ICELAND 78 



advanced under the auspices of Home Rule and Free 

 Trade. Now, too, that the world has become better 

 known, and that facilities are given to tillers of the 

 soil to move to other lands, the Icelanders are 

 annually taking more and more advantage of the 

 opportunities for emigration. 



They have founded a fine colony in Nebraska 

 and are prospering there, and it is more than 

 probable that as years go on and the emigrants 

 begin to return with tales of prosperity in a new 

 home beyond the seas, most of the inhabitants 

 will work their way to the Canadian north-west 

 and leave the old country to the few fishing-folk 

 who dwell along the coast. The centre of Iceland 

 is barren and worthless for farming purposes, and 

 the day must come when it will be absolutely 

 deserted. 



This is briefly the history of Iceland and the 

 past and present condition of her people. It is 

 always a pity to see the old order of things, with 

 the romance and reverence that attached to them, 

 banished by the new and restless spirit of the age ; 

 but to their new home the Icelanders take with 

 them the memory of many things that do not die. 

 In the long summer evenings, instead of the stifling 

 burrows reeking with peat smoke, they sit outside 

 the cabin doors of the West and still teach their 

 children the legends of Odin and Thor and sing of 

 the great deeds of Skalla-Grim and Thoroef, of Olaf 

 the White and the beauty of his Queen, and above 

 the whirr of the old hand-loom still rises the plain- 

 tive crooning of the Icelandic mother as she sings 

 to her little ones the Flyting of Loki, the Lay of 

 Skirniy and the Lay of Harbard. The woods of 



