NATURE 



279 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 1874 



ICELAND'S MILLENARY 



ANNIVERSARIES are nearly as old as history, and 

 are of constant occurrence ; centenaries are of com- 

 parativelymodern date, but have been not infrequent during 

 the past thirty years ; a millenary, however, must not only 

 necessarily occur with extreme rarity, but there are many 

 chances that in a thousand years an event which was long 

 held of the greatest moment may be looked back upon with 

 comparative indifference, may have dwindled into com- 

 parative insignificance, as seen from a new point of 

 view or in the shadow of some more stupendous occur- 

 rence ; or the individuality, whether a nation or a wide- 

 spread association, in whose career the event was held to 

 be of prime importance, may have become either extinct 

 or absorbed in some wider individuality, which may not 

 be so impressed by the memory of the episode as to be 

 moved to celebrate its millenary. The Icelanders then 

 have reason to congratulate themselves that they have 

 kept their individuality intact for so long, as to be now 

 celebrating the i, 000th anniversary of their origin as a 

 distinct and separate community. 



It will be found on examination that men keep alive the 

 memory, by festival or otherwise, of any event because 

 that event marks the beginning or the renewal of life 

 in an individual or a community. There are many 

 events in the history of individual nations and of the 

 world which might thus very appropriately be annually 

 or centennially remembered ; there are not a few occur- 

 rences in the history of our own country that well deserve 

 such a commemoration on account of the new impulses 

 they gave to our national life and our intellectual progress, 

 as well as indirectly to the advancement of the world at 

 large. We believe that, on the whole, this periodical 

 celebration of the occurrence of events which mark certain 

 stages in the progress of a community or of the world 

 serves a good purpose and ought to be encouraged ; it 

 affords us an opportunity to take stock of our gains, to 

 measure the extent of our progress, to see wherein we 

 have erred and how we ought to mend our ways ; and 

 last, but not least, it gives the world an excuse for learning 

 something about the important events which have 

 marked its history. 



This celebration of the i,oooth anniversary of the 

 colonisation of Iceland ought to e.xcite the interest 

 of a wider circle than the few thousands who fondly 

 cling to the bleak but picturesque Arctic outpost 

 which has been the home of themselves or their an- 

 cestors for a thousand years, and where they have main- 

 tained stereotyped, as it were, the physiognomy, dress, 

 and manners of a people that were at one time rulers of 

 the sea and very nearly lords of all Europe. It would be 

 an interesting task to investigate the causes which have 

 brought it to pass that a people at one time so over- 

 flowing with energy as the old Norsemen, should for some 

 centuries now have been justly regarded as the most 

 peaceable, industrious, and most home-keeping people in 

 Europe. As everyone knows, for about 200 years from 

 about the middle of the eighth century a.d. the Norse 

 rovers, the " vikings," the men of the viks, vocs, or bays, 

 were to be found on almost every sea of Europe, rousing 

 Vol. X.— No. 250 



to activity or over-mastering the exhausted southern 

 nations. It was no doubt good for our own land that it 

 should receive such a large infusion of this energetic 

 northern life, as it did, first in the shape of Danish 

 invaders and settlers, who have left a broad mark 

 on the northern counties of England, the south and north- 

 east and west of Scotland, and again in the shape of the 

 Normans who shed themselves over the land under the 

 leadership of Duke William. These Norsemen, one of 

 the branches of the great Teutonic kin, seem to have 

 taken kindly enough to the wild, roaming life of sea-rovers, 

 and hardy indeed they must have been to weather the 

 hazards of the sea in such craft as they then could com- 

 mand. But, after all, it should be remembered that even 

 in the eighth and ninth centuries Europe had not quite 

 subsided from the commotions which followed on the 

 coming in from the cast of the great Teutonic wave, and 

 as the Scandinavian offshoot was probably one of the 

 latest to reach its destination, the great northern 

 peninsula, we need not be surprised that it was one of the 

 latest to settle down to a quiet and home-keeping life ; it 

 did so only after sending out wavelets in all directions, 

 east and west and south, which wavelets produced im- 

 pressions that have continued for good even until now. 

 As seen in the stories, historical and legendary, that come 

 down to us, these hardy Norsemen of yore were a glorious 

 race of men, half barbaric as they were, full of the greatest 

 capabilities and a splendid energy, to the infusion among 

 us of which we ourselves are no doubt indebted to a con- 

 siderable extent for the capacity which has enabled us to 

 attain such large intellectual and material achievements, 

 and for that never-subdued love of liberty which in all 

 directions has been so fruitful in results. 



Even in Iceland, cut almost entirely off as it has been 

 since its colonisation from the influences that have 

 stirred and moulded the rest of Europe, the fine energy of 

 its Norse Colonisers has by no means died out. Yet this 

 old Norse Colony cannot be said to have advanced much 

 beyond the standpoint it occupied a thousand years ago. 

 The Icelanders have no doubt produced much literature 

 that must be of permanent value both intrinsically and 

 as an all-important aid to the scientific student of 

 language and of the human race. Still they must, we 

 fear, be looked upon as a thousand years behind the 

 rest of Europe, and a study of their present condi- 

 tion will afford an excellent means of estimating the 

 immense advances which the civilised world as a whole 

 has made during the last thousand years. And to 

 what is this advance owing.' Is it not simply that in 

 Europe generally, knowledge has been spreading in an 

 increasing ratio, and that our knowledge has been be- 

 coming more and more scientific ? Would not a survey 

 of the nations of the world show us that those nations in 

 which science is cultivated to the highest possible extent 

 alongside of other fields of intellectual activity, are the 

 nations which hold the front rank in the march of the 

 world's progress ? In short, it will be found, we believe, 

 that the world's progress and science are almost con- 

 vertible terms. But science to be of any practical 

 utility requires something to work with, and that 

 something in the case of our own nation is Coal. The 

 student of history ought to bear this in mind, and thus he 

 will see that in Iceland, however far theory might have 



