65° - 01.07.1968, Blaðsíða 30

local Slavs, in Novgorod and Kiev, and took the
lead in hurling back invading hordes from the
east. Rollo invaded the north of France. He did
not seek to establish a Norse colony but founded
a dukedom within France and became the first
Duke of Normandy. The Normans, as the British
historian, Dr. E. A. Freeman, has said, strengthen-
ed the national usages and national life wherever
they went.
Born in Iceland in 1887, Walter J. Lindal was
The Norsemen who occupied the Isle of Man
established a Parliament for the island, now called
The House of Keys. Eirikr the Red (Thorvalds-
son), who settled Greenland, laid the foundation
there for an Althing to govern the island, wholly
independent of the Althing already established
in Iceland. If Thorfinnr Karlsefni had been able
to maintain a settlement in Yinland (whether the
locale was Newfoundland or Cape Cod is of no
moment), it would have been independent of
Greenland, Iceland, and Norway. One can genera-
lize: he who brooks no blemish in himself will
not form or help to develop a state, an empire,
or a world power, in which there are second-
class citizens, that is a society in which some
people are looked upon as being of a level below
others.
The advance, however, may not be geographic
but ideological. If it is by force and is perpetuated
by force it violates the same basic principle.
So also the advance into another country may
be economic. Here legitimate trade, reasonable
financial co-operation and assistance must be ex-
pected. Financial control, however, may be abused
and may endanger the economic and finally the
political independence of a country.
Brook no blemish in yourself! That ancient
and modern self-directive cannot be over-em-
phasized. It can be and has been applied in all
phases of human conduct: in commerical enter-
prises as well as in domestic affairs; socially as
well as in athletics.
It helped to develop positiveness in the feeling
of fatalism which, all the authorities agree, was
deep-rooted in the ancient Norsemen. A man
virtually said to himself: “If I am fated then I
must so direct myself as to be worthy of that for
which I am destined.”
This self-discipline may have given birth to
the words “goffur drengur” or “drengur goffur”.
“Drengur” by itself means at present a boy or
young man, “goSur” means “good”. The com-
bination always meant and still means a person
who is conscientiously honourable, and applies
to women as well as men.
The second rule of conduct is to be found in
the last two lines of the third verse of a “Song
of Praise” (Lofsongur) by Rev. Matthias Joc-
humsson, now the National Anthem of Iceland.
The following are the two lines:
VerSi groandi JjjoSlff rneS [jverandi tar,
sem ])roskast a guSs-rikis braut.
Give strength to our people, diminish their tears
On their course to a kingdom of God.
This is not a prayer to God for help in building
a kingdom in a mould of man’s choosing (where
power usually becomes the objective): it is a
prayer for guidance in building a kingdom of
the kind the conscience of a thoroughly honour-
able man tells him God would want to have
built.
The invocation is to God and it is not limited
to the Trinity of Christianity. It could equally
be to Yahweh of the Hebrews, to Allah of the
Mohammedans, to the Creator, to the Universal
Mind — no matter what word is used. The power
that inspired Gautama Buddha, or which created
the doctrine of Confucianism, the philosophy of
Hinduism, may equally be supplicated.
If communism is distinguished from forms of
dictatorship then it would not be unrealistic
to say that the theory originated by Marx and
Engels is an unconscious deification of the work-
ing classes — the proletariat. They envisioned
an ultimate classless society of workers, which
to them would be a heaven on earth. World ex-
perience has shown that the acceptance of that
theory is capable of creating an intensity of zeal
and a willingness to sacrifice one’s own life as
if a deity were being worshipped.
One could draw a general conclusion that the
faith,principle, or theory (whatever word is used)
which enables the human being to develop a high
degree of zeal and a willingness to lay down life
itself, creates the vision of a pinnacle to be reach-
ed: World Peace. That pinnacle may be far off
but it is seen by all in the distant blue. On the
travel up to that pinnacle all human beings could
become brothers.
A third rule is laid down by Stephan G. Step-
hansson, the Iceland-Canada poet. He became
universal, and of all times, when he laid down
the following exhortation to humanity:
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