I
Confess That For One Moment, While Contemplating The
Scene Of Flosi's Exploit, I Felt, - Like A True Briton, - An
Idiotic Desire To Be Able To Say That I Had Done The
Same; That I Survive To Write This Letter Is A Proof Of
My Having Come Subsequently To My Senses.
[Figure: fig-p055.gif with caption as follows:
A The Althing.
B The Hill of Laws.
C The place where Flosi jumped.
D Adjacent Chasms.]
This spot then, erected by nature almost into a fortress,
the founders of the Icelandic constitution chose for the
meetings of their Thing, [Footnote: From thing, to speak.
We have a vestige of the same word in Dingwall, a town
of Ross-shire.] or Parliament, armed guards defended the
entrance, while the grave bonders deliberated in security
within: to this day, at the upper end of the place of
meeting, may be seen the three hammocks, where sat in
state the chiefs and judges of the land.
But those grand old times have long since passed away.
Along the banks of the Oxeraa no longer glisten the tents
and booths of the assembled lieges; no longer stalwart
berserks guard the narrow entrance to the Althing; ravens
alone sit on the sacred Logberg; and the floor of the
old Icelandic House of Commons is ignominiously cropped
by the sheep of the parson. For three hundred years did
the gallant little Republic maintain its independence - three
hundred years of unequalled literary and political vigour.
At last its day of doom drew near. Like the Scotch nobles
in the time of Elizabeth, their own chieftains intrigued
against the liberties of the Icelandic people; and in
1261 the island became an appanage of the Norwegian crown.
Yet even then the deed embodying the concession of their
independence was drawn up in such haughty terms as to
resemble rather the offer of an equal alliance than the
renunciation of imperial rights. Soon, however, the apathy
which invariably benumbs the faculties of a people too
entirely relieved from the discipline and obligation of
self-government, lapped in complete inactivity, moral,
political, and intellectual, - these once stirring islanders.
On the amalgamation of the three Scandinavian monarchies,
at the union of Calmar, the allegiance of the people of
Iceland was passively transferred to the Danish crown.
Ever since that time, Danish proconsuls have administered
their government, and Danish restrictions have regulated
their trade. The traditions of their ancient autonomy
have become as unsubstantial and obsolete as those which
record the vanished fame of their poets and historians,
and the exploits of their mariners. It is true, the
adoption of the Lutheran religion galvanized for a moment
into the semblance of activity the old literary spirit.
A printing-press was introduced as early as 1530, and
ever since the sixteenth century many works of merit have
been produced from time to time by Icelandic genius.
Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope have been translated into
the native tongue; one of the best printed newspapers I
have ever seen is now published at Reykjavik; and the
Colleges of Copenhagen are adorned by many an illustrious
Icelandic scholar; but the glory of the old days is
departed, and it is across a wide desolate flat of ignoble
annals, as dull and arid as their own lava plains, that
the student has to look back upon the glorious drama of
Iceland's early history.
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