The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1963, Page 23

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
21
THOR6EIRSBOLI
by SYLVIA K. BERANEK
TKORGEIRSBOLI, a painting by JON STEFANSSON
Iceland is a tapestry woven in
somber colors, viewed in a silver light.
On even the brightest days the sun-
light falls softly, as if filtered through
a smoky glass.
In this tapestry, the yellow-greens of
the after-grass run like bright threads
through the purple of the screes and
fells, contrasting with the blue-green
patches of the wooly-leafed willows.
Gray moss carpets the miles of old
lava fields with its corpse white and
the crystal rivers do not appear to re-
flect the forget-me-not sky. They are
always dark blue unless they carry the
meltwater of glaciers.
Icelandic fields are not the smiling
fields of home. They lack our ox-eye
daisies and orange paint brush, shim-
mering in the summer’s heat. They are
dank and cold and their buttercups
and dead-white bog cotton stand with
their feet in water. But there are more
sinister places still, such as the lava
desert called “The Field of the Evil
Deed”.
In spite of these things, it is a land
that called to me. Is it because its
brooding mountains harbor trolls and
its weird rock formations could easily
turn to nameless horrors?
In a country like this, it is perhaps