Sunday Post - 22.12.1940, Blaðsíða 7

SUNDAY POST
7
Kerlingarfjoll.
One of the most beautiful mountains in the interior.
sight. They wonder at the
baked rock, the blue tints and
the barren field of lava, and
feel the lack of the forests of
their homelands. But Iceland
cannot be seen at a glance, and
bideed it takes some time to
they who come to Iceland are
bewitched by its scenery, and
This is how an Icelander feels
about his country and likes his
friends from abroad to see it.
never afterwards forget it.”
Long ago the climate of Ice-
3NTRR5T5
appreciate it, like everything
else which is mighty and out
°f the ordinary.
But little by little they per-
ceive the spectrum of the long,
northern day, varying at every
hour, from blue-tinged morning
to rosy night, this wondrous
chiaroscuro, which endows the
fend with a mystic life, stamps
fes features, reconciles its con-
trasts and moulds all its end-
fess variations into one magnifi-
Cent unity. Gradually the veil
ls lifted from the secrets of the
barren scene, until one comes
t° understand that it has its
°wn raison d’etre, its beginn-
lng, its growth and its end, for
everywhere in the land may be
Seen the work of those mighty
forces, which have built up the
w°rld and are still changing
Jfs shape. One comes to realise,
f°0; that the lava-fields are the
forests of those blue mountains,
another kind of giant vegeta-
fi°n, which flowers but once
and then petrifies. But, what-
ever one’s first impression, the
land was as warm as that of
Southern France and the vege-
tation was in harmony with it.
Later the huge glaciers of the
ice-age descended upon it and
under the glacier eruptions be-
gan again. Then the climate
again grew warmer and the
land rose from the sea in the
shape it now has.
The glaciers of the ice-age
have not vanished entirely.
Still there are huge snow-fields
in the highland district cover-
ing the mountains. Among
them is the biggest glacier in
Europe, Vatnajokull. This gla-
cier, or its highest top, Hvanna-
dalshnukur, can be seen far
away; and when the first sett-
lers of Iceland came in their
small boats from Norway and
Scotland this mountain was
From Lake Pingvallavatn.
their guide and its massive
snow-white dome their first im-
pression of their future home-
land.
Many of these men had left
their ancestral properties and
fled before the King of Norway.
Some came direct to Iceland,
others stayed for a while in the
British Isles and together with
them came a large number of
Celts.
These warlike vikings and
merchants made their home in
Iceland and became peasants.
Thus a new nation was born,
whose fate it was to create the
literature which has made Ice-
land famous.
inclusion is always one, that
The biggest lake in Iceland.