The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1982, Side 13

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
11
A TOAST TO THE VIKINGS
An address delivered by Roy St. George Stubbs at the Annual
Banquet and Dance of the Icelandic National League,
March 27, 1982.
Figaro, the Barber of Saville, an incor-
rigible busybody, who had a finger in every
pie in his native city, boasted of his expert
knowledge of the English language. The
truth was that he knew one English word, a
swear word — a mild one — Goddam. My
knowledge of the Icelandic language is
more extensive than Figaro’s knowledge of
English. I do know more than one Icelandic
word. But my knowledge of Icelandic his-
tory and literature is a little more extensive
than my knowledge of the Icelandic lan-
guage, or I would not have presumed to
accept your invitation to speak to you
tonight, on the occasion of the annual
dinner of the Icelandic National League.
I first realized that there was something
special about Icelanders, when I read in
one of my children’s books that in Reyk-
javik every fifth store is a bookshop. At the
time Winnipeg, more than five times the
size of Reykjavik, could not boast a single
first class bookshop. Fortunately, this
condition has now been remedied, but
Winnipeg is still not even close in the run-
ning with Reykjavik. Evelyn Stefansson,
wife of one of Iceland’s greatest sons, was
speaking no less than the truth, when she
said that Iceland is the most literate country
in the world — a country ‘that publishes
several times more books per capita than
any other country.’
Iceland was known to the ancient Greeks.
In the third century B.C., Pytheas a Greek
explorer, made a voyage into uncharted
seas, visiting an island in the North At-
lantic, which he called Thule. His de-
scription of this island indicates, with
reasonable certainty, that he had dis-
covered Iceland.
Vikings from western Norway began to
settle in Iceland late in the ninth century. A
few Irish monks who wanted to lead a life
of solitary contemplation were already on
the scene. Harald Fairhair was the first king
to reign over a united Norway. His reign
was a long one — fifty-eight years — from
872 to 930. He was an assertive, aggressive
king, determined to have no one powerful
enough in Norway to be able to dispute his
authority. He campaigned systematically
against the great Viking chieftains of
Norway to make them acknowledge him as
their liege lord. Some of these chieftains
were not prepared to live in Norway on
King Harald’s terms. “(They held) all
‘royal right’ a lie — Save that a royal soul
hath wrought.” They left their homeland
for Iceland where they would not have to
bend the knee to any overlord. Professor
Gwyn Jones makes this significant state-
ment: “No country was ever happier in its
founding families (than Iceland).”
They were individualists, these Vikings;
or, in the modem phrase, independent
people. Neither their minds nor their beards
had a formal cut. They did not believe that
all men are created equal. They did believe