The Icelandic Canadian - 01.10.2002, Blaðsíða 21

Vol. 57 #2
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
63
Horses and the Midnight Sun
by John Weier
Those dazzling Icelandic horses. We
hadn’t driven too many miles after our
breakfast on the harbour in Reykjavik
before we saw them. Icelandic horses, large
herds of them seldom in ones or twos,
colourful herds of horses. In their graveled
and grassy pastures.
Pinto. And buckskin. Palomino and
chestnut and bay. White horse. Black
horse. Silver dapple and silver bay. Paint
horse. And blue or strawberry roan. Forty-
two different colour patterns according to
the literature. Sorrel with flaxen mane and
tail, liver chestnut, cremello, and dun.
Horses, and their half-ragged coats, still
early spring, still shedding their winter fur.
Icelandic horses, with their five natural
gaits; the famous tolt, the pride of every
proud Icelander.
A small horse, twelve to fourteen hands
in height and below the approved world
standard for separating horse from pony;
this Icelandic breed clings stubbornly to its
elevated status. No true Icelander will be
pleased to hear you speak of her mount as
a pony. And with good reason. Known for
its tremendous strength and endurance, at
eight hundred pounds the Icelandic will
easily carry a very large man for hours.
Sure-footed, hardy, self-sufficient, loyal;
Icelandic horses are known to out-pull
ordinary horses, to carry one third of their
body-weight, while most horses can carry
only one fifth as a maximum.
And they mature later than other horses,
grow until the age of seven, reach their
prime at twenty, broodmares throwing
foals almost into their thirties. The oldest
known Icelandic horse, Thulle, died not so
long ago in Denmark at age fifty-seven; she
simply stopped eating when her eighty-
three year old owner passed away.
Twenty-eight years she’d pulled his car-
riage of eggs from farm to farm, another
eight they’d been retired together. Small
horse Thulle, but with a big heart.
More than a thousand years this even-
tempered creature has lived and worked in
Iceland. Plowing fields, packing goods,
herding sheep from out of the hills, before
the recent introduction of the automobile
providing most of the country’s trans-
portation saddle or cart; since it stepped off
the ships of those early Nordic pioneers.
Eighth century A.D., either the ships of the
Vikings or the ships of those fleeing the
Vikings.
This land of two hundred and fifty thou-
sand people, one hundred thousand horses;
once an Icelandic horse leaves the island it
can never return, and no horse of any breed
may ever visit. That was already stipulated
in ancient Icelandic law. The purity of the
breed must be maintained, its natural gaits,
its health and vigor.
There on the road between Hofsos and
Reykjavik in a landscape of pasture and
hills and snowy peaks a round-up of hors-
es appeared suddenly in front of us,
blocked our route. On the pavement and in
the ditches. Geldings, and yearlings. Mares
with gamboling foals. Maybe one hundred
horses their manes and tails eddied in the
wind, maybe two hundred, and a dozen
men riding. We had flown through the
night, so little sleep in the few hours from
Minneapolis. But we scrambled from the
bus for a breath of air, for a picture and a
better look, for the thud and the clip of
hooves, the smell of horse dropping. We
stood and marveled under a large Icelandic
sky.
The landing that morning at the Keflavik
airport, I couldn’t help thinking of
Churchill, that one summer trip north six
years ago to Churchill. I looked out the
Icelandair window, through the clouds and
the rain, the fog. Barren, and flat. Rocks
and moss. Rocks and rocks and moss.
Black lava fields, and lichen. And water.