65° - 01.11.1969, Page 33

lade is that they were written by “a friend of Ice-
land”. What is present with you when you leave
is the 'knowledge that human activity and written
history coincide in this society, a claim few
human societies can make. The land was empty
when Scandinavian and British migrants took it
into possession. Besides their tool-kits, they
brought with them a social structure and a myth
structure which in this isolated place was per-
mitted to exist without outside interference for a
long time. Other migrants from the same areas of
origin tried to colonize Southern Greenland and
a section of North America. Here the Norse did
not survive. For some reason, they could not
exploit the resources in the manner of Eskimos
or Red Indians, and consequently died. It is in
this sense that Iceland represents the outermost
successful settlement of the Norse. It is a society
with a history of teetering on the brink of
disaster. The settlement facing the challenges of
nature is a stage upon which the society has per-
formed. This is the basis of much of Iceland’s
myth, her claim to renown, her source of pride.
We may say that the hallmark of the Icelander
is his very existence. To this precariousness of
balance, one must of ccourse add the facts of
Iceland’s history and relations with the outside
world.
To the Icelander travelling home on the Gull-
foss, hours will be spent at the railing of the
ship when the coast of the homeland are finally
sighted. It is as if the misery of living, the poor
weather, and the “idiocy“ of rural life, as Marx
called it, creates it’s own fierce counterbalance.
The citizen loves his country. Loudly and vehem-
ently does he proclaim the beauty of Iceland and
the purity of the Nordic man. It is all true. But
at what a price! After days of monotonous grey
weather, the endless pouring rain, the hours of
darkness, now and then a bit of sun. Then the
hills are washed in colour, the sky is blue and the
profusion and subtlety of landscape features,
juxtapositions and contrasts take one’s breath
away. To walk out of doors on an early winter
morning on the farm, to witness the blue sky, the
white land ranged round the horizon by white
mountains, the silence broken by the cry of a
pair of ravens. What breath-taking beauty. But
at what a price. The past history of poverty, the
loneliness, the dark silent nights as if giant unseen
jaws held the small human group in its sod hut in
endless confinement. . . . Kiljan puts it correctly
when he says in one place: “one conserved words,
or put into simple and terse language the most
enormous of events and happenings”, the counter-
balance, I presume, of the human mind, all
of this causing a love of land, and a concern
with words. I am a bilingual speaker of Danish
and English. Never will I speak Icelandic in its
puns, satire, rhythm and verse, or in it’s strophe
patterns. In that, in this most basic of cultural
perceptions, I and most men will remain foreign
to Iceland. It is not hard to speak Icelandic or
interview people, hut to watch a group of old men
at a 60th birthday speak the whole afternoon in
verse, made up on the spot and hope to catch all
meanings, that is an ambivalent exercise of frus-
tration and admiration. I know little of the urban
Icelander, and he is a rather new creature on the
horizon, but the human community in the rural
area, their love of language, their use of it; end-
lessly, punningly, satirical, how lovely, how im-
possible.
As far as the social sciences are concerned
there are no monographs on Icelandic life. There
are doctoral theses on economics, mental health,
and marriage patterns in a town. They are the
work of Icelandic scholars and are of recent date.
The base line for any social research in Iceland
has not been established. There are no special
treatises on social structure, patterns or func-
tions of either the rural community or the urban
community. We can make common sense state-
ments about social change in this country, but at
the moment that is all. This is a curious fact of
life since the material as well as the scholars are
present in Iceland, but one senses the lack of a
central coordinating effort or agency. This
country possesses economists, psychologists, his-
torians, theologians, philosophers, political scien-
tists, lawyers, archeologists, and folklorists all
highly educated and well trained by anyone’s
standards. Iceland like other Scandinavian
countries possesses a native ethnography, such
material as Saga Jons Jonssonar, such authors as
Skuli Magnusson, Jon SigurSsson, such sources
as Danish-Icelandic annals, or the data in the
folklore collection. It is all of it simply waiting for
the social sciences. The recent establishment of a
chair in Genealogy is indicative of the strength of
the myth upon the society, but what is needed is
a faculty of native scholars well versed in the
social sciences as they have developed in America,
Britain and France.
A striking feature of my stay was the debate
which went on about the social sciences and their
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