Lögberg-Heimskringla - 09.07.1982, Page 2

2-WINNIPEG, FÖSTUDAGUR 9. JÚLÍ1982
Icelandic Hospitality (1856)
With the peculiar manners used in
Scandinavian skoal-drinking I was
already well acquainted. In the nice
conduct of a wine-glass I knew that I
excelled, and having an hereditary
horror of heel-taps, I prepared with
a firm heart to respond to.the friend-
ly provocations of my host. I only
wish you could have seen how his
kind face beamed with approval
when I chinked my first bumper
against his, and having emptied it at
a draught, turned it towards him
bottom upwards, with the orthodox
twist. Soon, however, things began
to look more serious even than I had
expected. I knew well that to refuse
a toast, or to half empty your glass,
was considered churlish. I had come
determined to accept my host's
hospitality as cordialiy as it was of-
fered. I was willing, at a pinch, to
payer de ma personne; should he not
be content with seeing me at his
table, I was ready, if need were, to
remain under it; but at the rate we
were then going it seemed probably
this consummation would take
place before the second course; so,
after having exchanged a dozen
Sweaters buoys
Icelandic exports
Continued from page 1
"It's just the attitude of people
anywhere — 'are you one of us or
aren't you?' " he explained. "I think
it's an understandable human reac-
tion in a small place where
everybody knows everybody else.”
An exception was made, though:
Mr. Holton was not obliged to adopt
an Icelandic name.
Though it is now a modern, com-
puterized company, Hilda still re-
tains the flavor of a cottage industry.
About 30 percent of its output is still
done in private homes — in egali-
tarian Iceland, even the wife of the
Agriculture Minister knits for a liv-
ing — and more than half in small
cooperative "factories” scattered
around the island. The balance is
turned out in a factory in Reykjavík.
So remarkable are the
multicolored Icelandic sheep that
the Government has banned their
export, and Mr. Holton has argued
against even exporting the wool in
bulk because of the danger that
competitors in such places as South
Korea and Puerto Rico will undercut
local manufacturers.
The 1.4 million Icelandic sheep
are belíeved to be direct descen-
dants of animals brought to the
empty island by the first Viking set-
tlers in the 9th and lOth centuries.
Survival in Iceland's harsh and
changeable climate seems to have
led the animals to develop two
distinct layers of wool — the outer
long and glossy, rich in lanolin, and
the inner soft, airy and densely set.
The combination of woold produces
garments that provide, as Mr.
Holton puts it, "warmth without the
weight."
It may have taken an American to
see the virtues of this wool.
"When we started, Icelanders
didn't believe in the extraordinary
raw material that the wool was,”
Mr. Holton said. "And to this day
they still don't really believe in it.
You will see comparatively more
people wearing Icelandic woolens in
Toronto, Copenhagen or Chicago
than you will in Reykjavík.
Icelanders tend to look down on
Icelandic wool, because they think
it's old-fashioned.”
rounds of sherry and champagne
with my two neighbours, I pretend-
ed not to observe that my glass had
been refilled; and, like the sea-
captain, who, slipping from be-
tween his two opponents, left them
to blaze away at each other the long
night through, withdrew from the
combat. But it would not do; with
untasted bumpers, and dejected
faces, they politely waited until I
should give the signal for a renewal
of hosfilities, as they well deserved
to be called. Then there came over
me a horrid wicked feeling. What if
I should endeavour to floor the
Governor, and so literally turn the
tables on him! It is true I had lived
for five-and-twenty years without
touching wine, — but was not I my
great-grandfather's great-grandson,
and an Irish peer to boot? Were
there not traditions, too, on the
other side of the house, of casks of
claret brought up into the dining-
room, the door locked, and the key
thrown out of the window? With
such antecedents to sustain me, I
ought to be able to hold my own
against the staunchest toper in
Iceland! So, with a devil glittering in
my left eye, I winked defiance right
and left, and away we went at it
again for another five-and-forty
minutes. At last their fire slackened;
I had partially quelled both the
Governor and the Rector, and still
survived. It is true I did not feel
comfortable; but it was in the
neighbourhood of my waistcoat, not
my head, I suffered. "I am not well,
but I will not out," I soliloquized,
with Lepidus (From Anthony and
Cleopatraj "öóg uoi tó rrreqóv," I
would have added, had I dared. Still
the neck of the banquet was broken
— Fitzgerald's chair was not yet
empty, — could we hold out
perhaps a quarter of an hour longer,
our reputation was established;
guess then my horror, when the
Doctor, shouting his favourite
dogma, by way of battle-cry, "Si
trigintis guttis, morbum curare
velis, erras," gave the signal for an
unexpected onslaught, and the
twenty guests poured down on me
in succession. I really thought I
should have run away from the
house; but the true family blood, I
suppose, began to show itself, and
with a calmness almost frightful, I
received them one by one.
After this began the public toasts.
Although up to this time I had
kept a certain portion of my wits
about me, the subsequent hours of
the entertainment became
thenceforth enveloped in a dreamy
mystery. I can perfectly recall the
look of the sheaf of glasses that
stood before me, six in number; I
could draw the pattern of each; I
remember feeling a lazy wonder
they should always be full, though I
did nothing but empty them, — and
at last solved the phenomenon by
concluding I had become a kind of
Danaid, whose punishment, not
whose sentence, had been reversed:
then suddenly I felt as if I were
disembodied, — a distant spectator
of my own performances, and of the
feast at which my person remained
seated. The voices of my host, of the
Rector, of the Chief Justice, became
thin and low, as though they reach-
ed me through a whispering tube;
and when I rose to speak, it was as
to an audience in another sphere,
and in a language of another stafe of
being: yet, however unintelligible to
myself, I must have been in some
sort understood, for at the end of
each sentence, cheers, faint as the
roar of waters on a far-off strand,
floated towards me; and if I am to
believe a report of the proceedings
subsequently shown us, I must have
become polyglot in my cups.
Lord Dufferin
Letters from High Latitudes . . .(1857)
Leskaflar í íslensku handa
byrjendum
LXIII.
The indefinite pronouns (adjectives) nokkur (some, any), annar (other),
and neinn (with a negative), any, occur in many different contexts some of
which are included in the following sentences.
Translate into English:
Hefur þú séð þessa menn nokkurs staðar áður? Nei, ég held, að ég hafi
ekki séð þá neins staðar áður.
Mér finnst þessi bók vera að nokkru leyti góð, en að öðru leyti geðjast mér
ekki að henni. Annars er ekki til neins að tala um bækur við þig. Þú hefur
annars konar hugðarefni.
Það var nokkurs konar óheppni, að annar eins drengur og Þórður skyldi
falla á prófinu. Þér verður ekki neitt úr neinu. Það er ekki til neins fyrir þig
að reyna þetta. Þú ert ekki að neinu leyti betri en aðrir, sem hafa reynt það.
Hér fyrir sunnan eru hæðir eða nokkurs konar fjöll, að öðru leyti er
flatneskjan hér svo mikil, að hvorki einn né neinn geta þolað hana til
iengdar.
Vocabulary:
að neinu leyti, in any respect
(with a negative)
að nokkru leyti, to some
extent, in some respects
að öðru leyti, in other respects
annar eins (ameliorative), such a
annars, otherwise
annars konar, different
falla, fall, fail
flatneskja, fem., flat or level land
geðjast, like
hugðarefni, neuter, interest,
favourite subject
hvorki einn né neinn, no one
at all
hvorki né, neither nor
hæðir, fem., hills, nom. plur.
of hæð
mér finnst, I feel, consider, think
neins staðar, any place (with
negative)
nokkurs konar, some kind of
nokkurs staðar, some place
óheppni, fem., bad luck
prófin, neuter, examination, dat.
sing of próf
reyna, try
til lengdar, for long
það er ekki til neins (nokkurs),
it is of no use
þér verður ekki neitt úr neinu,
you never succeed in anything.
þolað, past participle of þola,
endure, stand, tolerate
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