Lögberg-Heimskringla - 09.10.1992, Blaðsíða 1

[ Lögberg 1
eimskringia
The lcelandic Weekly
Lögberg Stofnaö 14. janúar 1888
Heimskringla Stofnaö 9. september 1886
Inside this week:
lceland's First Airline................................2
Poet's Corner..........................................3
A Fey Land.........................................4 & 5
Letters to the Editor..................................6
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106. Árgangur Föstudagur 9. október 1992 Númer 35
106th Year Publications Mail Registration No. 1667 Friday, 9 Oc tober 1992 Number 35
lcelandic
News
Cross unearthed at Viðey
monastery:
■ Archaeologists have unearthed a small
Christian cross while digging in some of
the oldest layers of remains of the thír-
teenth-century monastery on Vídey Island
off of Reykjavík. Roughly 3.5cm long and
1.5cm at íts greatest width, the cross is
thought to have been fashioned from
bone or stone, although no material analy-
sis has as yet been done on the find.
A hole at one end of the object indi-
cates the cross was likely worn around the
neck. Archaeologists are now in their sixth
summer of digging at the Viðey
monastery, which was founded in AD
1226.
Courtesy of lceland Review
íslenskt bergvatn ups
drink production:
I ■ Production at beverage canners íslenskt
Bergvatn hf rose 50% the first síx months
of 1992 against the same period a year
ago. Managing director Jón Schevíng
Thorsteirrsson said exports accounted for
the entire increase, and that only 8-10% of
production was sold domestically.
The company produces Svali sparkling
spring water and Seltzer, a line of fizzy,
fruit-flavoured drinks. Níneteen-ninety-one
productíon was up 53% against the previ-
ous year, Thorsteínsson reported.
Courtesy of lceland Review
First catch of the season:
■ The first herring catch of the season was
landed at Neskaupstaður Sept. 21st, The
boat Þórshamar GK brought in 150 tons of
big herríng wíth fat content of 17-18%.
The catch will be filleted and salted for the
Scandinavian market.
First landing last year was a month later
orOct. 21st.
Translatedfrom
Morgunblaðið
Trust
their
Church:
■ 70% of lce-
landers put
great trust in
the Church a recent survey shows.
Compared to other European countries,
this is a very high percentage. The above
Picture is from the Church at Skeggjastaðir
'n N.Múlasýsla.
V.
Translated from Morgunblaðið

Reliving the S
ln ships like this, the Viking poet Egill Skallagrimsson created a legend.
If you drive north from Reyk-
javík about 60 miles or so you
will come across a small farm
named Borg. It is a beautiful loca-
tion in a beautiful land, but to the
innocent and ignorant passerby, not
much more than that. To the
informed, however, or to
the traveller lucky enough By
to have a guide to tell him Tom
about, it is a place of his- Oloson
tory, a home of literature,
a shrine, of sorts, although it is not
set out that way. The knowledge of
what the place really means is so
deeply moving, particularly to a
Westem Icelander whose roots have
been badly stretched across the
ocean and the decades since his
forebears left the homeland.
Borg was the home of Egill
Skallagrimsson, the hero of one of
the most memorable of sagas and
the greatest of the Viking poets. It
was here that he lived and wrote
and quarrelled with his neighbors —
he may have been a genius but he
was, by all accounts, a difficult man
— and it was from here that in his
old age he set out to bury all the
treasure he had accumulated in a
lifetime of adventuring because he
could not bear the thought of any-
one else, even his family, enjoying it.
As far as is known, that treasure has
never been found.
To appreciate the significance of
Borg, however, one must be aware
of it. Most tourists are not, even
many who are familiar with the
sagas. To remedy that problem,
Iceland has established a series of
Saga Tours. Recently, three repre-
sentatives were in Winnipeg.and
Manitoba’s Interlake district to pro-
mote them. Paul Richardson and
Þórdis Eiríksdóttir from Icelandic
Farm Holidays and Einar
Gustavsson from the Icelandic
Tourist Board in New York were
promoting both the Saga tours and
the farm holidays, but also a soon-
to-be published book called A
Journey in Sagaland. The book
offers an introduction to the sagas
and descriptions of the various areas
to which tours will be offered: they
include Egil’s Saga Country: The
Poet Viking; Laxdaela Saga Country:
The Lovers; Gretti’s Saga Country:
The Outlaw; Hrafnkel’s Saga
Country: The Priest of Frey; one trip
to Njál’s Saga Country that high-
lights Hallur of Sída and the Fighting
Missionary; and of course, Nál’s
Saga Country: The Thwarted
Peacemaker, the heart of the great-
est of the Icelandic Sagas, perhaps
perhaps the greatest piece of litera-
ture produced in Europe in the
Middle Ages. The final offering is a
trip to Þingvellir and its environs.
The three visitors spoke in Gimli
and at the Scandinvian Centre in
Winnipeg, and urged people plan-
ning to visit Iceland for the 50th
anniversary of the Republic in 1994
to consider taking one of the Saga
Tours and to use the farm holiday
program, which offers them a
chance to stay on an Icelandic farm
and experience the real life of the
nation as well as an opportunity to
rediscover their roots.
Information about the book or
the holidays can be obtained from
Iceland Farm Holidays: Bændahöllin
v/Hagatorg: 107 Reykjavík, Iceland. .
Those considering it might want
to refresh their memories of the
sagas themselves before going. There
are excellent translations of several
by Magnús Magnússon and Her-
mann Pálsson, published in inex-
pensive paperbacks by Penguin
Books and still available, as well as
a considerable collection at the Uni-
versity of Manitoba Icelandic library
for those who have access to it.
Evén if we can’t go, we can still
experience some wonderful reading.