THE POLAR WORLD. 



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.LlXJAMJv, TUE 



CHAPTER VIT 



THE ICEL'ANDrRS 



M. illidt — He\k]-i\ik— The Fair —The Peasant 

 iiul the Meichant — V ClerEjMmn in his Cup'- 

 — H'l^ mikinj; — The Icelander s Hut — Chiircli- 

 65 — Po\ertv of the Clelg^ — Jon Thorliksen 

 — The Scnllmr^ of Kca kjn ik — Benehci il Influ- 

 ence of the C lerg^ — Home I due ition — I he In. 

 lander's Winter's Evening. — Taste for Literature. 

 » — The Language. — The Public Library at Eeyk- 



javik.— The Icelandic Literary Society. — Icelandic Newspapers.— Longevity. — Leprosy. — Travelling 

 in Iceland. — Fording the Eivers. — Crossing of the Skeidara by Mr. Holland.— A Night's Bivouac. 



I^EXT to Thingvalla, there is no^place in Iceland so replete with historical 

 -^ ^ interest as Skalholt, its ancient capital. Here in the eleventh century was 

 founded the first school in the island ; here was the seat of its first bishops ; 

 here flourished a succession of great orators, historians, and poets ; Isleif, the 

 oldest chronicler of the North ; Gissur, who in the beginning of the twelfth 

 century had visited all the countries of Europe and spoke all their languages; 

 the philologian Thorlak, and Finnur Johnson, the learned author of the " Ec- 

 «;lesiastical History of Iceland." The Cathedral of Skalholt was renowned far 

 and wide for its size, and in the year 1100, Latin, poetry, music, and rhetoric, ' 

 the four liberal arts, were taught in its school, more than they were at that time 



