United States or Tajikistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Nine thousand people and fifty thousand head of live stock were the result of the death harvest. Iceland is well watered, having many streams, all of which are rapid, for the greater part flowing over beds of lava and quicksand. In some of the wider fords stakes have been set so that the traveller may not get lost in crossing them on horseback during a dense fog.
"And who art thou, my child?" Gudrid said, "I am a stranger, not long come to Greenland. I am Thorbeorn's daughter, of Bathbrink in Iceland." "You have a good face, and a fair one," said Thorberg, "and yet you will not kiss my hands." Gudrid coloured and looked down. "Perhaps the day will come when you will kiss them," Thorberg said. "It would be no shame to you to do it."
"It is quite a mistake to imagine that the author or the artist should stuff his beautiful, empty mind with knowledge, with impressions, with facts of any kind," said Amarinth. "I have written a great novel upon Iceland, full of colour, of passion, of the most subtle impurity, yet I could not point you out Iceland upon the map. I do not know where it is, or what it is.
Near Iceland they saw huge pine trees drifting, roots and all, across the ocean. Wild storms beset them as they passed the desolate capes of Greenland. At length, on July 16, the navigators found themselves off the headlands of Meta Incognita. Here Frobisher and his men spent the summer. The coast and waters were searched as far as the inclement climate allowed.
The other fortunately escaped. The bird which was killed is now in my possession, and is a fully adult Iceland Falcon, and Mr. Couch, the bird-stuffer who skinned it, informed me a male by dissection.
The so-called Elder Edda is a collection of some thirty poems, mythic and heroic in substance, interspersed with short pieces of prose, which survives in a thirteenth-century MS., known as the Codex Regius, discovered in Iceland in 1642; to these are added other poems of similar character from other sources.
He was looked upon as a thoroughly competent mariner, and his reputation led to his being chosen for the command of the Genoese galleys, in the war which that Republic was waging against Venice. He afterwards made an expedition, in the service of René, king of Anjou, to the coasts of Barbary, and in 1477, he went to explore the countries beyond Iceland.
One of the others, a quiet, scholastic-looking person, who did not really belong to the party, having only met them on board, was a young collegian well versed in Icelandic literature. He was going to Iceland to perfect himself in the language of the country, and make some translations of the learned Sagas.
Try it in Iceland a while, and see how long your inspiration will last! Take my word for it, unless you be terribly in earnest, you will postpone your labors till the next day, and then the next, and so on to the day that never comes. Not the least of my troubles was the difficulty of getting a good night's rest after the fatiguing adventures of the day.
Nothing, in fact, could astonish me after learning that the horses in Iceland are fed during the winter on dried fish. This is a literal fact.
Word Of The Day