The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1955, Side 27

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
25
beautiful waterfall. On a sunny day
many rainbows can be seen above the
fall .indeed an inspiring and unforget-
table sight.
From this memorable trip we re-
turned to Reykjavik by way of I>ing-
vellir, again feasting our eyes, and our
soul, on its rare grandeur and hearing
once more the voices from the past
reverberate from its sacred rocks. On
our return trip that lovely summer eve
we experienced the response to the
Icelandic scene, which Mrs. Rothery
has described so beautifully in her
book on Iceland:
“In the evening summer light the
yellow moss that lies like golden lace
upon the black velvet sides of the
mountains gives back a reflected light.
The moss ripples over the meadows in
a supersensuous golden glow. Every-
thing is softened and illumined by this
delicate shimmer, bright as buttercups
in the sun, intricate as filigree, stretch-
ing for miles and miles.”
At the invitation of the University
of Iceland, in early July, we made an-
other most memorable journey to the
historic places in Southern Iceland, the
scene of famed Njals saga, ac-
companied by Dr. Einar Olafur Sveins-
son of the University, Mrs. Sveinsson,
and Dr. Ludvig Holm-Olsen of the
University of Bergen, Norway. Dr.
Sveinsson is rightly considered the
greatest living authority on Njals saga,
and it was a rare experience to visit
HliSarendi and Bergjiorshvoll, respec-
tively the homes of Gunnar and Njall,
under his expert guidance. His auth-
oritative and artistic interpretation of
the saga events associated with those
hallowed places made the distant past
come vividly to life. In that con-
nection I am happy to refer the reader
to an excellent description of the
Njals saga country, “Sagasteads of Fire
and Ice” by Hedin Bronner, published
in the 1955 spring number of The
American-Scandinavian Review.
The day following our visit to HliS-
arendi and Bergjxirshvoll, as the guests
of relatives, we visited two other hist-
oric places in the same vicinity, Keld-
ur, where Mrs. Beck’s relatives have
resided for generations and where one
of the most interesting and oldest
farmhouses in Iceland is preserved and
the historic parsonage of Oddi, the
famous cultural and literary centre of
old.
Nor did we neglect visiting other
scenic and historic parts of Iceland.
On an automobile journey from my
childhood haunts in Eastern Iceland
to Akureyri, we visited Iceland’s
mightiest waterfall, in terms of sheer
power and rugged grandeur, “the glor-
ious, thundering, incomparable Detti-
foss”, in the words of an American
writer, a description which hits the
mark squarely. Then it is not surpris-
ing that leading Icelandic poets have
vied with one another in describing
this great wonder of nature.
Not far from Dettifoss is Asbyrgi, a
unique natural Colosseum, shaped like
a gigantic horse’s hoof, from which
derives the legend that Sleipnir, Odin’s
renowned steed, had once touched the
ground there and left on it his indel-
ible imprint.
As guests of the Icelandic govern-
ment we visited historic BorgarfjorSur,
where the scene of Egils saga Skalla-
grimssonar is laid, stopping on the
way at Saurtbaer in FIvalfjorSur,
sanctified by the memory of the great
hymn-writer, Rev. Hallgrimur Peturs-
son, and in BorgarfjorSur at Reyk-
holt, the home of the historian Snorri
Sturlason, of world renown, and at
Borg, the home of Eggil Skallagrfms-
son, equally famed for his heroic
deeds and his immortal achievements
in the realm of poetry.