Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1970, Page 117

SUMARDAGURINN FYRSTI
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lendars from the 16th till the 20th century. However, in these sources there
are no signs of any festivity in this connection, but in a well known description
of Iceland from the middle of the 18th century it is said to be the duty of each
house-master to give his peopie the best food available on this day. In folk tales
and memoirs from the 19th century the day always appears as a traditional
popular feast, usually next in importance to Christmas.
In 1969 the Ethnological Department of the National Museum sent out a ques-
tionnaire, asking how the First Day of Summer was celebrated throughout the
country. Most of the informants were between 60 and 90 years old, representing
practically all parts of the country, but from several areas more answers would
have been desirable. Taken as a whole the answers ought to give a fairly good
survey of the customs around and just aftei' 1900. The purpose was, among other
things, to find out, whether there were any major differences between the
various regions in this field. A priori this was not particularly likely, since
isolated areas are really very few. People used to move not a little from one
place to another, for instance for seasonal work such as fishing. It should also
be kept in mind that the Icelanders are ardent readers, and printed folk tales
appeared as early as shortly after 1850. Old people do not always know for
certain, whether they have read or heard about old customs or known them
from their own personal experience. Sometimes people even adopted customs
whieh they learnt from books to be practised in other districts. In spite of all
this we dare maintain that the outcome of this research is reasonably reliable.
Dreams. Most people did not pay any great attention to the dreams they had
on the first summernight, and the few who consider this night remarkable in
this respect are almost all from the eastern part of the country. Many more
people took notice of the dreams they had in the last weeks of winter. Dreams
in that period were thought to be meaningful as to the weather in the coming
summei'. For instance, red animals meant heat or rain, white ones snow or
even pack ice.
Forebodings. The first migratory birds were given a close attention. Most
people believed that winter’s hardships were over when the song of the whimBrel
was heai'd. With the Snipe it was important in which direction it was first
heai'd. From east and south it promised good, from west and north the opposite.
The attitude towards the golden plover varies greatly. In the south and west
of the country it was considered a bad omen, if it arrives early, but in the north
and east it is a welcome guest, no matter how early it arrives. It was conside-
red undesirable if grassfields showed signs of becoming green early, for in-
stance as early as March. Such early growth was not expected to be long-lived.
Spring storms. Generally people expected bad weather near or just before the
beginning of summer. Snowstorms at this time had different names. One was
called the Raven storm, 9 days before first summerday, because by this time the
raven was thought to have laid its eggs. Some people believed that if they could
see that the raven had eaten its own eggs, extremely bad weather was to be
expected. If Easter was late, i. e. near or even after First Summerday, it was
feared that the Easter storm might unite with the Summerday storm. Only in
the Húnaflói area in the north people do not seem to have feared snowstorm
near the beginning of summer more than at other times of the year. Most people
hoped for better weather when such a storm was over, except in the north-east,
where they seem to have been more pessimistic in this respect.