Iceland: Horseback tours in saga land. W. S. C. Russell
has sailed those same waters with the story of Ingölfr fresh in mind and gazed up to these towering cliffs, crowned with pristine ice and decorated with countless waterfalls glittering in the Arctic sun!
A violent storm arose which separated him from his sacred relics and forced him to land upon a long, steep headland just under the Öraefa. To this day the promontory bears the name of Ingölfshöfði. A still bolder headland about seventy miles to the west bears the name of his kinsman, Hjörleifshfði. Hjörleifr was not only a sea-rover, a Viking, but he disdained to worship the gods of his race. He set his Irish slaves to tilling the land. They slew him and fled to the adjacent islands, since called Vestmannaeyjar, or the “Westmen Isles,” for the Irish were then known as the Westmen.
Ingölfr pursued the slaves and slew them all. With the fate of his brother in mind, who had refused to honor the gods, Ingölfr searched vigorously for his drifted pillars and after three years found them on a lava-strewn fiord towards the west. A stream ran down into the channel from a boiling spring, the steam of which was visible for some distance. Here Ingölfr, true to his vow, established his colony and called it Reykjavik, “Smoking Creek.” One of his followers complained of the location as follows—
“Ill we did in passing the good lands to settle on this promontory.”
Many people have since agreed with him that Reykjavik was an unfortunate place for a settlement and a capital. Destiny has proved too strong for reason.
Following these pioneers, came a steady stream of chiefs and thralls until an event in Norway changed the even flow of emigration into a mad rush for the new lands in the lonely ocean. Among the sea-wolves whose lair was in the Shetlands and the Orkneys were many Vikings who were not content to ravage England, France and more distant shores, but they turned to Norway to vent their spite upon the hated Harald. The old fire was not quenched in the blood of Norway’s King. In 880 he came with a great host, bearing fire and sword, determined to utterly rout the Vikings and all their followers from their island fastnesses. He followed his foes into creek and over cliff, wherever sailor could go or landsman climb, from Orkney south to the Isle of Man he put them utterly to rout and freed forever his native lands from the pirates west-over-the-sea.
There was but one place left in the then known world, whence these liberty-loving, wild and dauntless men, driven from their haunts, could go. Harald had taught the lesson most thoroughly; his foes were too weak to cope with him longer. This was also a blessing to the struggling Saxon kingdoms in England. Thus the Vikings fled to the fire-born island in the north Atlantic, with many a southern kinsman and many an Irish bride.
Auth, daughter of Kettil the Flatnose, the queen of Olaf the White, King of Dublin, went to Iceland in 889, as related in the Erybyggja Saga. She was a woman of considerable wealth and a Christian. With her sister Thorun, she settled in Hvamn. If we accept the account of Dicuilus, an Irish monk who wrote in 829 that some of his Culdee brethren, whom the Vikings called “Papar,” visited Iceland to secure retirement like other anchorites, these two women were the first followers of the Cross in the country. In 890 the women moved from the Breiðifjörðr to Eyjafjörðr. In 1890 the Icelanders celebrated the thousandth anniversary of the landing of the first Christians.
We are apt to picture the Viking as a rover of the sea, making his war-ship fast to that of his enemy and dealing skull-splitting strokes in a mighty mêlée, where the shouts of the victor rose high above the clash and clang of spear and battle-axe upon shield and helmet. War was not his occupation nor was the sea his home. When he wearied of the pastoral life he turned to the sea for plunder, excitement and recreation. His wanderings were usually of three years’ duration. As he returns from the southern isles or the Mediterranean his galley laden to the water’s edge with spoil, let us view him in his real home.
The long ship is beached in a sheltered cove. On the green slope reaching upwards from the shore, stands his dwelling and around it is the tún or home field enclosed with a turf covered lava wall just as one may see it to-day in the rural districts of Iceland. If our Viking is a man of wealth and influence he possesses many thralls and owns a grand hall and possibly a temple. In the center of the hall a row of fires flings out a generous warmth while the smoke circles upwards, glaring and spark-sprinkled, through the holes in the roof. In the center of the long wall is the high seat or place of honor, its lofty pillars deeply carved and crowned with images of Thor, Odin and Frigga. Upon the cushioned seat sits the returning hero, his garments bound with plates of gold and his sword, “Fire-of-the-Sea-King,” in a jewelled scabbard by his side. A collar of engraved gold encircles his neck and his cloak is edged with cloth of gold. On a raised seat at one end of the hall sits his wife surrounded by her servants, her white head dress held with a coronet of gold mingles with her flowing hair falling freely upon her shoulders and over her cloak of royal blue. Her crimson gown from the far East is girdled with golden ornaments and from her wrist hang her keys and well filled purse.
Long rows of benches are occupied with friends and kinsmen who have come to the feast to welcome the returning hero, who is giving a great banquet in celebration of his victories and his safe return. The walls, deeply carved with the stories of many conflicts in the southern waters, are hung with trophies, shields and weapons. The dancing firelight plays upon their burnished surfaces. In the fitful light the house carles glide about, bearing to the benches huge joints of roasted beef and horse-flesh and replenishing the stoups with sparkling mead. During the feast the scald relates in impromptu chant with many a jest the story of the exploits of the hero.
“Toil-mighty leader ruled
Westward the most of war-hosts;
Sea’s mare sped ’neath the lord king
Unto the English lea-land.
The fight-glad king let keel rest,
And winter-long there bided;
No better king there strideth
From out of Vimur’s falcon.”
Translation of Wm. Morris.
The story of the life of the early Icelander is well told in the introduction of the Burnt Njal by Sir George W. Dasent from which I quote the following:—
“From the cradle to the tomb the life of the Icelandic chief fetters our attention by its poetry of will and passion, by its fierce, untamed energy, by its patient endurance, by its undaunted heroism. In Iceland in the tenth century it was only healthy children that were allowed to live. As soon as it was born the infant was laid upon the bare ground, until the father came and looked at it, heard and saw that it was strong in lung and limb, its fate hung in the balance. That danger over, it was duly washed, signed with the Thunderer’s holy hammer, the symbol of all manliness and strength, and solemnly received into the family as the faithful champion of the ancient gods. After the child was named, he was often put out to foster with some neighbor, and there he grew up with the children of the house, and contracted those friendships and affections which were reckoned more binding than the ties of blood. A man was of age as soon as he was fit to do a man’s work, as soon as he could brandish his father’s sword and bend his bow.”
“But for incapacity that age had no mercy. Society required an earnest and pledge from the man himself that he was worth something.”
“Place, King!” cries a new guest to a king of Norway.
“Place? Find a place for yourself! Turn out one of my thanes, if you can. If you can not, you must sit on the footstool.”
“And so these savages spread themselves over the world to prove their natural nobility. In Byzantium they are the leaders of the Greek Emperor’s body guard. From France they tear away her fairest provinces. In England they are bosom friends of such kings as Athelstane, and the sworn foes of Ethelred the Unready. From Iceland as a base they push on to Greenland, and colonize it; nay, they discover America in those half-decked barks.”
“All this they do in the firm faith that the eyes of the gods are upon them. Theirs was, in truth, a simple creed; to do something and to do it well, so that it might last as long as the