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Culture Pick: Misþyrming Live Tonight!
Do you check the latest underground metal blogs in between squat sets? Do your hulking arms threaten to crush your laptop as you search for the latest Chilean war metal, a gale of blast beats fluttering out of your vintage studio monitors?…
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Lost In Google Translation: The War Planet Cometh
On the evening of July 2nd, 2021, skies darkened across southwest Iceland. A loud crack reverberated through the sky, shaking the very earth below as a mysterious figure emerged from the clouds above. Against the pale northern night, it hung, bigger than…
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Old Norse, New Audience: Dr. Jackson Crawford’s Curious Path From Academia To Youtube
Up in the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming, a pickup truck pulls over and out steps a pair of cowboy boots. A man saunters toward the camera and, tipping his brimmed hat, begins to lecture about historical language change and umlaut mutation. Far…
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Ask An Expert: How Were Clothes Symbolically Depicted In The Sagas?
For a modern reader picking up the Sagas of the Icelanders for the first time, they can often be struck by the strange modernity of the prose. However, there are just as many, perhaps more, instances that leave us confused. The world…
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A Life Well Lived: Inside Professor Torfi Tulinius’ Perfect Day
Torfi Tulinius is a professor of Icelandic Medieval Studies at the University of Iceland. He completed his PhD at the Sorbonne in 1992 and has written extensively on the Icelandic family sagas, with an emphasis on genre and form. We muse with…
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Untamed Negativity: Adrian Brachmann’s Explosive Entrance To Icelandic Black Metal
For the last two years, Iceland has been cursed with a deluge of heavy albums and EP’s, bursting upon us like rats pouring out of Nosferatu’s crypt. With various projects including Äkth Gánahëth, Níðstöng, Fimbulþul, Spectral Full Moon, Úlfhéðinn and others, the…
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That Time The Grapevine Ate Everything At Borg29
What does Reykjavik love more than building hotels? Food courts, of course! It was with tempered stomachs that we approached the latest gastro-court in Reykjavik, Borg29 Mathöll. How soon it all melted away as we sampled dish after dish that was, without…
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Panda Posthumously Awarded Palm Dog At Cannes
Panda, an Icelandic border collie and cast member of recent Valdimar Jóhannsson film, Dýrið, was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for Palm Dog, an alternative award for dogs in film at the Cannes festival. As Panda died in March of this year,…
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Reykjavik City Cancels Menningarnótt
In light of the recent COVID wave in Iceland, Menningarnótt (Culture Night) has been cancelled. The decision was reached at an emergency meeting of the Reykjavik city council yesterday, August 4th. Þórdís Lóa Þórhallsdóttir, chairman of the city council, stated: “We made…
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Amid Rising COVID Cases, Reykjavik Marathon Postponed To September
We all know the drill—a new wave of COVID cases means a new wave of cancellations and postponements. Reykjavik’s Íslandsbanki Marathon has been postponed for four weeks, to September 18th. The event was originally slated to take place on the 21st of…
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Video Of The Week! “Ógisslegt” By Skrattar
You and your pals are cruising in your sleek convertible, looking for the next hot boogie. But there’s just one problem— you don’t have a hot boogie. In fact, you don’t even know what a hot boogie is. Well, Grapevine favourites Skrattar…
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Danish Man Flown To Akureyri After Polar Bear Attack
A Danish man was flown to a hospital in Akureyri this Monday, August 2nd, after being bitten by a polar bear in Greenland. Arktisk Kommando, official page for Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command on Facebook, reported the incident yesterday. According to the report,…
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Vínbúðin Reports Record Alcohol Sales
State alcohol and tobacco store, Vínbúðin, reports record sales this July. The holiday weekend has historically been a busy one for Vínbúðin, but records were broken this year when 814,000 liters of alcohol were sold for the shopping weekend alone, representing a…
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Þórólfur To Ship Teams Janssen and Pfizer
By August 20, the Icelandic government plans to merge fan favorites Janssen and Pfizer by giving all Janssen recipients a Pfizer booster. This development represents a revolution Iceland’s COVID story arc, long since defined by the deep differences between teams Janssen and…
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Bus Crash Goes Remarkably Well, Police Report
A bus carrying some 50 passengers, both Icelanders and tourists, ran off the road yesterday, August 2nd, near Biskupstungur. According to the police, no one was seriously injured. According to Vísir, the bus was operated by Icelandic adventure tourism company Arctic Rafting.…
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Rain Across Much Of Nation, Sunshine In The East
The capital region will experience some rain over the next days, but things are looking dry in the east! Expect temperatures in the coming days to range between 10°C to 19°C, with the warmest temperatures in the interior. From the Meteorological Office…
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Earthquake Detected Under Katla, No Changelings Emerge
Last night, July 29th, a 3.2 magnitude earthquake was registered under Katla. According to RUV, the earthquake was registered at 19:20, with another following at 19:22. Around 20 aftershocks have been recorded since. In a statement to RUV, an officer from the…
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Latest Seal Census Reason For Optimism?
The recent seal census, which took place along a 100 km stretch of coast in Vatnsnes, indicates that the seal population is growing. The seal census is notable for its deployment of volunteers, who are trained to walk the beach and count…
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Despite Large Number Of Cases, Flight Not Fully Quarantined
A flight from Crete returning with graduates from Flensborg College in Hafnarfjörður was not fully quarantined, despite at least 30 COVID cases on the flight. DV reports that the flight arrived Friday night after a graduation trip. The trip was not organized…
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Iceland Declared Top Post-Apocalyptic Travel Destination
Surprising no-one, a recent study has named Iceland as a promising location to ride out the collapse of modern society. The study, published in the journal Sustainability, singled out nations like New Zealand, Iceland, Ireland, and Australia as “nodes of persisting complexity.”…
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Play Will Not Fly Passengers Without Tests
New budget Icelandic airline Play has announced it will not fly passengers to Iceland who cannot present a negative COVID test. The new rule will step into effect tomorrow, July 29th, in accord with new COVID border controls, which require travelers to…
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Þjóðhátíð Looks For Government Funding Following Postponement
The annual music festival in the Westman Islands, Þjóðhátíð, is requesting funding from the state following its postponement among tighter COVID restrictions. The music festival represents a large source of income for the entire island community. In a recent statement to RÚV,…
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Húsavík Eurovision Museum To Open In August
The Eurovision Museum in Húsavík is set to open this August, according to museum founder and Húsavík native Örlygur Hnefill Örlygsson. Örlygur, founder and director of the Exploration Museum in Húsavík, came up with the idea after the Netflix movie, Eurovision Song…
