Iceland: Horseback tours in saga land. W. S. C. Russell
in it, which is more than all the professors of the true religion can say. They were proud; but humility is a plant of Christian soil. They believed in luck; this, too, is a belief which a more enlightened age has hardly shaken off. They were revengeful; but revenge was the most sacred duty of a society, which knew no voice more awful and impressive than that of a brother’s blood calling from the earth.”
“Nor let it be supposed that beneath these tall trees of the forest, growth of emotions did not thrive, which are the crown and joy of everyday life.”
“ ‘Weep not for me,’ says the dying warrior to his wife, ‘lest those hot tears should scald my bosom and spoil my rest.’ ”
“ ‘I was given young to my husband,’ says a faithful wife, ‘and then I promised to live and die with him,’ and this she sings when the house is blazing over their heads, and the foes that surround it offer to let her escape.”
“The Icelanders were the bravest warriors, the boldest sailors, and the most obstinate heathen; but they were the best husbands, the tenderest fathers, and the firmest friends of their day.”
Steadily the stream of the Northmen poured into Iceland until in sixty years from the coming of Ingölfr the population numbered over sixty thousand. So much land was taken by the first-comers that an agreement was made by which all those who came later could take only as much land as they could encompass by fire in a day. This was done by building a huge fire in the center of the location, whence the claimant travelled in a circle as far away from the fire as he could see the smoke.
They brought with them the customs of Norway and its worship of the northern gods. Neighbors gathered in the hústhing, the freeholders in the móthing and the nation in the althing. While great reverence was paid to their gods, who were high ideals of what the people aimed to become, yet their system reveals the presence of an unknown god, indistinct, shadowy and undefined, before whom even Odin, father of the gods, himself must bow. After the diversified life of agriculture and pillage was over, when the last feast had been given and the last war-cry uttered, after Valhalla had received the hero, there was still a lingering suspicion of something yet beyond.
Christianity was forced upon the Norwegians by Olaf Tryggvason and Olaf the Holy. During the rule of the former, Thangbrand preached “Christ’s law” in Iceland among the Eastfirthers, and in the Burnt Njál in this connection we read:—
“Hall let himself be christened and all his household and many other chieftains also; notwithstanding there were many more who gainsaid him. Thangbrand abode three winters in Iceland and was the bane of three men or ever he departed thence.”
When Icelanders journeyed to Norway, Olaf gave them their choice between taking christening or imprisonment. Among the prisoners were Hjallti and Gizur the White, the latter a prominent character in the Burnt Njál. They agreed to go to Iceland and preach the new faith if Olaf would release the prisoners. In the year 1000 they went to the Althing at Thingvellir. During a stormy debate a runner came from the Ölfusá stating that a stream of lava was overflowing the homesteads. The heathen men cried out—
“No wonder that the gods are wroth at such speakers as we have heard!”
Then Snorri the priest said—
“At what then were the gods wroth when this lava was molten and ran over the spot on which we now stand?”
They could not answer him.
The following law was then passed—
“This is the beginning of our laws; that all men shall be Christian here in the land, and believe in one God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, but leave off all idol-worship, not expose children to perish, and not eat horseflesh. It shall be outlawry if such things are proved openly against any man; but if these things are done by stealth, then it shall be blameless.”
The last clause of this law disappeared in a short time and shows the growing hold of the new faith upon the heathen. At first, it was a difficult task to induce the Icelander to be baptized. The difficulty was removed by the agreement that the warm springs should be used as fonts. We may infer from this incident that the rite as administered by King Olaf and his followers was that of immersion. A few churches were built and we read that Snorri the priest erected one at Holyfell. Says the Eyrbyggja Saga—
“This whetted men much to the building of churches, that it was promised them by the teachers that a man should have welcome place for as many men in the Kingdom of Heaven as might stand in any church that he let build.”
We do not see in this the softening influences of the Christ-life, forgiveness and salvation; it is rather the mediaeval conquest of the Church, which satisfied itself with the symbol of the cross and the rite of holy water. Christianity in this form was powerless to subdue the stirring passions of alienated families, who had long been trained to pay homage to such a god as Odin and to whom the blood-feud was just as sacred as the cross. Thus we see the spears and battle axes, blazoned with the emblem of Christianity, returning from foreign conquests to stain themselves anew in homicidal strife. This very strife gave birth to Icelandic letters.
During the long winter nights the nobles gave lengthened banquets in their halls as their ancestors had aforetime done in Scandinavia. During the progress of the feast the scalds recounted the heroic deeds of their masters. In the fitful glare of the firelight the joyous mead-bowl circled and dissolved in song and cheer the sternness of the north. Here were fought again the terrible Heath Slayings. Here were recounted the deeds of Howard the Halt, the quarrels of the Ere-Dwellers and the stirring scenes of the Water Dale. The returning Viking related his exploits in distant and fairer lands. The legends and folk-lore, through repetition, were clothed with choicer phrasing. These are vivid pictures of the ancient days, simple, straightforward tales that bear the stamp of truth and reveal the germ of a splendid dramatic power.
With the introduction of Christianity came the use of letters. The scalds and story tellers hastened to avail themselves of this method to place in rhyme and prose the idyls, the mythology and the history of the race. Every strong and original race has vented its emotions in literature. The Iliad and Odyssey express the life of the plastic period of the Greek; the Aeneid does the same for the Roman. Through the force of the example set us by our schools, we turn to the study of Greek and Latin, forgetful of our own rich expression of the past or ignorant of its existence. Our early tongue had its great epics. Presumption, it may be, to compare them with the Iliad, but of great merit nevertheless. Its chronicles were replete with the doings of the people. This literature possesses a mythology that, in its purity and noble sentiments, in its heroism and spiritual aspirations, was never equalled.
Thus came into existence the Eddas and Sagas. Mr. York Powell says that the earliest poets were a mixture of Norwegian and Irish. And Howell adds—
“Hence the Keltic grace that softened down the Gothic strength.” The Eddas relate the earliest mythology, the ancient Scandinavian religion. The first Eddas were written by Saemundr the Wise in poetic form and the later Eddas were put into beautiful prose by Snorri Sturlason at Reykholt. The Landnamabók, the doomsday book of Iceland, was written by several hands but chiefly by Ari the Wise. The names and homes of all the early settlers are given. Snorri Sturlason also wrote the Heimskringla, “round world.” In it we read not only the history of Iceland from the beginning but of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland and England. The list of Sagas is long and each has a special interest. First of all is the Njála, so beautifully translated by Dr. George Dasent, of which he says—
“It bears away the palm for truthfulness and beauty.”
In the middle of the eleventh century the Icelandic feuds had reached the point where all the great families were weary of bloodshed and in the year 1262 they surrendered their freedom to Hakon, King of Norway. The people still held their own laws and met as customary at the Althing. Says Howell—
“But with the freedom passed the fruits of an heroic age. The stream of spoil from foreign lands had ceased to flow. The curb upon the chieftain checked the scald; copying took the place