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Updated: October 1, 2025
Scotsmen, whose dwellings and whose food were as wretched as those of the Icelanders of our time, wrote Latin verse with more than the delicacy of Vida, and made discoveries in science which would have added to the renown of Galileo. Ireland could boast of no Buchanan or Napier.
The chief interest attached to the Westmann group is, that it is supposed to have been visited by Columbus in 1477, fifteen years prior to his voyage of discovery to the shores of America. It is now generally conceded that the Icelanders were the original discoverers of the American continent.
Then somebody else drank success to Great Britain, and I see it was followed by really a very learned discourse by Lord D., in honour of the ancient Icelanders; during which he alluded to their discovery of America, and Columbus' visit.
'Precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little', was the motto of Rome in her dealings with the heathen Norsemen, and if she suited herself at first rather to their habits and temper than to those of more enlightened nations, she had an excuse in St Paul's maxim of making herself 'all things to all men. Thus, when a second attempt to Christianize Iceland proved more successful for in the meantime, King Olof Tryggvason, a zealous Christian, had seized as hostages all the Icelanders of family and fame who happened to be in Norway, and thus worked on the feelings of the chiefs of those families at home, who in their turn bribed the lawman who presided over the Great Assembly to pronounce in favour of the new Faith even then the adherents of the old religion were allowed to perform its rites in secret, and two old heathen practices only were expressly prohibited, the exposure of infants and the eating of horseflesh, for horses were sacred animals, and the heathen ate their flesh after they had been solemnly sacrificed to the gods.
Thorwald received a severe wound from an arrow in this skirmish, of which he died; and over his grave, on a cape or promontory, two crosses were erected at his request; from which the cape was called Krossa-ness, or Cross Point. To the natives of Winland, the Icelanders gave the name of Skraellinger, signifying cuttings or dwarfs, on account of their being of very low stature.
In the northern part of the country the houses are said to be better and more capacious; but the example I have given is a fair average of what I saw. The passionate devotion of the Icelanders to their homes is almost inconceivable. I have never seen any thing like it. The most favored nations of the earth can not furnish examples of such intense and all-absorbing love of home and country.
After his death, his widow Gudrid made a pilgrimage to Rome, whence she returned, and ended her days in a nunnery in Iceland, which was built for her by her son Snorro, who was born in Winland. Sometime afterwards, Finbog and Helgo, two Icelanders, fitted out two ships, carrying thirty men, with which they made a voyage to Winland.
Because of this turmoil Thangbrand ran away to Norway, and came to meet King Olaf, and told him the tidings of what had befallen in his journey, and said he thought Christianity would never thrive in Iceland. The king was very wroth at this, and said that many Icelanders would rue the day unless they came round to him.
From "An Iceland Fisherman," BY PIERRE LOTI The Icelanders were all returning now. Two ships came in the second day, four the next, and twelve during the following week. And all through the country joy returned with them; and there was happiness for the wives and mothers, and junkets in the taverns where the beautiful barmaids of Paimpol served out drink to the fishers.
The finest down is that with which they line their nests at first; it is of a dark grey colour. The Icelanders take away this down, and the first nest of eggs. For the second time every thing is taken from her; and not until she has a third time lined the nest with her down is the eider-duck left in peace.
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