History & Language
The Reykjavík Grapevine takes on Iceland’s history, language and related topics
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The Seal Ghost Of Xmas Present: Eyrbyggja Saga RECAP
Firstly, there are some things you need to know about the Sagas. There are fuckloads of them. There are so many that they are classified into groups based on their characters and storylines. If you want medieval Icelanders suckling the teat of…
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History Repeating: The Pirates Came And The Vikings Conquered
Icelanders ignored the warnings. Nobody took notice. Well, most people took no notice. Others were convinced that the threat had gone away. Internationally, people boasted that the people of Iceland, a Viking settlement, would flee at the first sight of trouble. Then…
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Icelandic Language Day: Dog-Paw Drifts And Creamy Fair Weather
November 16 is a special day in Iceland. It is the birth date of one of Iceland’s most influential poets, Jónas Hallgrímsson, who essentially introduced romanticism (and all that entails, like the pentameter) to Iceland. This is exactly why Icelanders decided it…
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Hrafnkels Saga Freysgoða RECAP: The One With The Goddamn Horse
This Saga begins the same way Iceland did, and the same way many Sagas do: some Norwegian guy (this one is named Hallfreður) settles his family in Iceland to farm. Welcome to Iceland, Hallfreður. All this would normally be fine, but it…
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40 Years Ago, The Last Cod War Was Sparked
40 years ago yesterday, Iceland expanded its territorial waters from 50 to 200 miles, igniting the third – and last – of the Cod Wars, ending in Icelandic victory. As RÚV reports, October 15, 1975 marked the first time any nation declared…
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The Man Who Sold His Corpse For A Drink
In 1904, the municipal council of Reykjavík agreed that the local medical school should be allowed to use the corpses of the poor for dissection and anatomy lectures. This was not an uncontroversial move, with many detractors remarking that benefitting in this…
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The Man Who Didn’t Like Hangikjöt: W.H. Auden In Iceland
In 1936, a thirty-year-old poet from Britain travelled around Iceland. His name was Wystan Hugh Auden—you probably know him as W.H. Auden, one of the 20th century’s most influential poets. Many perhaps thought that this great poet would want to stay close…
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Show Up Naked On Monday And You’ll Get A Free Phone
As a great number of Icelanders camped out in front of Reykjavík’s Dunkin’ Donuts hoping to be one of the first 50 ever patrons and thus receive year’s worth of donuts, we should perhaps pay tribute to a curious event that took…
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Better Than Any Modern Travel Book: A 16th-Century German Travel Poem About Iceland
A mysterious man visited Iceland sometime between the years 1554 and 1586, when Hanseatic merchants ruled the ports and trade in Northern Europe, including those in faraway islands. This man, a poet called Göris Peerse, sailed from Hamburg to Iceland during the aforementioned…
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Fine dining in Iceland in 1809: “A Most Involuntary Intemperance”
In the summer of 1809, a young British botanist, William Hooker, visited Iceland on the first botanical expedition of what was to become a distinguished career. Hooker chose Iceland on the suggestion of his older colleague Joseph Banks, one of Britain’s most…
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Collect ‘Em All: When Reykjavík’s Bums Appeared On Postcards
Being able to live anonymously is one of the great perks of modern civilisation. In a big city today, it’s possible to go about your life outside of the scrutiny and control of others. Although it can sometimes seem like your life…
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That Time The United States Was Thinking Of Buying Iceland
“The population of Iceland is about 70,000, but in view of its pasture and arable lands, its valuable mines, its splendid fisheries, and its unsurpassed hydraulic power, it could, when fully developed, sustain a population exceeding 1,000,000. It has been greatly neglected…
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Lemúrinn: Do Sheep Care About Solar Eclipses?
Many Icelanders will, weather conditions permitting, get to witness a solar eclipse on March 20. The last total eclipse of the sun in Iceland occurred on June 30, 1954, when, around midday, the southernmost parts of the country experienced a total eclipse…
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Lemúrinn: The Icelandic Doctor Who Performed Testicular Transplants
During his studies in Vienna in the 1920s, Icelandic physician Dr. Jónas Sveinsson discovered a remarkable new form of treatment: Rejuvenation. According to Rejuvenants, ageing could be combated in different ways, but mainly with the uncanny method of transporting testicular tissue between…
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In The Year 2000, Ants Will Have Conquered The World
In 1971, the magazine Samvinnan gathered a panel of Icelanders to predict the state of the nation and the wider world in the year 2000, 29 years into the future. The fifteen-person panel was made up of respected scholars, scientists and politicians—including…
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The Sinister Christmas Clan Of Iceland
In Iceland, there is no Santa Claus. Instead, there are thirteen “jólasveinar,” which can be translated to “Yule Lads.” They live in mountains and hike to town, one by one, for the thirteen days leading up to Christmas Eve. Their mother is…
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A Spaceship In Iceland!
A specially prepared Boeing 747 NASA aircraft landed at Keflavík Airport in May of 1983. This would probably not have made any headlines, had the plane not been carried the NASA space shuttle ‘Enterprise’ on its back. This strange flying object passed…
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Was Literature’s First Man On The Moon An Icelandic Peasant?
My name is Duracotus and my fatherland Iceland called Thule by the ancients. My mother, Fiolxhilde who died recently left me at leisure to write something which I already ardently desired to do. While she lived she diligently saw to it that…
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The American Soldier Who Travelled To The Year 900 In Iceland
What if a modern person travelled back to Viking times? In 1956, the American science fiction author Poul Anderson pondered exactly that in his short story “The Man Who Came Early,” published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Poul Anderson,…
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Höfði-San: Shrimp Salesman Built A Replica Of A Reykjavík Landmark
Iceland became the focus of world attention when US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met in Reykjavík in October 1986 to discuss nuclear disarmament. The powerful couple met at Höfði, a small villa on Borgartún, the street where the…
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“What A Hard Life Is That Of The Poor Icelanders!”
One day in August 1888, the British steamer ‘Camoens’ docked in the town of Akureyri in Northern Iceland. The ‘Camoens’-for some reason named for Portugal’s national poet, Luís de Camões- sailed regularly between Scotland and Iceland with passengers and cargo. Debarking the…
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Iceland On The Brain: 1200 Years Of Tourism
Everyone knows that Ingólfur Arnarson (that chap with the spear thing on the hill overlooking the city centre) was Iceland’s first settler. But, he was not the first person to set foot upon it. A few years before the settlement, which is…
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“They Are A Gruesome Lot”
It is thought that the first cats touched Icelandic soil in the tenth century, accompanied by human settlers. Those first Icelandic cats did not leave much of a mark on history. Though cats appear in Nordic mythology and Icelandic folklore, our furry…