Visit to Iceland and the Scandinavian North Part 5

As I said before, I had intercourse with very few people, so that ample time remained for solitary walks, during which I minutely noticed every thing around me.

The little town of Reikjavik consists of a single broad street, with houses and cottages scattered around. The number of inhabitants does not amount to 500.

The houses of the wealthier inhabitants are of wood-work, and contain merely a ground-floor, with the exception of a single building of one story, to which the high school, now held at Ba.s.sastadt, will be transferred next year. The house of the "Stiftsamtmann" is built of stone. It was originally intended for a prison; but as criminals are rarely to be met with in Iceland, the building was many years ago transformed into the residence of the royal officer. A second stone building, discernible from Reikjavik, is situated at Langarnes, half a mile from the town. It lies near the sea, in the midst of meadows, and is the residence of the bishop.

The church is capable of holding only at the most from 100 to 150 persons; it is built of stone, with a wooden roof. In the chambers of this roof the library, consisting of several thousand volumes, is deposited. The church contains a treasure which many a larger and costlier edifice might envy,--a baptismal font by Thorwaldsen, whose parents were of Icelandic extraction. The great sculptor himself was born in Denmark, and probably wished, by this present, to do honour to the birth-place of his ancestors.

To some of the houses in Reikjavik pieces of garden are attached. These gardens are small plots of ground where, with great trouble and expense, salad, spinach, parsley, potatoes, and a few varieties of edible roots, are cultivated. The beds are separated from each other by strips of turf a foot broad, seldom boasting even a few field-flowers.

The inhabitants of Iceland are generally of middle stature, and strongly built, with light hair, frequently inclining to red, and blue eyes. The men are for the most part ugly; the women are better favoured, and among the girls I noticed some very sweet faces. To attain the age of seventy or eighty years is here considered an extraordinary circ.u.mstance. {29} The peasants have many children, and yet few; many are born, but few survive the first year. The mothers do not nurse them, and rear them on very bad food. Those who get over the first year look healthy enough; but they have strangely red cheeks, almost as though they had an eruption. Whether this appearance is to be ascribed to the sharp air, to which the delicate skin is not yet accustomed, or to the food, I know not.

In some places on the coast, when the violent storms prevent the poor fishermen for whole weeks from launching their boats, they live almost entirely on dried fishes' heads. {30} The fishes themselves have been salted down and sold, partly to pay the fishermen's taxes, and partly to liquidate debts for the necessaries of the past season, among which brandy and snuff unfortunately play far too prominent a part.

Another reason why the population does not increase is to be found in the numerous catastrophes attending the fisheries during the stormy season of the year. The fishermen leave the sh.o.r.e with songs and mirth, for a bright sky and a calm sea promise them good fortune. But, alas, tempests and snow-storms too often overtake the unfortunate boatmen! The sea is lashed into foam, and mighty waves overwhelm boats and fishermen together, and they perish inevitably. It is seldom that the father of a family embarks in the same boat with his sons. They divide themselves among different parties, in order that, if one boat founder, the whole family may not be destroyed.

I found the cottages of the peasants at Reikjavik smaller, and in every respect worse provided, than those at Havenfiord. This seems, however, to be entirely owing to the indolence of the peasants themselves; for stones are to be had in abundance, and every man is his own builder. The cows and sheep live through the winter in a wretched den, built either in the cottage itself or in its immediate neighbourhood. The horses pa.s.s the whole year under the canopy of heaven, and must find their own provender. Occasionally only the peasant will shovel away the snow from a little spot, to a.s.sist the poor animals in searching for the gra.s.s or moss concealed beneath. It is then left to the horses to finish clearing away the snow with their feet. It may easily be imagined that this mode of treatment tends to render them very hardy; but the wonder is, how the poor creatures manage to exist through the winter on such spare diet, and to be strong and fit for work late in the spring and in summer. These horses are so entirely unused to being fed with oats, that they will refuse them when offered; they are not even fond of hay.

As I arrived in Iceland during the early spring, I had an opportunity of seeing the horses and sheep in their winter garments. The horses seemed to be covered, not with hair, but with a thick woolly coat; their manes and tails are very long, and of surprising thickness. At the end of May or the beginning of June the tail and mane are docked and thinned, their woolly coat falls of itself, and they then look smooth enough. The sheep have also a very thick coat during the winter. It is not the custom to shear them, but at the beginning of June the wool is picked off piece by piece with the hand. A sheep treated in this way sometimes presents a very comical appearance, being perfectly naked on one side, while on the other it is still covered with wool.

The horses and cows are considerably smaller than those of our country.

No one need journey so far north, however, to see stunted cattle.

Already, in Galicia, the cows and horses of the peasants are not a whit larger or stronger than those in Iceland. The Icelandic cows are further remarkable only for their peculiarly small horns; the sheep are also smaller than ours.

Every peasant keeps horses. The mode of feeding them is, as already shewn, very simple; the distances are long, the roads bad, and large rivers, moorlands, and swamps must frequently be pa.s.sed; so every one rides, both men, women, and children. The use of carriages is as totally unknown throughout the island as in Syria.

The immediate vicinity of Reikjavik is pretty enough. Some of the townspeople go to much trouble and expense in sometimes collecting and sometimes breaking the stones around their dwellings. With the little ground thus obtained they mix turf, ashes, and manure, until at length a soil is formed on which something will grow. But this is such a gigantic undertaking, that the little culture bestowed on the spots wholly neglected by nature cannot be wondered at. Herr Bernhoft shewed me a small meadow which he had leased for thirty years, at an annual rent of thirty kreutzers. In order, however, to transform the land he bought into a meadow, which yields winter fodder for only one cow, it was necessary to expend more than 150 florins, besides much personal labour and pains. The rate of wages for peasants is very high when compared with the limited wants of these people: they receive thirty or forty kreutzers per diem, and during the hay-harvest as much as a florin.

For a long distance round the town the ground consists of stones, turf, and swamps. The latter are mostly covered with hundreds upon hundreds of great and small mounds of firm ground. By jumping from one of these mounds to the next, the entire swamp may be crossed, not only without danger, but dry-footed.

In spite of all this, one of these swamps put me in a position of much difficulty and embarra.s.sment during one of my solitary excursions. I was sauntering quietly along, when suddenly a little b.u.t.terfly fluttered past me. It was the first I had seen in this country, and my eagerness to catch it was proportionately great. I hastened after it; thought neither of swamp nor of danger, and in the heat of the chase did not observe that the mounds became every moment fewer and farther between. Soon I found myself in the middle of the swamp, and could neither advance nor retreat.

Not a human being could I descry; the very animals were far from me; and this circ.u.mstance confirmed me as to the dangerous nature of the ground.

Nothing remained for me but to fix my eyes upon one point of the landscape, and to step out boldly towards it. I was often obliged to hazard two or three steps into the swamp itself, in order to gain the next acclivity, upon which I would then stand triumphantly, to determine my farther progress. So long as I could distinguish traces of horses'

hoofs, I had no fear; but even these soon disappeared, and I stood there alone in the mora.s.s. I could not remain for ever on my tower of observation, and had no resource but to take to the swamp once more. I must confess that I experienced a very uncomfortable feeling of apprehension when my foot sank suddenly into the soft mud; but when I found that it did not rise higher than the ankles, my courage returned; I stepped out boldly, and was fortunate enough to escape with the fright and a thorough wetting.

The most arduous posts in the country are those of the medical men and clergymen. Their sphere of action is very enlarged, particularly that of the medical man, whose practice sometimes extends over a distance of eighty to a hundred miles. When we add to this the severity of the winter, which lasts for seven or eight months, it seems marvellous that any one can be found to fill such a situation.

In winter the peasants often come with shovels, pickaxes, and horses to fetch the doctor. They then go before him, and hastily repair the worst part of the road; while the doctor rides sometimes on one horse, sometimes on another, that they may not sink under the fatigue. And thus the procession travels for many, many miles, through night and fog, through storm and snow, for on the doctor's prompt.i.tude life and death often hang. When he then returns, quite benumbed, and half dead with cold, to the bosom of his family, in the expectation of rest and refreshment, and to rejoice with his friends over the dangers and hardships he has escaped, the poor doctor is frequently compelled to set off at once on a new and important journey, before he has even had time to greet the dear ones at home.

Sometimes he is sent for by sea, where the danger is still greater on the storm-tost element.

Though the salary of the medical men is not at all proportionate to the hardships they are called upon to undergo, it is still far better than that of the priests.

The smallest livings bring in six to eight florins annually, the richest 200 florins. Besides this, the government supplies for each priest a house, often not much better than a peasant's cottage, a few meadows, and some cattle. The peasants are also required to give certain small contributions in the way of hay, wool, fish, &c. The greater number of priests are so poor, that they and their families dress exactly like the peasants, from whom they can scarcely be distinguished. The clergyman's wife looks after the cattle, and milks cows and ewes like a maid-servant; while her husband proceeds to the meadow, and mows the gra.s.s with the labourer. The intercourse of the pastor is wholly confined to the society of peasants; and this const.i.tutes the chief element of that "patriarchal life" which so many travellers describe as charming. I should like to know which of them would wish to lead such a life!

The poor priest has, besides, frequently to officiate in two, three, or even four districts, distant from four to twelve miles from his residence. Every Sunday he must do duty at one or other of these districts, taking them in turn, so that divine service is only performed at each place once in every three or four weeks. The journeys of the priest, however, are not considered quite so necessary as those of the doctor; for if the weather is very bad on Sundays, particularly during the winter, he can omit visiting the most distant places. This is done the more readily, as but few of the peasants would be at church; all who lived at a distance remaining at home.

The Sysselmann (an officer similar to that of the sheriff of a county) is the best off. He has a good salary with little to do, and in some places enjoys in addition the "strand-right," which is at times no inconsiderable privilege, from the quant.i.ty of drift timber washed ash.o.r.e from the American continent.

Fishing and the chase are open to all, with the exception of the salmon-fisheries in the rivers; these are farmed by the government.

Eider-ducks may not be shot, under penalty of a fine. There is no military service, for throughout the whole island no soldiers are required. Even Reikjavik itself boasts only two police-officers.

Commerce is also free; but the islanders possess so little commercial spirit, that even if they had the necessary capital, they would never embark in speculation.

The whole commerce of Iceland thus lies in the hands of Danish merchants, who send their ships to the island every year, and have established factories in the different ports where the retail trade is carried on.

These ships bring every thing to Iceland, corn, wood, wines, manufactured goods, and colonial produce, &c. The imports are free, for it would not pay the government to establish offices, and give servants salaries to collect duties upon the small amount of produce required for the island.

Wine, and in fact all colonial produce, are therefore much cheaper than in other countries.

The exports consist of fish, particularly salted cod, fish-roe, tallow, train-oil, eider-down, and feathers of other birds, almost equal to eider-down in softness, sheep's wool, and pickled or salted lamb. With the exception of the articles just enumerated, the Icelanders possess nothing; thirteen years ago, when Herr Knudson established a bakehouse, {31} he was compelled to bring from Copenhagen, not only the builder, but even the materials for building, stones, lime, &c.; for although the island abounds with ma.s.ses of stone, there are none which can be used for building an oven, or which can be burnt into lime: every thing is of lava.

Two or three cottages situated near each other are here dignified by the name of a "place." These places, as well as the separate cottages, are mostly built on little acclivities, surrounded by meadows. The meadows are often fenced in with walls of stone or earth, two or three feet in height, to prevent the cows, sheep, and horses from trespa.s.sing upon them to graze. The gra.s.s of these meadows is made into hay, and laid up as a winter provision for the cows.

I did not hear many complaints of the severity of the cold in winter; the temperature seldom sinks to twenty degrees below zero; the sea is sometimes frozen, but only a few feet from the sh.o.r.e. The snowstorms and tempests, however, are often so violent, that it is almost impossible to leave the house. Daylight lasts only for five or six hours, and to supply its place the poor Icelanders have only the northern light, which is said to illumine the long nights with a brilliancy truly marvellous.

The summer I pa.s.sed in Iceland was one of the finest the inhabitants had known for years. During the month of June the thermometer often rose at noon to twenty degrees. The inhabitants found this heat so insupportable, that they complained of being unable to work or to go on messages during the day-time. On such warm days they would only begin their hay-making in the evening, and continued their work half the night.

The changes in the weather are very remarkable. Twenty degrees of heat on one day would be followed by rain on the next, with a temperature of only five degrees; and on the 5th of June, at eight o'clock in the morning, the thermometer stood at one degree below zero. It is also curious that thunderstorms happen in Iceland in winter, and are said never to occur during the summer.

From the 16th or 18th of June to the end of the month there is no night.

The sun appears only to retire for a short time behind a mountain, and forms sunset and morning-dawn at the same time. As on one side the last beam fades away, the orb of day re-appears at the opposite one with redoubled splendour.

During my stay in Iceland, from the 15th of May to the 29th of July, I never retired to rest before eleven o'clock at night, and never required a candle. In May, and also in the latter portion of the month of July, there was twilight for an hour or two, but it never became quite dark.

Even during the last days of my stay, I could read until half-past ten o'clock. At first it appeared strange to me to go to bed in broad daylight; but I soon accustomed myself to it, and when eleven o'clock came, no sunlight was powerful enough to cheat me of my sleep. I found much pleasure in walking at night, at past ten o'clock, not in the pale moonshine, but in the broad blaze of the sun.

It was a much more difficult task to accustom myself to the diet. The baker's wife was fully competent to superintend the cooking according to the Danish and Icelandic schools of the art; but unfortunately these modes of cookery differ widely from ours. One thing only was good, the morning cup of coffee with cream, with which the most accomplished gourmand could have found no fault: since my departure from Iceland I have not found such coffee. I could have wished for some of my dear Viennese friends to breakfast with me. The cream was so thick, that I at first thought my hostess had misunderstood me, and brought me curds. The b.u.t.ter made from the milk of Icelandic cows and ewes did not look very inviting, and was as white as lard, but the taste was good. The Icelanders, however, find the taste not sufficiently "piquant," and generally qualify it with train-oil. Altogether, train-oil plays a very prominent part in the Icelandic kitchen; the peasant considers it a most delicious article, and thinks nothing of devouring a quant.i.ty of it without bread, or indeed any thing else. {32}

I did not at all relish the diet at dinner; this meal consisted of two dishes, namely, boiled fish, with vinegar and melted b.u.t.ter instead of oil, and boiled potatoes. Unfortunately I am no admirer of fish, and now this was my daily food. Ah, how I longed for beef-soup, a piece of meat, and vegetables, in vain! As long as I remained in Iceland, I was compelled quite to give up my German system of diet.

After a time I got on well enough with the boiled fish and potatoes, but I could not manage the delicacies of the island. Worthy Madame Bernhoft, it was so kindly meant on her part; and it was surely not her fault that the system of cookery in Iceland is different from ours; but I could not bring myself to like the Icelandic delicacies. They were of different kinds, consisting sometimes of fishes, hard-boiled eggs, and potatoes chopped up together, covered with a thick brown sauce, and seasoned with pepper, sugar, and vinegar; at others, of potatoes baked in b.u.t.ter and sugar. Another delicacy was cabbage chopped very small, rendered very thin by the addition of water, and sweetened with sugar; the accompanying dish was a piece of cured lamb, which had a very unpleasant "pickled"

flavour.

On Sundays we sometimes had "Prothe Grutze," properly a Scandinavian dish, composed of fine sago boiled to a jelly, with currant-juice or red wine, and eaten with cream or sugar. Tapfen, a kind of soft cheese, is also sometimes eaten with cream and sugar.

In the months of June and July the diet improved materially. We could often procure splendid salmon, sometimes roast lamb, and now and then birds, among which latter dainties the snipes were particularly good. In the evening came b.u.t.ter, cheese, cold fish, smoked lamb, and eggs of eider-ducks, which are coa.r.s.er than hen's eggs. In time I became so accustomed to this kind of food, that I no longer missed either soup or beef, and felt uncommonly well.

My drink was always clear fresh water; the gentlemen began their dinner with a small gla.s.s of brandy, and during the meal all drank beer of Herr Bernhoft's own brewing, which was very good. On Sundays, a bottle of port or Bordeaux sometimes made its appearance at our table; and as we fared at Herr Bernhoft's, so it was the custom in the houses of all the merchants and officials.

At Reikjavik I had an opportunity of witnessing a great religious ceremony. Three candidates of theology were raised to the ministerial office. Though the whole community here is Lutheran, the ceremonies differ in many respects from those of the continent of Europe, and I will therefore give a short sketch of what I saw. The solemnity began at noon, and lasted till four o'clock. I noticed at once that all the people covered their faces for a moment on entering the church, the men with their hats, and the women with their handkerchiefs. Most of the congregation sat with their faces turned towards the altar; but this rule had its exceptions. The vestments of the priests were the same as those worn by our clergymen, and the commencement of the service also closely resembled the ritual of our own Church; but soon this resemblance ceased.

The bishop stepped up to the altar with the candidates, and performed certain ceremonies; then one would mount the pulpit and read part of a sermon, or sing a psalm, while the other clergymen sat round on chairs, and appeared to listen; then a second and a third ascended the pulpit, and afterwards another sermon was preached from the altar, and another psalm sung; then a sermon was again read from the pulpit. While ceremonies were performed at the altar, the sacerdotal garments were often put on and taken off again. I frequently thought the service was coming to a close, but it always began afresh, and lasted, as I said before, until four o'clock. The number of forms surprised me greatly, as the ritual of the Lutheran Church is in general exceedingly simple.

On this occasion a considerable number of the country people were a.s.sembled, and I had thus a good opportunity of noticing their costumes.

The dresses worn by the women and girls are all made of coa.r.s.e black woollen stuffs. The dress consists of a long skirt, a spencer, and a coloured ap.r.o.n. On their heads they wear a man's nightcap of black cloth, the point turned downwards, and terminating in a large ta.s.sel of wool or silk, which hangs down to the shoulder. Their hair is unbound, and reaches only to the shoulder: some of the women wear it slightly curled. I involuntarily thought of the poetical descriptions of the northern romancers, who grow enthusiastic in praise of ideal "angels'

heads with golden tresses." The hair is certainly worn in this manner here, and our poets may have borrowed their descriptions from the Scandinavians. But the beautiful faces which are said to beam forth from among those golden locks exist only in the poet's vivid imagination.

Ornamental additions to the costume are very rare. In the whole a.s.sembly I only noticed four women who were dressed differently from the others.

The cords which fastened their spencers, and also their girdles, were ornamented with a garland worked in silver thread. Their skirts were of fine black cloth, and decorated with a border of coloured silk a few inches broad. Round their necks they wore a kind of stiff collar of black velvet with a border of silver thread, and on their heads a black silk handkerchief with a very strange addition. This appendage consisted of a half-moon fastened to the back of the head, and extending five or six inches above the forehead. It was covered with white lawn arranged in folds; its breadth at the back of the head did not exceed an inch and a half, but in front it widened to five or six inches.

The men, I found, were clothed almost like our peasants. They wore small-clothes of dark cloth, jackets and waistcoats, felt hats, or fur caps; and instead of boots a kind of shoe of ox-hide, sheep, or seal-skin, bound to the feet by a leather strap. The women, and even the children of the officials, all wear shoes of this description.