Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1936, Blaðsíða 119

Heima á Fróni
Margaret Ann Bjornson.
For days the sea liad rocked it-
self gloomily, oppressed by tlie
weiglit of a heavilv leaded sky.
Sometimes fine steel ribbons of
rain were threaded between them,
like a vast design in filigree. But
nsually tliere was no intricacy of
pattern in the grey mi.st—no pat-
tern, only the monotone of a
shroud.
Such a prelude is well in keeping
with the aura of mjrsticism and
i’omance which has for so many
centuries surrounded the north;
the avid interest in, and specula-
tion about a lost continent — the
fabled Atantis — of wliich Iceland
is said to be one remnant, the most
i'emote, probably, from tlie Pillars
of Hercules; the morbid fascina-
tion of life and culture on a vol-
canic island, rudely indented by a
jealous sea. We remember Snorri:
‘ The earth ’s round face, whereon
ttiankind dwells, is mucli cleft be-
cause great gulfs run up into tlie
land from the ocean ...”
jt.
w ’A' w
“We have landed in Thule,”
wrote Lord Dufferin from Reykja-
vik in 1856. And against the dark-
ncss of a. dripping night, the great
dim mass rising out of the sea into
the mist is as fantastically unreal,
as terribly awe-iifspiring as the
legendary Ultima Thule. Salt
spray and the strong smell of fish
'7'but the travesty to the imagina-
tion of disrnal street lamps. Oil
and smoke, and tlie commotion of
a harbor; the persistence of the
rain.
In the cold grey of an October
morning, most of the romantic
trappings have been shed, but
very little of the grimness. Reykja-
vik stands in narrow muddy
streets, Avhose ugly clay-colored
puddles are like lioles in the lieel
of a sock; and stares almost vac-
antly from tlie windows of its un-
prepossessing frame liouses, or in-
congruously modernistic ones. Cur-
iously bald it is, with its dearth of
trees, its unadorned squares, its
colorless pond.
Flanking this somewhat incred-
ible ci'ty is the harbor — its rusty
coal barges, and small passenger
boats, and picturesque fisliing
trawlers, all grey-blanketed. A
stinging wind whips in and out of
the tangled masts, silently. And
then suddenly — the sky with its
low matted clouds swoops down as
if to crusli the mountains between
itself and the sea. The jaggecl
peaks across the bay, undisturbed,
rise in majesty through the mist,
through the wind, tlirougli the
rain, oblivious to the petulant sea
beneath tliem.
Occasionally an anaemic sun ap-
pears for a few moments, and tlie
mountains are brieflv gold, or
hazily corn-colored, or brilliantly
purple. But the sea remains stub-
bornly grey, and reluctantly the
sky conforms, the mountains fade,