Iceland 1930

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1830571079

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-221162

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Iceland 1930

Edition:: 2. ed.

Place of publication:: Reykjavík

Publisher:: Ríkisprentsmiđjan Gutenberg

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: 193 S.; Tab., Kt., Taf.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Literature

Collection:: Economics Books

148 grouped under the name of ‘fslendinga ségur (Icelandic Sagas), the action, as already mentioned, takes place in the tenth century and the beginning of the eleventh. The last of these sagas, however, the ‘Bandamanna saga‘ (the Story of the Banded Men) is an exceplion in so far as the events, it relates, took place about the middle of that century. As the names of the sagas: Egils saga elc, imply, they are mostly biographies of single persons where the fortunes of the hero, from cradle to grave, are carefully recorded; but some of them are much more comprehensive and give not only the saga of the family, for several generations, but that of the whole district as well. Most of the sagas relate to the north and west of Iceland; there are a few short stories dealing with events in the eastern districts, and only two have their plots laid in the south. But complemental to the sagas and serving as a standard by which to test their reliability, stands that fa- mous compilation, called the ‘Landnimabdék’ (Book of Settlement or Land-take) which, quite unique of its kind and furnishing a detailed account of the colonization of the country, gives the names of most (if not all) the settlers with their genealogies and much historical mat- ter besides. To the same period as the sagas proper belong a number of short stories (Thaettir) of Icelanders, both poets, heroes, merchant mariners, men out of the common a. s. 0. They are a kind of snap- shots, taken of them while abroad with kings or great men, and show in a masterly way not only the magnanimity and firmness characteriz- ing our countrymen in those far-off days, their sagacity, daring and recklessly emulative spirits, but also the culture of the age. The Icelandic sagas are justly famous for their great literary merits: their style, at once stately and homely, abounds in short pithy sen- tences; every thought is expressed, every event related in the most suit- able language; the author’s firm grip of things and his keen eye for the individuality of his characters come by their own; there is in most of the sagas a strong undercurrent of fate, sometimes faintly present even in the opening chapters where the descent of the persons is traced, and sometimes appearing in dreams, darkly foreshadowing the whole course of events; we are struck with the noble tranquility of the author, his moderation and sober impartiality; always remaining behind the scene he lets his persons appear in words and deeds, as on a stage, each with his own particular mode of expression, his tricks of manner, his garb even. Nowhere is silence more eloquent, nowhere such vistas opened up between the lines as in the Icelandic sagas.

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