Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.03.2019, Blaðsíða 11

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Lögberg-Heimskringla • 15. mars 2019 • 11
Lord Dufferin (1856)
When I came on deck
again we had crossed
the Faxe Fiord on our
way north, and were sweeping
round the base of Snaefell –
an extinct volcano which rises
from the sea in an icy cone to the
height of 5000 feet, and grimly
looks across to Greenland.
The day was beautiful; the
mountain's summit beamed
down upon us in unclouded
splendour, and everything
seemed to promise an
uninterrupted view of the west
coast of Iceland, along whose
rugged cliffs few mariners
have ever sailed. Indeed, until
within these last few years,
the passage, I believe, was
altogether impracticable, in
consequence of the continuous
fields of ice which used to
drift down the narrow channel
between the frozen continent
and the northern extremity of
the island. Lately, some great
change seems to have taken
place in the lie of the Greenland
ice; and during the summertime
you can pass through, though
later in the year a solid belt
binds the two shores together.
Both in an historical and
scientific point of view, the
whole country lying about the
basanite roots of Snaefell is
most interesting. At the feet of
its southern slopes are to be seen
wonderful ranges of columnar
basalt, prismatic caverns,
ancient craters, and specimens
of almost every formation that
can result from the agency of
subterranean fires; while each
glen, and bay, and headland, in
the neighbourhood, teems with
traditionary lore. On the north-
western side of the mountain
stretches the famous Eyrbiggja
district, the most classic ground
in Iceland, with the towns, or
rather farmsteads, of Froda,
Helgafell, and Biarnarhaf.
This last place was the
scene of one of the most curious
and characteristic Sagas to be
found in the whole catalogue of
Icelandic chronicles. …
But to return to the Foam.
After passing the cape, away
we went across the spacious
Brieda Fiord, at the rate of nine
or ten knots an hour, reeling
and bounding at the heels of
the steamer, which seemed
scarcely to feel how uneven
was the surface across which
we were speeding. Down
dropped Snaefell beneath the
sea, and dim before us, clad in
evening haze, rose the shadowy
steeps of Bardestrand. The
north-west division of Iceland
consists of one huge peninsula,
spread out upon the sea like a
human hand, the fingers just
reaching over the Arctic circle;
while up between them run
the gloomy fiords, sometimes
to the length of twenty, thirty,
and even forty miles. Anything
more grand and mysterious
than the appearance of their
solemn portals, as we passed
across from bluff to bluff, it is
impossible to conceive. Each
might have served as a separate
entrance to some poet’s hell
– so drear and fatal seemed
the vista one’s eye just caught
receding between the endless
ranks of precipice and pyramid.
There is something,
moreover, particularly mystical
in the effect of the grey, dreamy
atmosphere of an arctic night,
through whose uncertain
medium mountain and headland
loom as impalpable as the
frontiers of a demon world; and
as I kept gazing at the glimmering
peaks, and monstrous crags,
and shattered stratifications,
heaped up along the coast in
cyclopian disorder, I understood
how natural it was that the
Scandinavian mythology, of
whose mysteries the Icelanders
were ever the natural guardians
and interpreters should have
assumed that broad, massive
simplicity which is its most
beautiful characteristic. Amid
the rugged features of such
a country the refinements of
Paganism would have been
dwarfed to insignificance. How
out of place would seem a Jove
with his beard in ringlets, a
trim Apollo, a sleek Bacchus,
an ambrosial Venus, a slim
Diana, and all their attendant
groups of Oreads and Cupids,
amid the ocean mists and ice-
bound torrents, the fire-scathed
mountains and four months’
night, of a land which the
opposing forces of heat and cold
have selected for a battle-field!
The undeveloped reasoning
faculty is prone to attach an
undue value and meaning to the
forms of things, and the infancy
of a nation’s mind is always
more ready to worship the
manifestations of a Power, than
to look beyond them for a cause.
Was it not natural then that these
northerns dwelling in daily
communion with this grand
primæval Nature should fancy
they could perceive a mysterious
and independent energy in her
operations; and at last come
to confound the moral contest
man feels within him, with the
physical strife he finds around
him; to see in the returning sun
fostering into renewed existence
the winter-stifled world, even
more than a type of that spiritual
consciousness which alone
can make the dead heart stir;
to discover even more than an
analogy between the reign of
cold, darkness, and desolation,
and the still blanker ruin of a
sin-perverted soul? …
It was now just upon the
stroke of midnight. Ever since
leaving England, as each four-
and-twenty hours we climbed
up nearer to the pole, the belt
of dusk dividing day from day
had been growing narrower
and narrower, until having
nearly-reached the Arctic circle,
this – the last night we were to
traverse – had dwindled to a
thread of shadow. Only another
half-dozen leagues more, and
we would stand on the threshold
of a four months’ day! For the
few preceding hours clouds
had completely covered the
heavens, except where a clear
interval of sky, that lay along
the northern horizon, promised
a glowing stage for the sun’s last
obsequies. But like the heroes of
old he had veiled his face to die,
and it was not until he dropped
down to the sea that the whole
hemisphere overflowed with
glory, and the gilded pageant
concerted for his funeral
gathered in slow procession
round his grave; reminding one
of those tardy honours paid to
some great prince of song, who
– left during life to languish in
a garret – is buried by nobles
in Westminster Abbey. A few
minutes more the last fiery
segment had disappeared
beneath the purple horizon, and
all was over. …
A fairer or a stranger
spectacle than the last
Arctic sunset cannot well
be conceived. Evening and
morning – like kinsmen whose
hearts some baseless feud
has kept asunder – clasping
hands across the shadow of the
vanished night. …
Of course the novelty
and excitement of all we had
been witnessing had put sleep
and bedtime quite out of our
thoughts: but it was already six
o’clock in the morning; it would
require a considerable time to
get out of the fiord, and in a
few hours after we should be
within the Arctic circle, so that
if we were to have any sleep at
all, now was the time. Acting
on these considerations, we all
three turned in; and for the next
half-dozen hours I lay dreaming
of a great funeral among barren
mountains, where white bears
in peers’ robes were the pall-
bearers, and a sea-dragon
chief-mourner. When we came
on deck again, the northern
extremity of Iceland lay leagues
away on our starboard quarter,
faintly swimming through the
haze; up overhead blazed the
white sun, and below glittered
the level sea, like a pale blue
disc netted in silver lace. I
seldom remember a brighter
day; the thermometer was at
72º, and it really felt more as if
we were crossing the line than
entering the frigid zone.
This is an extract from
Letter VIII of the 1910 edition
of Lord Dufferin’s 1857 book,
Letters from High Latitudes;
this letter was completed at
Hammerfest, Norway, in July of
1856. “Hammerfest is scarcely
worthy of my wasting paper
on it,” he wrote. “When I tell
you that it is the most northerly
town in Europe, I think I have
mentioned its only remarkable
characteristic!” The names of
Icelandic places are presented
here as Lord Dufferin rendered
them in English and we
trust that his variations are
sufficiently close to the actual
names that readers will be
able to easily figure out for
themselves where he is writing
about in each case.
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L-H
Translat ion
Serv ices
English to Icelandic
or
Icelandic to English
We can accommodate
your translation needs
contact L-H for a quote
LH@LH-INC.CA
(204) 284 5686 TF: 1-866-564-2374
Lord Dufferin steams toward the Midnight Sun
Engraving of Lord Dufferin’s sketch, “Remains of Basaltic Dykes” Engraving of Lord Dufferin’s sketch, “Taking a Sight”