NATURE 



\Atig. 13, 1874 



gone, geology would for ever have forbidden any great 

 national advances as depending on science. Here is a 

 tremendous thought for our statesmen and political 

 economists. England without science would have been 

 in the position of Iceland without coal ! 



The early visitors to Iceland are said to have found 

 traces of former visitors in the shape of books, crosses, 

 bells, &c., which it is supposed may have been left by 

 monkish voyagers or fishers from Ireland, which at that 

 time was pre-eminent in Europe for its learning. And 

 this learning was the secret and the reason of Ireland's 

 early pre-eminence ; and it is only by the spread of educa- 

 tion and by bringing the people under the influences which 

 have done so much for the rest of Europe, that she can 

 ever regain the position she once so proudly occupied. The 

 Icelanders, on the other hand, seem to have improved as far 

 as their opportunities have allowed them ; but these oppor- 

 tunities have been comparatively few and unimportant. 

 Now, however, that Denmark is handsomely to grant the 

 island a reformed constitution, and that the eyes of the 

 civilised world at large have been attracted to it, we hope 

 Icelanders will be led to develop, by means of education 

 and scientific knowledge, their own latent capacities as 

 well as the capacities of their island home, which, like 

 themselves, seems as if it were the " fragment of a former 

 world." It is almost too trite to say that it is wonder- 

 ful what human energy will accomplish under the 

 most adverse circumstances when directed by scien- 

 tific knowledge and stimulated by the encouragement 

 and the hope of the approval of our fellows. And 

 if the Icelanders generally had among them the 

 opportunities of bringing themselves abreast of the 

 rest of the world as far as education is concerned, 

 and especially in respect to a knowledge of the methods 

 and results of science, if even a very few of the permanent 

 inhabitants became competent observers of nature, might 

 we not rationally look for results that would shed con- 

 siderable light on various important points in science — 

 in geology, for example, and meteorology— -that are waiting 

 to be cleared up ? Iceland, indeed, might very well become 

 the world's polar observatory. Let us hope that this new 

 episode in the history of Iceland may be productive of 

 widespread and lasting benefit to the people themselves, 

 and lead to an increase of the general sum of intellectual 

 progress ; and all peoples who can in any way claim to a 

 Norse connection ought to sympathise with their old- 

 fashioned brethien in their rejoicings, and lend them a 

 helping hand to enable them to partake of the many 

 good results which Norse energy has helped to achieve. 

 Their quaint old .Sagas, we are sure, would not give less 

 pleasure during the dreary nights of their long winter, if 

 told to an audience whose resources of rational enjoy- 

 ment have been increased by a knowledge of " the fairy 

 tales of science, and the long results of time." 



The Icelanders themselves have good reason to remem- 

 ber the period of the colonisation of their wild island, for 

 it was carefully planned and judiciously carried out a 

 thousand years ago, and obtained eflectually for its origi- 

 nators that freedom which they were in great danger of 

 losing under the tyranny which then oppressed their 

 native Norway. And here we may state, as a curious 

 fact, that the millenary festival of the establishment of the 

 kingdom of Norway itself took place only two years ago. 



That, and the festival of which we speak, are, so far as we 

 know, the only celebrations of the kind that have hitherto 

 been kept. 



It was about the year 861 a.d. that Iceland was first 

 seen by the Norsemen ; the story being that in that year 

 one Naddod, a vikingr, a leader of one of the then fre- 

 quent plundering expeditions, was driven by a tempest on 

 the eastern coast of this then unknown country, to which 

 he very naturally gave the name of " Snjdland." No 

 doubt Naddod would tell the story of his accidental dis- 

 covery to his own folk when he returned home from his 

 roving expedition, and it was possibly this story that 

 instigated Gardar, the Swede, whose home was in Den- 

 mark, to visit the new-found land.* This Gardar seems 

 to have found a good harbour near the present Auster- 

 horn, where he wintered, and in the following year com- 

 pleted the circumnavigation of the island, which he 

 renamed after himself " Gardarsholm." The next visitor to 

 the yet uninhabited island is said to have been a " mickle " 

 Norwegian vikingr, Floki " Volgertharson," who struck 

 the east coast a few years after Gardar, and sailing south 

 and west landed at Vatna Fjord in Bardestrand. Floki 

 explored the country to some extent, and would 

 have settled therein with his followers had not their 

 cattle all died. He, however, appears to have passed 

 a second winter at Hafna Fjord, returning home in spring 

 full of information concerning the new land, which, the 

 chronicles say, was at that time covered with wood, and 

 otherwise more inviting than it is at the present day. 

 Indeed, one of Floki's companions is said to have given 

 quite a glowing account of the country ; the very grass, 

 he said, " dropped butter." From the large quantities of 

 drift-ice which he found in the northern bays, Floki gave 

 the island the name by which it has been ever since 

 known — Iceland. 



By this time the overbearing conduct of the Norwegian 

 king, Harold Haarfager, had so galled his high-spirited 

 nobles that to many their country had become intolerable, 

 and they were quite ready to welcome any chance of 

 escape from their monarch's oppressions. Love and 

 murder, however, seem to have been the immediate 

 causes of the first deliberate emigration from Norway of 

 a band of colonists for Iceland. Ingolf and Leif, the 

 story goes — and -we believe its main features may be 

 relied on as authentic — were two cousins, whose fathers 

 had been obliged to fly from their native province for 

 murder. Ingolf had a beautiful sister, Helga, whom Leif 

 loved, but she was also loved by Holmstein, one of three 

 sons of a powerful Norwegian noble, who were companions 

 of Ingolf and Leif in their piratical excursions. Leif 

 married Helga, and had therefore to meet Holmstein in 

 mortal combat, when the latter was done to death. This 

 and other occurrences made Norway too hot to hold the 

 two cousins, who, indeed, had been condemned to banish- 

 ment. After two piratical trips to Ireland, from which 

 they returned with great booty, the cousins with their 

 families and friends and Irish slaves, their goods and 

 their chattels, bade farewell to their native land in the 

 year S74 to found a republican colony in Iceland. Ingolf 

 was first forced to land on a promontory on the south-east 

 coast, which was hence named Ingolfshcifde, where he 



I Rafn's " Antiquitates Americana:," it was 



