The harsh name “Iceland,” which took the place of the far more picturesque and correct “Snæ-land,” predisposes the wanderer to look upon this northern nature with unfriendly glance; but it is strange how her beauties grow upon him. Doubtless the scenery depends far more upon colour and complexion than in the genial lands of the lower temperates. But, during the delightfully mild and pleasant weather of July and August, seen through a medium of matchless purity, there is much to admire in the rich meads and leas stretching to meet the light-blue waves; in the fretted and angular outlines of the caverned hills, the abodes of giant and dwarf; in the towering walls of huge horizontal steps which define the Fjörðs; and in the immense vistas of silvery cupolas, “cravatted” cones, and snow-capped mulls, which blend and melt with ravishing reflections of ethereal pink, blue, azure, and lilac, into the grey and neutral tints of the horizon. There is grandeur, too, when the Storm-Fiend rides abroad; amid the howl of gales, the rush of torrents, the roar of water-falls; when the sea appears of cast-iron; when the sky is charged with rolling clouds torn to shreds as they meet in aërial conflict; when the pale-faced streams shudder under the blast; when grim mists stalk over the lowlands; and when the tall peaks and “three-horns,” parted by gloomy chasms, stand like ghostly hills in the shadowy realm. And often there is the most picturesque of contrasts: summer basking below, and winter raging above; peace brooding upon the vale and elemental war doing fierce battle upon the eternal snows and ice of the upper world.

Finally, there is one feature in Iceland which assumes a grandeur of dimensions unknown to Europe—the Hraun or lava stream. The “rivers of stone,” like those of water, bear no proportion to the size of the island. The western arm of the Skaptárfellshraun, for instance, is nearly forty-eight miles long by ten of breadth at the lower end; and there are thousands of square miles covered by the Ódáða-hraun or Terrible Lava Stream. Every fantastic form, save of life, is there, and we cannot wonder if the peasant peoples them with outlying men or brigands. In a word, the student of Vulcanism must not neglect Iceland.

SECTION III.

HISTORICAL NOTES.[111]

The author has no intention of troubling his readers with the normal “historical sketch,” which is usually an uninteresting abridgment—“compendium, dispendium,”—handed down from traveller to traveller. But it may be useful as well as interesting to dwell upon both extremes of the island annals; upon the beginning which is a disputed point, and upon the end which is still causing so much movement.

The Landnámabók (i. 1) briefly relates how, “according to some, Naddodd the Víking, in the days of Harold Fairfax, when sailing from Norway to the Færoes, was driven westward, and came upon the eastern coast of the island which he called Snæland;” how the Swede Garðar Svafarson, after the earliest circumnavigation, named it Garðarshólm, and established Húsavík; how Flóki Vilgerðarson, a mighty corsair (hèt Víkingr mikill) found ice investing the northern coast (A.D. 868) and gave the island its present grim and grisly title—“Greenland” being more kindly treated for advertising purposes, “a good name would induce people to settle there;” how Flóki’s companion Thórólf, describing it as a place where butter dropped from every plant, the northern equivalent of “flowing with milk and honey,” gained the nickname of Thórólfr Smjör (Butter Thorolf); and finally, how Ingólfr, banished for murder, accompanied by his foster-brother and friend, Leifr, or Hjör-leifr (Leif of the sword), Hróðmarsson, settling in A.D. 870-874, the latter was murdered by his Irish thralls—an agrarian outrage which has since happened to many a landlord in the Emerald Isle. This official occupation of Ultima Thule took place shortly after King Alfred had defeated the Danes (A.D. 871): thus 1874 is the Millenary of Iceland colonisation, as 1872 was the Jubilee of Harold Fairfax, and as 1876 will be the Centenary of Freedom in the U.S.

But the Landnámabók proposes to itself a subject, the emigration of the pagan Northmen, who nim’d (Icel. “námu”) the island,[112] and a few sentences, short and vague, are deemed sufficient for the older occupants. Later Scandinavian authors generally have satisfied themselves with repeating its statements, and have clung to a tradition which evidently does not date from ancient times. The argument relied upon by Arngrímr Jónsson has been often quoted; yet it appears far from satisfactory. The author is well aware of the difficulties to be encountered when supplementing the imperfect relation, and the “weight of tradition and historical circumstances” which lies in the way; he can hardly flatter himself with having succeeded, but he hopes that he has shown a case worthy of being taken in hand by some scholar who has leisure and inclination for the task.

The first modern writer who presumed to differ from the Landnámabók was, it is believed, Pontanus the Dane (loc. cit., Amstelodami, A.D. 1631, folio, p. 754). He gives the following extracts from the Bull of Pope Gregory IV., which he dates from A.D. 835, or thirty-nine years before the official date of discovery

Presently Pontanus quotes the following words from the Præcept of King Louis the Mild (regn. A.D. 814-840), son of Charlemagne, a document bearing date the year before the papal Bull (i.e., A.D. 834):

Here it is possible that “Greenland,” being mentioned with the islands and terra firma of Europe, may be the name of some district in the Scandinavian peninsula, and it has been suggested that “Iceland” may occur under similar conditions. In the Zeni Voyages, the Shetlands are called Estlanda, Eslanda, and Islande. But while a southern Shetland kept its place, the Shetlands were moved up to the north-east coast of Iceland, like the Orkneys to the south-east. He, therefore, who discovered the northern Shetlands, would also discover Iceland.

Evidently the first point is to consult an official copy of the Gregorian Bull referred to by Pontanus. The Very Rev. Father O’Callaghan, Principal of the English College, Rome, obliged the author with the following full extract:

Father O’Callaghan adds:

The quotation of Mabillon (Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti, Sæculi Quarti, Pars Prima, 123, 124, fol., Venetiis, 1738) is as follows:

BULLA GREGORII.

Furthermore, the Acta Sanctorum thus shortens the “Præceptum Ludovici Imperatoris”:

It is curious to remark that the same tampering has been attributed to the Præcept as to the Bull, and it is not easy to divine the mode in which the double fraud was so successfully effected.

Mr Jón A. Hjaltalín, who owns to “grave doubts about the historical value of Danish chronicles recording dates of this period,” supplies the following excerpts from the “Vita Sancti Anskarii, a Rimberto” (Archbishop of Hamburg) “et alio discipulo Anskarii conscripta” (before A.D. 876), “edidit C. F. Dahlmann, Prof. Göttingen.” The editor’s preface contains these words of

Mr Jón A. Hjaltalín, who “admits that the subject is not fully cleared up,” adds:

The following quotation from La Peyrère’s “Account of Iceland.” dated Copenhagen, December 18, 1644, and addressed to M. de la Mothe de Vayer (Churchill’s Coll., vol. ii.), is quoted because it well expresses the opinion adverse to that generally received. Mr Jón A. Hjaltalín remarks of this amusing French traveller:

We may, however, be certain that in the following extract La Peyrère expresses the opinions popular at Copenhagen in the seventeenth century:

A fair collateral testimony is given by that conscientious writer, Uno Von Troil (p. 224):

And Iceland still contains many traces of its old colonists—Welsh, Hebridian, and Irish. The places occupied by the former are known by the general term Kumbravágr. Arngrím Jónsson mentions one Kalman from the Hebrides (Land. II. i. 51), who first settled in Kalmanstunga or “Doab” of Kalman, the western part of Iceland; and Patrick (Patrekr Biskup, Land. I. xii. 23), a Hebridian bishop, is known to history as having sent the materials of a chapel, which was afterwards built at the base of the Esja mountain; hence Patreksfjörð in the north-west. The signs of the Irish are most numerous,[120] and possibly they supplied “Raven Floki” with food during the two years which he passed in the far north. Such are Briánn or Bran, Melkorka, Nial or Njáll, Konall (Connell), Kormak and Kjartan, Íraá (Irish River); the Írafell, or Irish fell, in the Kjósar Sýsla; and the Írarbuðr, or Irish booths, in the Hvammsfjörð. Hence we can explain the fables of history which have been regarded as simple fabrications. Geoffrey of Monmouth makes Prince Arthur, in A.D. 517, subdue Iceland with an army of 60,000 men. Hence, too, another writer attributes its recovery to Malgo, king of Britain; whilst a third alludes to the mixture of Finns and Scandinavians before the official rediscovery of the island.[121]

Within sixty years after the first settlement by the Northmen, the whole was inhabited; and, writes Uno Von Troil (p. 64), “King Harold, who did not contribute a little towards it by his tyrannical treatment of the petty kings and lords in Norway, was obliged at last to issue an order, that no one should sail to Iceland without paying four ounces of fine silver to the Crown, in order to stop those continual emigrations, which weakened his kingdom.” The stock phrase of the Landnámabók (ii. 12, 92) is, “Fyrir ofríki Haralldar Konungs”—“For the overbearing of King Harold.” But posterity has done justice to Pulchricomus, the Fair-haired Jarl, who, following the example of Egbert, brought under a single sceptre the quasi-independent reguli and heads of clans: the latter remind us of nothing more than the thousand kinglets, each with a family all kinglets, the ridiculous King Boys and King Pepples of Western Africa.

Before the tenth century had reached its half-way period, the Norwegians had fully peopled the island with not less, perhaps, than 50,000 souls. A census taken about A.D. 1100, numbered the franklins who had to pay Thing-tax at 4500, without including cotters and proletarians. The chiefs, who were also the priests, lived each upon his own “Landnám,” or lot, which perhaps he had seized from another. Once more like little kings, they intermarried; they left their possessions to their families; they assigned lands to new comers; and they raised revenue from their clients and freedmen, serfs and slaves. They brought with their language and religion their customs and records; they claimed all the influence which could be commanded by strength and valour, birth and wealth; and they had no common bonds of union save race and religion. The three castes were sharply distinguished, like the four of the Hindús. The first was the Goði, priest and lord, including a rare Jarl, and Hersir (baron). The two latter, descended from Hersir and Erna, are described like our “Barbarians,” as having fair hair, clear complexions, and fine piercing eyes: their duties in life were riding, hunting, and fighting. Secondly came the progeny of Afi and Amma; the Thanes, Churls, Karls, or free peasants: their florid, red-haired sons were Stiffbeard, Landholder, Husbandman, and Smith; and their daughters, Prettyface, Swanlike, Blithespeech, and Chatterbox. Last in the list were the Thralls, begotten by Thræl, son of Ái and Edda, upon Thý: for offspring they had Plumpy, Stumpy, Frousy, Homespun, Sootyface, and Slowpace, the latter a very fruitful parent; and their daughters were Busybody, Cranefoot, Smokeynose, and Tearclout.

But Iceland was already too populous for this “leonine” state of society. In the brave old days when ancient mariners were ancient thieves, the roving islandry throve by piracy and discovery; but the settled Udallers (Óðalsmenn) must have felt that some tie was necessary for the body politic. The Höfðingja-stjórn, or aristocratic republic, was initiated by the establishment of the Althing,[122] and by the adoption of Úlfljót’s oral law in A.D. 929-930. This annual assembly, at once legislative and judicial, was supreme over the local “Things,”[123] comitia or meetings which, independent of one another, and unchecked by a supreme court, could not do justice between rival nobles and franklins. With the Althing was introduced a kind of President, under whom the Icelandic commonwealth at once assumed shape and form. His title was Lögsögumaðr, or Sayer of the Law, and his functions resembled in important points the commoner, who began in A.D. 1377, to speak to (and not for) our Lower House.[124]

Still Justice walked pede claudo. All suits were to be pled in the Thing nearest the spot where the cause of action arose, and plaintiffs perforce sought redress in the enemy’s country, where violence was ready to hand. Thord Gellir, about a generation afterwards, caused the island to be divided into Quadrants, or Tetrads (Fjórðungr), and each of these to be subdivided into Thriðjungr (“ridings”), three judicial circles (Thing-sóknir), whose inhabitants were bound to appear at a common meeting. Causes were set on foot at the Spring-Thing (Vár-Thing), thence they were carried in appeal to the Quadrant-Thing (Fjórðunga-Thing), which must not be confounded with the Quadrant courts (Fjórðungsdómar) at the Althing; and, finally, if judged fit, to the Diet. Moreover, in each subdivision were established three chief temples (Höfuðhof), corresponding with our mother or parish churches, to which the most powerful Udallers holding priesthoods (Goðorð) were appointed. We shall presently find traces of this politico-religious supremacy of the pontiff in the parson of the nineteenth century.

Thus three priesthoods made one local Thing, three local Things one Quadrant-Thing, and four Quadrant-Things one Althing,—a grand total of thirty-six tribunals recognised by the Respublica. Every franklin was obliged to declare his allegiance to one of the priests, and to determine the community of which he was a member.

The next step was to separate the judicial from the legislative and executive attributes of the Diet. Hitherto there had been but one body at the Althing, the Lög-rétta,[125] combining the three functions. It now became exclusively legislative, the supreme power in the land, presided over by the Speaker, and consisting of forty-eight Goðar, who controlled all laws and licences. The judicial functions were distributed amongst the four Fjorðungsdómar or Quadrant-courts of the chief assembly. Each of these took charge of the suits which, belonging to its division, were carried before the Althing.

Presently the State became master of the Church. The priesthoods being limited to thirty-six, and new temples not being recognised by, nor represented in, the assembly, the old institutions would look rather to the central power than to their subjects. The Thingmen of the three established priesthoods, by the orders of the Diet, were gradually made to form one Vernal-court (Vár-Thing), and the Quadrant-Things became obsolete. Thus there was more of justice for suitors than when they were compelled to appear before a single priest and his dependants or parishioners.

The Vernal Thing, though only a tribunal of first instance from which an appeal lay, became an Althing on a small scale. Each had its Thingbrekka, or Hill of Laws, whence notices were given; its Lögmaðr,[126] lagman, or lawman, who “said” the law from memory, and its general assemblies. Each also of the three priests, who presided in turn, named three judges, after the recognised principle, “three twelves must judge all suits;” and the three arbiters were bound to be unanimous. In addition to these courts were the tribunals called Autumn Leets (Leið),[127] held a fortnight after the dissolution of the Diet; here the calendar of the current year, and the new laws and licences of the past Althing, were published.

Under the new system the Court of Laws contained 39 priests (3 × 12, + 3 for the Northlanders’ Quadrant[128]); and, to counter-balance the three clerical extras, three laymen were chosen from each of the other Tetrads by the priests who represented it. Thus the whole number on the bench was 48 (39 + 9), and each of the 48 had two assessors. The Law Court, therefore, contained 144 (48 × 3) equal votes, and, including the Speaker, 145 voices. In later times the two bishops were added.

The four Quadrant Courts of the Althing (Fjórðungsdómar) each numbered thirty-six judges, named as usual by the priest out of the frequenters of his Thing: thus we find again the law of three twelves, and the total of 144. Finally, in A.D. 1004, about forty years after the institution of the four, was added the Fimtar-dómr, or Fifth (High) Court of Appeal or Cassation, suggested by Njáll Thorgeirsson, the hero of the “Nials-burning.”[129]

Such was the artificial and complicated system which sprung from the litigious nature of the Northern man. It was a ponderous machine for the wants of some 50,000 souls, and its civilised organisation contrasts strongly with the rude appliances by which it was carried out, the barren wart and the rough circle of “standing stones” on the hill-top where the sessions took place.

A mighty change came over the island mind when Ólafr Tryggvason (Olaf I., Trusty-son, killed during the same year at the battle of Svoldur) induced, in A.D. 1000, the Althing to accept Christianity as the national religion.[130] The old pagan creed had become age-decrepit. After producing the Völuspá, a poem, grand, noble, and ennobling in general conception, as it is beautiful and perfect in all its parts, it engendered such monstrous growths as the Fjöllvinnsmál (Fiolvith’s Lay), a mythological pasquinade abounding in bizarreries, and the Lokasenna (Loki’s Altercation), all scoffs and sneers, an epigramme moqueuse et grossière, a kind of hyperborean Guerre des Dieux. The “great Sire of gods and men”[131] was dying or dead, a gloomy fate which equally awaits superhuman and human nature. The decline and fall of Odinism only repeated the religious histories of Palestine, Egypt, and India; of Greece and of Rome, whose maximum of effeteness has ever been at the period of the Christian invasion.

The faith of the Hindús, a modern people amongst whom we can best study the tenets and practices of the ancients called “classics,” distinctly recognises Pantheus, the All-God.[132] The worshipper of Bramhá, Vishnu, and Shiva, still refers in familiar discourse to something above his triad of world-rulers; to a Paraméshwar (Chief Eshwara or Demiourgos), and to a Bhagwán or Giver of good, as if he were a Jew, a Christian, or a Moslem. Even the barbarous tribes of Africa are not without the conviction, as we see in the Nyonmo of the Gold Coast, and in the Nzambi Mupunga (Great Lord) of the Congo. But the God of ancient as of modern paganism was and is an unknown God—in fact, the Unknowable recognised by our contemporary philosophy, which seems to be returning to the natural instincts of its childhood. Moreover, in old Scandinavia the several forms or eidola of the Deity, such as Oðin and Thor, Freyr and Njördr, were confused as the systems of African Fetichism—a confusion indeed by no means wanting in the civilised idolatries of Assyria, of Egypt and India, of Greece and Rome, and of Mexico and Peru, the New World representatives of our “classical regions.”

Curious to observe, however, the pagans had, like the modern Gaboons, a form of baptism, water being probably the symbol of the Urðar-brunnr (Weird or Fate-fount), and a regular system of national expiation (Sónar-blót), annually performed by prince-pontiff and lieges.

Presently Christianity came with its offer of a personal God, an anthropomorphous Creator who, having made the creature after His own image, was refashioned by the creature; and the change from vagueness to distinctness perfectly suited the spirit of the age. Yet, in Iceland, Thor[133] died hard because he was essentially an Icelander; blunt, hot-headed, of few words and of many blows. The red-bearded one was not to be abolished at once; “they called Paul Odin, but Barnabas they called Thor:” the latter was long invoked by the traveller and the soldier before deeds of “derring do;” whilst Jesus was prayed to in matters of charity and beneficence. “Hast thou heard,” said the mother of Ref the Skáld, “how Thor challenged Christ to single combat, and how He did not dare to fight Thor?” We find the same phenomenon in the modern faith of the Persian, who adores Allah, and who reveres Mohammed and Ali, whilst he looks back with regret upon the goodly days when his Persian deities, the gods and demi-gods of Guebrism, gloriously ruled the land of Iran.

The transition from the turbulent and sanguinary Odinic system, with its Paradise of war and wassail, to a religion based upon mildness and mercy could not fail to bear notable fruit. The blithe gods who built Miðgarð vanished in the glooms of the sad “School of Galilee.” Of the extreme craft and cruelty, the racial characteristics of the old Scandinavian, only the craft remained. A nation of human sacrificers now cannot bear to see a criminal hanged—he must be sent for execution to Copenhagen. The new faith, also, was adverse to the spirit of a free people: it preached over-regard for human life, and it taught fighting men propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. It weighed heavily upon the “secret and profound spring of society,” as Ozanam describes the laws of honour in man, “which is nothing but the independence and inviolability of the human conscience, superior to all powers, all tyrannies, and all external force.”[134] In fact, we may repeat in Iceland what Montalembert (The Monks of the West, p. 252) said of the ex-mistress of the world: “There is something more surprising and sadder still” (than all its pagan cruelty and corruption) “in the Roman Empire after it became Christian.”

The first school, founded about the middle of the eleventh century, began to divert the national mind from arms and raids to art and literature. The Eddas and Sagas were committed to writing; and the Augustan age extended during the two following centuries, ending with the fourteenth. The islanders gave their own names, many of them very uncouth, to the festivals of the Church. Saints arose in the land. The best known to local fame was Bishop Thorlák (Thorlacius) Thorhallsson, who died in A.D. 1193. Though uncanonised, he was honoured by the dedication of a church at Mikligarð (the Great Fence), or Constantinople, for the use of the Waring[135] Janissaries. The vigne du Seigneur was split into two bishoprics, Skálholt (A.D. 1057), and Hólar (A.D. 1107). Hospitals were endowed, and no less than nine monasteries and nunneries were founded by the regular canons (Augustines), and by their most estimable brethren the Benedictines, whose annals command all our respect.[136]

The following is a list of the religious houses built in Iceland: