The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1874-08-27
A THOUSAND YEARS AGO.
IceIand--How IL was Settled, and by
whom--A Woman's whims.

IceIand--How 1t was Settled, and by
whom--A Woman's whims.
Iceland was originally free repub-
lie, having been founded by those un-
happy subjects of Harold Haarlager
(the fair-haired), King of Norway, who,
in the year 872, consolidated his king
dom, anvevent which was duly celebrq-
ted with greet solemnities two years
ago. This, like the Iceland celebration
of the present year, was called the thou
sandth anniversary but what differ
ence A more determined tyrant than
Harold never lived. Yet at the bottom
of everything good or evil in this world
there is usually found woman. Good
we must believe it to be more commonly
than evil, of course, but exactly how it
worked in this particular case we can
hardly say, for the tyranny OF Harold
begot the Republic of Iceland, gave
him q queen, and gave the Norwegians
in 1872 chance to celebrate their mil
lenial (though why they should glorify
the event, since they have become sub
iect to Sweden, one can hardly see).
The case was simple one. This fair
haired Harold, whom every woman loved
for that very hair and his well-known
valor, and who loved only one of them,
and this one he desired to make his
queen, took most wise course in his
love-making, if not in his kingcraft.
Being reminded by this proud object of
his idolatry that he was not king in
fact, but only the chief of a number of
small kings or jarls, and that if she
welded at all she weuld wed nothing
less than whole king, he vowed that
he would never allow his hair to be cut
until there was no part of king want
ing to him. And he kept his word, for
he conquered every little king or jarl
who set himself up to say he had any
rights of his own, and, having won the
famous battle of Hafens Fjord, he at
once cut off his fair hair, married his
wife, and drove numbers of the best
people of Norway to seek refuge in
some place "where men had nothing to
fear frem the oppression of kings and
tyrants." This place was Iceland. The
poor conquered iarls, with their follow
ers, fed to the sea, and, embarking in
their undecked boats, sought the rocky
island which they had never seen, but
of which they had all heard. For it had
been familiar to the Mortimer of that
period many years.
A wonderful people were those old
Northmen. They went everywhere.
All the ships of their fleets might have
been slowed away in the Great East
ern, but they swarmed over the ocean,
which they playfully termed "The
Pirates Field" like bees in clover
field. They cruised about with their
little boats in the Baltic among the
islands of Denmark and Sweden, ard
through the narrow fjords of Norway,
and won the title of Vikings, or men of
the inlets and secret places. A soaking
was very different thing from vi.
king, for while soaking was king in
reality, a viking was nothing but a
pirate, the one taking his name from
his landed right and rule, the others
from the vicks where they hid them
selves. AS we all know, the Vikings,
with 'sea-kings often at their head,
stole out into the sea and sailed far and
wide. They founded on the banks of
the Seine the Dukedom of Normandy,
and made fool of the poor King of
France. They bothered everybody
along the shores of the Mediterranean
until they had planted themselves back
again whence they had been driven by
Pompey the Great, on the borders of
the Black sea.
The unready Etheired had them al
ways buzzlng about him. and they were
ever cruising about in the seas which
wash the shores of England, Scotland,
ireland, the Hebrides, the Orkneys,
the Shetlands, and finally the Farce
Islands, from which, still in search of
plunder, it was an easy matter to pull
away to the westward for couple of
days in search of further adventures,
and discovered what we now call Ice.
land. They found, however, nothing
there but some books and bells and
croziers which had been left there by a
band of Irish monks, who had gone
there no doubt to do penance, and who
at once, when they saw the Northmen,
took themselves off as fast as possible,
either to America, as some people sup
pose, or home again to Ireland, as is
quite as likely, upon discovering them
selves still within reach of the merci.
less pirates, who respected no more q
christian priest than a French king.
| pirates to discover lcelauu IrIsvoIi"4..
are not agreed, nor does it matter
whether they ever do or not, any more
tRW tup, gtafas,~ s~5afthea adh az Wengton d E
whether Columbus was Jne HfsV!' III VI
and only discoverer of America. 1t is
enough for those who are not historians
to remember that the English won
Waterloo and that Spanish enterprise
opened New World, and in like man
ner it is sufficient for us to know, as 6
mere curiosity of history, that some
time in the ninth century the Mortimer
got to Iceland that in 3S3 they got tc
Greenland, and that in 1901 they gath
cred grapes on the mainland OF wha
has by singular freak of fortune COM
to be called America. These old SCI
rovers called it Vineland, because the.
found grapes and made wine and grew
merry there and but for the savage
they found they might have founded
Boston and called it Skraellingsholm
What is GuanO?