Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2015, Page 83

An Interview With Gordon Childe: Iceland, 1956
But Russian?
I am not really fluent, but able to read
scholarly texts.
More fluent in Greek?
I learnt Latin and Greek at school, I have
the romance languages all under my con-
trol; I speak German, know the vocabulary
like in English, but not all the endings.
They are less important.
But what about oriental languages, some-
thing of the Indian languages?
I have become rusty in Sanskrit, but used to
read it once. I read Danish and Swedish and
Icelandic a little. There are some fine archae-
ologists in the Nordic countries.
There was prehistory in Scandinavia, but
here we have the Saga age. Have you read
the Icelandic sagas?
Those which have been published in Eng-
lish translations - I liked Egils saga the
most.
But what about modern Icelandic
literature?
I have read Salka Valka and Independent
People9. But who is this Torfdal who stands
behind Arnaldur, is that a known person?
I got tongue-tied. Torfdal is someone in
part related to Jónas Jónsson10 and be-
fore you knew it, the conversation turned
to the origin of Icelandic unions. Arndal
and the strike in Keflavík, the Bolungarvík
fracas11, Hannibal Valdimarsson and the
Peoples Alliance12. The famous antiquarian
is obviously keenly interested in Icelandic
contemporary events and the incoming
government, so that some time passes, un-
til Bjartur of Summerhouses13 blends into
the conversation. The professor says, that
he liked him even better than Salka, “but
this is probably because I find men more
fun than women”.
A pity that the Eskimos did not live
in Iceland
But there would be little archaeology and
other wonderful things in the world, if
9 Novels by the famous Icelandic writer Halldór Laxness.
10 Jónas Jónsson frá Hriflu (b. 1885 - d. 1968) was a well known politician in Iceland, founder and leader of the
Progressive party, an MP and minister particularly influential from the 1920s to 1940s.
11 Arndal probably refers to Kristínus Arndal who was the head of a bureau of work allocation in 1935-51. The
strike in Keflavík and the fracas in Bolungarvík both occurred in 1932 and both involved abductions of union
leaders, in the latter case of Hannibal Valdimarsson himself (see the following fn. and Einarsson & Haralds-
son 1977, 55-71).
12 Hannibal Valdimarsson (b. 1903 - d. 1991) was a major figure in Icelandic left-wing politics during the
mid-20,h century, an MP and chairman of both the People’s Alliance and labour unions at the time of this
interview.
13 The main protagonist in the Laxness novel Independent People.
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