Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.07.2011, Side 19

18
the reykjavík grapevine
Issue 9 — 2011
Special | Best Of Reykjavík
Egill Helgason is respected journalist, political commentator, blogger
and the host of Iceland's only literary TV show, as well as Iceland's
premiere political talk show. He usually knows what he's talmbout.
When I was a boy I lived
close to the Old Cem-
etery (“Gamli kirkju-
garðurinn”), which is
just up the hill from the pond. The
cemetery is an old, mysterious
place—and as a garden it is very
beautiful in its Nordic way. I think
this would count as my favourite
place in Reykjavík. Too bad it is
completely full, and thus people
who die in Reykjavík are usually
buried in a cemetery in Gufunes,
far out in the suburbs, in a place
where no one really goes until he
or she pass away.
a good Place to court girlS
When I was a young man, the Old Cem-
etery was a good place to take girls on
long summer nights. There is even a
famous description in a book by Þórber-
gur Þórðarson, one of Iceland's foremost
writers, about how he manages to lose
his virginity in the cemetery. This was
around 1912—so the garden has long
had this attraction. In Þórbergur’s case,
the affair is rather grotesque, but for me
the allure of the garden on a night in
June or July is much more romantic. It
is a nice place to sit around with a bottle
of red wine or a couple of beers in sum-
mers—no disrespect meant to the dead.
I started going to the garden at an
early age, when I was about seven or
eight. Since then, I’ve gotten to know
most of the gravestones there. It may
seem morbid, but I used to roam the gar-
den looking for people who had died in
November of 1918. This was the time of
the Spanish Flu, which hit very hard in
Reykjavík, killing many young people.
the BreakdoWn oF the MoSt
daShing Man in iceland
Many illustrious Icelanders are buried
in the garden: poets, politicians, artists,
bishops—and it also hosts the graves of
independence hero Jón Sigurðsson and
his wife Ingibjörg Einarsdóttir. They
both died in Copenhagen in December
1879, Ingibjörg passing away a few days
after her husband. But the news of their
death only reached Iceland in February
the year after—the country was such a
far away isolated place. Their bodily re-
mains were subsequently moved to their
home country, where they were buried
with great honours in May 1880. Pic-
tures from the funeral are quite impres-
sive—black clad people moving through
the humble town that was the Reykjavík
of 1880.
Other luminaries that permanently
reside in the Old Cemetery are for ex-
ample poet/politician Hannes Hafs-
tein. He was the first prime minister
of Iceland, being chosen for the job by
the Danish authorities in 1904. Hannes
Hafstein is said to have been an extraor-
dinary figure, in his literary outlook he
was influenced by the famous Danish
realist Georg Brandes—who was a great
influence on Henrik Ibsen—but as a
politician he was the scion of the na-
scent Reykjavík bourgeoisie. He is still
revered by many—he was also thought
to be a very good-looking man. But the
latter part of his life was rather tragic.
He lost his beloved wife, Ragnheiður, in
1913, and after that he started wander-
ing around the cemetery, spending long
hours at her grave, talking, and probably
drinking as well. For Icelanders this
makes a very strong picture—the most
elegant and dashing man of the country
breaking down like that in full view of
the townspeople.
the MoSt FaMouS graVe
But the most famous grave in the Old
Cemetery belongs to a man of a much
lowlier origin than the independence
hero and the prime minister. This is the
poet, drinker, gambler and barrel maker
Sigurður Breiðfjörð. Sigurður was a great
representative of the rímur, the popular
poetic form of the old farming society.
For a long while the rímur were about
the only "fun" to be had in Iceland. Sig-
urður Breiðfjörð was ferociously attacked
by Jónas Hallgrímsson—the upcoming
national poet—a romantic who thought
the rímur were backward, monotonous,
and basically stupid. But at that time the
people liked Sigurður Breiðfjörð more
than Jónas Hallgrímsson—even if he
later got the upper hand.
However Breiðfjörð was in constant
trouble because of his debt, drinking
and dissolute living. He lived in Green-
land for a while, working as a barrel
maker for Danish merchants. When he
moved to Reykjavík he had to fight the
authorities for the right to live in the
town. He was once sentenced to a f log-
ging on account of bigamy, he finally
appealed to the king in Copenhagen and
the punishment was never carried out.
Another famous story is that he once
sold his wife for a dog.
in the naMe oF Poor PoetS
Sigurður Breiðfjörð died at 48 in 1846, in
a house that stood on Aðalstræti (which
was then the main street of Reykjavík).
His foe, Jónas Hallgrímsson, had died
one year earlier in Copenhagen. Most
likely it was drink that caused both their
deaths, and it is said that on his deathbed
Breiðfjörð couldn’t hold down his liquor
any more.
But he is still a loved figure, not be-
cause of his poems that nobody reads
anymore, but because he features as a
poetic ideal for Ólafur Kárason, the poor,
scorned, unhappy poet-hero of Halldór
Laxness' novel ‘The Light Of The World’
(“Heimsljós”). In the book’s most fa-
mous scene, Ólafur Kárason makes a
kind of pilgrimage to Breiðfjörð’s grave,
a simple, rugged stone with a harp on it.
Ólafur decides that the five strings on
the harp represent joy, sorrow, fortitude,
love and death—in the name of all poor
poets who have ever lived in Iceland.
Many aspiring poets have since sat
on this grave—often with a bottle in
hand.
no Stone or croSS
There are many other interesting places
in the garden. Some of the graves are
in disrepair, but others are well taken
care of. In some places the trees are so
dense that sunshine doesn't reach the
ground—other parts of it are brighter
and sunnier. My great grandfather prob-
ably lies there somewhere. He was a
rather lowly farmer in Borgarfjörður, in
the west of Iceland. He took ill and final-
ly rode to Reykjavík to seek cure. There
he promptly died and from what I have
been told he was buried in the Old Cem-
etery. But nobody seems to know where.
There is no stone or cross on his grave.
As early as in the 1940s, the cemetery
was becoming fully occupied, so a new
one was marked out in Fossvogur, on the
eastern slopes of Öskjuhlíð hill behind
The Pearl. It is also quite a beautiful gar-
den, even if it lacks the mystery of the
Old Cemetery. There you will for exam-
ple find the graves of British, American
and Canadian soldiers who died in and
around Iceland during World War II.
the French FiSherMen
The Old Cemetery also has a memorial
dedicated to a battle that was just as fe-
rocious and deadly. This is the stone
erected for the French fishermen who
came on their ships to the waters around
Iceland during the 19th century and into
the 20th. It is said that as many as four
thousand of them perished. Their ships
were small, they were poorly shod and
clad—but in comparison to the dirt poor
Icelanders even these sailors had desir-
able things like wine, brandy and bis-
cuits. Writer Þórbergur Þórðarsson, who
grew up by the great, desolate, sands in
the southeast of Iceland, describes what
a feast it was when a French ship strand-
ed near his home. This includes a comic
description of Icelandic farmers drink-
ing French wine during a wedding—but
of course the reality of these fisheries
was deadly serious.
Many of the fishermen started work-
ing on the so called "golettes" when they
were just little boys. Mothers and wives
waited for them in the towns on the coast
of Brittany during their long voyages to
Iceland, usually starting in late winter,
returning in autumn. The French built
hospitals for their fishermen in Ice-
land, for example the French hospital in
Reykjavík, which stands in a street aptly
called Frakkastígur (“French Street”).
They even wanted to found a French fac-
tory town in the Westfjords of Iceland
in 1860, but their plans were met with
fierce resistance. In that period Iceland
still had quasi-serfdom and the aff lu-
ent farmers were suspicious of towns
forming by the seaside where there were
more opportunities, more freedom.
The memorial stone to the French
fishermen stands almost in the middle
of the Old Cemetery. It is a dignified
place. The inscription comes from an
old novel, which was very famous in its
time, ‘Pêcheur d'Islande’ by Pierre Loti:
"Il ne revint jamais. Une nuit d’août,
là-bas, au large de la sombre Islande, au
milieu d’un grand bruit de fureur, avaient
été célébrées ses noces avec la mer."
("He never came back. One August
night, in a great storm by the dark Ice-
land, his marriage with the sea was cel-
ebrated.")
Words
Egill Helgason
illustration
Lóa Hjálmtýsdóttir
a BeautiFul, MySteriouS garden
Egill Helgason writes about his favourite place in Reykjavík—which, incidentally, is a cemetery...
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