28 Rhodora : [FEBRUARY 
general use, that little or no other corn! was bought at the trading 
towns." ? 
Schübeler, quoting from Olafsen and Povelsen, gives more details 
of the use in Iceland in recent times of Elymus arenarius (Strandhvede, 
Sandhavre, Vild Hvede, Melr, etc.) as a substitute for Wheat, and 
traces its use back as far as the first of the 11th century. His account 
is so illuminating that it may here be quoted in full. 
“In Iceland, in case of famine, people have often used the seeds of 
the Strand Oat [Elymus arenarius] as a substitute for wheat; indeed, 
not rarely have they even preserved life with this alone. The ears 
are dried on iron plates over the fire, after which the seeds are easily 
beaten out. One must be satisfied, however, if one secure a ton of 
wheat (of 139 liters) from a quantity of ears for the transport of which 
40 horses are required. 
“Tn Skaptafells Syssel on the south coast of Iceland the Strand Oat 
even now finds very common use as a substitute for Grain. After 
the seeds have been beaten out, the straw is, of course, used for the 
roofs of houses. Apparently in Iceland, even in the year 1000 or in 
the beginning of the 11th century, the Strand Oat was used as a sub- 
stitute for grain. We read, for example, that near Hitaraa (in Myra- 
syssel on the west coast of Iceland, 64° 40’ north latitude) there is an 
island from which much profit is derived both from the catching 
of seals and the gathering of sea-birds' eggs; grass and grain (' saedi") 
also grow here [Bjórn Hitdolakappe's Saga, p. 22]. Directly after 
this, we are told, that the house-servants voyaged to the island, in 
order to stack the grain. Naturally, neither barley nor any other 
common kind of grain can be meant here. The learned Icelander, 
Gudbrand Vigfusson gives in his Icelandic-English Dictionary the word 
‘melr,’ which occurs here, as ‘a kind of wild Oats esp. Bent-grass’ 
(compare Agrostis) * and remarks, that by this [Bent-grass] is meant 
Arundo arenaria L. Since, however, the Sand Reed [Arundo arenaria 
= Ammophila arenaria] occurs but rarely in Iceland,‘ while, on the 
1 “Corn,” i. e. corn of the English, or Wheat. 
? Magnus Stephensen, Kort Beskrivelse over den nye Vulcans Ildsprudning i Vester- 
Skaptefield’s Syssel paa Island i aaret, 1783 — translated by W. J. Hooker, Journal of a 
Tour in Iceland, ed. 2, ii. 226 (1813). 
3 Schübeler here inserts the parenthetical “ Agrostis” not because it bears specially 
upon the discussion but because, at least in English speaking countries, the species of 
Agrostis are commonly called “Bent-grass.” 
5 It is doubtful if Arundo (or Ammophila) arenaria occurs at allin Iceland. It is not 
recorded from there either in Gronlund's Islands Flora (1881) or in Stefan Stefánsson's 
Flora Islands (1901). 
