Bits and Pieces of Iceland
Supernatural Iceland
Elves, trolls and ghosts
Surveys show that despite their obsession with modern technology,
as many as 80% of Icelanders believe in the existence of elves.
Even today, roads have been rerouted and building plans redesigned
or abandoned to avoid disturbing rocks where elves are said to live.
All around the country, strange lava formations were once explained
in folktales as trolls who were turned to stone when caught outdoors
in daylight. But only children in Iceland believe in trolls today,
and the once widespread belief in ghosts is in decline, some say
because electricity has taken the fright out of the long winter
nights.
Wildlife
A different kind of fauna
Contrary to what many people think, there are no polar bears in
Iceland. Admittedly, every ten years or so a polar bear arrives
as an accidental tourist on an ice floe from Greenland, but they
aren't invited to stay. The Arctic fox is the only native mammal.
Reindeer live in the wild in east Iceland, but were only imported
in the 18th century. Mink have also adapted to the wild, the descendants
of animals which escaped from fur farms in the 1930s. A number of
pedigree animal stocks are found in Iceland which have disappeared
elsewhere, descended from domesticated breeds brought over by the
Vikings, including the Icelandic horse, cow, sheep and sheepdog.
Marine mammals are also found in abundance along the coasts, especially
minke whale, humpback whale, fin whale and several species of seals.
Some whale watching tour operators claim 98% success rates for sightings.
Vikings in America
Leif the Lucky, discoverer of America
Five hundred years before Columbus, the first European set foot
in America: Leif the Lucky, who was born in west Iceland, the son
of Erik the Red. According to the Sagas, Leif wintered in a place
he named Vinland after grapes he found growing there, around the
year 1000. A likely site is Newfoundland, where ruins of a Viking
farmstead have been excavated. Leif left the New World but another
expedition was led there by Thorfinn Karlsefni and his wife Gudrid
Thorbjarnardottir, who explored as far as where New York stands
today and spent three or four years trying to establish a settlement
before they gave up the idea. While in America they had a son, Snorri
Thorfinnsson, the first European born in the New World. Gudrid and
Thorfinn left America to live on a farm in north Iceland, Glaumbær,
and when she was widowed she made a pilgrimage on foot to Rome,
becoming the first known female transatlantic traveller and undoubtedly
the most widely travelled women for at least the next 500 years.
Christmas tradition
The 13 Yuletide Lads and their Monster Mum
Icelandic children count down the days to Christmas with a much
older, darker and fun tradition than the multinational Santa Claus.
In Iceland, there are 13 Yuletide Lads who come to town from the
nearest local mountain, one a day until December 23. Each is named
after a particular prank he always plays Sausage Snatcher, Door
Slammer, Candle Swiper, Pot Licker, etc. and at bedtime children
put a shoe in the window where the Yuletide Lad of the day is supposed
to leave a small present. The 13 pranksters' mother is Gryla, an
ogress who lives on a diet of boiled naughty children, and their
father is the layabout Leppaluði. People who do not receive
any new clothes as a Christmas present, incidentally, do not need
to worry about being seen in public afterwards folklore tradition
says they are eaten by a giant cat.
The Viking settlers
Oldest national parliament in the world
Iceland was settled in the year 874 by Ingolfur Arnarson, who as
he approached land threw overboard the pillars of his high seat
from his home in Norway and asked the gods to wash them ashore where
the wanted him to live. He landed in southeast Iceland and spent
three years searching the shore until he found his pillars in a
place he named Reykjavik (Smoky Bay) after the geothermal steam
he saw rising there and he built a farm in what is now the heart
of downtown in Iceland's capital. Although Ingolfur was the first
settler in Iceland, he was not the first visitor. Ten years earlier,
a Faroese Viking called Naddodd was blown off course and saw a place
which he called Snowland. Swedish Viking Gardar Svavarsson set off
to find Snowland, sailed around it to prove it is an island, and
wintered in the north in what is now Husavik ("Bay of Houses").
His slave Nattfari ran away and presumably became the first unofficial
settler, if he survived. But Iceland was named by Norwegian Viking
Raven-Floki, who barely lived through the winter in the West Fjords
after he forgot to store up hay for his livestock. In spring he
saw a fjord full of ice and gave the country the chilliest name
he could think, then left and never went back. Irish sources describe
a country to the north which could be Iceland, and the earliest
Icelandic accounts say the first Vikings found Irish monks living
in the country, who left because they could not stand the company
of pagans.
Treeless Iceland
Why aren´t there any trees in Iceland?
Ancient Icelandic writings from the 12th tell how the settlers three
centuries earlier found a country that was covered with trees from
mountain to shore. The fact that they mention this point suggests
that trees were already becoming scarcer then. Over the centuries
they were chopped down for timber and firewood, while grazing sheep,
harsh winters and ash from volcanic eruptions caused erosion that
prevented trees from taking root. Reforestation work began early
this century and although there is still only one proper forest
in the country (Hallormstadaskógur in the east), Iceland
today plants more trees per head of population than any other nation
in the world around four million a year, or 16 for every man, woman
and child.
Traditional food
Get your teeth into tradition
Most visitors are full of praises for Iceland's ocean-fresh seafood
and mouthwatering mountain lamb, but these are only part of the
local culinary experience. Traditional food is also served, made
using the only preservation methods available when people had to
store up for the winter in the days before refrigerators. Some is
delicious, some is different, and is very good to boast about to
your friends after you've finished it. Meat was commonly smoked,
and the delicious hangikjöt (smoked lamb) is still popular
today. Among dairy products, a big favourite with visitors is skyr
(curds), especially served with fresh bilberries in late summer.
On the more adventurous side is slátur, which literally means
"slaughter" but is like haggis. And for those with nerves
of steel and stomachs of iron, the menu for the Thorri midwinter
feast (January/February) is a real challenge. Delicacies there include
some quite indelicate cuts of meat, including boiled sheep's head
(on the bone or pressed), ram's testicles pickled in whey, and loin
bags. But what really sorts the men out from the boys is rotten
shark, cured by burying, washed down with a well-deserved shot of
Black Death schnapps. Hint for beginners: if you manage to get it
past your nose, you're half way there.
Ice and fire
Glaciers and volcanoes side by side
Contrasting forces of ice and fire exist side by side in Iceland.
Some 11% of the countrys surface is covered with glaciers and about
30% is lava fields. On average, a volcano erupts every five years,
but fortunately only rarely where anyone lives. Vatnajökull
glacier, measuring 8,400 km=, is the largest ice cap in Europe in
fact it is larger than all the other glaciers in Europe combined.
But rather like the character of the Icelanders themselves, theres
fire beneath the icy surface. In 1996 and 1998, volcanoes erupted
under the ice of Vatnajökull, pushing up new mountains and
causing huge meltwater floods along the uninhabited south coast.
Land still taking shape
The youngest country in the world
Geologically speaking, Iceland is hardly out of playschool, since
it only began to rise from the North Atlantic seabed about 25 million
years ago, the product of volcanic eruptions that are still going
on today. Parts of the country are still so rugged that American
astronauts chose Iceland as a training ground to prepare them for
landing on the moon. And Iceland is still taking shape before peoples
eyes: the newest land is Surtsey, an island which rose from the
sea during an underwater eruption off the south coast in 1963.
European or American
Is Iceland in Europe or American?
Iceland lies on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the mainly underwater border
where the tectonic plates of America and Eurasia are slowly spreading
apart. A huge rift runs through the country from southwest to northeast,
disappearing and surfacing by turns, where the plates are heading
in different directions. So although Iceland is geographically and
culturally part of Europe, half of it lies on the American plate,
and is moving westwards at an estimated 1-2 cm a year. At the ancient
parliament site of Thingvellir, which lies on this rift, you can
stand on the edge of America (geologically speaking) and see all
the way to Europe, 10 km away.
Ancient Viking language
On speaking terms with the Vikings
The Vikings who settled Iceland in the ninth and tenth centuries
brought with them their language which has remained basically unchanged
ever since. Literacy has been widespread ever since the first sagas
were written down in the thirteenth century, and people today can
still read them without difficulty. Unlike most western cultures,
there are no real dialects and the best language tends to be spoken
in the countryside rather than the big city. One strange feature
of Icelandic is that it refuses to accept foreign words, but almost
always coins new words from ancient Viking roots for even the most
complex technological concepts. A classic example is the word for
computer: tölva, a hybrid formed from old words for number
and prophetess.
Icelandic names
A nation of sons and daughters
Everyone in Iceland is on first name terms, and people are even
listed by first names in the telephone directory. Most Icelanders
still use the old Viking patronymics instead of family surnames,
with different forms for sons and daughters. For example, a man
called Haraldur Magnusson and his wife Helga Jonsdottir might have
a son called Petur whose final name would then be Haraldsson, and
a daughter called Ingibjörg Haraldsdottir. Logical enough,
but the naming system sometimes raises eyebrows at passport control
and hotel reception desks when Icelanders travel abroad. In the
age of womenís lib, increasing numbers of children are being
given matronymics, i.e. identified as the son or daughter of their
mother rather than their father.
Leisure & sports
Midnight golf and swimming in blizzards
Offbeat sporting attractions have become musts for visitors to Iceland.
Top favourite is swimming, courtesy of the geothermal springs which
means that people can bathe in warm open-air pools at any time of
the year, even during blizzards. A trek on the small but hardy Icelandic
horse is another big attraction, the most natural way to travel
through nature as it has been for more than a thousand years. Salmon
and trout fishing are perennial favourites. On midsummer night,
the annual Arctic Open golf tournament in Akureyri, north Iceland,
attracts players from around the world in to tee off at midnight
in the midnight sun. Action sports are the latest fad, including
snowmobiling on glaciers and river rafting on some of the most hair-raising
glacial rivers this side of Hollywood.