Iceland review - 2007, Qupperneq 95

20 ICELAND REVIEW
We reach Bärby, the farm where Lykill will remain, and I am surprised
by a booming greeting in Icelandic, “ Saell og blessadur! ”, from the farm’s
owner, Hreggvidur Eyvindsson, who like Lykill, left Iceland to live in
Sweden. But as Icelanders do, Hreggvidur has taken the nation along
with him, seen in more aspects than the Icelandic horse farm he runs; that
night on Hreggvidur’s farm I sleep in a room called Katla, named after the
Icelandic volcano, under a blanket spun from Álafoss wool. Outside, Katie
Brumpton leads her tired horse in silence to his stall. She is a demure girl
at 17 and full of promise, having already placed in the Nordic Champion-
ship. They will remain here for the next year to train and prepare for next
year’s competitions before returning to Katie’s native Finland.
Lykill’s line has been bred in Iceland since the settlement of the island
in the 9th century, with very little outside bloodstock brought into the
pedigree. Through his veins courses a millennium of isolation; he is not
only a horse of a different color, but a horse of an entirely different genetic
makeup. Here in Sweden, neither of them is native, but the horse has
found its rider. The Finnish girl murmurs her first words in Icelandic to
Lykill as she circles him into his freshly bedded stall: “Velkominn heim,
ástin mín.” (Welcome home, my dear.)