Iceland-msg - 4/10/05
History and culture of Iceland.
NOTE: See also the files: Norse-msg, pst-Vik-Norse-msg, Norse-food-art, N-drink-ves-msg, ships-msg, Greenland-msg, Norse-games-art, fd-Norse-msg, names-Norse-msg, fish-skin-tan-msg, stockfish-msg.
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NOTICE -
This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.
This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org
I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.
The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.
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Thank you,
Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous
Stefan at florilegium.org
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Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: DDFr at Midway.UChicago.edu (David Friedman)
Subject: Re: The Status of Myrkfaelen, is it really ruled by Aethelmarc?
Organization: University of Chicago Law School
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 14:42:11 GMT
E. F. MORRILL asks Orlando:
> Pretty much though out the span of time that the majority of us play,
> "everyone" was in Fealty or "owed" something to someone else. Times of
> Kings and Queens and Knights doing "great deeds". Romance. The "good" things.
> I have never understood Myrkfaelen's stand on this issue.
Iceland, according to the Icelanders' account, was settled by refugees from
the forcible unification of Norway under King Harald Haarfagr. From the
settlement of Iceland in about 870 until the end of Icelandic independence
in about 1263, Iceland owed allegiance to no king. The internal political
system was not feudal in the ordinary sense; thingmen were associated with
chieftains, but were free to change their tie to any other chieftain that
would have them. With the exception of some Icelanders who chose to become
retainers of foreign kings (usually the king of Norway), virtually nobody
in Iceland was in fealty to anyone.
Your picture of medieval history apparently leaves out one of its most
interesting societies (and, incidentally, one that produced some of the
best literature of the middle ages). That is no reason why other people
should do the same. Popular views of the middle ages (kings and queens and
knights in shining armor) may be a good starting point for people in the
SCA, but surely one of the points of what we are doing is to go deeper into
the real middle ages, not just stay with the hollywood version. The sagas
are, at least in my view, better literature than the chansons de geste, and
their heroes and heroines more interesting people. Myrkfaelinn deserves
credit for trying to model their group on a very real and (as your posting
suggests) too little known part of the middle ages.
> Is MYRK willing to accept than maybe someday there may be a
> King or Prince who would expouse the ideas I put forth? Someone who would
> not accept the "status-quo" and, according to their beliefs and
> convictions, rule?
Many years ago, Marion of Edwinstowe commented that my one qualification
for the throne was that I already knew that being king and thirty-five
cents would get you a ride on the MTA. If a king tries to follow the policy
you outlined, and if Myrkfaelinn then is the Myrkfaelinn I have known, he
will learn that lesson. Anyone who believes that SCA kings "rule" in any
strong sense of that term is, in my view, not qualified for the job.
--
David/Cariadoc
DDFr at Midway.UChicago.Edu
From: harpa at ismennt.is (Harpa Hreinsdottir)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Web-pages about Egil's saga
Date: 3 Apr 1996 16:44:03 -0000
Organization: Islenska menntanetid
You can now read about the viking and poet Egill Skalla-Grimsson in
English. Students at a comprehensive school in Iceland have made some
web-pages about Egil's saga and translated them into English. They can
be seen at:
http://rvik.ismennt.is/~harpa/forn/english/e_egils/e_egils.html
or just go to http://rvik.ismennt.is/~harpa/forn
and choose the English version.
Yours
Harpa Hreinsdottir
harpa at ismennt.is
From: DDFr at Best.com (David Friedman)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Help with Icelandic personna
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 00:48:50 -0800
Organization: School of Law, Santa Clara University
In article <546l9d$p7 at binky.axionet.com>, Lithium <lithium at axionet.com> wrote:
> I have recently joined the sca and would like to try to make my personna
> Icelandic do to my ethnic background. I unfortuatly have no living
> Icelandic relatives left and am finding anything about medieval iceland
> particularly hard to find. If you have any ideas where i would find some
> info I would be very grateful.
Congratulations, you have the world's most fun to research persona. The
Icelandic sagas give a very realistic picture of the society, they are good
reading, they were written in period, and a fair number of them are
currently in print in English translations, often in paperback. Good
examples are Egil Saga, Njal Saga, Laxdaela Saga, Gisli Saga, ... .
A good modern historian of saga period Iceland is Jesse Byock, who has
published several books.
If you are curious about the legal system, take a look at my article on
"Private Production and Enforcement of Law," reachable from my academic web
page at:
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Academic/Academic.html
David/Cariadoc
From: gunnora at bga.com (Gunnora Hallakarva)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Help with Icelandic personna
Date: 19 Oct 1996 20:27:35 GMT
In article <546l9d$p7 at binky.axionet.com>, lithium at axionet.com says...
> I have recently joined the sca and would like to try to make my personna
>Icelandic do to my ethnic background. I unfortuatly have no living
>Icelandic relatives left and am finding anything about medieval iceland
>particularly hard to find. If you have any ideas where i would find some
>info I would be very grateful.
>
>Colleen Gordondottir.
Try the following:
Byock, Jesse. Feud in the Icelandic Saga. Berkeley: U of California Press. 1982.
Byock, Jesse. Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas and Power. Berkeley: U of California Press. 1988.
Dennis, Andrew, Peter Foote and Richard Perkins, trans. Laws of Early Iceland:
Gragas. Vol I. Winnipeg: U of Manitoba Press. 1980.
Frank, Roberta. "Marriage in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Iceland." Viator 4 (1973): 473-484.
Fry, Donald K. Norse Sagas Translated into English: A Bibliography. New York: AMS Press. 1980.
Gelsinger, Bruce. Icelandic Enterprise: Commerce and Economy in the Middle Ages. Columbia: U of S. Carolina Press. 1981.
Hastrup, Kirsten. Culture and History in Medieval iceland: An Anthropological Analysis of Structure and Change. Oxford: Clarendon. 1985.
Jacobsen, Grethe. "The Position of Women in Scandinavia During the Viking Period." MA Thesis. U of Wisconsin. 1978.
Jochens, Jenny M. "The Church and Sexuality in Medieval Iceland." Journal of Medieval History 6 (1980): 377-392.
Jochens, Jenny M. "The Medieval Icelandic Heroine: Fact or Fiction?" Viator 17 (1986): 35-50.
These books and articles are a start. There are tons of books on the topic, many of which are unfortunately not in English. Post e-mail direct to me if you need more guidance in your literature search.
--
Gunnora Hallakarva
Herskerinde
From: DDFr at Best.com (David Friedman)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Help with Icelandic personna
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 1996 23:46:54 -0800
Organization: School of Law, Santa Clara University
gunnora at bga.com (Gunnora Hallakarva) wrote:
> Gelsinger, Bruce. Icelandic Enterprise: Commerce and Economy in the
> Middle Ages. Columbia: U of S. Carolina Press. 1981.
The economic analysis in the book is dreadful. See my review in _History of
Political Economy_ when the book came out.
David/Cariadoc
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: bq676 at torfree.net (Kristine E. Maitland)
Subject: Re: Help with Icelandic personna
Organization: Toronto Free-Net
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 17:23:40 GMT
Gunnora Hallakarva (gunnora at bga.com) wrote:
: lithium at axionet.com says...
: > I have recently joined the sca and would like to try to make my personna
: >Icelandic do to my ethnic background. I unfortuatly have no living
: >Icelandic relatives left and am finding anything about medieval iceland
: >particularly hard to find. If you have any ideas where i would find some
: >info I would be very grateful.
: >
: >Colleen Gordondottir.
:
: Try the following:
(excellent booklist deleted)
Or you can get the handbook for Eoforwic's icelandic assembly (the Canton
of Eoforwic held an Icelandic event a couple of years ago). Mistress
Nicolaa! Are there any spare copies still roaming around in Ealdormere?
If not, drop me a line, Colleen and we'll see about you getting MY copy.
la rosa nera
Ines
Ealdormere
bq676 at torfree.net
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 01:22:25 -0000
From: <nannar at isholf.is>
Subject: Re: SC - food and hospitality
Christine A Seelye-King <mermayde at juno.com> said:
>> Not much bread and porridge, as most grain had to be imported (the
>>only grain grown with any success in Iceland is barley, and that was
>>mostly used for ale).
>
>This is contrary to what I have read. The reasoning being that much more
>value could be had from cooked barley than from ale. (It would certainly
>go farther.) Hmm.
Yes, but this is the Vikings, remember? They probably considered greater
value to be had from ale ... the alternative was to import the ale (which
was also done) and go without it six months of the year (ships only sailed
to Iceland in the summer months; that is why guest were sometimes invited to
spend the whole winter). Anyway, every source I´ve consulted says barley was
cultivated to make ale and bread. In that order.
>>The old Norse poem Hávamál, which I was made to learn by heart at a
>>very tender age, largely deals with the theme of hospitality - what
>>hospitality to offer a guest, and how to accept it.
>
>OOh! Would you be able to re-create it (in English) for us here? I
>would love to have it! Many thanks in advance,
>Mistress Christianna MacGrain
A translation by W.H.Auden is to be found at this site (it pretty much gets
the meaning of the original but lacks its haunting beauty):
http://www.itn.is/~mar/havamal.htm
"The herd knows its homing time,
And leaves the grazing ground:
But the glutton never knows how much
His belly is able to hold."
(from Hávamál)
Nanna
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 19:19:14 -0800
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - food and hospitality
At 6:44 PM -0500 1/11/99, Christine A Seelye-King wrote:
>>>Elaina
>>The old Norse poem H·vam·l, which I was made to learn by heart at a
>>very tender age, largely deals with the theme of hospitality - what
>>hospitality to offer a guest, and how to accept it.
>
>OOh! Would you be able to re-create it (in English) for us here? I
>would love to have it!
Havamal is part of the Elder Edda, readily available in English translation.
"Shun not the mead but drink in measure;
Speak to the point or be still."
David/Cariadoc
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 00:30:01 -0000
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is>
Subject: Re: SC - "bog butter"
>I thought I was the only one questioning the hair in the butter. I have had
>dairy goat herds in the past and have never had a problem with hair in the
>milk. Just wash the udders properly and strain the milk before you make butter
>or cheese. Your milk is free of any imperfections. I can't imagine anyone not
>being clever enough to figure this out for themselves.
I´ve no idea how clever the old Icelanders were. What I know is they had to
keep - and milk - their cows in cramped, windowless, dark, stuffy hovels
made of stone and sod, lit only by by meagre and flickering tallow or fish
liver oil lanterns. And the shaggy, long-haired ewes were milked out in the
fields in all kinds of weather, often far from any source of water (I can
personally attest to the fact that you can´t handle Icelandic sheep, in
early summer at least, when they are shedding their old coat of wool,
without wool hairs clinging to everything, in particular to your hands). I
believe most people strained their milk through horsehair sieves, but they
seem not to have caught everything. And some were too poor to afford even
such a basic utensil. But given the general low standards of cleanliness and
hygiene of my countrymen at the time (commented upon by European visitors
from the 16th century onwards), I´d say a few hairs in the butter would have
been the least of their worries.
Nanna
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 18:32:34 -0000
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is>
Subject: Re: SC - exposure of children
Phlip wrote:
>"Exposure of children" is a polite phrase describing taking an unwanted
>child (female, too many other kids, deformed, bastard, politically
>undesirable bloodlines, whatever) and leaving it out in the woods to die
>without shedding its blood, shedding the blood of a relative being an
>undesirable thing in most cultures.
In Iceland at least, the most common reason seems to have been fear of
overpopulation - the babies that were left to die mostly belonged to the
poor, or to slaves. The father, or the master, had absolute control over the
fate of his child, but according to Christian beliefs, the child itself had
a right to life. But the Icelandic Christians seem to have been swayed by
economic arguments - both regarding exposure and the eating of horsemeat.
This is from The Saga of Ólafur Tryggvason (sorry, can´t find the English
translation just now so I´ll just translate loosely myself):
"Those men who have been the greatest opponents of Christianisation will
hardly find it easy to understand how it can be combined to feed every child
that is born, both to poor men and rich, but at the same time forbid and
deny as food something that used to be very important for the common people"
(i.e. horsemeat).
>There is always the "possibility" of rescue, which salves some folks'
>fragile consciences. The theme of abandoned children being rescued is a very
>important one across many of our cultures- look at Moses and Romulus and
>Remus, for example.
Yes, there are a few examples of this in the Icelandic sagas also. Usually,
however, these wretched souls turned into fearsome ghosts and sought revenge
on their parents, or on innocent travellers that happened to pass the place
where the children had been abandoned.
Nanna
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 09:01:58 -0000
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is>
Subject: Re: SC - Horsemeat, was Re: "cruel food"-
Ras asks:
><< we are celebrating 1000 years of Christianity next year anyway >>
>
>Why?
You mean, why celebrate at all, or why celebrate next year when scholars
know we probably got the date wrong? The second one is easy - 1000 is a nice
round number, and generations of Icelanders have believed it to be the
correct year.
If you are asking - why celebrate at all - leaving religious issues aside,
well, the Christianisation of Iceland is one of the major events in our
history, it laid the ground for structural changes in our society, and
besides it happened in a pretty unique manner. Is there another instance
when a whole nation decides, without the use of force and without much
prelude, to abandon its traditional belief and accept a new faith?
The decision to convert was, according to what Ari fróði ?orgilsson wrote in
the Book of the Icelanders, made by ?orgeir (Thorgeir) Ljósvetningagoði, a
pagan chieftain who also held the position of Law Speaker – the only public
office in the Icelandic Commonwealth. He lay down under his pelt and uttered
no word for two days. At the end of this period, he called together the
Althing (this happened at ?ingvellir, when the Althing was in session) and
stipulated that Icelanders should be baptised in the Christian faith, to
avoid conflict and strife. (They were, however, allowed to worship pagan
gods secretly and practice ancient customs, such as the exposure of children
and the eating of horse meat.)
So, what I personally will be celebrating next year is not the anniversary
of Christianisation, but the fact that we Icelanders have always chosen the
peaceful solution. (Well, mostly.)
Nanna
From the Norse Folk List -
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000 15:58:10 -0000
From: nanna at idunn.is (Nanna Rognvaldardottir)
Subject: Re: Names with Norse Origin
> Also, if you have a friend going to Iceland, have 'em procure a phone
>book. ;>
Or you could check the Icelandic online phone book at:
(search by first name, middle name or last name - if you type a fairly
common last name such as Helgason or Bjarnad—ttir into the Kenninafn field
and leave the others blank, you should get a long list of first names to
study - then you can ask me if they are Saga period or more recent)
or the National register at:
http://www.bi.is/toflur/thjodskra/nafnaskra2.asp
(chose Nafn einstaklings and search by first name, or first and last
name)
>While not everything in the Icelandic phone book is a Viking Age
>name, I"d be willing to bet that 75% or so of them are.
More or less, yes. While my own name is an çsatr¦ godess name that probably
wasn't used as a given name until the 18th century, my children, my parents,
my siblings, my nephews and nieces all bear names from the Saga period,
little changed except that names now ending in -ur used to end in -r. Male
names in the family are Ršgnvaldur, Hjalti, Eir¹kur, Ing—lfur, Þ—rir, Oddur,
Bergur, Bjarni - the females are Sigr¹Ýur, ValgerÝur, GuÝr¦n, Helga,
Svava, çsd¹s.
Nanna Ršgnvaldard—ttir
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 13:31:02 -0000
From: nanna at idunn.is (Nanna Rognvaldardottir)
Subject: Re: SC - honeymoon sites
Ras wrote:
> You do realize, Nanna, that you are making it extremely difficult for Elysant
> and I to decide between France and Iceland for a honey moon? :-0
Oh, I do, I do - but unless you are planning a very short engagement, the
testicle season will be long over. [see organ-meats-msg - Stefan]
But if you travel with Icelandair to France, you can have a 3-day stopover
at no extra cost ...
>Go to Iceland ... in the winter ...
>I just read an account of someone who just came back
>from Iceland and they raved about the hospitality, the
>hot spas, the cuisine and the wonderfully romantic
>idea of sharing body warmth ... need I say more?
>
>Huette
All of that would apply for a summer visit also, not least the need for
sharing body warmth - anything above 17 degrees C (62 deg F) for three days
in a row is considered a major heatwawe around here. And then there is the
midnight sun. And a certain museum I'm not mentioning.
Nanna
From: Bob Hurley <bhurley at charter.net>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Iceland
Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2000 23:09:57 -0400
ASLAAN2 wrote:
> If you know of any, could you please point me to resourses for developing a
> female Icelandic persona of any time in period? My thanks in advance.
>
> Lady Stefana
This is a good starting place:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook2.html#lit2
which is an online source for the sagas, many of which were about Icelanders.
Thorgrim inn islendingr
From: dirkviking at aol.com (DirkViking)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Iceland
Date: 09 Apr 2000 21:23:50 GMT
You might try
_Women in Old Norse Society_
by Jenny Jochens
ISBN 0-8014-8520-7
She leans pretty heavily on Iceland.
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 04:24:09 -0000
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is>
Subject: Re: SC - Clean Vikings -- OT
>Iceland has bath-houses
>using volcanic hot springs that have been in continuous use
>since the Settlement. Now where is this documented? *sigh*
Huh? Is the lady saying that we have bath-houses that have been in
continuous use since the Settlement? If so, I'd dearly love directions to
find one of them. If she means that the hot springs have been used for
bathing since the Settlement, well, some of them were used then, and are
used now, but I'm not too sure about the continuous use. For washing and
sometimes cooking, yes. For bathing - well ...
She also says, in the article referred to:
>In Iceland where natural hot springs are common, the naturally heated
>water was incorporated into the bath-house.
This could easily be understood as if most farms had a bath-house heated
with water from hot springs. I'm not saying there weren't any but offhand, I
can't recall any such bath-house mentioned in the Sagas. Sure, a house was
probably built around Snorralaug in Reykholt and a few other hot springs but
that was not the norm. There was a bath-house (or bathroom, probably a sauna
of sorts) at most farms but it was usually heated by firewood. Later, when
wood became scarce, the bathroom was the only heated room in the farmhouse
and people began sleeping there. Later still, almost all fuel (mostly peat
and dung, at that point) had to be used for cooking and people stopped
bathing, more or less - but the "bathroom" kept its name (ba?stofa). For
centuries, the main sleeping/living/dining/working room of the Icelandic
farm went by the name of bathroom. My mother was born in a "ba?stofa" in
1928.
Yes, the old Icelanders probably bathed a lot, as did the Vikings (saturday
is still called "laugardagur" (bath day) in Icelandic). And they probably
used natural hot springs when available. But relatively few Icelandic farms
have a hot spring of suitable temperature close by the farmhouse, so these
naturally heated bath-houses couldn't have been that common, really.
Nanna
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 02:40:43 EST
From: Gerekr at aol.com
Subject: SC - Norse news - Gragas II at last
Please pass this info to anyone you know who has a SERIOUS interest in
things Norse -- volume II of the Laws of Early Iceland (Gragas), from the
University of Manitoba Press, is now available!! We've been waiting
(impatiently!) since 1985 or so, #1 was published in 1980.
The nice man at the press wrote -- "we've finally updated our website, so
if you know of anyone/groups who might be interested, they can check
under New Books at
http://www.umanitoba.ca/uofmpress "
Gerek who got it for Christmas, and Chimene who managed a surprise for a
change, 8-)!!
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 09:39:09 -0000
From: "Nanna Rognvaldardottir" <nanna at idunn.is>
Subject: SC - Travels in Iceland?]
'Lainie wrote:
>> A friend is going to Iceland, does anybody have suggestions of cool
>> things to see or do there?
Depends on a lot of things. Is the friend coming here now, or next month, or
later? How many days is he planning to stay? Does he want to travel a lot,
or stay mostly in ReykjavÌk? Does he want information on the ReykjavÌk
nightlife, which I understand is pretty cool? (couldn't help there myself
but I've got a resident expert on that). Or does he just want to know about
museums and such?
>> I found the Icelandic Tourist board, and a site on Icelandic archeology
>> (http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/iceland/archeo.html) but other
>> than that, information seems rather scarce.
>>
>> Suggestions?
Unfortunately, the National Museum (www.natmus.is/English/index.htm) is
still mostly closed for renovation (should have reopened last year but
didn't). Then of course there is our one real national treasure, the old
manuscripts at the ¡rni Magn™sson Institute (try www.am.hi.is) - I think
there is an exhibition just now of manuscripts and documents connected to
the discovery of Greenland and Vinland (America).
Þingvellir, site of the old parliament for 868 years (until 1798) and a sort
of national shrine - no old buildings or anything like that but a beautiful
place and the center of Icelandic history.
Then there are the usual tourist places like Gullfoss (waterfall) and Geysir
(famous hot spring which was more or less dormant for most of the 20th
century but has been very active since the earthquakes last summer) - and if
the friend is an outdoor type, there is no end to the possibilities.
The weather is - unpredictable. At all times. There have been times this
winter when Iceland was the warmest spot north of the Alps (here in
ReykjavÌk, we are currently experiencing the first snow of the winter); in
the North (my birthplace), snow in July is not unheard of.
If there is anything specific this person wants to know, he is welcome to
email me at nannar at isholf.is.
Nanna
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 09:16:03 -0800
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Travels in Iceland?]
>Then of course there is our one real national treasure, the old
>manuscripts at the ¡rni Magn™sson Institute (try www.am.hi.is)
The manuscripts are great, but your national treasure isn't the
manuscripts, it's what was written in them.
Men die, Horses die,
(and parchment eventually dies too, although it takes longer)
I hope they get the museum opened again. My favorite thing in it, on
a long ago visit, was a case full of hacksilver. Museums, for some
reason, are unwilling to let you take their jewellery apart to see
how it is made, so it is nice when someone else has done it for you.
- --
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Summer starts WHEN?
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 06:08:05 -0000
Here in Iceland, Summer starts on the first Thursday after April 18th, and
has done so for at least 1000 years. But then, the old Icelandic calendar
has only two seasons. The first day of summer is an official holiday, with
parades and outdoor celebrations which usually have to be moved inside
because of snow or bad weather.
Nanna
From: "Nanna Rognvaldardottir" <nanna at idunn.is>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Summer starts WHEN?
Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 09:32:32 -0000
Stefan asked:
> Did these celebrations used to be done outdoors? If so, does this change
> to doing them indoors mean:
> a) The climate has changed
> or
> b) There are now larger buildings such that large group activities can
> now be held inside instead of outside
> or
> c) Modern Icelanders have become more comfort conscious?
> or
> d) Even if this date has always started Summer, it wasn't celebrated
> the way it is now?
All of the above are true but the correct answer is d).
Icelanders used to be much wiser than this, they celebrated indoors, by
serving feasts, playing games and giving gifts - the custom of giving a
sumargjaf predates Christmas gifts in Iceland by several centuries. This was
done in the home; larger celebrations began in the late 19th century and the
parades and such in the 1920s.
This day is also the first day of the month of Harpa and since Harpa was
personified as a young girl, she was especially celebrated by young men -
how, I'm not quite sure. It is said to be a good omen if winter and summer
"freeze together" - that is, if the temperature drops below freezing in the
night before the first day of summer. Also, when you see the first summer
moon, you should keep silent until someone speaks to you. Whatever he says
(or "answers into the summer moon") can then be taken as a kind of omen or
prophecy.
Nanna
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Iceland & Scotland - what to get?
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 01:14:57 -0000
From: Ginny Claphan <mizginny at yahoo.com>
>
>My parents will be traveling to Iceland (Klefavik, Reykjavik) and Scotland
>(Glasgow, Iona, Edinburgh) on vacation for the next 2 weeks. What would be
>interesting food/drink-related items to bring back for me that could fit in
>a suitcase?
That depends. Will they go straight back home from Iceland or are they going
to Iceland first, then Scotland? If they are going straight to the US, then
there is skyr (various types, and no, I'm not suggesting that yogurt with
Pop-Rocks; not one of the Icelandic Dairy Association's brighter ideas, I
think), cheeses (especially mysuostur, brown whey cheese), rye flatbread
(with or without Iceland moss), perhaps a bag of Iceland moss, hverabrau=F0
(dark rye bread baked overnight in hot earth close to a geyser), smoked lamb
(Icelandic livestock is completely free of BSE and foot and mouth, but I'm
still not sure if you can import it to the US), smoked salmon and trout,
various types of dried fish (har=F0fiskur), a bag of s=FApujurtir, "soupherbs"
(various mixed vegetables and herbs) for the traditional Icelandic lamb soup
(recipe can be obtained from me), some dried wild herbs, and several other
things, like reindeer pate and lumpfish caviar.
If they are going to Scotland before going back, it gets more complicated.
The herbs are OK, of course. The dried fish will keep but frankly, I
wouldn't want to keep dried fish - even well wrapped - with my clothes for a
week.
Ask them to bring at least a mini-bottle of Black Death. (Some rotten shark
would go well with it but I doubt the US Customs would like it.) So I'm not
really sure what to suggest. A horn spoon carved with a traditional pattern,
perhaps. A traditional wooden lidded bowl (askur) is rather too expensive.
An Icelandic crepe pan, which is really the best pan for making very thin
crepes. If you want cookbooks, there are a couple of small recipe booklets
available (although I would, quite frankly, recommend waiting for my own
book, which is scheduled for November. It does have American measurements,
at least.)
That is all I can think of now. I can also point you at the best places to
buy these things - do you know at what hotel your parents will be staying?
Nanna
Subject: [Ansteorra] Another Web Resource for icelandic Mss and Documents
Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2001 09:35:54 -0600
From: "Christie Ward" <val_org at hotmail.com>
To: <ansteorra at ansteorra.org>
I thiought I'd forward along this tidbit that came to the Norsefolk list
(and before that from the Atlantean list). I think it will be a useful
resource not only for those interested in Norse literature, but also the
calligraphers and illuminators out there.
::GUNNORA::
-----
Saganet
http://saga.library.cornell.edu/
The National and University Library of Iceland has partnered with Cornell
University to bring Saganet to the Web. This impressive digitization project
will feature 380,000 manuscript pages and 145,000 printed pages of Old
Icelandic literature and critical works published before 1900.
The site offers "the full range of Icelandic family sagas" as well as
Germanic/Nordic mythology, the history of Norwegian kings, and tales of
European chivalry. Users can search or browse the collection, and there is
a large amount of help documentation for those who need more assistance
getting used to the interface.
It is perhaps needless to say that the site is available in both English
and Icelandic, though the texts and cataloging records are only in
Icelandic. We had difficulties using the site with Netscape on a Mac
platform but no problems with Internet Explorer.
<the end>