Mímir. Icelandic institutions with adresses - 15.12.1903, Blaðsíða 79

NOTES ON ICELANDIC MATTERS
69
only to treachery. During the sail around the great north-
western peninsula, many fugitive glimpses will be had of its
long succession of picturesque fjords, before reaching the broad
BreicSifjordur, in which lie, in many clusters, the scores of is-
lands that make up the Icelandic archipelago. From one of
the little hamlets on these islands, Flatey, came the great and
important Flateyjar codex of sagas, one of the vellum treasures of
the Copenhagen Royal Library. As one passes through the group
in summer, the sombre rocks, relieved by patches of brightest
emerald, and set in the smiling waters, form a thousand pretty
pictures, which the memory long retains. Leaving the big
fjord, one enjoys first a northern and then a southern view
of the magnificent Snasfellsjdkull, of never-fading beauty, and
perhaps catches sight, at its base, of Stapi, a series of walls
and caves, formed and framed by masses of basaltic columns,
very like the Irish Stafifa.
Foreign Scholars in Iceland. — There can be no doubt
of the great utility, to one who is acquiring the Old-Northern
language, or investigating its literature, of a sojourn in Iceland.
This is proved — to cite no other cases — by the example of
Rask, the philologist, and of Maurer, the historian and jurist;
both did their work better for the months they passed in the
| land in which the tongue they were obliged to use is still a
spoken dialect — the only ancient speech of any branch of our
Germanic race anywhere surviving in the mouths of the people.
I The study of it, as it lives, gives the Old-Northern student a
notable advantage not to be obtained otherwise, and not to
be easily overestimated. But this is not all. A large and valu-
able portion of the old literature embraces the “Islendinga
sogur,” the sagas relating solely to Iceland, and nobody can
fully appreciate their spirit, nor, we might almost say, their
letter, unless he has seen the scenes in which their events
transpired. Among the people with whom the foreign student
in Iceland associates, he will constantly discover traces of the