The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1954, Blaðsíða 28

26
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Spring 1954
the purpose of having his poetry pub-
lished. When the manuscript was ready
late in 1908, one of them took it to
Iceland to have it printed there. At
the same time they invited Stephans-
son to travel through the Icelandic
settlements and recite his poetry. He
travelled for three months, got as fat-
east as Duluth and held about twenty
meetings. When he had returned
home again, his friends sent him a
keepsake, which we have here with
us, a drinking horn. On receiving it
he wrote a short letter to Eggert Jo-
hannsson, a former editor of the Win-
nipeg weekly ‘Heimskringla’, who had
played a prominent part in the afore-
mentioned activities. In translation
the letter reads as follows:
Dear friend,
The ‘horn’ arrived last evening. My
sincere thanks to all of you for it and
all other good gifts, present and past.
The horn is a treasure, skilfully and
artistically made, as far as I am able
to judge. Not least do I like the
verse from the Lay of Sigurdrifa. It
is the most Christian drinking song I
can recall, even though there are many
good ones. I thought that at some time
I might have to translate it to an Eng-
lish friend, unprepared so that I
would stumble over it; hence I trans-
lated it immediately. Now you may
smile at my English, but thus it runs:
Beer I bring you,
Bold warrior,
Brewage of good health
And greatest honor.
Fraught with sounding sounds,
Sorcery of kindness,
Magic of friendliness
And mirthful tokens.”
This edition of his poetry appeared
in 1909 and 1910, in three volumes,
called “Andvokur” (Wakeful Nights).
The thirty-four friends who published
these volumes had them beautifully
bound in one, which they afterwards
gave to the poet in appreciation of
their pleasant association with him in
this matter. To make the volume com-
plete they all inscribed their names
in it.
Both these precious things, the
drinking horn and the presentation
volume, are now being preserved here
in the Library.
Stephansson’s good friends were not
confined to this continent. He also
had many in Iceland, where his poetry
had become widely known and had
earned him a place in the hearts of the
people. In 1917 a number of societies
in Iceland jointly invited him to visit
his native land.
For a while Stephansson seems to
have feared that he would disappoint
his good friends in Iceland and that
he was unworthy of this honor. Eggert
Johannsson at least, has felt that
Stephansson needed some encourage-
ment, as we can judge from the follow-
ing words in one of his letters to Steph-
ansson (here being translated): “Yes,
I had heard about your contemplated
trip to Iceland before I received your
letter. And, believe me, I was glad for
many reasons to hear this news and
then to have it confirmed by you in
your letter. The Icelanders, or the
paternal nation, owe you much, no less
than the Icelanders in America. None
of the nation’s poets has before or later
given her as much of new and hitherto
utterly unknown material, as you have
done, the novelists as well as the lyr-
ical poets included. All this you have
accomplished without remuneration,
had it as a hobby all your life, in the
evenings and in the nights while nature
demanded that you take a rest after