Evening star., 1941-07-09
The Lund of the AIthinq

Only fourteenth of the 5000
square miles of Iceland's surface
is habitable. The island in the
North Atlantic which now comes
under American guardianship was
produced by action of fires burning
in the core of the earth. Mount Hekla
and tWenty-eight other volcanoes
have raised vast fields of lava, the
highest of which are covered with
perpetual snow. Such areas as are
suitable for cultivation are frequently
disturbed by earthquakes. Enormous
assures, miles in length, may open
without warning to swallow hundreds
of farms. Sulphur springs and lakes
of boiling mud are intermittent phe-
nomena which, as Hendrix Willem
van Loon quantity observes, make
travel a somewhat complicated
affair"
More notably provoking, however,
is the interminable rain which con-
stitutes Iceland's particular aggrava-
ton. The annual precipitation is
reported as approximately SiXtyfive
inches, but it seems even heavier to
visitors from drier portions of the
globe Warm currents from the Gulf
Stream have the effect of raising the
temperature, but Polar ice, drifting
along the shores, especially in spring,
lowers it commensurately Surely
no paradise" the new protectorate of
the United States is nevertheless the
well-beloved home of 10000 friendly
people.
A majority of the inhabitants are
descended from immigrants who
came from Europe in the ninth CEN
tury. Most Of these original settlers
were refugees from the Hitler of the
time-the self-made first King of
Norway, Harald Fairhair. They fed
to Iceland to avoid his murderouS
wrath and remained beyond his
reach until he died in 933 aged
eighty-four but still fearsome in his
anger. His son Erik of the Bloody
Axe did not invite them to return
nor were they anxious for such an
opportunity to experience the re-
strictionS of tyranny. Better by far,
they thought, to remain in their
Arctic haven, cold damp, cherries
as they admitted it to be. A passion
ate desire for freedom was their COM
pelling motive.
DR.. Mary Wilhelmine Williams of
Goucher College, in her Social Scan
dinavia in the Viking Age" explains:
For few decades the exiles lived
in scattered groups of tiny, independ-
ent demoCracieS, more or less Sepa-
rated by natural barriers; but the
need for central organization
which could settle inter community
disputes and consider matters of
common interest led, in $50, to the
formation of the Icelandic republic,
which functioned through the
Althing or General Parliament. The
political evolution requiring more
than thousand years in Continental
Scandinavia, was thus, through aid
of example, effected in Iceland in
fifty"
After Capitalization had been COM
pleted, primitive procedure was pre-
served for local neighborhoodS. The
communal settlement was called the
"bygd." A more comprehensive divi-
sion was 'godord," of which in all
there were thirty-nine in the country.
Administrative officers were desig-
mated "godi" and "1awman." The
former was at once a priest, a mill
tary commander and political
leader; the latter was a jurist, a
guardian of the unwritten code
occupying position comparable with
that of Speaker of the House of
representatives The Althing or
annual assembly of the people was
the supreme authority of the COM
monwealth, yet its only power was
that OF public opinion. 1t is to main
tain the tradition of such liberty
that American troops have gone to
Reykjavik
prepoier Povfk Soudop, jp n ro Gio