The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1956, Side 23

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
21
is that they are full of genealogy. It
is like visiting one of the Southern
states, where everyone is related to
everyone else and people can trace
their relationships even unto the ninth
and tenth generation. So also, the
people in the sagas were the First
Families of Iceland. Their descendants-
love hearing about them and following
their movements, their marriages and
feuds and exiles and adventures; so
sometimes you have to wade through
many chapters of family chronicle to
strike the main stream of the story.
This is a 'bit boring; but it does give
a strong impression of sincerity.
The next thing you notict is the
extraordinary will power and courage
of the people, both men and women,
very few cowards came to Iceland across
the gray North Atlantic, and not many
were born there. The men were both
pioneers and pirates—for sometimes
they would farm for a few seasons, and
then take to their viking ships to loot
the coast of Europe, returning rich
and refreshed, or else dying in battle
and leaving their skins to decorate an
English church door. There are many
stories that show them taking an oath
or making a silent resolution, and
then keeping it through years of fierce
opposition and suffering. Everyone
had some courage at some moments.
The saga people admired the courage
that is needed for a long, grim struggle
against fearful odds, and most of all
the courage a man can show even
when he knows he is outnumbered
and finished. Some of the finest inci-
dents in the sagas show a brave man
facing death with a crisp epigram, or
with a controlled and powerful gesture
that shows his stout heart still unbrok-
en and unbreakable. One young vi-
king on a long voyage got a boil on
the side of his foot. When he dis-
embarked, and was taken in to be
presented to the powerful Earl Eric,
he would not limp, though the boil
oozed blood and pus at every step. The
Earl asked him what was wrong.
Gunnlaug said he had a boil under
his foot. ‘Yet you do not limp,’ said
the Earl. The young man replied, ‘I
shall not go lame while both my legs
are the same length.’ By this action
and this bold utterance, he showed
himself as good a man as anyone there,
tacitly challenged the Earl, and domi-
nated himself.
As you read on in the sagas, you will
also be impressed by the silence of the
people. In Iceland, the greater a man
or woman is, the less he or she talks.
(This is the reverse of our own system.)
They brood for long periods; then,
at a crucial moment, they say some-
thing powerful and final, words which
they have for many months been
distilling and storing, or a sentence
which is slow, quiet, but filled with
implosive energy. Once a group of the
hero Gunnar’s enemies surrounded
his house. One of them climbed the
roof to discover a way in. Gunnar
stabbed him through the window, and
he fell down. His friends said, ‘Is Gun-
nar at home?’ He answered, ‘Find out
for yourselves: I know his blade is at
home,’ and so he died. Sometimes at
crises the men remain utterly silent,
which is even more forcible (As Gret-
tir said, ‘No man is a fool if he -keeps
silent.’) When Hvitserk heard of the
cruel death of his father in a pit full
of snakes, he was playing a game like
chess. He said nothing, but squeezed
a piece he was holding so tightly that
the blood burst out under his finger-
nails. Listening to these grim phrases
or watching these grimmer silences,
we remember that Iceland is a country
where the winters are long and the
mountain snows are endless, but the
volcanoes smoke from time to time,