Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1908-01-09
THE LAND OF FIRE.
Plain Living and High Thinking Of
the Icelanders.

Iceland is, as William Morris said,
"the Greece of the North" 1t pro-
duced in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries literature unparalleled
after Rome before the golden age Of
England and France, in character
drawing. in passionate dramatic
power, in severe, noble simplicity, in
grim humor. All the characters of
the Sagas live and move to-day.
Every hill and headland end valley
in the island is full of their presense.
The Icelander of to-day knows them
by heart. 1t is as If every English
man, from pauper to king, knew
Shakespeare's historical plays and
could retell them more or less in
his or her own words. 1t has kept
the national times alive through evil
times. 1t has preserved the language
almost untouched by ttpe and for
eign intercourse.
Nowhere is the contrast between
man and his surroundings so glaring
as in Iceland. Buried in snow and
darkness, deprived of every comfort,
living on rancid butter and dried
fish, drinking sour whey and milk,
dressed like his servants, seeking in
a little boat his food, yet cultured
mind, possessing an intimate knowl-
edge not only of the history of his
own country, but of Greece and
Rome; a poet fond Of throwing off
satires, intellectually and morally the
equal of his European guest, consid-
ering himself your equal and refus-
ing to be ordered about by rich
Englishman, owner of several square
miles of land and hundreds Of sheep.
with a pedigree going further back
than that of his visitor, jack of all
trades, a blacksmith in his smithy,
boat builder and carpenter, an artist
in filigree work, carver in wood,
an eager reader in books, he has
universal education up to the degree
to which 1t is useful for man.
There are no schools in Iceland,
yet every child at twelve can read.
according to the parish statistics. In
no country in Europe are so many
books printed and sold In proportion
to the population. A population of
only 10000, scattered in many ham
let's, has twelve printing presses, the
earliest being established as far back
as 1880; about 100 books annually.
fourteen newspapers and eight peri
odicals are produced to satisfy the
literary needs of this little nation.
Yet this literary people still live
in a pastoral and Homeric civiliza-
ton, which is modern lesson of the
healthfulness of the free, wild life
of nature, such as would have de-
lighted the heart of Rousseau or
Thoreau. AS proof that this life
is healthy l give the example of a
clergyman who died four years ago
113 years old, having managed to
live all his days healthy and happy
on $50 ($150) year. the average
stipend in the Icelandic Church.
The sheep yield food and clothing.
Their wool is pulled off in the spring,
carded, spun, woven in hand looms,
and worn undyed. You make shoes
of their skin and spoons of the
horns. Every opportunity is seized
for the telling of stories and recitins
of poems. Only the milk ewes are
kept at home in the summer to be
milked; the rest of the sheep are
gathered in the mountains in autumn,
notice being given at church from
the pulpit.
The autumn gatherings, with peo-
pie sitting on the walls of the stone
enclosure, telling stories, are quite
Homeric. The winter evenings are
spent with each member Of the fam
lily busy at work in the same room
the men on their knees shaving the
wool off sheep skins, making ropes
and nets of hair, the women using
spindle and distaff, embroiderins
etc., afford still better opportunity
for stories and puns.
There are even wandering min
strels who gain their livelihood by re-
citing prose or poetry, which they
know by heart, at various farmhouses
till they exhaust their stock.-From
the National Geographical Magazine.