged the broad dark-green valley, and above 
 them quiet sunset clouds stretched in long lines of changing 
 fading gold and crimson. There was an indescribable remote 
 far-off feeling over all. Oh what a cold far corner of the world 
 for the home of that richly endowed, stirring, strong, restless 
 man ! When we think of him living in the twelfth century in 
 this lonely farmhouse, with little access even to the learning the 
 times afforded, and no means of culture beyond what a few voy- 
 ages to Norway could give, we can perhaps better realise what 
 wonderful individual force there was among the old Scandina- 
 vians, and how that ability and power gave them the suprem- 
 acy they won over whole populations, even when few in number 
 and widely scattered in other countries. 
 
 Snorri Sturlason's histories contrast wonderfully with the 
 meagre and dry contemporary chronicles of the rest of Europe. 
 Not till we get to Froissart, 1390, do we find in the South any- 
 
SNORRI STURLASON. 199 
 
 thing of the liveliness and graphic power of the Norse chroni- 
 clers ; but Froissart writes like a naive intelligent child when 
 compared to Snorri, who has all his vivacity, besides a grasp of 
 the subject in hand, a caustic humour, and a clear-sighted politi- 
 cal judgment, which must give him rank among the very best 
 historians of every age and country. That his work is also a 
 masterpiece in style may be much owing to the genius of the 
 language, which was already in his day thoroughly developed 
 and an excellent literary medium. And the men of his own 
 house murdered him here — cut him off in his strong maturity 
 before his day's work was ended ! There are some deeds that 
 never can be forgiven — deeds that, whatever their justification in 
 the minds of the perpetrators, have rendered the world poorer and 
 worse for ever. Snorri was no doubt anxious to bring Iceland 
 under Norwegian rule, a project fiercely resisted by the descend- 
 ants of the men who flung off the yoke of feudalism. But under 
 the circumstances Snorri was probably right, and perished in a 
 good cause. The once law-abiding Icelanders had allowed their 
 government to be overridden by a small fierce oligarchy ; and 
 not long after Snorri' s death the people were utterly wearied of 
 confusion, and his counsels prevailed. Iceland became subject 
 to Norway, and all its fervid spirit and eager masculine strength 
 were quenched for ever. Snorri's assassination had some points 
 of resemblance to the murder of our King James the First. 
 Like James he was concealed in a cellar, and for a time it 
 seemed as if he might escape from the murderers who ransacked 
 the house. No doubt Snorri's hall was very superior to the turf 
 farms of modern Iceland. We read a description of Flugumyri, 
 a similar house, in the contemporary ' Sturlunga Saga.' 
 
 Flugumyri was the home of Earl Gisur, Snorri's son-in-law and 
 murderer. Eetribution, coming with no halting step, fell on him 
 five years later. His sons and wife were burnt inside their house, 
 on the wedding night of one of these sons, by the avengers of 
 Snorri. He himself had a narrow escape. The old miscreant 
 hid himself in a cask of whey, and though the burners prodded 
 it with their lances, he managed to ward off serious wounds, and 
 
200 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 was not discovered, and lived not only to avenge liis family, but 
 to retire respectably to a monastery to end his days. There must 
 have been very mixed society in these monasteries. Besides the 
 true devotees, and the peaceful scholars who needed the protec- 
 tion of the Church, there were the worn-out old pirates, scarred 
 and horny-handed, wise only in the craft of fighting and the 
 seas, and such men as Earl Gisur, who only escaped from the 
 reward of their evil deeds by the influence of powerful friends. 
 
 Besides the lives that were lost at the burning of Flugumyri, 
 great wealth for Iceland was destroyed in the house, which is 
 thus described : " All the house was much ornamented with 
 carvings ; the entrance hall was wainscoted, and the halls and 
 inner rooms were all tapestried ; and much plate and jewellery 
 was there, some of which was saved by people who took refuge 
 in the church, a sanctuary always respected." It is evident from 
 many such records that Iceland was a wealthier country in the 
 middle ages than it is now. 
 
 Next day Sigrida and I frolicked down the valley on horse- 
 back, and through the river to a rock in the centre, where a 
 boiling spring rises and falls about five feet in the air with 
 measured pulsation. Here I hoped to find a convenient foot- 
 bath, but we could not manage it comfortably ; one foot was 
 always scalded and the other ice-cold. In the afternoon we 
 pursued our journey northwards, escorted by the Dean, till we 
 reached the Hvita. Here we spent an hour and a half before we 
 could attract the attention of the farm -people on the other 
 side who undertake to manage the ferry. Vain were our 
 shouts, and the more touching appeal of the catch, "A boat, 
 a boat unto the ferry ; " while owing to the clear atmosphere, we 
 could see the farm -people making hay on the hiUsides with 
 tantalising unconcern, till at last we succeeded in rousing a man, 
 who brought over a very rickety boat for us, while our ponies 
 swam the heavy current. Gilsbakki parsonage, where we stopped, 
 is finely situated on the edge of the great valley of lava, which 
 here stretches westward by the course of the Hvita from the 
 central mountain-system. It is black and contorted, but so old 
 
GILSBAKKI. 201 
 
 that low willow and birch and blaeberries grow luxuriantly in 
 the crevices. Erick's Jokull rises near, and a fine range of icy 
 mountains trends away to the north-east ; and the wind blows 
 fresh from the desert land, on the verge of which stand the 
 little turf-chapel and adjacent farm-buildings. On each side is 
 a deep ravine, where foaming torrents, almost unseen in the 
 clefts, rush down to the Hvita. The old priest here, who is a 
 great character, and his third wife — undistinguishable from his 
 pretty daughters — bade us welcome. He is a dexterous carver, 
 and presented me with a very prettily ornamented wooden box 
 of his own workmanship. 
 
 This evening we did an extraordinary thing. We went out 
 walking to visit some falls four miles off across the lava. As 
 a rule, no one walks who can ride. There are no roads or dry 
 paths ; and you are pretty sure, wherever you go, to come soon to 
 a swamp, or a bridgeless stream, or a ravine. We did find streams 
 this evening, and Sigrida and I had to be carried over them ; 
 but otherwise the walk was delightful — all over lava, which 
 gives good footing ; while it is so accidentSj as the French say — 
 so boiled and contorted into peaks and caverns, as to be most 
 interesting ; beautified, too, by birchwood, saxifrages, rock-cis- 
 tus, and above all, blaeberries of the largest size in quantities — 
 plenty to eat in clusters, and plenty to gather for preserves. 
 
 We reached at length the edge of Hvita, here a rapid moun- 
 tain-stream foaming down a rocky channel, and we came to 
 some fine falls where the river dashes between cliffs that almost 
 meet above it. Once there was a bridge, which ought to be 
 restored ; for the Hvita is a formidable and wholly bridgeless 
 barrier between the nortli-west and south-west of the country. 
 
 Close by there was a more curious fall of clear water, with 
 no milky glacier tinge ; it formed a good-sized river, and had 
 no course at all, for it just slipped out of the edge of the lava- 
 cliff and fell into the roaring Hvita below. Whence came that 
 hidden river? The great field of lava hereabouts has, as we 
 know, in cooling, left huge caverns like bubbles in its solid mass, 
 such as ice-lined Surtshellir a few miles off. In other caverns 
 
202 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 spring-water perhaps accumulates till it is purified from all 
 the glacier sediment, and wanders in hidden ways till it gushes 
 out into the open channel, worn by the great glacier-draining 
 river Hvita. 
 
 The stars were burning brilliantly when we returned, and the 
 Northern Lights flashed across the window of the little room 
 where I passed the night. " A lovely morning," said the pretty 
 girl who brought in my coffee. All smiled upon our start, but 
 this proved to be a rough day's travel. 
 
 In the first place, our hostess prepared such an extensive 
 breakfast that we did not get off till eleven o'clock. It was 
 very welcome, for one small soup-tin and a few mouthfuls of 
 bread and ham were all the provisions we had left, and the 
 gun or ammunition had gone wrong ; but it detained us too 
 long. I had now to return towards Reykjavik, and I settled 
 to go for a change by the Pass of Ok, which Thorgrimur had 
 never crossed, but where he had no doubt he would find his 
 way. But it was a very long way to Thingvellir, whither we 
 were bound. We had to ride through a rather serious ford 
 over Hvita. The water was very rapid and icy cold, and it was 
 impossible to keep one's feet out of it. Wet feet matter little 
 when one is safe over on the other side in the drying sunshine. 
 It was worse that my pony, which went in sound, came out dead 
 lame, perhaps struck by some rolling stone in the water. We 
 had already one lame pony, so I had to ride Krokur all the 
 rest of the way. 
 
 We crossed a great bog and passed a handsome farm, which 
 was quite turned inside out. All the furniture and rubbish it 
 had contained was out airing in the hot sunshine — a regular 
 bit of summer work for the dwellers in damp turf-houses. We 
 passed some happy lassies, who had a little tent pitched out 
 in the wilds, and ponies near, and who were going to live for 
 a while on the hills, to collect Iceland moss. And then there was 
 the usual solitude. Generally there was no track, as this route 
 was not frequented ; but we plodded on, guided by the glacier- 
 hill of Ok, which we kept on our left — a flattened dome of snow 
 
BENIGHTED. 203 
 
 reposing on a base of dark igneous rock. The scenery was 
 monotonous, but on so fine a day it had some desolate beauty. 
 Thorgrimur shot in vain at various birds ; for his gun hung fire, 
 going off quite as an afterthought, long after the trigger had 
 clicked and the birds had flown. It was pleasant, on the 
 whole, to see the graceful crested plovers wheel away unharmed ; 
 but yet I began to feel distinctly hungry, and to remember the 
 meagre fare at Thingvellir, still so many miles away. For it 
 took us six hours to cross the pass, and then we stopped by a 
 solitary lake, Utavatn, and finished the scrap of provisions. The 
 day had now clouded over, and the wonderful weather seemed 
 changing at last. 
 
 Some wild ducks disported themselves on the lake before our 
 hungry eyes. Sigrida and I drove them within shot of Thor- 
 grimur. Alas ! with the same results ; the gun snapped and hung 
 fire, and we lost the plump birds, which dashed off, as it seemed 
 to me, with screams of laughter to the other end of the lake. 
 Happily we were now on the usual track for Thingvellir, as it 
 grew very dark and mists closed around us. When we came to 
 Sandklettervatn, a weird lake which in the summer withdraws 
 to one corner of its wide winter bed, we could not, as formerly, 
 gallop over its sands, owing to our lame ponies. We tied white 
 handkerchiefs on our arms to see each other, and plodded on 
 through the narrow rocky ravine which follows, and up the stony 
 way called Troll-hals or Troll-pass, where we roused the echoes 
 and perhaps chased away the Trolls by singing the German 
 chorale, " Stille Nacht," in three parts. Those, if any, who heard 
 it through the silent darkness might well have thought the elves 
 were out ; for there is nothing better than constant open air and 
 a little starvation for the voice, and my guide and his sister had, 
 besides, excellent voices. 
 
 When we reached the lava of Thingvellir it was black night, 
 and the riding grew very difficult. We could not see each other 
 at all, and were guided only by the voice, and the neighing of the 
 wise ponies. Still Krokur picked his way with unerring saga- 
 city over holes and clefts and crevices. But the loose ponies 
 
204 BY FELL AND FJOKD. 
 
 were now so difficult to manage that we agreed to turn off the 
 lava to the right and wait for day, at a farm where the guide 
 said there was no accommodation, except indeed hay ; but we 
 were hungry and sleepy enough to long to stop anywhere. It 
 was 11 P.M., and we had been twelve hours on our way. 
 
 We stumbled into a tun, and rapped at a door which only came 
 up to my shoulder, and at a tiny window in the roof, all in vain 
 for some time ; till at last the little door opened, and a crumpled- 
 up old woman appeared holding a dim lamp above her head. 
 Her nose and chin nearly met. Her whole appearance justified the 
 most sinister suspicions as to cleanliness, but yet she bade us 
 welcome with the unvarying patience of the country, and took 
 us into a miserable little room, where a dirty plank before the 
 window formed a table, and of further furniture there was only a 
 dusky trough-like bed. I cooked with the spirit-lamp the last 
 tin of soup — little enough for three hungry people, but wonder- 
 fully reviving — and then Sigrida and I begged to be shown to 
 the haystack, for we could not sleep on the musty tumble of old 
 clothes, hats, and rubbish which did duty as a bed. We climbed 
 over a turf-wall and nestled down by the stack under loosened 
 hay; and thinking how pleasant, after all, must be the life of 
 a tramp, I was soon asleep in the fragrant bed. There are 
 drawbacks to tramp-life, however, and I was wakened after some 
 hours by rain falling heavily on my face. Eousing the unwill- 
 ing Sigrida, we felt our way to an outhouse or two, which proved 
 to be locked ; and at last, as the rain was furious, we battered at 
 the door and window of the little house. It took full ten minutes 
 to wake the sound sleepers within. It was past four, and we sat 
 till dawn on the haunted bed in our damp waterproofs, in a justi- 
 fiable state of alarm as to its population. I tell this as almost 
 my only experience of the squalor and dirt and vermin that loom 
 so large in the journals of some travellers in Iceland. 
 
 But here at last is grey rainy dawn. Quick, benevolent witch, 
 with some cofiee ! saddle the ponies, and let us be off for Thing- 
 vellir, even though it be through slashing rain. We left the 
 lame pony behind us and rode thither fast, where I first made a 
 
THE PARSONAGE. 205 
 
 thorough and most necessary toilet, and then joined some other 
 guests at breakfast. One of them, Sigurdr Vigfusson, a brother 
 of the author of the 'Icelandic Eeader,' proved to be a delightful 
 companion. He recited old poems and told old tales so well, 
 that the wet day was quite charmed away ; and in the evening 
 we played at whist till old Sira Simon, the parson, inexorably 
 turned the men out into the church, while beds were made up 
 in the house for the ladies. 
 
 The parsons are all addressed as Sira or Sir, and the Christian 
 name, as in Shakespeare ; but every one else, in good Icelandic, 
 is called by the Christian name only, and it sounds racy and 
 friendly. 
 
 Some families boast of a long descent, but the pedigrees want 
 the usual requisite of a surname, so they are rather like beads 
 without a string. Vigfus Jonson's son is Sigurdr Vigfusson ; 
 his son may be Vigfus Sigurdson ; and a woman calls herself her 
 father's daughter : so the surname changes in every generation. 
 But the country is so small that it is said the people contrive 
 not to lose count of their ancestors. 
 
206 
 
 CHAPTEK XXI. 
 
 THINGVELLIR IN FORMER DAYS THE TALK OF THE MAIDENS 
 
 SOLITUDES — BESSERSTAD — DOGS — KRISUVIK HOME AGAIN. 
 
 Next day, Sunday, the weather was again beautiful, and some 
 men rode over to church ; but Sira Simon ruled that there were 
 not enough to form a congregation, so there was no service. 
 
 All that day I had a general impression that we "were still in the 
 eleventh or twelfth century. We wandered over the ancient his- 
 torical sites under the guidance of Sigurdr Vigfusson, who really 
 gave one the idea that he was an eptir gangur (after-walker, or 
 French, revenant), so conversant did he seem with the ways and 
 histories of the heroes of the days of old. He pointed out the sites 
 of the booths of all the various districts when they came to the al- 
 thing, — now they are grassy mounds, with stone foundations. He 
 described the battle in the Njal case as though he had been present, 
 and warmed into eloquence as he pointed out the site where his 
 ancestors had stood when they swayed with burning words the 
 hearts of the people. The althing was not in old days a repre- 
 sentative body ; it consisted of all the freemen who cared to 
 attend. And of course the power of an eloquent speaker was 
 much enhanced when there were no constituents to fear behind 
 the members ; they might be swayed by what they heard. Elo- 
 quence is thrown away upon pledged representatives. 
 
 I have visited Thingvellir four times, spending ten days there 
 in all — so charming a place is it in the fine weather we have 
 generally enjoyed there. It was the centre of national life, the 
 
FORMER DAYS. 207 
 
 spot where the heart of Iceland beat ; and though no ancient 
 buildings remain, the strange natural features of the countr}^, 
 after all, form a more unchanging memorial of the time when 
 that life was strong. All the land hereabouts is old lava, split 
 into two tremendous rents about two miles long and ten miles 
 apart from each other — the Allmannagja on the Keykjavik side, 
 and the Hrabnagja or Kaven's Eift to the north. 
 
 There are numberless splits between, from the great double 
 chasm which isolates the Hill of Laws, to little cracks of a yard 
 long, but often very deep, which occur in all parts of the valley. 
 The place was well chosen for the annual parliament, the meet- 
 ing where all the national affairs were discussed, the laws made 
 and promulgated, the lawsuits pleaded, and the judgments 
 given. In the ravines there was good shelter for the temporary 
 booths of the people, and there were pretty rock-girt lawns for 
 the different open-air meetings. There was excellent pasture all 
 round for the horses, and plenty of fish in the lake to vary the 
 food. Now all is solitude ; but how easy it is for the fancy to 
 people it with the former inhabitants that have left such detailed 
 histories behind them ! Let us try to realise the scene as it 
 presented itself to them. 
 
 The althing has assembled, say about the end of the tenth 
 century ; all along the hillsides the stone walls of the booths 
 have been freshly piled up, and their roofs tented over. Beyond 
 the waterfall, where the Great Eift diminishes to a narrow chasm 
 carpeted with velvet grass, the chiefs are deliberating in council. 
 Old men, who have long laid aside their weapons for the fishing- 
 net and sheep-crook, clad in blue wadmal, with broad felt hats 
 and long grey beards ; young rovers, who are wont to scour the 
 seas, the fair hair bound with a golden fillet, the sword, perhaps 
 a Damascus blade from Constantinople, in a decorated southern 
 baldric ; youths, who have not yet seen the world, hanging on 
 the words of their elders or challenging each other to wrestle, — 
 such a throng as that are making up alliances, consulting and 
 promising support in the great discussion that is perhaps coming 
 on, or the lawsuit which is dividing the sympathies of the people. 
 
208 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 Down the central meadow wander men and women together ; 
 for the ladies have come to watch the debates and the games, 
 and the girls are brought there by their parents, perhaps to meet 
 the youths, for marriages are commonly made up here. There, 
 with gold threads wrought into his fair hair, clad in shining 
 armour and scarlet cloth, walks perhaps Gunnar Halmundson, 
 his halbert, made of some southern wood inlaid with gold, resting 
 on his shoulder. " Tall of growth, and a strong man ; best 
 skilled in arms of all men ; handsome of feature and fair-skinned ; 
 his nose straight, and a little turned up at the end; blue-eyed, 
 and bright -eyed, and ruddy-cheeked, — the most courteous of 
 men was he, of sturdy frame and strong will, bountiful and 
 gentle, a fast friend, but hard to please in making them." " Boun- 
 tiful and gentle " — this, be it observed, is the other view of the 
 Norse sea-rover; perhaps on those English shores where he has 
 left grey ashes and desolation behind him, the gracious follower 
 of Thor is differently described. Who walks beside him? — the 
 lovely widow Hallgerda. Thirty-five years old, five years older 
 than Gunnar, and of no such spotless reputation, she is yet of 
 all w^omen the most fascinating, "clad in her red kirtle, and a 
 scarlet cloak trimmed with needlework. Her hair came down 
 to her girdle, and was both fair and full." Choose some other 
 wife Gunnar, or sail away again on the Viking path and forget 
 her. No ; he has read his fate already in these lovely " thief's 
 eyes," as her uncle called them : and Gunnar is doomed to fall, 
 after fifteen years of married life, through her means, and for 
 want of her help. 
 
 Pass a score or so of years, and we find the great lawsuit 
 about the burning of innocent Njal is on before the althing. 
 Skilful advocates are engaged on both sides, not openly for fees 
 — for, curiously enough, it was considered criminal to accept them 
 — but for the sake of justice, and a little to show off skill in the 
 law. Sigurd pointed out to us the very rock where the lawyer 
 Eyolf was sitting when a friend felt through his sleeve the 
 golden bracelet he had received as a retainer, and prophesied 
 so evil a gift would be his death, as indeed it was. The suit 
 
HILL OF LAWS. 
 
 209 
 
 about Njal was a glaring case of assault and murder, sworn to 
 by plenty of witnesses, and without a loophole for a mistake 
 in the indictment, wliich set forth how Flosi " rushed upon Helgi 
 Njalson, and gave him a brain-wound, a body-wound, or a marrow- 
 wound," reiterating the words in the very style of our English 
 legal forms. However, the counsel for the defence has contrived 
 to bring his guilty client off by a quibble. By deftly changing 
 the position of his client towards a certain county court, he has 
 enabled him to plead that the suit has been brought before a 
 wrong court, and that the case therefore must fall to the ground. 
 Kari, the avenger, the sole male survivor of the burning, cannot 
 
 FlosVs Leap. 
 
 stand that. He and his friends seize their weapons, and all up 
 the Great Rift and to the Hill of Laws the fight rages. 
 
 The narrow ridge of the Hill of Laws is an awkward place for 
 fighting, and the spot is pointed out where Flosi, the defendant, 
 when hard pressed, leapt across the chasm to the opposite side. 
 The sketch shows the point where the opposite rocks jut out to 
 
 o 
 
210 
 
 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 within ten feet of each other ; and the leap looks sufficiently pos- 
 sible to give some adventurous people a morbid longing to try it. 
 Here, however, it should be said, that Gudbrandr Vigfusson, 
 a great authority, considers that it is a mistake which has iden- 
 tified the ridge between the river-chasms with the ancient Hill 
 of Laws. There, he considers, stood the fortified booths, described 
 as being east across the river, and having the Rift on three 
 sides ; and the name of Flosi, who was in his day chief of the 
 
 Waterfall in Allmannagja. 
 
 Easterlings, who inhabited these booths, has thus become associ- 
 ated with the spot. The real Hill of Laws is to be found, he 
 believes, on the lower edge of the Great Rift (Allmannagja), and 
 the people collected below it on the grass, in the space between 
 the rocks and the river which crosses to the east. He supports 
 this view by many reasons too long to discuss here. If he should 
 be right, the accompanying sketch is taken from the edge of the 
 
 ^U(ci«^, 
 
TALK OF THE MAIDENS. 211 
 
 real Hill of Laws, not far from where the river crosses the long 
 narrow valley. 
 
 Let us imagine a quieter scene by this river about a hundred 
 years later. It is not the time of the althing^ but the two 
 daughters of the rich honde who owns the land here are washing 
 their linen just where the river breaks out of the chasm ; and no 
 prettier place could be chosen for lassies to wash and chat. The 
 Sturlunga Saga tells how both were called Thora, and gives their 
 conversation. 
 
 " I wonder, sister, how long it will be before any man comes 
 to woo us ; and what thinkest thou lies before us ?" said Thora the 
 elder to Thora the younger. 
 
 "I think little about it," said the younger Thora, "as I am 
 very well pleased with things as they are." 
 
 " True," said the other, "it is honourable enough to be here 
 with father and mother ; but it is not very merry here, or delight- 
 ful for all that " 
 
 " That is certain," said the younger ; " but it is not certain that 
 thou wouldst like any change better." 
 
 " Now that may be," said the elder ; " but let us get some fun 
 out of it, and try our powers of prophecy. Tell me what man 
 you would choose should ask you in marriage ; for I do not sup- 
 pose we shall sit all our days at home un wedded." 
 
 " I care not to enter into that," said the other ; " for all that is 
 fated beforehand, and therefore it is of no use to take thought, or 
 chatter at all about it." 
 
 " Certainly," said the elder, "it is doomed by fate how I am 
 to be disposed of. And yet I wish all the same that thou 
 wouldst say what thou forebode st may lie before us, or whom 
 thou wouldst choose to marry." 
 
 " I counsel," said the younger, " that we let this conversa- 
 tion drop; for, 'away goes the word when it slips from the 
 mouth.' " 
 
 " I don't care," said the elder Thora, " though a tale should 
 come of it. But I shall tell thee first whom I would choose, if 
 thou wilt afterwards tell me." 
 
212 BY FELL AND FJOKD. 
 
 " Thou art the first of us," said the younger, " and shalt speak 
 first, as thou wilt not let this idle talk fall." 
 
 " I wish, then," said the elder, *' that Jon Sigmundarson should 
 ride thither and ask my hand, and that I should be given to 
 him." 
 
 Answered the younger : " Truly thou hast not let him pass 
 who is to thy mind the best match (z.e., for a man — karl-kostr) 
 going, because thou sawest it would be hard for me to choose 
 afterwards. But what I wish would happen is a harder thing, 
 and more unlikely. I wish that Jora, the bishop's daughter, 
 should die, and that Thorwaldr Gizurson should come hither and 
 ask my hand." 
 
 " Let us cease this talk," said the elder Thora, " and say 
 nothing about it." 
 
 A scrap of the chatter of girls of six hundred years ago, but 
 very like the modern gossip to which the ever-changing but un- 
 altered river still murmurs its accompaniment in the green valley 
 of Thingvellir. 
 
 The spring after the talk of the two Tlioras, it is told how the 
 very suitors they had named, Thorwaldr Gizurson having lost liis 
 wife Jora, came together to Thingvellir. They both paid the 
 sisters great attention, but which was chosen by each did not 
 appear. The girls, who apparently had the power of choice, 
 agreed to cast a kind of lot about it, as both preferred Thorwaldr 
 — though, again, the younger declared that it mattered little what 
 they did, for all was foreordained. The lot was certainly arranged 
 by the elder Thora in her own favour ; but yet it turned out that 
 the prize fell to the younger, who married Thorwaldr, the man 
 she had chosen in their talk by the river, while Jon fell to the 
 lot of her sister. 
 
 Thorwaldr and the younger Thora were the parents of that evil 
 Earl Gisur, who was son-in-law to Snorri Sturlason, and who saw 
 the end of the independence of Iceland. It was such as he who 
 wrecked the land, till at last the country was, by this very Earl 
 Gisur among others, delivered over to Hakon, King of Norway, 
 in 1260. 
 
KIXG HAKOX. 213 
 
 This Hakon, who was the leading character of the last scene in 
 the history of Independent Iceland — quite one of the moderns — 
 we had formerly associated with a dim antiquity in Scottish 
 history. It was he who was defeated by the Scots at Largs, and 
 who died afterwards at Kirkwall before he could retrieve the 
 disaster, which the Norse authorities consider was much more 
 owing to the storms which wrecked the vessels than to the 
 armies of the Scots. Sturla, the Icelander who was present, 
 gives a graphic account of the last illness of this " savage Norse- 
 man " of our historians. " As he lay ill, he required his attend- 
 ants to read to him Latin books ; then, as he grew worse and it 
 troubled him to follow, he asked for Norse books night and day, 
 — first, the ' Lives of the Saints ; ' then, when they were finished, 
 the lives of the kings his ancestors, from Halfdan the Black. 
 On they read through the long chronicles whenever he was 
 awake, and not engaged in business or Church services. One 
 day his sickness so increased that his voice was gone, and yet 
 he listened while they read the last, ' Sverri's Life ; ' and near 
 midnight, just as they finished the saga, God called the king 
 out of this world's life, to the great grief of all present, and 
 multitudes who heard the tidings afterwards." ^' His death was 
 thought the greatest loss in all the Northern lands," says the 
 Sturlunga Saga; but probably this does not include Scotland, 
 which then succeeded in shaking off the yoke of the Northmen. 
 
 Though shorn of its importance and honour, the althing still 
 met here year after year, even down to the evil daj^s when every 
 liberty had been taken from the unhappy land, whose Danish 
 tyrants seem to have been almost as great a misfortune as the 
 volcanic eruptions and terrible epidemics which reduced Iceland 
 to the lowest extremity about the beginning of the present 
 century. Then only, as if there was no use in any further 
 struggle, the last flicker of the old spirit went out, and the al- 
 thing at Thingvellir was discontinued. Nor has Thingvellir 
 shared in the modem resuscitation of Iceland. It may certainly 
 be more convenient to the people of our day, whom Sir W. Scott 
 would perhaps call, as he did his countrymen, the "dwindled 
 
214 . BY FELL AND FJOED. 
 
 sons of little men," to hold their parliament under cover — the 
 rather, as they now require a session of two months to settle 
 their aiFairs, which would be a long time for elderly legislators 
 to camp out. So they have built within the last year a good 
 Parliament House in Keykjavik, and Thingvellir is left to its 
 solitude and its memories. 
 
 Thingvellir parish boasts of being about the healthiest in the 
 whole record of statistics, the death-rate being at the rate of three 
 and a half per thousand. Of course, as there are not nearly a 
 thousand people in this favoured parish, perhaps not a hundred, 
 the rate may take about a year to amount to half a death. And 
 the clear air, with the feeling of life and vigour it inspires — let us 
 add, the absence of all luxuries and all cares — cause us quite to 
 believe in this salubrity. Then the place is beautiful, with the 
 restrained loveliness of the North, which, if less striking at first, 
 is more lasting and less deceptive than the glow of the further 
 south. 
 
 We had now no provisions of our own, but we went out 
 fishing on the lake ; and the way those delicious pink trout were 
 spoiled in the cooking exasperates me still. " Ancor," as Dante 
 says, "il modo m'offende." They were all we had, and they 
 were all parboiled at once, and served cold ; or further flabbily 
 boiled, and flavoured with fetid smoke. The old prestr has died 
 since my last visit, and I hear his successor has made much- 
 needed improvements in the arrangements for the numerous 
 visitors to Thingvellir. It is much to be hoped that night 
 quarters should be provided for them elsewhere than in the 
 church. To an Icelander on a journey it comes as a matter of 
 course to spend the night under the church roof if no other is 
 available. He gives as little trouble as possible, and no feeling 
 of disrespect is involved in the custom. It is otherwise as re- 
 gards a crowd of foreign tourists. Some of them are perhaps 
 delighted to find themselves the heroes and heroines of so won- 
 derful an advent^lre as sleeping "out of their beds," and turn 
 the whole affair into an inane and indecorous joke, annoying to 
 their hosts, and still more so to their countrymen, who have to 
 
MOUNTAIN SOLITUDES. 215 
 
 entreat that the manners of Great Britain may not be judged by 
 these.^ 
 
 We rode back to Reykjavik after a light breakfast, stopping, 
 a little out of the way back, at a hospitable farm called Grof for 
 coffee and cake. And thus ended this enjoyable expedition, just 
 in time, as we had no provisions left, and two ponies were hors 
 de combat 
 
 There used to be a wonderful fascination about my solitary 
 rides, whether in the neighbourhood of Reykjavik, or on this 
 journey when I had lost sight of niy companions. One could so 
 realise solitude, though I always knew in what direction to find 
 people, and I was never really lost. It was perhaps a little like 
 the old days in Rome, when we were deep in the catacomb of St 
 Calixtus, and used to run down one or two passages away from 
 our party, then blow out our tapers and try to realise what it 
 would be to be lost there, and then the relief of seeing the faint 
 twinkle of a distant light appearing down some branching cor- 
 ridor. Alone in Iceland you are alone indeed, and the homeless 
 undisturbed wilderness gives something of its awful calm to the 
 spirit. It was like listening to noble music, yet perplexed and 
 
 ^ My fears as to the result of that sort of conduct have been verified. Since 
 writing the above, the following paragraph has appeared in a last September 
 number of the ' Edinburgh Courant ' newspaper : — 
 
 "The tourists report that inconvenience is experienced from an order issued 
 by the Bishop of Iceland forbidding the use of churches as sleeping-places 
 for travellers. This, in a sparsely-peopled country, where only one guest- 
 chamber could be set apart in the dwellings of the farmers, was a great 
 boon when any considerable number of natives or tourists travelled together, 
 and its withdrawal is much deplored. The cause of this order is not far to 
 seek, in the manner in which some persons conduct themselves in such 
 places, and are not ashamed to put in print. One tourist describes some- 
 thing like deliberate desecration by a party, . . . which has brought 
 matters to a climax and compelled the order ; . . . while there is no 
 doubt the good bishoj) regrets the necessity put on him by . . . the 
 few, to cause the many to suffer. " It is much to be hoped this prohibition 
 will be withdrawn. Tourists will in many places be ill off indeed without the 
 shelter hitherto afforded by the churches ; and I cannot think so bad a case 
 as that referred to, which was also in my mind when I wrote the above 
 paragraph, is likely to occur again. The people alluded to were probably 
 unaware of the degree to which they shocked the feelings of the natives ; 
 and unquestionably even their conduct is more truly described by what I 
 have said above, than attributable to any deliberate bad motive. 
 
216 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 difficult to follow. I have always believed in some link between 
 the impressions made by scenery and by music — the one suggests 
 the other. If the Italian landscape is like Mozart, infinitely 
 varied, sometimes grand and sometimes gay, but always above all 
 things lovely, and with an evident loveliness ; and if in Switzer- 
 land the sublimity and sweetness correspond in art to Beethoven, 
 — then we may take Iceland as the type in nature of the music of 
 the moderns — say Schumann, at his oddest and wildest ; smaller 
 in some ways, and more subjective, needing more from the ob- 
 server, and yet with a suggestive wistful beauty of its own, witli 
 something of weird sublimity about it, and also quaint disso- 
 nances. It may be that in landscape, as in music, much is now 
 admired of which the beauty is recondite and subtle, a reaction 
 from the vulgarising of more obvious loveliness — such as is in 
 music ground on barrel-organs, or in landscapes daubed on coal- 
 boxes. There is a little wanderlled by Rheinberger that used 
 often to run in my head from beginning to end, as a perfect 
 accompaniment to the tramp of our ponies over the waste lands. 
 Besides the rhythm, the music suggests something adventurous, 
 mysterious, and with a touch about it of gloom. 
 
 Once when riding alone, like one of the knights or ladies in 
 the ^ Morte d' Arthur,' " over waste lands and morasses, following 
 no path but such as strange adventure led me," I saw, on the 
 opposite side of a wide cleft or gil^ a solitary girl on foot. A 
 great torrent was foaming noisily below in the gil, deadening all 
 sound except the clear soel (or hail) which she called across the 
 water to me : behind her lay wastes of purple-black lava-rock, 
 rising in jagged points against the eternal snows of a long 
 mountain-range. A lake lay near, reflecting great stones and 
 rushes in its quiet grey water, but all that stirred was the brawl- 
 ing river which rushed between us. I put the solitary girl, to 
 the best of my power, in a framework of Icelandic scenery and 
 its sentiment as it appears to me. And here she is: for whatever 
 ^ errand she was after, she would probably not object to being be- 
 rhymed in any way, so much are the people here still addicted to 
 verse-making upon all occasions. 
 
MOUNTAIN GLOOM. 217 
 
 A BALLAD OF THE IDEAL. 
 
 "Thou art like those mortals who have picked up in the woods and 
 carried to their lips some pieces of the reed-pipe thrown away by the god 
 Pan. Then they enter into the wilderness, follow the course of the streams, 
 bury themselves in the heart of the mountains, restless and haunted by an 
 unknown purpose." — Maurice de Guerin, 
 
 Why do you wander, fair Karin, 
 
 So far upon the hill, 
 Where waste lands high meet empty sky, 
 
 Where winds have their will ? 
 
 Why do you bide there, fair Karin ? 
 
 Tis not to tend the sheep ; 
 They love not to go where the shrinking snow 
 
 Gleams in the crannies deep. 
 
 'Tis not to watch the herds, Karin ; 
 
 They never care to stray 
 Where the ice clings still to the heart of the hill, 
 
 All through the summer day. 
 
 'Tis not for the horses' sake, Karin ; 
 
 They glance and gallop back, 
 Where hills ablaze in former days 
 
 Have burnt the lands black. 
 
 'Tis not for the riders' sake, Karin ; 
 
 They shun the shore of the lake. 
 Where the sad wind moans o'er standing stones. 
 
 And the dead men wake. 
 
 Who wandered far in their lives, Karin, 
 
 Yet missed the way and the light — 
 The way they seek, with wailing shriek, 
 
 Night after night. 
 
 Leave them the haunted lake, Karin, 
 
 The phantom summer snow, 
 And the icy spires, and the ancient fires, 
 
 All they have now. 
 
 Come to the warm green vale, Karin, 
 
 Come to the merry throng, 
 Where the burr of the wheel and the dancer's heel 
 
 Beat time to song. 
 
 *'Ah, leave me lone on the hill, maidens ! 
 
 No sorrow has marred my fate ; 
 Yet by those waves, near the place of graves, 
 
 Long I must wait. 
 
218 BY FELL AND FJOKD. 
 
 "The winds slept high on the crags, maidens, 
 The dead slept low in the ground, 
 
 When I was aware that all the air 
 Broke into glorious sound. 
 
 ' ' And was it an angel from heaven above ? 
 
 Or one of the elfin race ? 
 Did a long lost friend for a moment bend 
 
 From some blissful place ? 
 
 •' I know not yet ; but this I know, 
 
 That most I love to be 
 Where the sunbeams glow on the mountain snow, 
 
 Where all came to me. 
 
 " There is little joy in the vale, maidens. 
 
 And little rest by the hearth. 
 When loveliness our life can bless 
 
 Not of the earth. 
 
 " But when I come to the lower land, 
 
 I shall have learned a song ; 
 The vale shall hear, and the end shall be near — 
 
 I need not linger long. 
 
 " And when I come to the world again, 
 
 I shall a secret know, 
 So sweet to tell that it ends all well 
 
 To whisper it and go. " 
 
 Of all modes of travelling the pleasantest is travelling on horse- 
 back. Let those who do not agree with this proposition avoid 
 Iceland. Even some people who enjoy luxurious riding on good 
 horses, with good houses to return to, get wearied with the daily 
 journey on horseback, sometimes with tired horses, and cannot 
 put up with the chances of weather, the exposure to sun and 
 shower — the former generally the most trying — and last, not 
 least, the flies. I have enjoyed riding-tours in the Pyrenees and 
 Syria, as well as in Iceland, and these remarks apply to them alL 
 Every one must admire the Pyrenees, which are only less magni- 
 ficent than the Alps and more romantic. Be it mentioned that 
 the flies in the forests and the fleas in the inns are awful in 
 numbers and malevolence, and the traveller has not the resource 
 of a clean tent. 
 
BESSERSTAD. 219 
 
 Iceland and Syria have some points of resemblance ; and one 
 can easily imagine that the traveller might admire neither. The 
 scenery is really sometimes very similar, perhaps owing to the 
 volcanic quality in both. As yon ride over the steep, yellow, 
 rocky hills near Mar Saba, to the grand view of the mountains of 
 Moab, beyond the bleak flat which edges the northern end of 
 the bright blue Dead Sea, it might be a fine coast-scene in 
 Iceland, and that Dead Sea the head of the jQord. And the dreary 
 stony hills near Damascus recall the ugly views in the interior 
 of the volcanic land in the north like nothing else that I have 
 seen. Camp-life in Syria is doubtless as luxurious as it can be 
 made, — and in Iceland you are reduced to a life of rough con- 
 trivances, but it all comes equal. In Syria fevers and poisons 
 lurk about the land, and many of the people who cross your path 
 are thorough robbers : comfort and protection are needed. But 
 here the climate brings health and spirits, and every passer-by is 
 your friend. 
 
 On my return to Keykjavik I was invited by Dr and Mrs 
 Tomsen to dine and sleep at Besserstad, eight miles off. Dr 
 Grimur Tomsen has retired from political life to his hay-fields, 
 but still keeps up an interest in courts and camps. He is the 
 delightful host of an old grey stone house, which stands on 
 meadow-land edged by dark lava, close by the sea, commanding 
 a fine view of the mountain promontory which runs out seawards 
 till the blue hills melt in the distance, Snaefell JokuU rising 
 beyond — an aerial peak suspended above the sea-line. Close by 
 the house stands an old Gothic church of dark-grey stone ; and 
 within there are some curious knightly monuments of former 
 governors of Iceland. 
 
 At Besserstad I was presented with my Icelandic dog Kari. 
 He was pure white, with the exception of his black cheeks and 
 nose and pricked black ears, which stood up like two sharp points 
 of rock out of a snow-drift. Indeed in snow he became almost 
 invisible. A sweeter nature than Kari never ran upon four legs : 
 nothing would make him bite or fight ; he was friends with the 
 whole world — except, indeed, pigs and donkeys. There are none 
 
220 
 
 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 in Iceland ; and he looked upon them with the utmost disgust, 
 and could scarcely be induced to pass them. I never knew a dog 
 who understood language so well, or who tried so hard to talk. 
 As these attempts were not always very agreeable, and as he 
 shrieked with delight at the prospect of a game of ball, or a walk 
 into town, &c., there were many words that we tried to conceal 
 by spelling them ; but in two or three days Kari would learn the 
 alias of anything that concerned him, and excite himself as before. 
 Of course he learnt plenty of tricks, such as picking pockets at a 
 sign with the utmost delicacy, returning the property afterwards 
 
 
 with apologetic grace : he was, in sliort, the blithest and kindest 
 of companions, evidently inheriting the qualities of many canine 
 generations with intense human fellowships. 
 
 The dogs are important creatures in this land of sheep-farming, 
 and, besides the shepherding, they are also of great use in 
 managing and driving the ponies ; the well-bred ones are very 
 gentle and intelHgent, but shy unless encouraged, and terribly 
 noisy, barking as they run, and shrieking at the smallest hurt. 
 They are small-sized Esquimaux in breed, and when pure bred 
 are very handsome. There are the long-haired and short-haired 
 varieties, but even the latter have fine thick coats. They are 
 mostly black or white, or fawn, in colour : they are very fleet and 
 hardy, and most companionable creatures. 
 
KRISUVIK. 221 
 
 The following day I joined a Scottish lady at Hafnarfjord, who 
 was staying there with her brother for a few weeks, and with 
 Thorgrimur we rode thence to the sulphur - mines now being 
 worked at Krisuvik. Over the wild hills and along the shores of 
 the subsiding lake of Klefjarvatn, and among the architectural- 
 looking crags of basalt above it, our way lay, till we reached the 
 little iron house by the solfatara, where the gentlemen had decked 
 out a table of planks upon barrels in the shade, and cooked up 
 an excellent dinner. All was oddly beautiful ; the cinder-moun- 
 tains round glowed like jasper, the fresh-water lake in the crater- 
 like basin below was as blue as the Dead Sea in Palestine, 
 and like it had a sulphuric flavour, only of the mildest. The 
 yellow sulphur-fumes rolled up into the bluest of skies, the bog 
 below was as intense a green, and the sea-line to the south was 
 all a crystal glitter. The day ended with a glorious sunset, 
 which flooded everything it touched with red and golden light, 
 and I wondered over the variety of the hues of blue and purple 
 that were needed for the intense shadows that broadened and 
 deepened till the night had come, and the stars shone out with 
 the marvellous glitter of the far north in September. We rode 
 back a merry party, to Hafnarfjord, which we reached after dark. 
 A Danish merchant gave me hospitality ; and next morning I 
 breakfasted with the kind couple in a pretty room, the windows 
 being gay with roses and carnations, through which showed the 
 blue waters of the fjord. And then we returned to Keykjavik, 
 — Krokur being rather tired at last. He had carried me in four 
 days a hundred and thirty miles, which, even allowing for a day's 
 rest, was hard work for one pony. Eiding him was simply a per- 
 sonal increase of power; he never lagged nor pulled nor pranced, 
 went calmly up and down horrible places, by night as by day, 
 and showed really high courage in bad rivers, where some of his 
 companions were scared. I could not bear to leave him behind 
 me ; so a few days later, with him and Kari the dog, I embarked 
 on board the pony steamer, and had a pleasant voyage home after 
 a most enjoyable journey. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 FAROES TO AKUREYREI STEINSTADR OVER OXNADAL HEATH MIK- 
 
 LAB^ AND ITS GHOST SORCERERS HIDDEN TREASURES THE 
 
 SPECTRE LOVER. 
 
 What is the wondrous form 
 
 Far in the North, 
 Round her the circling storm 
 
 Whirls the snow forth ? 
 Maiden with veil of snow 
 Swathed round her icy brow, 
 All her heart fire below, 
 
 Far in the North. 
 
 What is the glorious song. 
 
 Valiant and sweet. 
 Loved of the loyal throng, 
 
 Reared at her feet ? 
 Maiden with veil of snow. 
 Why dost thou haunt me 
 Longing thy song to know 
 Valiant and sweet ? 
 
 Ssemund and Snorri, these 
 
 Seers of the past, 
 Send down the centuries 
 
 Words that shall last. 
 Now in the ages grey. 
 Long themselves passed away. 
 Still they fire heart and lay — 
 
 Seers of the past. 
 
 Iceland, thou island maid 
 
 Loved of my heart. 
 Fire-gemmed and snow-arrayed. 
 
 Stern as thou art. 
 
FAROE. 223 
 
 Dread as thy beauty's pride, 
 I fain thy knight would ride, 
 Sworn thine whate'er betide. 
 Loved of my heart." 
 
 — Imitated from Bjarni Thorarensen. 
 
 So sang Bjarni Thorarensen, and so thought we when, after 
 a wet spring in Italy, the accounts of the beautiful weather in 
 the North lured us once more over the sea to the dear old island, 
 delighted to return together to our playground of four years ago. 
 
 The pleasantest way to Iceland is undoubtedly by the Faroe 
 Islands. We reached them in the early August of 1879 on our 
 way to Akureyrei on the north coast of Iceland, on this my third 
 visit to the country. As we approached their grand cliffs, after 
 two rainy days at sea, the weather cleared up and the sea sub- 
 sided. Our course lay this time to the east of the main island, 
 Stromo. We sailed along a narrow stretch of sea bounded on 
 either side by long mountain-lines, rising in straight precipices 
 many hundred feet above the white foam at their base. The 
 most northerly point — Myling — is a perpendicular crag 2500 feet 
 high. There was no visible trace of habitation, or indeed of life, 
 except the multitudes of sea-birds whirling and fluttering like 
 drifting snow across the dark-red rocks. We steered right on to 
 where the sunset was barred by purple cliffs, which seemed the 
 end of all things, but a narrow channel opened as we drew near 
 it, through which the tide was rushing between two huge cliffs, 
 and we dashed with the tide through this portal of the northern 
 seas. This passage gave the sense of remoteness to Iceland that 
 one used to feel in a story when the great gates clanged behind 
 the exploring hero. 
 
 Iceland, which this year enjoyed all the good weather denied 
 ■us in the south, was wrapped in a fog-mantle from the cold sea 
 air outside ; so two days later we were feeling our way along the 
 east coast through a mist which did not allow us to see the ship's 
 bows. Suddenly this fog lifted, and showed us the piled trap-rocks 
 of Mula Syslu, gaunt precipices, almost overhanging the steamer. 
 They quite differed in appearance from the recent lava-formations 
 
224 
 
 BY FELL AND FJOED. 
 
 of the southrwest, and resembled the coast-mountains of the 
 wilder parts of Norway, only with the ocean breaking on them 
 unchecked by the circle of islands, which makes that coast so 
 dangerous from the outer sea, and so sheltered within the 
 " Skerry-guard." 
 
 The weather was splendid when we crossed the Arctic circle 
 and turned westward, well to the north of the mountain-coast, 
 where the deep blues and purples of the lower hills contrasted 
 finely with the delicate tints of the snows above ; the solidity 
 and intensity, as well as the purity of the colouring, were deli- 
 cious. The wide sea-plain gave its own rippling interpretation 
 of the still brighter sky that stretched in endless variations of 
 
 cloud-fleck and clear expanse, blue and green and crimson, away 
 to the far north, where the sun shone still, glowing and brilliant. 
 It grew late, but never dark. Night was nowhere, though the 
 colours deepened in hue as they lost in brilliancy. We steered 
 up the EyjaiQord close to the mountains, which generally rose in 
 barren precipices straight out of the sea. But here and there a 
 stream or river flung itself down from the upper snows in a series 
 of shining cascades. And each of the little rivers brought its 
 own softening touches into the wild landscape ; for near them 
 
AKUREYREI. 225 
 
 grass grew, and the lowly green-turfed farms nestled beside 
 them, and the cows and ponies, and the haymakers descending 
 from the mountain - pastures could be seen. Below, where the 
 river was seen to form a little creek, the boats were moored, by 
 which each of the lonely farms keeps up its communication with 
 the neighbours on the flord, itself so far withdrawn from the 
 outer busy world of men. This coast gives the principle of the 
 whole settlement of Iceland. It is nothing but a great mountain- 
 desert, inhabited only along the river-sides, and the fjords which 
 so deeply indent the coast into which those rivers run. 
 
 We passengers lingered on deck, enchanted with the scenery. 
 The whole voyage of five days had indeed been pleasant, and 
 we were so few in number that the Camoens was like a private 
 yacht, and we had all become very friendly. Among other 
 agreeable people were three young Italian gentlemen who had 
 meant to go from Scotland to Ireland, and had at first misread 
 our steamer's destination. " Iceland, not Ireland ; well, why not 
 go to Iceland?" they said, " which perhaps no Italian had visited 
 since Cliristopher Columbus." They were delighted with the 
 scene before them, making some comparisons to various choice 
 views in Italy, disparaging to the latter, which I shall not note 
 down, as they may have been the effects of a passing enthusiasm. 
 
 It was midnight when the anchor - chains rattled down off 
 Akureyrei, a little straggling village far up the narrowing §ord. 
 There were still fantastic effects of light, though, now that 
 August had begun, the sun was for a little while below the 
 horizon. One hill turned blood-red, another was a cold yellow ; 
 the moon rose and added her glitter to the rest, but her light 
 did not count for much. 
 
 " The moon was shining sulkily, 
 Because she thought the sun 
 Had got no business to be there 
 After the day was done." 
 
 Boats put off from the shore, and people arrived ; among others, 
 our old friend Thorgrimur Gudmundsen leapt on board. He 
 had come with a party from Eeykjavik to meet us, with fourteen 
 
 p 
 
226 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 ponies ; so we two, at least, had our journey arranged. The 
 passengers who had not already made arrangements had many 
 difficulties, but most of them were able to secure the guides and 
 horses required. The next morning we said farewell with some 
 regret to agreeable companions, and the good ship Camoens, 
 and her cheery captain, Eobertson. We landed in the ship's 
 boat, splashed by a sudden violent squall, which made us fear 
 lest the long summer we had been told of was flying away on the 
 wings of the wild wind ; but happily it fell towards evening. 
 
 Akureyrei is certainly not worthy of its lovely situation. It 
 consists of two or three dozen wooden houses, pitch-black out- 
 side, dotted irregularly about a black rocky shore ; a bit of tram- 
 way for coal-carts, some ugly streets, and a good church. Every- 
 where there is the imtidiness and crookedness of out-of-door 
 arrangements in Iceland ; even in Scotland and Italy things are 
 rather more " squared up " and trim. But in neither of these 
 countries would we have been likely to find any one like kind 
 Fru Ranveig, who received us in her neat little house, — not for 
 old acquaintance' sake, for we were strangers, but because we 
 were strangers known to some of her friends. A good supper 
 and good beds were provided ; and we had a champagne breakfast 
 next day, because it was a birthday, or some such inadequate 
 reason. And then with pride and joy we mustered our ponies. 
 Fourteen sounds many for two ladies, who travel with wonder- 
 fully little personal baggage, though of course my small tent, 
 and our wraps and mattresses and some provisions, formed part 
 of our outfit. But each of the four riders had two ponies, and 
 there was a baggage relay ; for luxurious travel in Iceland means 
 many ponies and few people. We cantered off in the warm sun- 
 shine, a merry cavalcade, we two ladies — with Thorgrimur and 
 his sub. Thorwaldur, a good-looking young fellow with some 
 dash about him, in attendance — away from the little township and 
 the people, out into freedom and mountain spaces. Presently we 
 left the bright sea-coast and turned inland, passing near Modrii- 
 vellir, where a solid stone house recalls the former importance 
 
RAERIC, KING OF NORWAY. 227 
 
 of the place, once the dwelling of Gudinundur the Powerful, a 
 great chief who owned the land hereabouts early in the eleventh 
 century. The Ljosvetninga Saga, or history of the men of 
 Lightwater, tells in quaint detail of his doings and those of his 
 descendants. 
 
 The only king who ever trod the soil of Iceland till the 
 Danish king's visit, in 1874, was here for some years as the guest 
 of this Gudmundur. He was Eaeric, one of the petty kings of 
 Norway, conquered by Olaf the Saint. He was very bold and 
 stirring, so Olaf put out his eyes, but kept him as his cousin, 
 in high honour, about his person. Poor caged blinded eagle ! 
 Sometimes, says the saga, he was very sad, and then, again, 
 so merry that he would drink them all under the benches ; but 
 always he pondered on his wrongs. Several times he attempted 
 the life of his kinsman Olaf. The last time, as they sat together 
 in church on Ascension-day, the blind king felt Olaf s shoulder, to 
 find out if he wore armour. '' You wear gay clothes to-day, kins- 
 man," he said ; and when St Olaf explained how he did so in 
 honour of the feast of the Ascension, '' I cannot understand much 
 about your white Christ," answered Eaeric, and plunged his 
 dagger deep into his cousin's rich mantle -folds, which happily 
 turned the point. Olaf then ordered an Icelander, with whom he 
 iiad won a most quaint wager, to take Eaeric to Greenland, or 
 at least Iceland, w^iich was done ; and at last poor Eaeric enjoyed 
 much peace there, in Modrtivellir. There is now here a new high 
 school for students in the north, which has lately been established 
 under Mr Jon Hjaltalin, formerly sub-librarian in the Edinburgh 
 Advocates' Library, an accomplished scholar and a good friend to 
 the British, in whose country he has passed many years. 
 
 This part of northern Iceland shows no signs of volcanic 
 action ; it reminded me of Eoss and Sutherland on a larger scale, 
 without heather, but with more grass, and occasional glaciers. 
 Our way led through valleys and over grass — most pleasant riding; 
 so we did what is said to be thirty-five miles easily, and stopped 
 at the farm of Steinstadr, or Stone Stead, so called probably be- 
 
228 , BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 cause the hills opposite were crested by rock -pinnacles of the 
 most curious shapes, rising above a glacier. A pyramid, blunted 
 at the top, stood by a slender spire ; through the glass we could 
 realise their huge proportions, which made us long to explore 
 the recesses of these extraordinary mountains. 
 
 We were expected at the farm, and found both the guest-room 
 and a little bedroom in the roof, reached by a steep ladder, newly 
 washed and still damp. It made one feel rheumatic to look at 
 the moist floors viewed as beds. However, extra washing is such 
 a rare drawback hereabouts, that I risked spreading my War Office 
 valise on the damp wood under the open window, to do honour 
 to the excellent intentions of our hosts. In the morning there 
 rose out of the floor a lovely apparition, the tasselled head of a 
 pretty girl ; as she glided upwards a fragrance filled the air, and 
 the tray emerged with the hot reviving coffee. 
 
 Peaceful and Arcadian was the Oxna valley through which our 
 way led ; cattle and ponies wandered by the little river in fine 
 pasture. We rested in a charming spot where the pastures rise 
 to the foot of the crags which are crested with snows ; to the 
 right the mountains sank a little, forming a col, which we had to 
 cross. On mounting it we found all was loose shale and rock ; 
 only the vivid mosses seemed to flourish, tossed about like bits of 
 green velvet over the black wastes of stone. Having crossed the 
 col, we reached, in the afternoon, another pastoral valley, where 
 we had coffee on the grass near a farm, surrounded by the in- 
 habitants, who were greatly interested in our ways. Feminine 
 travellers are rather a rarity ; besides, now we were in company 
 with greater rarities still — our fellow - passengers, the young 
 Italian gentlemen who had camped by the farm where we had 
 slept, and ridden with us most of the day. They were high- 
 bred gentlemen, and the inhabitants had never probably seen 
 anything like those slender dark-haired representatives of the 
 graceful old Latin civilisation. They had asked us when we 
 were on board the steamer if there were good hotels in Iceland, 
 and if English or French was generally understood ; now they 
 
MORI. 229 
 
 knew a little more. They had hired a tent, and we had helped 
 them to secure the one guide at Akureyrei who knew a little 
 English, which one of the Italians spoke a little also ; and there 
 is nothing like contrast. We had doubted whether these young 
 fellows from the garden of the world would care for the stern 
 barren North ; but they were delighted with everything, and 
 charmed the people wherever they went. Here our routes 
 diverged, as we still kept near the northern coast, and they 
 turned southwards, where they found good sport and much to 
 amuse them, as they told us on the voyage home. 
 
 Here their guide's dog deserted them for us, encouraged per- 
 haps by the notice I took of him. Not that the dog was really 
 his, — he was merely a stray one which had joined their party at 
 Akureyrei, and which now devoted himself to me. 
 
 Mori ! they may call you hurakki — that is, a dog which wanders 
 from farm to farm — or flakka, a dog which roves independently ; 
 but allowing that you had a passion for travel, did we not all 
 share it? were you not faithful to us as long as we travelled? 
 Certainly when our journey was ended our faithful hound dis- 
 appeared, probably joining some later excursion ; for when all 
 travelling was over for the season he returned to Thorgrimur for 
 good. We called him Mori from his brown colour ; doubtless he 
 has many other names. He was of a yellow-brown hue, exactly 
 matching the usual tint of the earth, and the same all over, even 
 to his eyes. He was almost invisible when running by our side, 
 but not the less was he our good genius. He managed the 
 ponies with wonderful intelligence, saving men and horses half 
 the labour of driving. " Mori, thetta " (/.e., Mori, after that one) 
 was all that was now needed generally, instead of the rush of the 
 driver after any one of the ponies which so often wandered east 
 or west of the right way. His yellow eye, his trembling pricked 
 ear, was on them all. He worked harder than any one, dropped 
 asleep coiled under his own bushy tail when we halted, but in 
 the evening became our affectionate companion, and guarded the 
 tent, invariably picking out the best bed for himself. He guided 
 
230 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 US liome if ever we wandered away on foot, shared all our for- 
 tunes, and was our joy. 
 
 Evening had fallen when, after forty miles of riding, we reached 
 the parsonage of Miklabse, near the Hjerads river, where we put 
 up our tent, and lingered over our evening coffee listening to 
 strange stories till far into the night. 
 
 It is sometimes said the old beliefs have quite faded away in 
 modem Iceland, and no doubt the people are shyly afraid lest 
 foreigners should laugh at them as superstitious ; but when 
 time and place are suitable, such as while riding after dark, 
 or in a lonely chapel at midnight, one may still hear some- 
 thing of the old folk-lore. Indeed I have been asked by a 
 clergyman not to encourage the people to tell stories, whicli 
 made them afraid to look over their shoulders in the long 
 winter nights. 
 
 There is a gloomy ghost-story connected with Miklab^ which 
 illustrates one of the darkest of the Northern superstitions. There 
 is no doubt of the truth of the main outlines of the story, which 
 came before the magistrates at the time it occurred ; but proba- 
 bly the details have been coloured to suit the old belief of the 
 power of the dead over the living. 
 
 Sira Oddur Gislason, a namesake of our modern friend, was 
 the parish priest here in the year 1781. A girl named Solveig 
 was in love with him, but he did not return her love, so in 
 despair she gave herself a fatal wound in the neck, and died 
 imploring him with her latest breath to let her rest in conse- 
 crated ground, and not as a suicide outside the churchyard, and 
 without a funeral service — in one word, dysjardr. She threatened 
 him that otherwise he should himself never lie in hallowed 
 ground. Sira Oddur referred the matter to the bishop, who 
 ordered that she should only have the burial of a suicide ; and 
 now, according to the popular belief, in cases of people who died 
 for love or were not properly buried, she was likely to " walk." 
 It was said that Sira Oddur from henceforth never dared to ride 
 alone after dark — he always required a companion — and told how 
 
A MYSTERY. 231 
 
 Solveig haunted him on lonely roads after nightfall. One after- 
 noon he rode off to his annex chapel some miles away, and when lie 
 was ready to return to Miklabse he asked a friend to ride with him 
 that evening to his own tun wall : this he did, and there they 
 parted, Sira Oddur being now within call of his own people. 
 Those at Miklab^e told how they were roused late that night by 
 strange noises, knocking, and cries, and sounds as if some one 
 were climbing on to the house-roof. They were frightened, and 
 did not at once open the door, and when at last they took heart 
 and went out, all was silent. They found Sira Oddur's pony by 
 the tun wall, his whip on the grass, his gloves thrust under the 
 saddle-bow, but from that time to this there has never been a 
 trace of Sira Oddur, nor the smallest clue to his fate. Of course 
 there were additions to this so far reliable story, telling how 
 Solveig appeared to several people, and even bit one in the neck 
 with the fatal vampire-bite, which was believed to cause death, 
 and infect the victim with the vampire nature ; but these were 
 the stories of frightened farm-servants. 
 
 People " did not lie quiet " or " walked after," according to the 
 euphemism used in Iceland, not always because they had led evil 
 lives, but also as the result of certain modes of death, or for want 
 of proper burial. Revenge was supposed to keep other dead 
 people stirring who were sometimes vindictive enough to threaten 
 to haunt an enemy, and then kill themselves to execute the 
 threat. The body, besides, was supposed to have a kind of life 
 independent of the soul, which might be quite away in some 
 good or evil place, even while horrible apparitions of the dead 
 person were haunting the upper air. It was believed that potent 
 sorcerers could wake the dead body by infusing the vitality be- 
 longing to some evil familiar spirit, and send it out to torment 
 an enemy or terrify the neighbourhood. Sitja uti ok veJcja troll — 
 to sit outside and waken trolls was a recognised work of wizards. 
 On the other hand, a living man might leave his body in a deep 
 sleep, while his soul roamed about in possession of the body of 
 some other creature — such as a wolf, an eagle, or a bear — return- 
 
232 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 ing to its proper habitation after a time, wearied with its wander- 
 ings in other forms. 
 
 Iceland was celebrated for its sorceries and its potent magi- 
 cians : one round whose name many stories have clustered was 
 Saemund the Wise, the compiler of the ' Edda.' Two of the more 
 recent wizards were, strangely enough, clergymen : Sira Halfdan 
 Narfason of Skaga^'ord, in the sixteenth century ; and Sira Eiri- 
 kur Magnusson of Vogsoar, in the south, in the seventeenth 
 century. The wildest tales are told of them both ; and they also 
 had the distinction of being virtuous sorcerers, who only used 
 their supernatural powers for good — as, for instance, in this story 
 of an " awakened " body. One night some one knocked at Sira 
 Halfdan's door, and the girl who opened it saw a strange-looking 
 man clad in dripping oilskin, who asked with a stifled voice for 
 the parson. He looked out, and at once knew what he had to 
 deal with, — that this was only a body possessed by the familiar of 
 a rival magician to do him a mischief. He lighted up the inner 
 room in every corner, and then bade the stranger enter, desired 
 him to answer with strong conjurations, and asked, ''Where 
 and when were you drowned?" ''Yesterday at Grundvik, in 
 the south," said the body. " Did you come here willingly ? " 
 " No, by hard compulsion." " Where is your soul ? " "I think 
 it is in a good place." "It is time for you to rest," said Sira 
 Halfdan ; and the body fell back lifeless as he spoke, and was 
 properly buried by the parson, while he conjured the familiar into 
 something else, and returned it to the sender. 
 
 Another popular superstition, which it is not good to recall 
 alone in a church at night, is that on certain festivals a midnight 
 mass is held in the churches attended by all the dead folk buried 
 in the churchyard. Some long-dead parson preaches to them, 
 and the ceremony is called the kirkjugardrinn risi — z.e., the rising 
 of the churchyard. 
 
 A story is told about such a congregation, which at least is 
 not without a moral for troublesome servants. A priest had an 
 old housekeeper who was greatly plagued by the ill-behaviour 
 
SORCERERS. 233 
 
 of Gudmundur, one of the farm-servants, and she threatened to 
 haunt him after her death. She died, and not long afterwards 
 he perished out on the mountains, but his body was found and 
 decently interred. However, it did not rest quietly — it was soon 
 dug up again ; and it became evident that this occurred wherever 
 it was buried, till at last the bones were gathered in a sack and 
 laid behind the church-door. Soon after the spectre of Gudmun- 
 dur appeared to one of the servants, who was a brave girl ; it 
 entreated her to go to the church at midnight on All-souls' Day, 
 '' there you will see many people, and among them an old woman 
 with a red hood : say to her, ' Woman with the red hood, forgive 
 the skeleton that lies behind the church-door.' " So she went to 
 the church at the time appointed with a companion, and the 
 windows were all lighted up : that was enough for her friend, 
 who stayed behind, while the girl looked in at the window and 
 saw within a shadowy crowd, all unknown to her, and among 
 the rest an old woman with a red hood. She gave her message, 
 and the old woman bowed and said '' Yes ; " and the bones of 
 Gudmundur were buried and never disturbed again. 
 
 Those who have loved money too well in their lifetime, or 
 have hidden it away, are said to be restless after death, and 
 may be seen wearily counting it all night long, chained to the 
 spot by the effects of former greed. 
 
 There are many legends about hidden treasures, remarkable as 
 associated with so poor a country ; but the legends tell how, first 
 the Vikings, and then the monks, were wont to bury their money 
 to hide it from their enemies. Such treasures are guarded some- 
 times by a haunting spirit, but more often by such magic fire as 
 Odin cast round the Sleeping Beauty, Brynhild. The saying 
 goes that at Helga Fell, near Borgar^ord, much treasure might 
 be found on the site of the old cloister ; but on any attempt to 
 excavate, magic flames seem to burst out in the neighbouring 
 church, and the workmen are forced to stop. A few years ago, 
 however, the local priest caused some Danes to dig among the 
 old foundations, as he could not persuade any Icelanders to do 
 
234 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 SO. Nothing remarkable was found, so the Icelanders are satis- 
 fied the right spot where the treasure still rests has not been 
 found. 
 
 A man told me how, a few years ago, when he was on his way 
 to a farm on the west coast, he and his companions saw from 
 the ridge of a hill they surmounted in the evening twilight, a 
 fire, as they thought, at the farm. It blazed so high that they 
 rode as hard as they could across the intervening valley, in hopes 
 of being in time to give help. But when they crested the next 
 hill, all was dark, and when they reached the farm, no one knew 
 anything of the fire ; but one of the household was out fishing, 
 and they heard afterwards how, that very night, he was lost at 
 sea. This corpse-light, or spectral fire foretelling death, was a 
 well-known old Norse belief, as in the case of Roslin Chapel, 
 which blazes with a magic flame 
 
 ' ' When fate is nigh 
 The lordly line of high St Clair." 
 
 There is still a lingering belief that the spirits of unbaptised 
 children haunt the neighbourhood of their unconsecrated graves, 
 and " to shriek like an out-buried child " has passed into a saying. 
 We stayed in a house in the south which about twenty years 
 ago was much disturbed by some invisible agency, which an- 
 nounced itself to be the ghost of an unchristened and murdered 
 child. It was the house of a magistrate, and a man accused 
 of child-murder was at the time closely confined in one room 
 pending his trial, and this disturbance came with him, and 
 ceased when he was condemned to the galleys, and taken away 
 to Denmark. 
 
 The thing took rather the form of spirit-rapping — a supersti- 
 tion hitherto unknown in Iceland." Something rapped on the 
 walls, tossed about the furniture, and talked in the air, asserting 
 that it was a second unchristened child, murdered by " Olaf," the 
 criminal in the house. Whatever it was, it annoyed the family 
 not a little, and baffled all the wise men of the district, who made 
 
THE ELVES. 235 
 
 every investigation they could think of — removing the servants 
 and the boys, and carefully watching Olaf, who was fettered, 
 I believe, — at any rate closely confined in his prison. Nothing 
 was found out, but the disturbance lasted from Christmas 1857 
 till the end of the May following, when Olaf was removed. 
 
 Many local names in Iceland refer to the Trolls or the Elves. 
 The trolls were the demons of the old mythology, malignant 
 and gigantic beings, who wandered in the waste places. Some 
 men were partly of their lineage, and were formidable though 
 generally rather stupid creatures, called half-trolls. The elves 
 were soulless elemental spirits, neither good nor bad, but danger- 
 ous if provoked, and better spoken of by some periphrasis, as the 
 good folk or the darlings, than called by their names. They were 
 fond of music, and loved the brave musicians who would dare to 
 play to their dancing ; and numberless pretty stories are told of 
 the poets and songsters, to whom they imparted some of their 
 gifts. The modern poet Bjarni Thorarensen, early in the present 
 century, disappeared for three days when he was only three years 
 old, and is supposed to have been then carried off by the elves, 
 who gave him the gift of poetry. The saying goes that "the 
 elves love the fiddle and the angels love the langspiel" or Ice- 
 landic zither, an instrument which is now seldom to be met with. 
 
 Many stories are still current about prophetic dreams and the 
 warnings of second sight ; and I heard one authentic tale of the 
 apparition of a person at the point of death from one of the three 
 men who believed they saw the spectre. But these stories are 
 not so peculiarly Icelandic in character as to be worth repeating, 
 so I shall end these few words about the chief popular super- 
 stitions with a story which was told us by our former guide, 
 apropos of the difficulty of pronouncing the word Gudrun, and 
 which, though it has already been translated, is so characteristic 
 as to be worth retelling. 
 
 There was once a young man who had promised his afiSanced 
 bride that he would come to fetch her with him to church for the 
 midnight service on Christmas Eve. He duly set off on the way, 
 
236 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 but he had to ride over a swollen ford, where his horse lost its 
 footing, and a wave dashed over the rider, carrying with it a 
 block of ice, which hit him on the back of the neck and gave him 
 a fatal wound. The maiden waited long for her lover : at last 
 in the dark night a horseman came to the door and silently 
 lifted her behind him on the saddle, and rode with her towards 
 the church. On the way he turned round to her and said these 
 words, after the Norse fashion, in the form of a scrap of verse : — 
 
 *' The moon glides and the dead rides; 
 
 Seest thou the fleck, the wound on my neck, 
 Garoun, Garoun ? " 
 
 The maiden's name was Gudrun (or God's wisdom), but spectres 
 cannot pronounce the holy name, hence the mispronunciation. 
 The maiden was terrified, but they rode on till they came to the 
 churchyard lich-gate. Here the rider drew rein and said — 
 
 " Wait thou here Garoun, Garoun, 
 While I flit Faxi, Faxi,! 
 East from the tun. " 
 
 When Gudrun heard these words she fell to the ground senseless, 
 but in falling she caught the bell-rope which hung from the 
 church-bells under the lich-gate, as is usual in Iceland. The 
 bells all rang, the spectre vanished, the congregation poured 
 out of the church. They recovered her and heard her story, and 
 searched the river ; here they found the body of her lover with 
 the wound in his neck. When first I heard this story, I asked if 
 the horse Faxi was also a spectre ; my informant thought not, 
 and that probably our very old wall-eyed pony was the horse. 
 "The morals of this story are," he continued, "first, you must 
 learn thoroughly to pronounce the difficult word Gudrun, or you 
 may be taken for something evil ; secondly, that if even evil 
 things are not bad enough to ride over tuns, far more ought we 
 to flit all the ponies carefully east or west from churchyard or 
 tunJ' 
 
 1 The name of the horse. 
 
FOLK-LORE. 237 
 
 Professor Maiirer, while attributing to this story an indepen- 
 dent origin from that of the German " Leonore " legend, says 
 that it shows how the popular beliefs of the same race are cast in 
 the same moulds while differing so greatly in local colouring and 
 details ; and in Iceland the folk-lore is the more remarkable as 
 being still alive, — not yet, as in Germany, obliterated by the 
 crowded uniformity of modern life. 
 
238 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 CHURCH SERVICES CLERGY MAGISTRATES DRINK IN ICELAND 
 
 AND NORWAY TOBACCO BEAUTY. 
 
 We camped two nights at Miklabas, spending the evenings at 
 the parsonage, where building was going on. The houses stand 
 on a grassy hillside, which rises behind into cliffs and a great 
 wedge-shaped mountain. A wide glacier-river, Hjeradsvatn, 
 rolls through the grassy flats below, and on the other side fine 
 mountains enclose the valley, range behind range growing blue 
 in the distance. A good hay crop is already stored and turfed 
 round the parsonage ; but the people are still making oui-hay 
 down in the marshes near the river. Sira Jacob, the parson, is 
 a personable man, with a fine family, chiefly grown up, and is a 
 great horse-fancier. After dinner, in this far land, which some 
 people call uncivilised, we sat by the harmonium while the 
 pastor's son played — and well — from masses, operas, and chorales. 
 The girls and he then sang together in parts, which they read 
 with ease. All had pretty voices, but the young man's was a 
 quite remarkable tenor. He was only twenty, and we thought 
 he might do well to go abroad to cultivate music as a profession, 
 — if, indeed, some of the richness and brightness of his voice would 
 not be lost away from the pure home air. The lad was also 
 handsome, with chiselled features like a cameo, and a tumbling 
 mass of light-brown hair. His sisters were quite pretty, — a touch 
 more of animation and of kindliness to their own good looks would 
 have made them really beautiful. There was a pretty little boy 
 
MIKLABiE. 239 
 
 besides, whose voice was like a high clarion. Many Swedish 
 and Icelandic part-songs were given with much effect — Thor- 
 grimur contributing his fine bass — till it was high time for us 
 ladies to nestle down on our cork mattresses, — made fragrant 
 and soft with hay, — in the cosy tent. Sunday dawned cloudless 
 and lovely : we sent ofif Thorwaldur and the baggage early to 
 announce our late arrival at a friendly farm, and stayed for the 
 church service. 
 
 Now the church people come riding in, — some down the moun- 
 tain-side, many along the slight traCk called the road ; others 
 come up the grassy valley where the land swells in little mounds, 
 as if it were the churchyard of a vast former population. Some 
 men are dashing through the great river, from the next parish. 
 As they collect they break into four groups : the men ; the 
 women, who have their own talk ; the ponies, who seem also to 
 exchange ideas ; and the dogs, which, in a hunda-thing or dog- 
 meeting, play, growl, bark, do all but talk to each other — nay, 
 judging by their wise faces, they have no lack of conversation 
 too. The church is crowded ; the little altar well vested ; the 
 priest wears a handsome cope ; but nothing else is ornate. The 
 building is but a shabby barn, and too small for the congregation. 
 The men who sing sit near the altar, in what is the chancel on 
 a small scale. Then comes the mass of the women ; the non- 
 singing men sitting generally behind, or even at the windows. 
 I expected good music here, knowing what sweet voices the 
 home house could furnish ; but no. There appeared an ancient 
 spectacled vor sanger, or precentor, who evidently would brook no 
 new-fangled ways. He led the drawling song as the " many- 
 wintered crow leads the clanging rookery home," and we felt he 
 would lead it to his life's end. If he ever had a voice, it had 
 departed long ago. 
 
 A layman begins the service with the Lord's Prayer. Follows 
 a short, '' dry " communion office, called the Mass, intoned in 
 plain song, just as in an old parish church in France or Italy ; 
 but the gospel for the day is read again, without intoning, from 
 the pulpit before the sermon. The priest disrobes and remains 
 
240 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 in his black gown and ruff, before entering the pulpit ; and after 
 a sort of bidding prayer and the gospel, follows the sermon, — 
 in this case an interesting one, most attentively listened to. The 
 service ends as it began, with the Lord's Prayer, repeated by a 
 layman. Six hymns were sung by the people during the service 
 — that is, by the men in the choir. The women seldom join in, 
 however well they may sing. The theory of the service is that 
 there are three divisions : the priest ; the choir, who make the 
 responses ; and the congregation, who may join in the hymns. 
 The authorised hymn-book seems to be the representative of 
 Icelandic theology ; a short communion office, and the epistles 
 and gospels for the year of the Latin and English Churches are 
 often bound up with it. Litany, canticles, and even creeds seem 
 to have dropped out of their service, but all are found in a 
 metrical form among the hymns, to be used at the discretion of 
 the minister. Some fine airs — German and Swedish chorales, 
 and others said to be genuine Icelandic — are appropriated to 
 different hymns; but the singing in old-fashioned parishes is 
 often appalling. The younger ministers have, however, generally 
 been taught some music by a very musical professor, Mr Svein- 
 bjornsen, who gave all the youth who passed through the college 
 in his time some instruction in the divine art. And such instruc- 
 tion falls on good ground, for the people evidently have the 
 Teutonic ear for harmony, and very often remarkably good voices. 
 Men are beginning to take real interest and pride in the singing ; 
 and through it, no doubt, church-going is acquiring a fresh inter- 
 est. We thought the people liked going to church as a matter 
 of course and use and wont in the country, and do go, through 
 great difficulties ; but I cannot say I saw any great signs of that 
 emotional religion of which Henderson speaks. The Church is 
 certainly Erastian, and the people seem to me phlegmatic. In 
 Reykjavik the church is not well attended. There is no dissent, 
 and theological questions have not the important place they hold 
 in Scotland. The most burning one we heard of was who should 
 repair the church at Reykjavik, which was getting ruinous. The 
 people of Reykjavik said all the island should help, as it is called 
 
CLERGY. 241 
 
 the cathedral, and therefore belongs to all. But all Iceland 
 replied that it was the parish church of Reykjavik (and certainly 
 they have no other), and that the townspeople were bound to 
 repair it. Meanwhile it was not repaired at all, and remains 
 in all the simplicity of dilapidated ugliness. It possesses one 
 treasure only, a font decorated with a beautiful bas-relief by the 
 sculptor Thorwaldsen, who presented it to his fatherland. 
 
 The other cathedral church of Skalholt, which was unfortu- 
 nately burnt at the time of the Eeformation, must have been a 
 fine building. Even in Iceland its destruction made a sensation, 
 and the saying still runs — 
 
 " I talk for ever, the old wife says, 
 I've been a chatterer all my days ; 
 But even I stood still in amaze 
 When Skalholt Church went up in a blaze. " 
 
 The people accepted Christianity when reasonably convinced 
 of its superiority, and also of the strength of the " military 
 mission " of St Olaf, but without much enthusiasm, and with a 
 careful proviso that they might be baptised in the hot springs in 
 cold weather. In the same way the Reformation was imposed on 
 the country by the Danes with little but political excitement. 
 The Reformers, indeed, cut off the head of the gallant Bishop, 
 Jon Arason, who, like the old Vikings, said that he greatly 
 preferred to die the death of his patron, St John the Baptist, to 
 a cow-death indoors ; but even he seems to have been more of 
 a political than an ecclesiastical victim. 
 
 There is only one bishopric now. Till 1801 there had been 
 two sees, but the Danes at that date economised expenses by de- 
 stroying one. There are mneteen profasts or rural deans, and 171 
 parishes. All the livings are in the gift of the Crown, practically 
 appointed by the bishop, whose recommendation is necessary and 
 all-powerful. The priests derive their income chiefly from glebe 
 lands annexed to each church ; there are, besides, some small 
 tithes and very small incomes derived from part of the confis- 
 cated Church revenues. Some church farms are large and good, 
 and enable the incumbents to live as thriving farmers. The 
 
 Q 
 
242 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 obvious drawback is, that farming may well absorb tbe prestr^s 
 chief energy, and he becomes more occupied about horses, sheep, 
 and cattle, than about his parishioners. Some priests are much 
 helped by a clever wife, son, or manager. Some, it must be 
 owned, are very secular indeed, happy if they do not fall into the 
 national vice of drinking, to which the long cold rides over their 
 large parishes act as an incentive. Then, of course, they lower 
 the standard all round them, for they have a powerful influence 
 for good or for evil. The priest is often the chief local authority 
 in secular matters as well as spiritual ; he sees the newspapers, 
 and can tell his people the news of the outer world ; he can tell 
 the prices and markets which regulate their business ; he under- 
 stands Danish and Latin ; he is sure to have at least a few books ; 
 and he is often a learned and accomplished man. 
 
 The land is divided into nineteen counties, each county having 
 one dean and one sysselman or magistrate, appointed by the 
 Crown. These men are socially in the best position in Iceland, 
 are generally cultivated people, have good houses, and are com- 
 fortably well off. Below each sysselman are several hreppstjror 
 or parish authorities, appointed from among the neighbouring 
 farmers. To our ideas the authorities are too invariably nomi- 
 nees : more freedom of election would give more vigour and spirit 
 to the people. However, the Icelanders are a very law-respect- 
 ing nation ; crime is rare, and what little there is, has generally 
 something to do, directly or indirectly, with brandy. But drunk- 
 enness is not so bad as in Norway or Scotland — though it infects 
 people higher in the social scale than is the case with us now, in 
 modern times. Happily the w^omen do not drink, so the men are 
 responsible for almost all the alcohol consumed in the year — viz., 
 something less than two gallons per head per annum for the 
 whole population. But with the exception of a few veteran and 
 known topers, including, alas ! some clergymen, it is rarely that 
 a man is drunk on duty ; it is at supper that the drinking begins, 
 or when friends start on a journey, or at a wedding or funeral 
 feast. The higher classes now drink French and Spanish wines, 
 as there is direct trade with these countries, which import largely 
 
DRINK. 243 
 
 the stock-fish of Iceland. The corn-brandy comes from Denmark ; 
 and for that among other reasons, the more the old Danish trade 
 monopoly is broken up, the better for the island. 
 
 The worst point about the drink is that the standard of public 
 opinion is so low on the subject, drinking habits are thought too 
 little of even by the clergy. Much has been done to improve 
 Norway by stringent laws about the sale of liquor, which have 
 been carried by the peasants themselves ; and perhaps in Iceland, 
 too, it will be found advisable to legislate in that direction. It is 
 now not easy for even a respectable stranger to buy spirits in 
 Norway, and rather difficult to get drunk. It can, however, still 
 be managed, and handsomely too, as we once had an opportunity 
 of seeing. 
 
 My friend and I one day two years ago drew up our carrioles 
 at a hill-station in the wild mountain district that lies between 
 the Storfjord and the Northfjord, the abode of a people whose 
 language still approaches the Icelandic spoken by their stirring 
 forefathers — \h.Qjirdifylki, Qord people. A fine-looking man reeled 
 across the road to receive us with the remark, " I am drunk." 
 
 " So I see," was all that I could answer; and then he explained, 
 rather incoherently, that he and every one else in the district had 
 been all night at a wedding, — indeed we gathered that this was 
 the third day of the feast. Leaving a little girl to unharness and 
 do all the groom's work expected from the Norse lassies, we fol- 
 lowed the jovial station-master and his wife, who was sober, to a 
 farm a quarter of a mile off, through meadows crowded with horses 
 of all sorts, and corresponding vehicles. There were various 
 buildings of weather-stained wood, the largest being a great long 
 low room — a barn, perhaps, but probably not unlike the halls of 
 ancient days — with its blackened cross-beams and rows of small 
 windows. Two long narrow tables ran down the hall, their ends 
 almost lost in the dusky shadows ; a short table ran crosswise at 
 the head, as, of old, the place of honour, and of most of the women. 
 At one end of this cross-bench were the bride and bridegroom, 
 decorated, stolid, and abstracted, as if they had sat there for long, 
 and had to sit there still much longer. 
 
244 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 Numerous old women, of position, doubtless, sat also on the 
 cross-bench, — black-hooded, like crows, according to the costume 
 of the district. Far in the Eembrandt-like shadows of the dark- 
 brown interior, a man was standing up singing something very 
 long, to a tune which, as it had no beginning, threatened to have 
 no end. May Wagner never find it and weave it into an " endless 
 melody." it recalled his style, and reminded one of his operas. 
 The rest of the company all sat, and a great silence prevailed. 
 No small-talk, no frivolous whispers, took off from the solemnity 
 of the scene, which was picturesque in its way, — for some women 
 were well dressed, and some of the older men wore red caps, which 
 gave a little positive colour to the browns and blacks which pre- 
 vailed. Koom was made for us next the bride and bridegroom, 
 and we were kindly supplied with food. Great wooden bowls 
 contained messes strange to our eyes : the guests took their por- 
 tions on rimless wooden platters ; so things were apt to slip off. 
 There were a few finely-shaped silver spoons, which, as well as 
 the knives, seemed mostly private property. There was a lull 
 in the eating when we were there ; but drink circulated briskly, 
 quaffed in a curious variety of vessels — teacups, glasses, horns, 
 and even some silver tankards of fine old plate. And what drink ! 
 I sipped a little to the health of the married pair : it was so strong 
 that it almost choked me, and tasted like something meant to 
 clean furniture. I am afraid that it is doing the society no in- 
 justice to say that none of the men whom we observed looked 
 quite sober, — and many were decidedly tipsy; but no one seemed 
 concerned, — neither the men, who were very civil, but somewhat 
 incapable — nor the women, who, as a matter of course, did their 
 work. 
 
 The bride chatted in a friendly way : she wore a great crown 
 of artificial flowers, not becoming to a sonsy but weather-beaten 
 face. When we rose to take leave, and Miss Menzies presented 
 her with a leather aumoniere she wore, the company shook off 
 their stolid appearance, — they all started up and drank to us 
 with shouts of applause. There were no carrioles ; but a woman 
 and a girl harnessed ponies to two tax-carts, and I drove my 
 
BEAUTY. 245 
 
 friend away in one, they preceding us in the other, and announc- 
 ing right and left along the road the gift made to the bride. 
 
 This might have been a feast of chiefs in the days of the sagas : 
 all the difference would probably have been that the guests would 
 have worn richer clothing, and more weapons than the handsome 
 knife, which is still part of the everyday costume of the Norwegian 
 peasant. 
 
 The women of Scandinavia certainly have the advantage over 
 the men of being free from three drawbacks to which their lords 
 are often subject : they do not drink, they do not chew tobacco, 
 and they do not fidget. Some old dames may indulge in a harm- 
 less pinch of snuff — and I have seen girls smoking in Norway — 
 and that is all very well ; but chewing, with its attendant nasti- 
 ness, is only too prevalent among the men. It shows perhaps 
 ultra-fastidiousness to notice the habit of fidgeting, that is the 
 natural result of having to stay indoors in cold weather in chilly 
 rooms. Of course the more fortunate women have their work to 
 keep them warm and stirring ; but the men habitually pace up 
 and down the rooms like polar bears, which no one could object 
 to ; or some of them go through a serious of home gymnastics, 
 such as swaying to and fro on their chairs, which sets every 
 nerve on edge. They often swing their feet continuously when 
 riding ; this looks ill, but is catching, and certainly keeps the 
 feet warm. There are some bondes and parsons far from neigh- 
 bours who let themselves drop into idle habits that would not be 
 tolerated in a society of equals. But they are exceptional, and 
 would not have been alluded to by me, had I not seen them 
 mentioned in books as typical Icelanders. 
 
 In appearance the Icelander is generally thoroughly intelligent- 
 looking, whether handsome or the reverse. He often has the 
 breadth of face and frame characteristic of seafaring people, and 
 something of the awkward gait of a sailor ashore ; no one on the 
 island is drilled, except a man here and there who has served in 
 the Danish army, and in these specimens one can see what fine 
 men they often are when " set up." At Keykjavik the average 
 of good looks is not high ; but up the country handsome men and 
 
246 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 women are often to be met with of the fair Norse type — regular 
 features, abundant hair, and pure fair complexions with shell-pink 
 tints. The red on the cheeks and chin is apt in after-life to be- 
 come too vivid from the fierceness of the climate. One day, when 
 we had waded through a bog up to a very dirty little farm, it 
 was startling to see in the dim smoky room a lovely girl, her 
 pretty features and exquisite complexion set off by the loose 
 golden hair, which shone round her like a halo. The smoky 
 neutral tints behind her seemed just what a painter would dash 
 in as background to a study of the head of an angel. I am sorry 
 to say the beautiful young Astrida is now dead — 
 
 ** Rose elle a v^cu la vie d'une rose 
 L'espece d'un matin ; " 
 
 so I do not give the address of the dirty background. 
 
 The old costume, with its high white helmet and softening 
 veil, is most becoming to the wearer, as we had occasion to ob- 
 serve once at a wedding, where those women who wore it quite 
 cut out the followers of modern fashions. If the ladies of Iceland 
 only knew how much it enhanced their good looks, which they 
 sometimes imperil by wearing southern fashions which can 
 hardly be fresh, they would never leave off wearing it. And yet, 
 perhaps not. Women do not aim so miich at beauty and becomihg- 
 ness in dress, as at being like other people ; and the spirit of the 
 age is against national costume everywhere, and in favour of a 
 dull uniformity all the world over. 
 
24' 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 TO BAKKASTADR — TO THE HUNAFJORD — TH INGE YEI—VATZD ALE. 
 
 To return to our travels. We had a merry dinner with the priest 
 and his family, and about four o'clock two of his beautiful ponies 
 were led prancing to the door for me and our guide, and we 
 started oiF. I kept close to Sira Jacob, as we had to ride the 
 Hjeradsvatn, a formidable glacier-river which had drowned its 
 last man only a month before. Our loose ponies were soon 
 swimming, but guided by the priest, I got through dry-footed 
 on his excellent pony. That was a pony ! just a bit of life and 
 fire beneath one, skimming over hummock and rock as if each 
 little foot were winged. All that afternoon we rode through fine 
 mountain country, not volcanic, but noble both in form and 
 colour. We skirted a lonely lake, where we met many people 
 returning from church — mothers, carrying children on their knees 
 as they sat sideways on their saddles ; lassies, with tasselled 
 heads, evidently the nucleus of attraction to brown-coated swains, 
 who scrambled their ponies along edges and bad bits to keep 
 alongside of the ladies. Towards evening we descended into a 
 sweet dale, called the black valley, from no apparent reason, and 
 there, to our vexation, beheld our ponies feeding. So our intended 
 hosts for the night would have no warning of our late arrival. 
 
 In the valley is a little church and a little house, which we 
 entered, followed by seven queer-looking small inhabitants, who, 
 all in a row, male and female, stared at us with a heavy stare of 
 7-body power. One shaggy old gentleman, in the genial stage 
 
248 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 of drink, wants to embrace ns all. It is the custom — no personal 
 attention to us — and he succeeds with Thorgrimur. Miss Menzies 
 and I escaped into the meadows till the ponies had rested, and 
 we started again along a narrow path overhanging the Blanda, a 
 milky glacier-river, pretty broad and very swift. Night comes 
 on and finds us still scrambling along by the river, choosing out 
 such path as our instinct, or rather our ponies, select. Two 
 shadows join us — all that we can discern is that they are well 
 mounted — one male, one female. Over the slightly marked track 
 we rattle pretty quickly, now plunging through bits of bog, now 
 running against hollow banks all unseen, and over all sorts of 
 bad places only fit for such ponies as these, till at midnight our 
 roving band strikes a turf-wall. Our little troop is collected and 
 respectably driven to the door of a large farmhouse, where all are 
 asleep but the dogs, who dash out and challenge us. But soon 
 follows a pretty lady in a smart dressing-gown, and a maid 
 behind her. Cordially delighted to receive us benighted wan- 
 derers, she serves us with warm milk and biscuits : she makes up 
 two down-beds, and we sink to sleep blissfully in a flower-scented 
 room. 
 
 We were most pleasantly entertained here next day — the mis- 
 tress of the house being an old friend. She spoke scholarly English, 
 and there was a good collection of books. This house, though it 
 had thick turf-walls, had none of the cavernous rounded look 
 within that is almost always seen in the south. The passages 
 and rooms were squarely cut out in the brown turf, which was 
 rich in colour, and really made an effective background to the 
 good-looking folk who lived there. 
 
 The house of Bakka e tadp stood just under a great hill, which 
 sheltered it to the north, and which was all dotted with sheep. 
 Green meadows swept down to the great Blanda — the river — and 
 beyond many softly tinted hills faded into sky. It was a picture 
 of quiet pastoral beauty, and one had to remember how all this 
 ground was like iron with frost half the year — and how, for a 
 week together, there was black night — not to believe one had 
 found a true Arcadia. 
 
 ,^^^^<5^^. 
 
HUNAFJORD. 249 
 
 Our host and hostess, and others, escorted us on our way, for 
 we needed a guide to show us the ford over the deep river. The 
 milky waves were very cold, and the water was too deep to ride 
 dry-footed. Over this ford rode Halfred, the dangerous poet, 
 900 years ago, defying Gris, his rival, and flinging a fatal spear 
 across the river. It is a peaceful land now. What more could 
 the youug wife want, I thought, who ambled her pony beside 
 us ? They may be poor in actual specie, but there are cows, and 
 sheep, and horses, wide lands, and a cosy, well -stocked house ; 
 no superiors, perfect social as well as political freedom. Mrs 
 Grundy may hold a humble court at Eeykjavik, but up the 
 country that formidable old lady is as weak as Pagan in the 
 ' Pilgrim's Progress.' 
 
 We had a picnic dinner on a bank of blaeberries, and feasted 
 on them for dessert ; and several part-songs were sung, for there 
 were voices among us of the four registers : and then the bride, 
 with her husband and cousin, rode away — -farvel they sang, and 
 we pursued our way in the opposite direction. Low clouds had 
 been lying about on the ground all day, though the sky was so 
 clear above, and now we suddenly found ourselves in one of these 
 clouds, deep in a bewildering bright mist. Thinner above, for 
 we were still dimly aware that the sky was blue — it was so thick 
 all round that the companion alongside was a blue shadow, and 
 vanished half-a-dozen paces off in the whiteness. Such mists 
 are not uncommon hereabouts, especially when, as now, a cold 
 air-current from the vast regions of polar ice first touches land 
 that for months had been warmed day and night by the sun of 
 summer. Such a mist I have encountered in fine weather on the 
 High Alps, perhaps from similar causes ; but there is generally, 
 at least, the landmark of the slope of a hill : here there was^ 
 nothing at all but the circle of ground round the pony's feet, and 
 one moved in oppressive isolation, always seeing an edge or end 
 of everything straight in front. How our guide found his way I 
 cannot tell, but he did unerringly, for suddenly we came up against 
 a wall. Black gables loomed close above our heads, and there 
 was a dim glare as of fire, when a door opened, and out ran, with 
 
250 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 a merry greeting, Sigrida, my companion of last year. With her 
 appeared an elder sister, Margarita, and her husband, Sira Paul. 
 How pleasant it was to come in from the dim damp clouds out- 
 side to warmth and food, and the most cordial welcome from 
 all, including some children ! All were delighted to see their 
 brother and uncle, who was hailed with acclamations by the 
 name of Toggi ; for it is the fate of people who rejoice in sonor- 
 ous names like Thorgrimur and Sigrida, to be known to their 
 friends by such abbreviations as Toggi and Sigga. We had a 
 merry evening, caring little for the mist which clung so close to 
 the windows, and left us to imagine the beautiful view over the 
 Hunafloa, of which our hosts told us. 
 
 Early the following morning, when I got up to gather mush- 
 rooms on the dewy tun, this mist was all being folded up and 
 put away ; and in truth, it seemed as if the colouring thus revealed 
 was so bright and precious, that it needed being covered at night 
 like silks and velvets. For the first time in Iceland I got my 
 mushrooms cooked by Sigrida, who declined, however, as did the 
 other women, to eat them, though the men all considered them 
 excellent, and declared they would eat them from henceforth, 
 whatever their wives might say. The day was glorious — the 
 glass at 70° — but a crisp air prevented it from being oppressive. 
 We started on our journey, a large party — our host and his wife, 
 with two or three other friends, convoying us on our way. Mori 
 was missing. In his enthusiasm for work he had joined the 
 shepherd in the early morning, and was known to be far away. 
 We sent after him, however, and then cantered down the sunny 
 strath, a sweet combination of grass-valley, with a glittering sea- 
 inlet, narrowing towards the mountains in front. Behind us 
 rose far-away mountains across the great sea-reach of Huna- 
 flord. But oh, it was hot I and when we plunged into the inlet 
 and rode for half a mile through shallow clear sea, how we envied 
 our ponies ! It was quite refreshing to get our feet wet as we 
 splashed through. I have seldom seen a hotter man and horse 
 than here overtook us with Mori on the saddle-bow. And in 
 Iceland you are cast away on a hot day with no chance of a 
 
AN EAGLE. 251 
 
 shadow unless you are near rocks. Here is a cool blue shade at 
 last, cast by a good new stone church, the best, perhaps, in the 
 country. Thingeyri, a place much mentioned in the sagas, once 
 the seat of a monastery, lately entirely rebuilt at the cost of one 
 farmer. There are handsome old fittings within — a fine reredos 
 of alabaster and marble, apparently fifteenth-century work, and 
 obviously Italian. Some old family portraits adorn the organ- 
 loft, among them the picture of the man who, in the seventeenth 
 century, had presented the elaborately carved wooden pulpit, 
 still in the church, as well as some older and very good brass 
 ornaments. 
 
 The large party canters on till we all take possession of the 
 house of a meek saddler, who hurriedly and anxiously deals out 
 coffee and new milk to us ; and I hope our society repaid him, 
 for nothing else did. We were now in the pretty valley of 
 Vatzdale : a succession of low volcanic mounds of former days, 
 but now all a velvet green, diversified the way ; while a lake or 
 a river divided us from the parallel mountain-range. We were 
 riding dreamily along in the sleepy afternoon sunshine, when 
 suddenly we saw the people in front at a standstill. They 
 hushed us as we came up, and pointed out, poised in the marsh 
 at a distance, a fine eagle. Thorgrimur, gun in hand, was dis- 
 mounting to creep up within shot. I asked for hat-feathers ; 
 and we all kept ourselves and the ponies still in expectation of 
 the fatal shot — when suddenly the eagle walked quietly away ! 
 he had on trousers, too — and was a little boy ! The clear 
 atmosphere, bringing a very distant object apparently near, had 
 deceived us all, but the first movement enlightened us, and just 
 in time. And yet, what did that lonely urchin in that solitude ? 
 Was he hamrammr^ or skin changeable, like his ancestors ? Could 
 he sweep at will over the hills in eagle-form ? Thorgrimur got 
 no benefit from these classical doubts ; often was he implored to 
 spare the eagles when we sighted small boys. In vain that day 
 the wild ducks and plovers hung on his saddle. He was a sure 
 shot, but so much the worse with that sanguine imagination. 
 
 When we had ridden many hours, and the sunset had burned 
 
252 BY FELL AXD FJORD. 
 
 out, we came to a h(B. Hospitality is good, and I did not know 
 before meeting the mistress of this house that it was possible to 
 find too much ; but she possessed an enthusiasm of hospitality 
 that surpassed all reasonable limits. Her husband was from 
 home, but her nine children swarmed all over the little house. 
 It was old and rotten, and past all cleaning, and they meant to 
 build another ; meanwhile she welcomed us as if they had. We 
 were seven people, and meant to go further, but she refused to 
 let us go on. Finally we divided our party. Miss Menzies, 
 Sigrida, and I remained behind with the baggage-ponies as there 
 was good pasture, and the others rode on to the next suitable rest- 
 ing-place. I did suggest looking at the room which was offered 
 us for the night ; but no, it was not ready : we were evidently not 
 expected to pry into mysteries, but to sit quiet in the guest-room, 
 squeezed between a table, a bed, and an overflowing book-case. 
 It was dusk when we insisted on seeing our room, now ready, 
 and stumbled along the dark passage into a dismal den with a 
 tiny shut window. Two troughs, black with a grimy old age, 
 contained white duvets brimming over their dusky edges. If the 
 eyes were amazed, the nose was horrified ; and the prospect of 
 a large small population being left behind, although many of the 
 nine children had been just turned out, was certain. Meanwhile, 
 in trotted, with an air of being in his owti room, a large sheep. 
 He sniffled at the beds, considering evidently how to get in ; and 
 was delightfully tame, but apparently used to respect, standing 
 square in the passage, and giving way to no one. He settled the 
 question for us. We returned to a well-spread supper-table, but 
 told our hostess that we must go on. Sigrida, indeed, stayed, 
 in deference to her feelings ; for her distress at our not liking 
 her room was only softened by the ample justice we did to her 
 supper. Nearly the worst thing was, that we could not simply 
 ride on by ourselves — we had to take the nine loose ponies, as 
 we were pretty sure to be dependent on our own wraps for the 
 night, and food for the morning ; and besides, the attendant 
 squire, who brought them up after supper, had had even a more 
 
A RAM. 253 
 
 jovial supper than we had, and had never calculated on being 
 roused up at ten at night. Though exceedingly civil and 
 anxious to please, he had no ideas, and could not pull a strap 
 tight. However, we rode off in the dim starlight, for there was 
 no moon, ascertaining from Sigrida the name of the farm where 
 her brother meant to stop, and parting with our hostess, who had 
 tears in her eyes at our non-acceptance of her well-meant hospi- 
 tality. We had not gone far when down fell a pack. After con- 
 siderable delay in hoisting it up, we went a little further, and 
 down came another. When all this' had happened da capo, per- 
 ceiving that the loose ponies were dispersing right and left, after 
 supper, and getting lost in the darkness, we saw it was best for 
 Miss Menzies to stay with the man and fallen packs, while I col- 
 lected the other ponies before they strayed further, and drove 
 them on. At last I got the group of eight safe in front : there 
 was just light enough to count them, and to be dimly aware of 
 the river, up which I knew the way must be — though, as usual, 
 the track was too slight, and indeed too optional, to be seen ; and 
 it is all like riding across country, happily without fences. It 
 was delightful travelling, as many ladies who are wearied with 
 iourneys by steam and in crowds will admit, to be trotting along 
 unknown ground nnder the wonderful starry sky of these high 
 latitudes, keeping eight loose ponies together in front — quite 
 alone, and uncertain even about distance and destination. At 
 last against the night-sky, dark rounded masses like houses 
 show, and I consider how to dispose of the loose ponies before 
 reaching the tun; for it is a dire offence to drive loose beasts 
 on to the tun — either you must leave them without, or tie them 
 head to tail. However, I turned them all into a flat space, where 
 they fell to grazing, and let my pony grope up among the turf- 
 walls which enclose tun and churchyard, till we reached a house. 
 A lassie was passing to the byre, and stared at me, stiff* with 
 surprise. " Be you blest ; have you guests to-night ? " " Come 
 you blessed, we have." "Is one called Thorgrimur?" 
 
 To this she says " Yes," and fetches him out, together with 
 
 
254 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 every one else — quite a crowd — to hear my story. But no one, 
 I am bound to say, thought much of the ram grievance. '* Now, 
 that was only the home-walker " — i.e., the tame sheep, who often 
 helps to manage the others — they remark. However, every one 
 bustles about ; some to meet Miss Menzies — some to fetch up our 
 wraps, which are soon shaken down in a large airy church, very 
 preferable to the ram's room. 
 
255 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 LEGENDS OF VATZDALE — INGMUNDR THE OLD — HALFRED 
 THE SKALD. 
 
 Vatzdale is a fair valley, and the old Vatzdale Saga tells all about 
 its early history : how the splendid young sea-king Ingmundr, 
 who flourished in Norway in the ninth century, after many wars 
 and wanderings settled with his friends and followers in this 
 grassy solitude. He had often declared, that wherever he wan- 
 dered, Norway should remain his home ; but the motto of the 
 story is, — None can avoid his fate. Three Finnish witches pro- 
 phesied that in Iceland he should settle finally ; and so he did. 
 They even described the spot where he should build his temple. 
 At the farm of Hof you can trace the site still — a wide round 
 hollow; below runs the river where Ingmundr, then called the 
 Old, lost his life. He was treacherously wounded by a scamp to 
 whom he had promised protection, and who quarrelled with his 
 sons at the fishing. But the brave old man told no one, but 
 wrapped his cloak round him, and went home and sat down alone 
 on his high seat. He sent a messenger warning the murderer 
 to fly from the fury of his sons, and not till some hours later did 
 his sons discover he had died there — upright and alone. The 
 saga tells of several generations who lived in these farms, which 
 still bear the old names. The grandson of Ingmundr, Ingolf, 
 was " the handsomest man in all the Northern lands." Here is 
 a song about him, made by a little girl 800 years ago : — 
 
256 BY FELL AND FJOKD. 
 
 *' All the pretty maidens 
 Wish to dance with Ingolf ; 
 All the grown-up damsels. 
 Woe's me, I'm too little ! 
 
 * I too, ' said the Carline, 
 
 * I will go with Ingolf 
 While a tooth is left me, 
 While I've strength to hobble. ' " 
 
 "An autumn feast was once held at Grimstunga," says the 
 saga of the farm now before us, "and a playing at the ball. 
 Ingolf came to the game, and many men with him from the dale. 
 The weather was fine, and the women sat out and watched the 
 game. Valgerd, Ottar's fair daughter, sat on the hill-slope, and 
 other women with her. Ingolf was in the game, and his ball 
 flew far up and among the girls. Valgerd took the ball and hid 
 it under her cloak, and bade him find it who had cast it. Ingolf 
 came up and found it, and bade the rest go on with the game ; 
 but he played no more himself: he sat down by Valgerd, and 
 talked to her all the rest of the day." 
 
 Then begins the old true-love story that did not go smoothly. 
 Ingolf flirted with Valgerd without proposing to her, and her 
 father sold his land and went south. More troubles followed : 
 manslayings, and a forced marriage with another man for Valgerd ; 
 for she was at last deserted for newer fancies by the attractive 
 Ingolf, who, though a great champion and a kindly man, was 
 very inconstant in his numerous love-affairs. When dying of a 
 wound he had received in a fight with outlaws, he characteristically 
 desired that he might not be buried in the mound with the rest 
 of his family, but close by the river pathway, that the maidens 
 of Vatzdale might remember him as they passed to and fro. 
 
 Valgerd was the sister of the wild youth Halfred, called the 
 troublesome Skald, a far-famed man, the favourite Skald of Olaf 
 Tryggvasson, King of Norway. From Halfred's poems, many of 
 which are still extant, is taken most of the latter part of the 
 history of that chief hero of the North — " Halfred the Skald, 
 wrinkled, and grey, and bald : " Longfellow wrongly describes 
 the warrior, then in the flush of early youth, who never lived to 
 be old, as he died about the age of forty, " never enjoying life 
 
HAUKAGIL. 257 
 
 again," after his master King Olaf fell in battle. The saga de- 
 scribes him as "tall, strong, a,nd manly-looking, and somewhat 
 swarthy, his nose rather ugly, his hair brown, and setting him 
 oif well." He was born in 968, and brought up in this very farm 
 of Haukagil, where now to-day our tent is pitched, close beside 
 a little burn which springs in a waterfall down the rocks behind 
 the house, from the dreary desert above of Grimstungaheide. 
 
 The central waste land begins here, and there are no more 
 habitations for nearly^^ seventy miles. In the frousy farm, on a 
 book- shelf in the box-bed, I found the Life of Halfred, and sat 
 reading it in the tent, whose looped-up door opened on a scene 
 probably unchanged since Halfred saw it eight centuries ago. 
 There were the hills, pink-tinted in the waning light, the undu- 
 lating dark-green foreground ; the swift river that gave stir to 
 the landscape ; the neighbouring farm, with its pointed gables 
 and surrounding out-buildings, its sounds of barking dogs and 
 cattle going homewards — its name, and probably its fashion, the 
 same as it was in the tenth century. It seemed easy here to 
 conjure up from the shadows of the past the memory of a man 
 who, with little to guide him but inborn genius, did good work 
 in his day. 
 
 He had first to leave Iceland on account of an unlucky love- 
 affair. Kolfina, the fair damsel at Knjuki down the river, a girl 
 " fond of dress and display," loved him ; but her father chose for 
 her a rich suitor called Griss, a man who had served the Greek 
 Emperor at Constantinople, but was now " rather elderly, short- 
 sighted, and blear-eyed." Long-sighted enough, though, to see 
 when he went a-wooing that some one was there before him, 
 and kissing Kolfina at the bower-door, too. This was the young 
 Halfred, who shouts out, " Thou shalt have me for a foe, Griss, 
 if thou wilt try to make this match;" and who rides off from the 
 scoldings of the elders with this verse, still preserved — 
 
 " Rage of the heath-dweller, trough-filler, beer-swiller. 
 Count I no more 
 Than the old farm-dog's yelp 
 At the farm- door, 
 
 im^f-rU^ 
 
 Vkjbi.'t^ Co 
 
258 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 Howling at parting guest, — who cares for his behest ? 
 My song shall praise her best, 
 Her I adore. " 
 
 Halfred is a marked character, poetical and irritable, gay and 
 unruly — always ready with a song in feast or fray, in battle or 
 storm at sea. However uncertain in temper, he was, neverthe- 
 less, most constant in his affections. The fair and wealthy lady he 
 married, and whose death, it is said, he much lamented, never 
 drove from his mind the remembrance of Kolfina, his first and 
 last love. And though King Olaf succeeded with great difficulty 
 in converting him to Christianity, he could not break him off a 
 lingering fidelity to the old gods of Valhalla, whose names, the 
 king observed, occurred much too often in his verses. And all 
 the last years of his life were spent in collecting information 
 about that well-loved King Olaf, his ideal hero. Thus he fur- 
 nished some of the materials for the ' Saga of Olaf Tryggvasson,' 
 one of the best of Snorri Sturlason's lives of the kings. In the 
 compilation called the ' Heimskringla,' this life appears in an 
 abridged form, some of the most interesting incidents and char- 
 acteristic touches being left out ; but the unabridged saga was 
 the one always current in Iceland, as Olaf Tryggvasson was 
 more highly esteemed there than in Norway, where the popu- 
 larity of Olaf the Saint, his successor, rather dimmed his fame. 
 
 I shall insert here ^ translation from Snorri Sturlason's ' Saga 
 of Olaf Tryggvasson' (written circa 1230), not from the abridged 
 edition, which was translated by Laing, but, with permission, from 
 an extract of that saga given by Vigfusson in the ' Small Ice- 
 landic Eeader,' Clarendon Press Series. It gives an account of 
 the efforts of Halfred to ascertain the fate of King Olaf after he 
 lost the great sea-fight against Earl Erick Hakonson and the 
 Swedish king. 
 
 "There were always two opinions as to whether King Olaf 
 survived the battle. Those men that came out of the battle all 
 agreed that he had not fallen on board the Serpent ; yet, how- 
 ever that may have been, says Halfred, Olaf Tryggvasson never 
 came back to the kingdom of Norway. Halfred says, that though 
 
 /Vvvtj, 
 
KING OLAF. 259 
 
 it would be some alleviation of the sorrow of the friends of Olaf 
 who were most grieved at the loss of such a chieftain, if he were 
 in life, even if he were deprived of kingdom and country ; and 
 though intelligent men, who were in the battle, witnessed each 
 what he saw last of Olaf the king, no one could ascertain with 
 full certainty whether the king had survived or not. 
 
 " Kolbjorn the Marshal had defended the prow during the day 
 of battle with other forecastle-men. He was accoutred in weapons 
 and clothes exactly in the same way as the king ; and he had so 
 attired himself because he thought if that should be needed that 
 now was, to afford some shelter to Olaf the king. And when the 
 slaughter of Olaf's men became at its worst in the forecastle, he 
 went up to the poop to the king. It was not easy to know which 
 was which, because Kolbjorn was one of the tallest and hand- 
 somest of men. There was such a hurtling storm of weapons on 
 the quarter-deck, that the shields of Olaf and Kolbjorn were 
 fringed with darts. And as the earl's men pressed up on the 
 quarter-deck, there seemed to them that so bright a light came 
 over the king that they could not look at it ; and when the light 
 was gone, they saw nowhere Olaf the king. 
 
 " There were many accounts of what had happened.^ Snorri 
 Sturlason says, that when King Olaf saw that most of his men 
 had fallen, and that Earl Erick and many men rushed aft upon 
 the quarter-deck, Olaf and Kolbjorn the Marshal both leapt over- 
 board, each on his own side ; and some of the earl's men were 
 lying out in small boats, and killing those who leaped into the 
 sea. And when the king himself had leaped overboard, those in 
 the boats wished to take him prisoner and bring him to the earl, 
 and he drew his shield over him and dived down. But Kolbjorn 
 the Marshal drew his shield under him to defend himself from 
 the spears that were aimed by those in the boats that lay under 
 the ship, and he fell so into the sea that his shield got under 
 him, and thus he could not dive before he was made prisoner. 
 
 " What follows is taken from the words of Kolbjorn the Marshal 
 himself — that when he came up to the poop, and the king was 
 ^ The compiler, who apparently preferred this account. 
 
260 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 shooting at Earl Erick, Kolbjorn saw what other men had seen 
 before, that blood ran from under his sleeve of mail. And a 
 little after, he thought he saw the flash of the king as he leaped 
 overboard, in his armour and all the accoutrements he had worn 
 through the day ; and he drew over him his shield when his 
 enemies tried to take him. And just at that moment Kolbjorn 
 looked at his antagonists, and saw that so many had come up 
 upon the Serpent that you might say the ship was full of them. 
 Kolbjorn said afterwards that a little fright came over him just 
 then. He turned to that side of the ship where Olaf the king 
 had been before ; and as he did not see the king, he left his shield 
 behind him, and leaped overboard. And as he came down into 
 the sea, there was under him a beautiful shield, that he thought 
 he recognised as the shield the king had borne that day. And 
 as Kolbjorn came on the shield, he was aware that a man swam 
 skilfully under the shield ; and that man let go the shield when 
 he felt the weight on it. Next Kolbjorn was taken prisoner, and 
 dragged up into a boat. They supposed him to be the king. 
 He was then led before Earl Erick ; and when the earl was aware 
 that it was Kolbjorn, and not the king, he gave Kolbjorn quarter. 
 And this is the story of Einar Thambarskelfir, that when Earl 
 Erick charged up from the forecastle to the poop of the Serpent, 
 Einar saw that drops of blood ran down King Olaf s cheek from 
 under his helmet. And as Einar wished to find out how the 
 king would act when the earl should win up to him, there came 
 on Einar's ear so heavy a blow from a stone that he fell sense- 
 less. And when he revived and rose up, he saw nowhere the 
 king. 
 
 " Thus says the Icelander Skuli Thorsteinson, Egil's son, of 
 Borg, that he saw Olaf the king standing on the quarter-deck of 
 the Serpent, when he, Skuli, charged aft the ship with Erick the 
 earl. And he said he stooped down to drag a man's corpse from 
 before the feet of the earl, and when he raised himself up, the 
 king had disappeared. And a little later, when the shout of 
 victory arose, several of the men who fought against Olaf saw 
 that a man clad in scarlet swam to the Wendish cutter, which it 
 
A SEA-FIGHT. 261 
 
 was believed belonged to the men of Astrid the princess, wife of 
 Earl Sigvald. And these men in the ship came to meet him, and 
 dragged him up into the ship, and they rowed away their hardest. 
 And ever after there was a rumour among the people that these 
 men had carried off King Olaf alive with them, though various 
 men spoke against it. On the whole, Halfred says that to him 
 it seemed more likely that the king had not escaped with life 
 because of the great odds against him. . . . Afterwards, when 
 there were rumours of Olaf being in foreign lands, all doubt dis- 
 appeared in the minds of many that he had escaped. But Halfred 
 was bound to make his record according to what he was told at 
 the time. As he witnesses himself, and laments that he was not 
 there to fight on the side of Olaf the king." 
 
 It had been prophesied that the four greatest treasures in 
 Norwa}^ should be lost this year. The passing away of King 
 Olaf having been told, the narrator, after giving some more details 
 of the battle, goes on to tell us the fate of the other three most 
 precious things, — Tliyri, the queen ; Orminn Langa, the king's 
 ship ; and Vigi, the king's dog. 
 
 '' When the slaughter was ended on board Orminn Langa, and 
 the ship was ransacked and rid of the corpses of dead men, Thyri, 
 the queen, was led up from under the hatchways. She was over- 
 come with sorrow, and wept sorely. When Earl Erick saw that, 
 he went to her, and said, with much concern, * Here there have 
 been heavy tidings in the fall of many noble men. We have 
 wrought much woe, — not to thee alone, queen, but to all the 
 people in Norway, though it falls most near to thee, as was to 
 be expected. Now, though work that is done cannot be undone, 
 yet I would fain atone as much as I can. If I liave any power 
 in Norway, I shall give you your rights in the land everywhere 
 to the best of my power, and your honour in all things.' 
 
 " The queen answered : ' Your words are spoken with the manli- 
 ness and kindliness that you have often shown were yours ; and 
 willingly would I live if I could, and thank you for your good- 
 will to me, but so sore a grief has smitten my heart that I have 
 no hope left of prolonging my life.' And it was as she said ; she 
 
262 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 could neither eat nor drink for grief. Slie asked Bishop Sigurd 
 what was the least allowance of food that was permitted by God 
 to be taken to preserve life {i.e., to avoid the guilt of suicide) ; 
 and she then tasted what he named as the least possible ; and, 
 with these marks of obedience, Queen Thyri died after nine days. 
 
 " Earl Erick Hakonson took possession of Orminn Langa, the 
 ship, after the victory, with much ship property in her. The 
 earl manned the vessel afresh carefully with a first-rate crew, 
 and steered it himself. But although the Orminn Langa was 
 strongly manned with gallant fellows, they just brought her as 
 awkwardly as might be from the west into the bay, but she would 
 never trim or answer her helm at all. Then Earl Erick caused 
 Orminn Langa to be broken up. Some men say that he let her 
 be burned. 
 
 *' Einar Thambarskelfir and other men, to whom Earl Erick had 
 given quarter after the battle, went north to Norway with the 
 earl. Vigi, King Olaf s dog, had lain in the forecastle of Orminn 
 Langa all the day of the battle, and all the time afterwards. But 
 when the earl came east to the bay with the ship, Einar came to 
 where the dog lay before he went ashore, and said, ' Masterless 
 are we two now, Vigi.' At these words the dog sprang up 
 growling, and gave a loud bay, as if his very heart was touched. 
 He ran ashore with Einar, and went up to a mound. There he 
 lay down, and would eat food from no man, although he guarded 
 the food brought him from other dogs, animals, and birds. Tears 
 welled out of his eyes and ran down his cheeks : thus he mourned 
 for his liege lord, and lay there till he died. And so, in piteous 
 wise, the Northmen lost the four most precious things in the 
 country, as the blind yeoman of Mostr had foretold." 
 
 Ten years after this battle (a.d. 1014), Halfred, after a life of 
 adventure, lies dying on board a wind-tossed, half- wrecked ship, 
 from an injury received by a falling yard-arm, and chants these 
 lines, which I quote, as I feel sure many will sympathise with 
 this less-known aspect of life on board an ancient Viking ship : — 
 
 " Down on my heart and side 
 Crashes the weather-worn spar ; 
 
THE SKALDS. 263 
 
 Scarce ever so heavy a wave 
 
 Has swept o'er a boat before. ' 
 
 Wet am I, wave- washed and worn, 
 
 And shattered at heart and breast ; 
 
 And the sea is aboard our craft, 
 
 And nowhere the skald can rest. " 
 
 He still recurs to his old love away in Iceland, and adds : — 
 
 " The bmder of her wimpled brow 
 Will shade these lovely eyes, I know. 
 With white hands soft and tender. 
 The rain-storm flood will have its way 
 When she has heard how dead I lay. 
 Though once I did offend her. 
 When overboard the warriors cast 
 Her skald, her love, — of all the past, 
 The love she will remember. " 
 
 So I laid down this story, which afterwards I translated. We 
 have it, probably, just as it was first written, in the reign of our 
 Henry III., before the English language was born, though the 
 old Norse of the narrative is essentially the spoken language of 
 Iceland to this day. It is of real historical value, for the Skalds 
 were not merely like modern poets ; they were the press, they 
 were public opinion, they were the " special correspondents " in 
 wars, and they were the orators, chanting themselves the verses 
 which they were expected to improvise at a moment's notice ; 
 so they represented both the literature and the politics of their 
 day. 
 
264 
 
 ■%•: 
 
 CHAPTER XXYI. 
 
 OVER GRIMSTUNGAHEIDE TO KALMUNSTUNGA — VARMALEIK — 
 BENIGHTED — MOSSFELL. 
 
 The weather had grown strange, a warm wind blew with violence, 
 and below the clear sky a great black cloud seemed to lie on the 
 southern horizon. "The dust on Grimstungaheide," explained 
 Thorgrimur ; after the long drought the wind had raised it, and 
 would make it difficult, if not impossible, to cross. A dust-storm 
 is much dreaded. But fortune, as usual, befriended us : dark 
 clouds gathered, and a short but sharp thunderstorm, with tor- 
 rents of rain, broke overhead — a most rare occurrence in summer, 
 though the volcanic regions of Iceland are not unfrequently 
 vexed with lightning in winter. Some of the children at the 
 farm had never seen it before, and were terrified. The night 
 fell in drizzling rain, so we were resigned to give up our long 
 journey next day, and were much surprised, if not injured, by 
 being roused early and told the weather would do. Why, was 
 not apparent ; and when the mind is made up to rest through a 
 wet day, it is rather trying to start before eight, as we did, in 
 mist and drizzle. However, Thorgrimur was weather-wise as 
 usual ; for no sooner had we gained the table-land immediately 
 above the valley than the mists and rain went off, and it proved 
 to be a fine day. The sands too w^ere well watered, firm, and 
 excellent for riding. 
 
 We passed near Thorhallstead, the scene of one of the most 
 terrible of ghost-stories ; and well in keeping with it is its lonely 
 
GRETTIR THE STRONG. 265 
 
 situation on the edge of the desert land. Thorhall, a farmer there 
 in the eleventh century, could keep no herdsmen for the haunt- 
 ings ; at last he got Glam, a stranger, to take the place, " great 
 of growth, uncouth, his eyes grey and glaring, his hair wolf- 
 grey."^ He proved to be "a leather of church song, foul-tem- 
 pered, and surly," and on Yule Eve, a strict fast-day, called for 
 meat. The housewife gave some on compulsion, and he " fared 
 out growling and grumbling." 
 
 " Now the weather was such that mirk was over all, and the 
 snow-flakes drave down, and great din there was, and still all 
 grew much the worse as the day slipped by. Men heard the 
 shepherd through the early morning, but less as the day wore ; 
 then it took to snowing, and by evening there was a great storm ; 
 then men went to church, and thus time drew on to nightfall, 
 and Glam came not home ; then folk held talk, as to whether 
 search should not be made for him, but because of the snowstorm 
 and pitch-darkness that came to nought. 
 
 '' Further on, on Yule Day, men fared out to the search, and 
 found the sheep scattered wide about in fens beaten down by the 
 storm, or strayed up into the mountains. Thereafter they came 
 to a great beaten place high up in the valley, and they thought it 
 was as if strong wrestling had gone on there, for all about the 
 stones had been torn up, and the earth withal. Now they looked 
 closely and saw where Glam lay — as blue as Hela, and as great 
 as a neat. Huge loathing took them at the sight of him, and 
 they shuddered in their souls at him, yet they strove to bring 
 him to church, but could only get him as far as a certain gil-edge 
 a little below." They had at last to bury him where he lay; 
 but he did not lie quiet. He became, as he was killed by a 
 vampire, a hideous vampire himself, and all went from bad to 
 worse for two years, till Grettir the Strong heard of the haunt- 
 ings and resolved to confront the fiend. In vain his friends tried 
 to dissuade him. Grettir says gallantly, " Woe is before one's 
 own door when it is inside one's neighbour's." All Vatzdale was 
 becoming haunted when Grettir rode up to Thorhallstead to 
 1 ' Grettir the Strong. ' Translated by Magnusson and Morris. 
 
266 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 destroy Glam's hideous half life. The way the story is now 
 worked up to a climax is truly thrilling — when the "door 
 cracks " and " Glam stretches in his monstrous head, and then 
 rises high in the roof, lays his arm on the tie-beam, and glares 
 inward over the place." Grettir conquered, but for ever after 
 was afraid in the dark — a terrible doom for a hero. People do 
 not believe in those sort of things now, but they feel them still ; 
 and in these solitudes I have met with brave enough folk who 
 were certainly rather like Grettir, afraid in the dark. Some of 
 us have come out on the other side, and wish the dark would 
 only show something the daylight may conceal. Grettir the 
 Strong was an historical character, but his history is decorated 
 by some legends which were a sort of common property in the 
 north. Beowulf, the hero of the Anglo-Saxon poem, has a similar 
 struggle with a vampire ; and certainly the author of the Grettir 
 Saga, supposed to be Sturla in the thirteenth century, had read 
 the Saxon Beowulf, or possibly a lost Norse original. 
 
 It is a sign of the growing prosperity of Iceland that we rode 
 for the first eight miles along an excellent bridle-road, now in 
 the course of making across this, one of the four ways from the 
 north to the south of the island. There was a river at first, and 
 grass here and there ; but all this ceased when we crested the 
 great trackless table-land above. The day, though fine and 
 with occasional sunsliine, was not brilliant, and only superlative 
 weather could mitigate the dreariness of the wide prospect. The 
 land trended away slightly downwards in front, but rose again 
 high into the horizon in distant mountain-tops, grey or white 
 with snow, confusedly blended among clouds and mingling with 
 the sky. All the vast space between was a waste of stone, pale 
 sandy browns melting into dim grey, wildly riven and broken, 
 as though the central fires had cracked and crumbled and over- 
 thrown great mountains, and left all in cold ruin. Not a touch 
 of verdure far or near ; all was chaotic and disorderly, empty, 
 huge, and desolate. Twenty or thirty miles away some lakes 
 could be seen, glimmering points of light in the greyness ; 
 otherwise everything was like everything else. This is called 
 
THE WASTE LAND. 267 
 
 the people's way or highway, but I would defy any one set down 
 here suddenly to pick out any trace of a road. There was no 
 salient feature, and no landmarks but an occasional little cairn, 
 hardly to be distinguished from the natural stone -piles, and 
 these far-off snow-mountains. How these wastes can be crossed 
 in thick or bad weather, I cannot imagine ; but indeed they 
 are then not safe. The whole centre of Iceland is this kind of 
 uninhabited land — stones, or sand, or lava, or glacier ; much of 
 it is actually unexplored to this day. To the west it is crossed 
 by travellers at its narrowest point, iloltvordsheide, which we 
 had crossed in 1875. Then comes this Grimstungaheide, next 
 Storisandr, or the Great Sands, and 200 miles to the east Spren- 
 gissandr crosses it at its worst and wildest, leaving huge un- 
 known regions between. These tracks are all the conquest man 
 has made of central Iceland. The idea of its extent gives a 
 deeper impressiveness to the wild chaotic landscape, which 
 cannot be better described than by Morris when describing 
 Sigurd's ride in quest of the Valkyr Brynhilda, of whom the 
 legend tells that she dwelt in Iceland : — 
 
 " So on we rode to the ' southward,' and huge were the mountains grown, 
 And the floor of heaven was mingled with that tossing world of stone ; 
 And we rode till the day was forgotten, and the sun was waxen low. 
 And we tarried not though he perished, and the world grew dark below. 
 Then we rode a mighty desert, a glimmering place, and wide. 
 And into a narrow pass, high-walled on either side. 
 By the blackness of the mountains, and barred aback and in face, 
 By the empty night of the shadow, — a windless, silent place." 
 
 We met no one all day, and saw no living thing except a few 
 swans. No wonder the imagination has conjured up the idea of 
 trolls and half-trolls, and generations of outlaws inhabiting undis- 
 covered valleys among the untrodden hills. The outlaws were 
 once real enough ; and no doubt the terror they caused has never 
 quite died away. Here, in old days, we peaceful travellers might 
 very likely have met some shaggy wild man who was an outlaw 
 in all the land, perhaps with a handsome price on his head, who 
 would, no doubt, expect us to give him food and clothing. It is 
 certainly an improvement that such people are not now turned 
 
268 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 out loose to take their chance, — though, perhaps, determined 
 sportsmen, who lament the want of big game in Iceland, might 
 have found hunting them most exciting sport, especially as they 
 were generally " many men's bane " before they were killed. 
 
 We had ridden thirty miles before we reached the first of the 
 lakes — Arnavatn — the largest of a number, probably fifty or more, 
 that are hereabouts strewn over the map, — called fish-waters, 
 and in olden days the great resort of outlaws and runaways. 
 By this lake Grettir lived, says the story, for two years with 
 another outlaw, a treacherous villain, always watching to betray 
 him ; but Grettir discovered his falseness in time, and drowned 
 him in the lake. 
 
 Hereabouts a bishop and all his train once perished in the 
 snow. What mattered all these grim tales to us ? There was 
 a bank with grass and low shrubs by the lake. Here we 
 nestled while the hungry ponies attacked the grass, and we 
 made splendid tea. We had with us a bottle of cream ; and we 
 opened a tinned fowl and ham, and had a picnic, to be marked 
 with a white stone, say a diamond. The air was delicious ; the 
 place had a sweetness about it by force of contrast which made 
 us propose camping here, but our guide feared wind was coming 
 again ; and after a delicious halt of an hour and a half we rode 
 on again. The country grows more picturesque as you approach 
 the southern volcanic hills. Ericks Jokull rears its crags in 
 isolated gloom from the reddish black of the lava-field ; the cold 
 ice above takes an evening glow ; other dark or snowy hills 
 light up with sunny reflections long after the sun himself has 
 disappeared behind the purple banks to the west, and many little 
 lakes reflect the yellow sky. We got on the lava at dusk, over 
 which the ponies picked their way daintily; but when we reached 
 grass they strayed on all sides, and needed constant driving. 
 Mori had been twice kicked and was tired out, so he rode on 
 the saddle-bows for the last five miles. At a little after eleven 
 we reached the first habitation, the well-remembered farm of Kal- 
 manstunga, and with some trouble roused the inmates. It is an 
 inn as regards bills, but not as regards the guests being masters 
 
GEITLANDS JOKULL. 
 
 269 
 
 of the situation or expected to give orders. We had some coffee, 
 and slept as best we might in various uncomfortable places — 
 mine being my mattress poised on the rounded lid of a chest in 
 an empty but musty room numerously peopled by fleas. We 
 were much more refreshed by a wash in the stream and a walk 
 towards the beautiful Geitlands Jokull than by the night's rest. 
 Blessings on the pure air and cold water, which make us as good 
 as new again after a ride of more than sixt3^-five miles the pre- 
 vious day, often over rough ways. We were the first foreign 
 
 ;<r<w.^ ^^^^ 
 
 ladies who had ever crossed Iceland from north to south, as far as 
 is known. I cannot say that we felt tired after breakfast, though 
 this day we only rode six miles to Gilsbakki, where we camped 
 under the lee of the house of our old friend Sira Jon. The 
 dreaded wind had come, and we were glad not to be out on the 
 heide^ though it was pleasant walking in sheltered places in the 
 ravines and under the sunny banks of picturesque Gilsbakki. 
 Here lived the poet Gunlang Ormstunga (serpent's tongue), 
 whose love for Helga the fair, granddaughter of Egil Skalagrim, 
 
270 BY FELL AND FJOKD. 
 
 and its unhappy end, is the subject of a charming history of love 
 and war, which shows the wild Northmen in their tenderest 
 aspect. Helga married another man, for her family would not 
 allow her to wait long enough for her own true love. She was 
 a true wife to an honourable man ; but she did not live long. 
 " One day she was very ill, and sat on the hearth leaning against 
 her husband's knees. 'Bring me,' she said, Hhe cloak which 
 Gunlang gave me ; ' then she took it in her arms, looked at it 
 long, and so died." 
 
 The 23d of August dawned sunshiny, as usual, but perceptibly 
 cooler. We rode off betimes, over ground which I knew already, 
 skirting the river in search of wild ducks and plovers, of which 
 Thorgrimur always shot enough this year for us to have plentiful 
 dinners of game. We camped out at Varmaleik, which is beauti- 
 fully situated just at the foot of the mountains which edge the 
 w^ide marsh-lands of Borgarsyslu. These marshes, clothed with 
 good grass, are the nurseries of an excellent breed of ponies ; 
 they are the best, of guides through bogs, in after-life, and 
 deserve implicit trust. 
 
 The following day, after a long ride over grass in the sunshine, 
 we pitched the tent by a burn-side near the mouth of the pretty 
 Hvalfjord. One porch, as usual, was laced up and pointed to 
 windward, the other opened on to the sunset over the sea. The 
 brass hooks on a strap which formed our wardrobe were buckled 
 to the centre pole ; the railway lamp was suspended across. Sig- 
 rida, who was skilled in cookery, served the wild ducks with 
 correct sauce. Miss Menzies and I played a farewell game of 
 piquet. We often played at piquet, but it became monotonous, 
 as she always won : occasionally we played chess with Thor- 
 grimur, in which there was also no variety, as he always won very 
 soon. This was our last night in the tent, which I regretted, 
 though my companions were apt to be sarcastic about its size 
 and dryness ; still almost everybody admired this tent. To-day, 
 as I sat at the door, a meditative native, after a long fixed gaze, 
 remarked to me — 
 
 " A pretty tent ; do you always live in it ? " 
 
OUR TENT. 271 
 
 " No ; we have houses at home." 
 
 " Ha ! Are you gathering moss ? " 
 
 *' Oh no ! Quite the contrary, rolling stones," I mentally added. 
 
 " So ! " — a pause. " Have you anything to sell ? " 
 
 Could he really take us for tinkers ? " Nothing." 
 
 '' What is the use of it, then ? " 
 
 What indeed ? Cui bono, is life worth living, even in a patent 
 small marquee-tent ? I would talk no more with that embodied 
 ' Contemporary Keview ' for fear of being disillusioned. 
 
 We were often thought rather a show, and there used to be 
 an evident struggle in our visitors' minds between good manners 
 and curiosity. Once long before, but I did not mention it at the 
 time for fear our visitor might have been some friend's grand- 
 father's third cousin, I found a very old, plain, hairy, and dirty 
 man sitting by Miss Menzies on my own air-cushion, smiling, 
 saying, " Pretty tent," and rocking his body to and fro. They 
 say this trick is an hereditary trait in Iceland, derived from 
 weaving ancestors ; but this seems unlikely, or we should see 
 trades going on in dumb- show everywhere — an awkward sur- 
 vival in the case of recently ennobled tailors and coopers. I 
 satirised my friend's taste in guests, and she burst out indig- 
 nantly, " He is a dreadful old man, so dirty that I can't abide 
 him, and so deaf that he hears nothing ; and I can't get him to 
 stir, and the more I say the more he smiles ; and I dare not leave 
 him here or I know he will finger everything." 
 
 I opened a box at the door, feigning great interest in its con- 
 tents, which fetched the old fellow, who came to see what was 
 inside it, and then we got between him and the entrance, and 
 shook everything thoroughly out that he had touched. 
 
 To return to our journey. Next day we had arranged to start 
 early, and four ponies had run away — Borgarfjord ponies, now 
 near their native place. This is one of the troubles of travelling 
 here. The ponies, which are turned out to feed themselves after 
 their day's work, graze so much more freely when not hobbled, 
 that we generally allowed all but one or two old sinners of our 
 party to go loose. Now and then there was some delay in find- 
 
272 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 ing them, and this day we sat long forlorn on the house-top 
 of the nearest farm, sweeping the country with the field-glass, 
 before the truants were found. So we did not start on our long 
 journey till 1 o'clock. I was riding far in front, and quite alone 
 between the hills and the narrow waters of the Hvalfjord, for 
 I knew my way all about this country, when I came upon the 
 little farm of Hrafnarburg where Ulfshilda Bjarnardotir lived. 
 Here we had camped two stormy nights four years ago, and she 
 knew me at the first glance, and received me with an enthusiasm 
 perhaps partly due to the fact that they had only once had visi- 
 tors since, partly, I flatter myself, because I could now chat in 
 Icelandic. 
 
 This day we passed through a paradise of birds, only dis- 
 turbed by fishing-eagles. One of them — no boy this time — 
 swept across the fjord, pounced on an eider-duck, and bore 
 it off; but as it was tearing it up, Thorgrimur shot it through 
 the neck, and it fell dead with the half-devoured duck between 
 beak and claw. A noble old bird, a white-tailed sea-eagle, fully 
 six feet across the spread wings ; it now ornaments the entrance- 
 hall at home. 
 
 The evening had fallen grey and misty, and it was early dark, 
 when Miss Menzies pointedly inquired what o'clock it was ; and 
 when, by means of a fusee, we had discovered it was 10 p.m., she 
 remarked that we had breakfasted at 10 that morning. Instantly 
 we all knew that we were furiously hungry, but a halt was not to 
 be thought of: biscuits to put in our pockets, and nibble as we 
 rode, were served out, and we plodded on through the darkness, 
 now turning up the steep track over Eysja, which I had already 
 crossed three times. The men and ponies in front disappeared ; 
 next, my own dark pony's ears vanished ; and Mori, a moving 
 shadow wdth a bark, turned now and then to fetch me up. The 
 two riders behind me were also invisible in the darkness, and the 
 mist became rain. All idea of picking the way was gone, and 
 yet we trotted gently forward along blind tracks, which we knew 
 overhung a precipice, trusting all to the ponies' instinct. 
 
 Down on the other side of the mountain, where we had now 
 
BENIGHTED. 273 
 
 and then to ford a little river, it grew more and more puzzling. 
 The men had hard work counting the loose ponies, sometimes going 
 after a stray one, and trying to find tracks out of the river. At 
 last we were quite lost ; we ladies kept the nine loose ponies to- 
 gether while the men quartered round like dogs out shooting, on 
 foot, and feeling for the track with their hands. We got it at 
 last, strange to say, in the thick blackness of the rainy night. 
 Shouting and whistling to each other, and groping cautiously 
 across the rough land, we at last hit upon something square and 
 straight, the turf tun wall at Mossfell. 1 shall think more highly 
 of the powers of horses henceforth, for the darkness was more 
 like that of a dark room than night in the open air. It was one 
 in the morning now ; but as usual, sure of a welcome, our guide 
 climbed up to a bedroom window and shouted '^ salutation and 
 blessing " to some model inhabitants, who, instead of saying the 
 reverse to him, got up and dressed, we meanwhile unsaddling 
 and standing helplessly by our ponies in the rain, which poured 
 off our hats and waterproofs in torrents. A lantern at last glim- 
 mers through the wet atmosphere, and a man and a girl appear 
 with refreshments. Our men carry the boxes into the chapel, 
 and then subside. Thorwaldur is snoring in one pew, his face on 
 his arms. Thorgrimur, who, besides all the rest, has carried a gun 
 instead of a whip during our twelve hours' journey, lies on his 
 back in another pew, and is asleep in a moment. I have still 
 energy enough to cook soup, and to serve it out in hot platefuls 
 with biscuits to my companions. That, and a little hot milk, are 
 dinner and supper both, for no one has spirit enough to cook the 
 game ; and then Miss Menzies and I are left by the rest to our 
 slumbers. Sigrida leaves the church last, lured by the promise of 
 a down-bed in the house. We hear her stumbling nervously over 
 the graves, and at last imploring me in her pathetic soprano to show 
 a light from the church-door, as she cannot find the gate. Sigrida 
 is not so brave in a churchyard at night as in other places, and 
 is alarmed at missing the entrance of this old burial-place, 
 where the mighty Egil has reposed now for nearly 900 years, and 
 all the generations of Mossfell since. When at last she suc- 
 
 s 
 
274 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 ceeded in groping up to the house, she found her brother had got 
 into the guest-room before her, had just succeeded in getting his 
 boots off, and had fallen sound asleep on the promised down-bed. 
 However, her shake-down on the floor, and our cork pallets, were 
 quite luxurious enough to insure a good night's rest to such tired 
 travellers. 
 
 Kain next morning. We were so spoilt by continual fine 
 weather that we felt quite unhinged. We crossed to the parson- 
 age-house to breakfast with the young priest and his wife — the 
 bride who had received me here the previous year. Here, at 
 Mossfell, lived during his latter days, 
 
 ** After a great life, with eyes waxing dim, 
 Egil, the mighty son of Skallagrim." 
 
 His last recorded action has suggested some possibilities that 
 have made many a passer-by glance curiously at the neighbouring 
 stream's bed and waterfall. The old man had two chests of 
 silver money given him by our English king Athelstan. To 
 these he clung with a grasping greed which grudged them to 
 his heirs. When his son-in-law and daughter, the master and 
 mistress of the house, were absent at the althing, he mounted 
 his horse for the last time, and, blind as he was, accompanied by 
 two thralls, he set off with his chests of silver. He returned with 
 neither thralls nor silver, and took to his bed from that day. No 
 trace of the men or money was ever found : some thought the 
 thralls escaped with the silver, but it was hardly likely that could 
 remain hid. The old heathen hinted that he had employed them 
 to hide his treasure, and then slain them ; and spoke mysteriously 
 of hiding-places in the bog and the waterfall. Near the latter 
 some silver coins of Athelstan have, they say, been found. 
 There is a chance for seekers after hid treasure ! Seriously, 
 Iceland is not half enough excavated. I feel sure examination of 
 some of the mounds and older homesteads might well reward the 
 antiquary. Strong oaken and metal chests can still be seen in 
 some houses — one of those might be found underground, and con- 
 tain who knows what — perhaps a MS. of a lost saga. The rain 
 
TOURISTS. 275 
 
 soon cleared off, and we rode in four hours to Reykjavik, which 
 bewildered us by its crowd and bustle. All things are compar- 
 ative, and we had been in great solitudes ; but there was really 
 the unprecedented number of some twenty-five English tourists 
 waiting for the steamer. So after two days spent with our 
 Reykjavik friends, we started again for the east, to utilise the 
 interval before the steamer should arrive. 
 
 Reykjavik is, indeed, less Icelandic than any other part of the 
 country ; there is a strong Danish element, and more class dis- 
 tinction. There you may see the amphibious-looking people com- 
 mon to most ports, haunting the shore with the awkward look of 
 seals on land ; sometimes put down in the eager traveller's note- 
 book as typical Icelanders, which is rather as if we should be 
 judged by the loafers on the pier at Oban or the Broomielaw. 
 They say men in cities tend to become wolves ; and there is a 
 distinct species which follows the tourist crowd as the dog-fish 
 follows the mackerel. This wolf rages in Switzerland, it haunts 
 our Highlands, and is not unknown in the seaports of Norway, 
 though it has not yet penetrated far inland. Reykjavik is not a 
 city, and I do not think it yet possesses a developed wolf; but 
 there is a prick of an ear, a gleam of a fang, just appearing now, 
 which hints of what may yet be when tourists come to be regarded 
 as mere prey, and not as honoured guests. Something of the sort 
 is inevitable ; yet I believe that a strong nature and good educa- 
 tion will still keep the genuine Icelanders independent, and gen- 
 erous, and fair. 
 
276 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIL 
 
 EXCURSION TO REYKJADAL AND EYRABAKKI. 
 
 The way to the half-way hut on the road to Eyrabakki is much 
 improved ; a capital raised path leads over the rough land, soft, 
 yet firm, and perfect for riding. It ends in a circular valley, 
 evidently the subsided crater of some old volcano. There is 
 grass below, but the hills which rise on every side are of dark 
 shingle, scathed and ashen — indeed the whole range is a re- 
 minder of ancient fires. 
 
 In the middle of the valley stands a little hut of two rooms 
 and a loft. It passes for an inn, and owes its distinction to being 
 many miles from any other house. It is inhabited by a family 
 whose forte is not innkeeping, but silversmithing ; and it is 
 further and thickly inhabited by others not in the census. Here 
 we partook of some doubtful coffee, sitting on the table with our 
 feet on the bench to avoid touching the floor ; and we also pur- 
 chased some tasteful modern silver-work, just finished by the 
 landlord. Beyond the hut we turned to the left up a pictur- 
 esque hillside, issuing on a high table-land, paved with enor- 
 mous slabs tilted at various angles, as if a giant's hall pave- 
 ment had been broken up by an earthquake. The day was 
 beautiful, and so was the view over the crest of the high land 
 (called Hellisheida). "We sighted the wide plain below, sea-edged, 
 bounded in front by the distant, majestic Eyja^al JokuU, its snows 
 tinged with evening red ; round from it swept the blue hill-range 
 Thrihydnynja, Hecla, and others, till they joined the range 
 
REYKJADAL. 277 
 
 on which we were, the nearest being Ingolf s flail, where Ingolf, 
 the earliest Norse settler was buried. The Niebelungen story 
 tells that the fire-prison of Brynhild was in Iceland ; and the 
 scenery here suggests the wild tramp of Wagner's " Ride of the 
 Valkyrs," and the rocky desert where the armed maiden was left ^ 
 to sleep till the coming of the hero. Then we descended into 
 Reykjadal — an uncommon sort of valley, as well as we could make 
 out in the bewildering moonlight. Hot springs smoked about, 
 and some of the ponies got into literal hot water, to their great 
 irritation ; there was also a cold stl-eam, which we rode in to 
 avoid the formidable bog, which at last we had to cross. Our 
 destination, Arnabseli, a mound above the marshes, seemed close 
 by, rising dark against the light sky long before we reached it 
 after nine o'clock. A good house with a church near the broad 
 silvery Olfus river, where we were kindly received by the family 
 of Sira Isleif Gislason, who last year had received me at his 
 former parish of Kirkjubae. After supper we adjourned to the 
 moonlit church, where there was an excellent harmonium, on 
 which Miss Menzies performed till far into the night, to the great 
 delight of the family. Many harmoniums have been imported 
 since my first visit to the country, and considering the difficulty 
 of transport, their presence testifies to a great love for music. 
 We saw one at Reykjavik that had been constructed by an Ice- 
 lander, with no knowledge of the trade except what could be 
 acquired by examining the instruments imported. We stayed 
 next with our kind friends at Litla-hrauni, Thorgrimur's parents, 
 who had invited us to revisit them. This flat land between the 
 rivers Olfusa and Hvita is called the Floa ; and a most romantic 
 early history — the Floamanna Saga — exists, telling us of its 
 heroes, and especially of the Greenland discovery voyages which 
 
 1 Since this was in the press, we have seen with some indignation how 
 Wagner, in his "Niebelungen Ring" Operas, has infused a passionate, 
 immoral element, not found in the original, into the old Norse fable of the 
 "Curse of the Gold." The giants appear also in these queer operas as if 
 they were injured beings outwitted by the craft of the Asa, instead of 
 merely personified natural forces, especially bad weather, which it is the 
 object of all the useful arts to subdue or circumvent. 
 
278 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 set out from its port. It is a cheerful place in fine weather, 
 with the distant mountain-barrier circling the district north, east, 
 and west, and the sea glittering to the south ; but in bad weather 
 wonderfully dreary, when the hills are all lost in mist, and a 
 foaming broad line of surf breaks upon the low black lava-rocks 
 and wind -tormented sand-dunes and grasses. So it was on 
 Sunday, when from the church -windows we saw how the sea 
 flashed under the wind, which moaned and shrieked over the 
 flats, and strewed the graves with sea- weed and tangle — the 
 graves where yarrow grew so strong and thick that they seemed 
 beds of white flowers. There were twenty-five new graves this 
 season, a large number of deaths for the population ; this excep- 
 tionally dry season has not been a healthy one. 
 
 We returned to Keykjavik on a wild day of September, and 
 found the Olfus river in a great commotion. From the ferry 
 farm came a man and a powerful lass, and the boat was shoved 
 down into the water. The rain increased, and a wild squall 
 lashed up a yellow foam all over the river. A seal came up, and 
 gazed at us fixedly as if he were the demon of the storm, and 
 was watching to prevent our passage. Thorgrimur carried us 
 into the boat when it was afloat, and there we sat in the lashing 
 rain with our feet in the water. Meanwhile the seven ponies, 
 which were thoroughly and naturally disinclined to encounter the 
 wind, rain, and waves in their faces swimming, were all roped round 
 the head, Thorgrimur hauling four ropes, the strong lass three : 
 they took their seats at the stern, and tried to lug the ponies in, 
 while two men rowed. We got under way ; but when the 
 ponies came to deep water, they all backed and fought till they 
 dragged us fairly aground, — one old grey, the ringleader, rearing 
 in the water and splashing us from head to foot, as though 
 everything were not wet enough already. They tangled their 
 ropes and got mixed up, so that we could not tell which heads 
 owned which legs ; two got under the boat, while the wind blew 
 and the foam flew fiercer and fiercer in our teeth ; and all the 
 while the seal looked on. He was more than canny, like the 
 seal, who was a fetch^ that swam round Thorkel's spell-sunk 
 
LAST VIEW. 279 
 
 ship in Laxdale. At last, by aid of my hunting-whip, the ponies 
 were started, and away we went, hauling the seven heads with 
 rolling eyeballs and snorting nostrils behind ns. When more 
 than midway, we cast most of them loose to find their own way 
 over. The seal, or whatever ruled the squall, had now done 
 its worst, for on the other side the weather moderated ; a little 
 later, as we rose up the mountain-side, off rolled the clouds and 
 the waterproofs, out came the sunshine and dried and warmed us, 
 and made the hill-pass beautiful. 
 
 Iceland was looking its best on the day fixed for our departure, 
 making us almost long to miss the steamer as we rode home 
 from breakfasting with the Tomsens at Besserstad. The brown 
 land with such dreary possibilities about it, now varied from 
 topaz-hues in the sunshine, through clear umbers and red mad- 
 ders, to the intense purple -black of the fantastic lava, which, 
 again, was decked with white and yellow lichens like gold and 
 silver embroidery. So the sun works as goldsmith and decorator 
 on the rough material of the barren North, for he has his will 
 in that clear pure air. All too soon we sailed out of the 
 calm atmosphere and blue sea into the grey water and cloudy 
 south-easterly weather, fated to endure a rough passage of six 
 days. 
 
 And next morning, from the steamer, we watched the wild 
 grey sea fretted into foam, under a dark-grey sky — only far to 
 the north a low line of bright green sky was still to be seen, 
 and beneath it glittered points of intense light, — it was some- 
 thing like a jewelled necklace hung on a dark curtain ; and it was 
 our last sight of Iceland, and her mountain- peaks, and clear 
 autumnal sky. 
 
 In this little story of our summer wanderings I have tried 
 to say, like Herjolfr, the fair witness in ' Landnama,' " the whole 
 truth, good and bad, about the land," but only so far as I saw 
 it myself, or had good opportunities of forming an opinion. So 
 there is not much said about geology, of which I know too little 
 for my observations to be of value. For the same reason I have 
 avoided the subject of the deep-sea fishing — a matter of great 
 
280 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 importance to the inhabitants. The newspapers are full of it. 
 A cod is stamped on the current coin, and formerly three cod- 
 fish figured on a most unwarlike ensign. 
 
 But the historical and romantic aspect of the country, which 
 is chiefly dwelt on here, is well symbolised by the other national 
 flag, which bears a white Icelandic falcon on a blue field — the 
 princely bird which was almost priceless in former days, and is 
 itself a type of the trained power, mettle, and energy of the 
 *' hardy Norsemen." 
 
 In some sort we may look upon ourselves as their representa- 
 tives in the modern world ; we have inherited, with a strain of 
 their race, their spirit of enterprise and their love of the sea. 
 Everything relating to them has therefore a special interest for 
 us ; and when we inquire into their history we find that Iceland 
 holds the key to the knowledge we desire to gain. As her 
 natural features are unique, so her place in the eyes of students 
 of the past and lovers of romance is exceptional and full of signi- 
 ficance. And my hope is that these sketches of travel, though 
 they only aim at bringing the aspect of the country and the life 
 of the people before the eyes of my readers, may help them to 
 realise the causes which give to this lonely island of the North 
 her peculiar attractiveness and charm. 
 
 v^A 
 
 v^ 
 
 ^ v^ 
 
INDEX 
 
 -Ciiidmundnr Dvrafiord Sanrn SQ 
 
 E K K A T A. 
 
 Page 57, line 8, for " Mattias .TochnuuHlsen " read " Mattliias Jochumssoii, 
 M 117, line 11, /or ''230" read "2300." 
 „ 146, line 24, for " Huni " read " Hrani." 
 u 157, line 9, for "molten metallie snbstances" read "molten lavas." 
 
 irruptions, lieysir, 'zo, 144. 
 Eyrabakki, 176, 277. 
 
 Faroe Islands, 5, 223. 
 Fishing, 291. 
 Floanianna Saga, 40, 277. 
 Fullisa, 165. 
 Funeral, 32. 
 
 Geysir, 23, 143. 
 Gilsbakki, 75, 200, 269. 
 Gisli Surson's Saga, 40, 88. 
 Grettir the Strong, 40, 264. 
 
 LiandnamaDoK, 41. 
 Land tenure, udal, 35. 
 Language, 1, 56, 119. 
 Laxdale Saga, 39, 96. 
 Literature, early, 36. 
 modern, 55. 
 
 Magistrates, 242. 
 Markarfljot, 158, 170. 
 MiklabjB. 230. 
 Mossfell, 59, 273. 
 
 New craters, 151. 
 
 Njal Saga, 138, 153, 155, 172, 208. 
 
280 BY FELL AND FJORD. 
 
 importance to the inhabitants. The newspapers are full of it. 
 A cod is stamped on the current coin, and formerly three cod- 
 fish figured on a most unwarlike ensign. 
 
 But the historical and romantic aspect of the country, which 
 is chiefly dwelt on here, is well symbolised by the other national 
 flag, which bears a white Icelandic falcon on a blue field — the 
 princely bird which was almost priceless in former days, and is 
 itself a type of the trained power, mettle, and energy of the 
 '^ hardy Norsemen." 
 
 In some sort we may look upon ourselves as their representa- 
 tives in the modern world ; we have inherited, with a strain of 
 
 W 
 
 f^ 
 
INDEX 
 
 Agriculture, 111. 
 Akureyrei, 225. 
 Althing, ancient, 207. 
 
 modern, 109. 
 
 And the Wealthy, 44, 96. 
 Aurora Borealis, 127, 134, 
 
 Besserstad, 219. 
 Bishops, Gudmundur, 53. 
 
 and priests, 241. 
 
 Blanda, 248. 
 Boiling bogs, 131. 
 Borg, 183. 
 Breidafjord, 88. 
 
 Celtic element in literature, 45. 
 Church service, 154, 239. 
 
 Danish government, 106. 
 Dogs, 219, 229. 
 Drink, 242. 
 
 Edda, 47. 
 
 Education, 120. 
 
 Egil's Saga, 39, 80, 181, 185, 274. 
 
 Eruptions, Geysir, 25, 144. 
 
 Eyrabakki, 176, 277. 
 
 Faroe Islands, 5, 223. 
 Fishing, 291. 
 Floamanna Saga, 40, 277. 
 Fullisa, 165. 
 Funeral, 32. 
 
 Geysir, 23, 143. 
 Gilsbakki, 75, 200, 269. 
 Gisli Surson's Saga, 40, 88. 
 Grettir the Strong, 40, 264. 
 Grimstunga, 264. 
 
 Gudmundur Dyrafjord Saga, 89. 
 
 the Powerful, 227. 
 
 Gunlang Saga, 269. 
 Gunnar Halmundson, 153, 155, 158, 
 208. 
 
 Hakon, king, 212. 
 
 Halfred the Skald, 249, 256, 262. 
 
 Hardar Saga, 64. 
 
 Hecla, 149, 276. 
 
 Hints to travellers, 135. 
 
 Holtvordsheide, 85. 
 
 Housekeeping, 114. 
 
 Hrutafjord, 87. 
 
 Hunafjord, 252. 
 
 Hvalfjord, 60, 179, 270. 
 
 Hvammfjord, 96. 
 
 Hvita, Eastern, 145. 
 
 Western, 81, 102, 200, 202. 
 
 Kari Solmundson, 9, 172, 209. 
 Kirkuvogr, 129. 
 Krisuvik, 122. 
 Kvenna-brekka pass, 99. 
 
 Landnamabok, 41. 
 Land tenure, udal, 35. 
 Language, 1, 56, 119. 
 Laxdale Saga, 39, 96. 
 Literature, early, 36. 
 modern, 55. 
 
 Magistrates, 242. 
 Markarfljot, 158, 170. 
 Miklabge. 230. 
 Mossfell, 59, 273. 
 
 New craters, 151. 
 
 Njal Saga, 138, 153, 155, 172, 208. 
 
282 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Nordtunga, 76. 
 Nuperkot, 163, 168. 
 
 Odd^, 175. 
 Olfusvatn, 177, 278. 
 
 Ponies, 16, 136. 
 
 Rennyvellir, 32, 179. 
 Reykholt, 67, 198. 
 Reykjadal, 277. 
 Reykjanes, 10, 131. 
 Reykjavik, aspect, 11. 
 
 hospitalities, 114. 
 
 tourists at, 275. 
 
 women of, 49. 
 morality of, 38, 50. 
 
 Sea-fight. King Olaf 's last, 258. 
 
 Skalds, 37, 263. 
 
 Snorri Sturlason, 48, 69, 198. 
 
 Society, 116. 
 
 Sorcerers, 66, 231. 
 
 Sulphur-mines, 124, 221. 
 
 Thingvellir, 22, 29, 103, 206. 
 Thjorsa, 147, 176. 
 Thorsmark, 160. 
 
 Ulfljotsvatn, 140. 
 
 Vampires, 65, 98, 231, 265. 
 Vatzdale Saga, 40, 255. 
 
 valley, 251. 
 
 Volcanoes, 117, 149. 
 
 Westmann Islands, 10, 172. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. 
 
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 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 To renew or recharge your library materials, you may 
 
 contact NRLF 4 days prior to due date at (510) 642-6233 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 JAN 08 200B 
 
 DD20 12M 7-06 
 
W317378