The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1871-02-10
COL. DEM. VOL. XXXIV.. mo. 81

anu tnuu oci1l' 'Cui DOnlItu WOOu, hUOWu
as surturbrand, which, as a material for
the manufacture Of furniture, equals
the famous ebony of the tropics. A
land of glaciers, and suffering keenly
from the chill winds that blow off the
icy shores of Greenland, Iceland's chief
harbors are open all the year round,
while those of the Baltic, far TO the
South, are frequently closed. A treeless
country, its inhabitants often burn the
costliest of woods-mahogany, and rose
wood, and Brazil wood--whch has
been borne to them from the tropics, at
no expense for freight, by the current
of the Gulf Stream. A land where
wheat will not ripen, its people possess
in abundance vegetable growth, the
lichen isiandicus, which, in far richer
countries, Is accounted luxury. A
nation almost destitute of schools, all
of its sons and daughters are taught to
read and write from their earliest years.
The history and philology Of the is
land present features equally strange
and striking. 1t is the smallest of the
Teutonic communities, while its speech
is the most ancient and, dramatically,
the richest of all the Teutonic dialects.
In it are preserved the oldest poems,
the oldest political orations, and the
oldest religious ideas of our race. 1t is,
as has been said, the fecblest of all the
Teutonic communities, yet it was the
first to develop Republican system Of
government, the first to establish trial
by jury, the first to compile codes of
law. The colonization of the island
furnished parallel in the ninth CEN
tury to the colonization of New Eng
land in the seventeenth, its pioneers
seeking its barren shores for the self
same reason that led the Puritans to
the rock coasts of Massachusetts
and Connecticut. It's sturdy sons help
ed to delay the fall OF the Eastern EN-
piro by enlist ting in the body.guard OF
the Byzantine monarchs; took part
under Rurik ia the foundation of the
Russian monarchy took part, under
Rollo, in the establishment of that
| ANOi man Wy nasty WHICH subsequently
conquered England set up Kingdoms,
and left traces of their speech in Ire
land and Scotland ; built churches and
towns in Greenland and preceded CO.
lumbus by five hundred years on the
dreary, watery path which Nj,G. The
mainland of America.
No nation, so small as Iceland, has Sc
large literature. The number O
printed books amounts to many thous
ands, and the number of imprinted
works, preserved as manuscripts in the
public libraries of Europe, is at leas
equally great. Nor is this literature, a!
is the case with many minor nationali
ties and with most Colonial communi
ties, made up Of translations, but l.
almost wholly composed of origina
works. With the exception of the Bi
BILE and few theological works, Homer
and one more or two other classics
Milton, Klopstock, Pope and portions
of Shakespeare, Byron and Burns, very
has been translated into Icelandic. The
literary story of the marvellous island
opens grandly with the two Eddas
The older or poetic Edda was written
down from oral tradition by Snmund
Sigfusson, learned priest of the 1lth
century, who had travelled in yariou,
countries Of Europe; it is, however, al
least rs Old as the Sth century. 1t con
sists of series OF alliterative poems in
volving the mythology and the legen
Diary lore of the North, narrating the
deeds OF Odin, Thor, Tyr and the othel
divinities who, in spite of the over
throw of their temples and halidoms
still influence our daily lives, as we tel
of our Tuesdays and Wednesdays an(
Thursdays and Fridays which bea
their names. Spmund's Edda, toe
like the early NEUROLOGICAL works O
all races, is filled with moral maXims
so that an ethical code might easily b
complied from it. The other Edda
known as the prose of younger Edda
was compil ed in the twelfth century b,
Snorro Sturlese, and it, also, chief
busies itself with the doings of gods
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