Iceland review - 2012, Síða 6

4 ICELAND REVIEW
If Icelanders were animals, we would be sheep.
Stubborn, harsh, tough, survivors in the land
of wind, rain and shine. It is a small miracle
that we have survived as a nation. It was the sheep
which kept us alive. When the poet Látra-Björg
(Björg Einarsdóttir, born 1716) died in 1784, there
were so few of us; fewer than 40,000 people living
in stark poverty so the king of Denmark seriously
considered moving the whole nation to Jutland in
Denmark. Látra-Björg wrote at least two poems
about the people of Fnjóskadalur (Hnjóskadalur).
Two hundred and fifty years later, Iceland Review
joined the farmers of the area where she lived for
the annual sheep roundup (see After the Blizzard on
page 66).
A useless horse and useless sheep
- a useless cow to boot.
A useless shepherd rounds them up,
a useless sheepdog in pursuit.
Hnjóskadalur’s worthy folk
give me curds and give me milk.
In Hnjóskadalur the cream is pure,
there are plates of wholesome meat.
From Hnjóskadalur’s plentiful store
they give me broth and butter to eat. *
This autumn, the library Amtbókasafnið á
Akureyri issued a list of the 100 Icelandic books
you must read before you die. The list is in alpha-
betic order. When asked about the list, Hólmkell
Hreinsson, the director of the library, said he would
not reveal what book got the most votes, but men-
tioned that Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) is on
the list. This epic novel by Nobel laureate Halldór
Laxness, originally published in two volumes in
1934 and 1935, deals with the struggle of poor Ice-
landic sheep farmers in the early 20th century, who
fought for survival on isolated crofts in an inhospi-
table landscape.
In the beginning of the story, Bjartur, the main
character, rides up into the mountains with other
men of the district for the annual roundup of sheep,
leaving his wife Rósa home alone with only a gim-
mer to keep her company. Terrified by a storm one
night and desperate for meat, Rósa kills and eats
the animal. When Bjartur returns, he assumes
Rósa let the animal loose. When he cannot find the
gimmer, he once again leaves his heavily-pregnant
wife to search the mountains for it, gets trapped by
a blizzard and nearly dies of exposure.
We are still sheep, kind of.
Páll Stefánsson
ps@icelandreview.com
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What We are
EDITOR
Páll Stefánsson
DEPUTY EDITORs &
fEATUREs EDITORs
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* The poems by Látra-Björg were translated by Bernard Scudder and published in Icelandic Poetry by Saga Forlag, 2012.