Sometimes The Ornaments Are Of Gold
Instead Of Silver, And Very Costly.
Before dismissing his people, the preacher descended from
the pulpit, and putting on a splendid cope of crimson
velvet
(In which some bishop had in ages past been
murdered), turned his back to the congregation, and
chanted some Latin sentences in good round Roman style.
Though still retaining in their ceremonies a few vestiges
of the old religion, though altars, candles, pictures,
and crucifixes yet remain in many of their churches, the
Icelanders are staunch Protestants, and, by all accounts,
the most devout, innocent pure-hearted people in the
world. Crime, theft, debauchery, cruelty, are unknown
amongst them; they have neither prison, gallows, soldiers,
nor police; and in the manner of the lives they lead
among their secluded valleys, there is something of a
patriarchal simplicity, that reminds one of the Old World
princes, of whom it has been said, that they were "upright
and perfect, eschewing evil, and in their hearts no
guile."
The law with regard to marriage, however, is sufficiently
peculiar. When, from some unhappy incompatibility of
temper, a married couple live so miserably together as
to render life insupportable, it is competent for them
to apply to the Danish Governor of the island for a
divorce. If, after the lapse of three years from the date
of the application, both are still of the same mind, and
equally eager to be free, the divorce is granted, and
each is at liberty to marry again.
The next day it had been arranged that we were to take
an experimental trip on our new ponies, under the guidance
of the learned and jovial Rector of the College.
Unfortunately the weather was dull and rainy, but we were
determined to enioy ourselves in spite of everything,
and a pleasanter ride I have seldom had. The steed Sigurdr
had purchased for me was a long-tailed, hog-maned, shaggy,
cow-houghed creature, thirteen hands high, of a bright
yellow colour, with admirable action, and sure-footed
enough to walk downstairs backwards. The Doctor was not
less well mounted; in fact, the Icelandic pony is quite
a peculiar race, much stronger, faster, and better bred
than the Highland shelty, and descended probably from
pure-blooded sires that scoured the steppes of Asia, long
before Odin and his paladins had peopled the valleys of
Scandinavia.
The first few miles of our ride lay across an undulating
plain of dolorite, to a farm situated at the head of an
inlet of the sea. At a distance, the farm-steading looked
like a little oasis of green, amid the grey stony slopes
that surrounded it, and on a nearer approach not unlike
the vestiges of a Celtic earthwork, with the tumulus of
a hero or two in the centre, but the mounds turned out
to be nothing more than the grass roofs of the house and
offices, and the banks and dykes but circumvallations
round the plot of most carefully cleaned meadow, called
the "tun," which always surrounds every Icelandic farm.
This word "tun" is evidently identical with our own Irish
"TOWN-LAND," the Cornish "TOWN," and the Scotch
"TOON," - terms which, in their local signification, do
not mean a congregation of streets and buildings, but
the yard, and spaces of grass immediately adjoining a
single house, just as in German we have "tzaun," and in
the Dutch "tuyn," a garden.
Turning to the right, round the head of a little bay, we
passed within forty yards of an enormous eagle, seated
on a crag; but we had no rifle, and all he did was to
rise heavily into the air, flap his wings like a barn-door
fowl, and plump lazily down twenty yards farther off.
Soon after, the district we traversed became more igneous,
wrinkled, cracked, and ropy than anything we had yet
seen, and another two hours' scamper over such a track
as till then I would not have believed horses could have
traversed, even at a foot's pace, brought us to the
solitary farm-house of Bessestad. Fresh from the neat
homesteads of England that we had left sparkling in the
bright spring weather, and sheltered by immemorial
elms, - the scene before us looked inexpressibly desolate.
In front rose a cluster of weather-beaten wooden buildings,
and huts like ice-houses, surrounded by a scanty plot of
grass, reclaimed from the craggy plain of broken lava
that stretched - the home of ravens and foxes - on either
side to the horizon. Beyond, lay a low black breadth of
moorland, intersected by patches of what was neither land
nor water, and last, the sullen sea; while above our
heads a wind, saturated with the damps of the Atlantic,
went moaning over the landscape. Yet this was Bessestad,
the ancient home of Snorro Sturleson!
On dismounting from our horses and entering the house
things began to look more cheery; a dear old lady, to
whom we were successively presented by the Rector, received
us, with the air of a princess, ushered us into her best
room, made us sit down on the sofa - the place of honour - and
assisted by her niece, a pale lily-like maiden, named
after Jarl Hakon's Thora, proceeded to serve us with hot
coffee, rusks, and sweetmeats. At first it used to give
me a very disagreeable feeling to be waited upon by the
woman-kind of the household, and I was always starting
up, and attempting to take the dishes out of their hands,
to their infinite surprise; but now I have succeeded in
learning to accept their ministrations with the same
unembarrassed dignity as my neighbours. In the end,
indeed, I have rather got to like it, especially when
they are as pretty as Miss Thora. To add, moreover, to
our content, it appeared that that young lady spoke a
little French; so that we had no longer any need to pay
our court by proxy, which many persons besides ourselves
have found to be unsatisfactory.
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