The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1981, Blaðsíða 20

18
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
SPRING, 1981
time in prayer and meditation. Grimur Saga Age their common traits have been
Thomsen, one of Iceland’s great poets, noted: They were strong personalities, am-
summarizes her last years in a well known bitious, ruthless, basically honest, hot
poem, of which one stanza is given here in a tempered, loyal to their friends, and loving
line for line and word for word prose transla- freedom. These characteristics have been
tion: “Hatred is quenched, the wounds of found in Icelandic women in all ages, vary-
heart/have gradually, but completely been ing in intensity with the standards and the
healed/The tears of faith polished the life-style of each generation. But the whole
wounds/at the same time they have dimmed nation has been moulded and refined in the
my vision./The years of life are soon spent/I crucible of experience during the many
am at peace with all men/My old age will be centuries since the Saga Age, and now in a
filled with remorse/until I fall asleep in flexible and changing generation the women
Helgafell.’’ of Iceland have surged forth to their greatest
By this brief and superficial study of the victory by placing one of their own sex into
“famous four” Icelandic women of the the White House of the nation.