Mímir. Icelandic institutions with adresses - 15.12.1903, Side 74

64
NOTES ON ICELANDIC MATTERS
Sprengisandur, between the Arnarfell and the Tungnafellsjokull,
haunted, as he who traverses it finds out, by the pursuing
spirits of dreariness and solitude, and which has hence produced
one of the most stirring poems of the nineteenth century:
Ridum, ri8um og rekum yfir sandinn,
rennur sol a bak vi<5 Arnarfell;
the myriad of glaciers, both the stationary and the flowing
(creeping glaciers), generally differing in character from the icy
formations of more southern lands, both waging endless war-
fare against the genial forces of the sun, and producing a strange
phenomenon, peculiar to Iceland, styled an “ice-leap,” caused
by the welling up of water, which detaches great fragmentary
portions of the glacier and then bears them down to the low-
lands; the many gigantic glacier-borne boulders, known as
Grettistok (“Grettir grips” or “Grettir takes”), since they were
hurled, according to the lore of the folk, by the invincible na-
tional hero against his pursuing foes; and, lastly, in a larger
sense, the 750 square miles occupied by the icy tract of the
Vatnajokull in the south-east, the interior of which is still partial-
ly unexplored. One may see from the preceding pages, faint
and imperfect as such a sketch is, that the Alpinist and the
student of mountainous nature can find few finer fields for his
observation and study than the island of Iceland. — Closely
connected, too, with the country’s volcanic activity are the
sulphur springs (or solfataras), the chief being those of Krisuvlk
on the Reykjanes peninsula south of Reykjavik, and those in
the neighbourhood of Lake Myvatn in the northern province.
Both offer scenes of singular grotesqueness and of extraordinary
interest. On the northern Namafjall the sulphur rises to the
surface near the top of the slope, where there are many steam-
ing fissures, while the surrounding ground, as seen from a
longish distance to the east, is brilliant with every tint of red
and yellow. At the bottom of the glowing hillside exist many