Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.02.2019, Síða 16

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16 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • February 15 2019
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March 15
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As I begin my 34th year in funeral service, I’ve never lost my
curiosity for people and hearing the unique chapters
of your lives.
They are chapters worth sharing because they inspire, teach,
and give us a legacy of memories.
Call me anytime, and we can pick the chapters that you want
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I believe that you are unique. You make a di erence, and you
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Jan 15
Feb 15
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Your birthday is a dress rehearsal for your funeral event.
We celebrate with family and friends, sharing our favourite
food, great music and memorable stories.
Your funeral event is the time to celebrate that you are unique.
You’ve made a di erence, and you have a story to tell.
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March 1, 2019, 6 – 10 pm
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P L E A S E J O I N U SA F U N D R A I S E R F O R L - H
Sabine Baring-Gould
We rode through a
forest, the finest in
Iceland, some of the
trees being quite twenty feet
high. The fresh green of the
birch, the fragrance and rustle of
leaves, were most exhilarating,
and we cantered, singing, over
the light sandy soil, without
drawing rein, till we reached
Háls, where a new church was
in course of erection.
The priest received us kindly,
and gave us coffee and thin
pancakes of native wild corn,
powdered with cinnamon, and
eaten cold. His pretty daughter
was greeted affectionately by my
guide, as an old acquaintance.
The fellow has friends
everywhere! and the Grímsey
grievance was gone through
in detail, notwithstanding all
my entreaties that it might be
cut short, as we had a long
journey before us.
At last the story is done,
and we gallop through the
Ljósavatnsskarð, till we reach
the “Light Water” lake, whose
pale flood is full of undissolved
snows, brought down from
the white-crested mountains
on either side. Seven Northern
divers on it! Ducks, grebes,
mergansers, in scores; a white
gyrfalcon watches us from yon
pile of stone, a bowshot off. The
Icelandic raven flits around us,
and runs among the stones in
a bold contemptuous manner,
flinging us a disdainful croak
when we pelt it. No bird is more
common in Iceland than the
raven (both Corvus corax and
Corvus leucophæus) it throngs all
wild and desolate spots, and lays
its five or six greenish speckled
eggs among the mountain gorges
and clefts, early in March, a
month earlier than other birds. …
“Now we shall go slow!”
called Grímur from behind;
but Jón regardlessly cracked
his whip, and we spun along. A
pitch-black rock at the end of the
lake, scooped into by the stream,
and continually crumbling
away, was surmounted, and we
rode through moss and fen to
the Skjálfandafljót, or Flood
of quivering waves. A mile up
the river is Goðafoss, a noble
waterfall, bearing a striking
resemblance to Niagara, in
miniature. It is a horseshoe, and
has its Goat Island, to which it
is possible to wade; and then a
quaint peep of the landscape is
obtained through a watery arch,
spouted from a hollow, into which
one arm of the river pours. Below
the falls, the grotesqueness of the
rocks, and their ironblack colour,
add wildness to a scene, in itself,
very impressive.
Goðafoss is generally
considered to be the finest fall
in Iceland, but the priest at Háls
assured me that there is another
in the desert east of Mývatn,
incomparably its superior.
The river below the falls is
too deep to be forded, it is also
of considerable breadth. We
called to a ferry-man on the
farther shore, and whilst he was
rowing across, I amused myself
with gathering flowers. …
Goðafoss is the scene of one
of Grettir’s exploits. He is said to
have plunged under the falls, and
to have discovered a cave behind
the water. I asked the boatman
who ferried across to us, whether
any one had seen this cave since
the times of Grettir.
“A few winters back,” he
answered, “the cascade was
frozen, and then we went below
it and looked for the cavern,
but it was not visible. This does
not disprove anything! It only
shows that the undermined rock
has fallen in from the press of
water rolling over it.”
We now removed packs and
saddles from our horses, and
stowed them in the boat, then
drove the horses into the river
they waded on till the stream
lifted them off their legs, but
then turned with one consent,
and came back towards the
shore. With stones and shouts,
and cracking of whips, we sent
them back, and then they swam
boldly for the farther bank, their
heads showing like dark specks
above the water.
The ferryman rowed us
across, and we supped, as it
was eight o’clock, on German
sausage and hard biscuit. Then,
having saddled the horses, we
ascended the heiði, and got a view
of long rolling hills stretching
north, without a mountain peak.
From the side of one a column of
steam rose into the air, and was
blown in a southerly direction, as
it reached the top of the hill.
“That is Uxahver,” said Jón.
Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould
(1834-1924) was an Anglican
priest and novelist with eclectic
interests. A prolific author, he
is best known, perhaps, for the
lyrics of the hymns “Onward,
Christian Soldiers” and
“Now the Day Is Over.” He
travelled Iceland in 1861 for
the express purpose of visiting
sites related to the sagas and
“filling a portfolio with water-
colour sketches.” He published
memoir of his journey, Iceland:
Its Scenes and Sagas, in 1863,
from which this account of his
visit to Ljósavatn and Goðafoss
is drawn. The Icelandic names
have been modified from Baring-
Gould’s Anglicized versions.
Ljósavatn in snow and ice. Goðafoss in winter.
FROM HÁLS TO GOÐAFOSS
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PHOTOS: STEFAN JONASSON