Hands across the ice floes
From a shared patron saint to an appreciation of leprechauns, Malcolm
Rogers discovers that there’s more than a little Irishness in the
Icelandic way of life.
 By
Malcolm Rogers
The international dialling code for Iceland is 354, only one more than
Ireland’s 353. But that’s only the tip of a very large, er,
iceberg. Connections between Iceland and Ireland run far deeper than telephone
numbers.
The Irish-Celtic influence in early Icelandic history is still the subject
of intense speculation, but it’s long been known that the Norsemen
picked up Irish wives and slaves on their way to Iceland. However, it
is now thought that as many as half of the early settlers may have been
Christian Irish Celts. Some scholars attribute the flowering of Icelandic
literature in the 12th and 14th centuries to this unique blending of cultures.
“The Irish brought to Iceland their literature and their learning
— of which the Scandinavians had nothing,” Halldéor
Laxness, Iceland’s Nobel prizewinner says. “The sagas are
our cultural foundation. Without them we would just be another Danish
island.”
The National Geographic Magazine is of the same mind: “Christian
Irish hermits — probably Iceland’s first inhabitants —
fled the island after pagan Vikings arrived from Norway.”
And it’s not just poetry — the Irish connection would explain
the rather unusual amount of red hair about. Even a medieval form of Gaelic
football called Knattle ikr existed. This extremely violent game (think
Dublin versus Tyrone) is referred to in the ancient Icelandic sagas.
Then there’s the town of St. Patrick’s Fjord (Patreksfjödur),
whose 900 souls are the most northerly people on earth to have St. Patrick
as their patron saint. And on the subject of Patrick, only three islands
in the world have no snakes — Ireland, Iceland and New Zealand.Iceland
also has leprechauns. No, really.
Proper ones, that the locals believe in, not the cod ones we have in Ireland,
largely for the consumption of the tourists. Here in Iceland some 70 per
cent of the population believe in the ‘hidden people’ or ‘Huldufolk’
— apparently the descendants of the unwashed children of Eve. It’s
all in the sagas, if you don’t believe me. Not sure what Patrick
would have made of it, though.
Landscape of legend and lore
At this point I am obliged by long tradition to refer to the strange ‘lunar
landscape’ of Iceland. Certainly, in the half-light of a spring
evening, the treeless countryside indeed looks a very alien place. So
extra-terrestrial, in fact, that the 1965 Apollo lunar astronauts trained
at Askja in the centre of Iceland, with only the leprechauns to keep them
company.
Iceland is, in short, dramatically different from the rest of Europe.
But the Icelanders are a hospitable, friendly bunch. On arrival, my travelling
companion managed to leave her passport on the plane, unbeknownst to us
as we arrived at the security gate.
No problem. The helpful officials, speaking impeccable English —
they probably moonlighted as translators for a major international publishing
house — solved the problem in no time.
By the way, Keflavik Airport deserves special mention, being one of the
few in the world to be built on a piece of land obtained 1,000 years ago
in exchange for an embroidered cloak (the sagas again).
Going with the floe
Our first destination is the Snaefellnes peninsula on the Faxa Floe, a
two hour drive west of Reykjavik.
The bleak but beautiful promontory is home to the Hotel Budir, the most
westerly digs in Europe. By the way, should you be frowning about whether
Iceland is genuinely European, listen up — the rock structure of
Iceland, tertiary basalt, is also found in the North of Ireland, the Hebrides,
the west coast of Scotland and the Faroe Islands, all generally regarded
as part of Europe.
En route we pass villages and farms, with buildings roofed with corrugated
iron, regularly painted to keep it waterproof. Bright colours are cheaper
than pastel ones, so the cheapest and brightest are used — blue,
yellow and red. The towns look as though they’ve been built by primary
school children.
Hotel Budir sits in splendid isolation above a sweeping sandy beach, with
a postcard-grade glacier looming in the background. A lonely little black
hotel is perched on rocks a few hundred metres away — the only other
sign that the hand of man has set foot here, so to speak.
Bleak from the outside, Hotel Budir has no carefully manicured lawns,
no ornamental trees. As Styrt, the manager pointed out, “plants
die quickly up here, unless they are lovingly cared for. In which case
they die slowly.”
It’s safe to say few gardening problems clog up the television channels
hereabouts.
Inside the hotel, however, it’s classy and comfortable. Bleak chic,
I believe it’s called.
A rotten time
Having got our bearings in Budir, we motored up the coast to the nearby
fishing village of Stykkisholmur.
The main road, basically a lane, quickly deteriorates into a gravel track
with huge pot-holes — I’ve seldom driven on worse, even in
Co. Cavan. For the first time in my life I realised that all SUVs aren’t
bad, and wished we’d gone for one at the airport. The windscreen
of our small Volvo was cracked by gravel from a passing lorry before we’d
been out more than 10 minutes.
We eventually arrived at Stykkisholmue, a collection of colourful houses
huddled round a harbour, the only traffic jam being some Arctic terns
blocking the road.
Down on the quay six sharks were being unloaded from a local ship. Each
was about 10 feet long and was gutted (I wouldn’t have been very
pleased either).
Podvaldur H. Sigfússon, the truck driver who was taking them to
Reykjavik, told me: “You see, you can’t eat them like this.
They’re disgusting. You have to let them rot a little first.”
Whatever you say, Pod.
The sharks were laid out and putrefaction had begun. It was noticeable
that the seagulls, normally noseying around any trawler, were all congregated
at the far end of the quay, far away from the boat.
But if, like the gulls, you don’t fancy shark, there’s plenty
of choice. Horsemeat is also available — horses for courses as it
were. Pass the tomato sauce.
You could also sample sheep liver pate or perhaps baked puffin. Boiled
cod’s chin anyone? Ram’s testicles pickled in sour whey is
also a menu regular. (My companion was tempted, but declined. Losing her
passport was shock enough for the system for one week.)
The traditional way of drinking coffee, by the way, is with a sugar cube
in the mouth. Search me — but it does explain the name of Iceland’s
foremost rock band The Sugarcubes.
 A drop of
the crater
On a clear day in Reykjavik, you can see the glacier-capped Snaefellsnes
volcano across wide Faxa Floe. Seen from here, the giant shimmering diamond
of ice seems suspended between sea and sky. Novelist Jules Verne imagined
that this was the entrance to the centre of the earth, and mystics still
journey here to commune with the forces of the universe. I didn’t
bother. Highway 1, the 900-mile route from Reykjavik round the island,
beckoned.
Volcanoes and geysers, wildlife and mountains, and of course Dettfoss,
awaited. The latter, sounding vaguely like a toothpaste, is the largest
waterfall in Europe, and I’m something of a waterfall fancier.
Iceland is the most active volcanic region in the world. It sits squarely
on the mid-Atlantic rift astride two of the earth’s tectonic plates,
whose massive forces release molten rock, causing spectacular volcanic
eruptions.
The resulting smoking lava deserts, quite frankly, look like black and
white negatives.
Bubbling black cauldrons contrast with the jagged mountains covered with
glaciers, and the constant smell of the sulphide gas, accompanying the
steady hiss of steam escaping from fissures in the ground only add to
this brief glimpse of Hell. In fact, in a plotline which somewhat pre-dates
Jules Verne, one ancient Icelandic saga proclaims the gates of hell somewhere
up here.
A northern treasure
Iceland is a land apart. To the north there is only sea. In winter, ice.
There are some 300,000 Icelanders today, but in all its recorded history
no more than a million people have ever lived in Iceland.
However, in this harsh land of volcanoes, and glaciers, Icelanders have
learnt how to survive and prosper. The people clinging to this tiny Atlantic
island have one of the highest standards of living in the world and are
hospitable hosts.
If you go in summer, there are 24 hours of daylight — although the
winter can be dark and gloomy. Berserk derives from the Icelandic for
bearskin, which may tell you something.
And by the way, if you do find a holiday a bit on the expensive side,
Skogafoss, at 60 metres one of Iceland’s highest waterfalls, is
said to conceal a chest of gold salted away a thousand years ago by one
of the first Norse settlers.
Probably plundered from an Irish monastery, if you ask me. But either
way, the place really is a traveller’s treasure trove. |
