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Iceland Saga

The History Press

SAGA LANDSCAPE

Landslag yrði lítilsvirði, ef það héti ekki neitt.

Landscape would have little value if the places had no names.

(Tómas Guðmundsson: Fjallganga)

There is a charming and witty little poem by Tómas Guðmundsson (1901-84), 'the poet of Reykjavík', entitled Fjallganga ('Hillwalking'). In it he describes the breathless efforts of a suburban would-be climber on a day's outing in the hills – the puffing and the panting, the scrabbling and the scrambling, followed by the profound and self-conscious satisfaction of reaching the top. He stands there, gazing around with eagle eyes like stout Cortez, silent, upon a peak in Darien, trying to identify and name all the other peaks he can see in the far distance; because, as the poet said, 'landscape would have little value if the places had no names'.

It is an ironic and telling observation. And the converse is just as true: that place names would have little value if they had no landscape, no physical perspectives to give them identity and dramatic context. This is particularly true of Iceland, because the story of Iceland – the Iceland Saga, as I like to call it – is deeply rooted in the living landscape of the country; this is what gives the story such a tremendous sense of place, such an alluring vividness of impact, because one can so readily relate it to the natural landscape in which the historical events of the past are said to have occurred. It is a huge living canvas on which historians and 'storians' alike can paint their perceptions of the past – a big island in the North Atlantic some 103,000km2 (40,000 square miles) in area and considerably larger than its near neighbour, Scotland.

Origins

This landscape of Iceland is very spectacular. Iceland has been called Nature's geological laboratory, because it is one of the most vigorously active volcanic regions on earth: Icelanders have become accustomed to expect an eruption to break out every five years or so. Geologically speaking, Iceland is a very young country. It emerged in a series of convulsive volcanic effusions a mere 20 million years ago, in the Upper Tertiary period. Before that, Iceland did not exist. According to geologists, it came about because of the phenomenon known as plate tectonics. Some 200 million years ago the major continents formed a super-continent called Pangaea; the pressure from below the earth's crust eventually cracked Pangaea into a number of 'plates' which began drifting apart. As the American continental plate pulled away from the Afro-European plate, the basin of the Atlantic Ocean came into being; and where the original cracking occurred, incessant volcanic activity on the ocean floor created what is called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge – a chain of submarine mountains, 15,000km long, which meanders from Antarctica to the Azores and on to Iceland. The molten rock, or magma, which underlies this rift system surfaces in a number of geological 'plumes'. Iceland is situated right on top of one such plume. As the seafloor spreads, molten rock explodes through the vents to fill the gap and push the continental plates even farther apart. That is how the Icelandic plateau came into being, 20 million years ago; and it is still going on. Iceland is literally pulling apart under our feet, at a rate of something like 2cm a year.

The very first eruptions created a platform of laminated layers of basalt lava-flows. This is the basic bedrock of Iceland, about 10,000m thick and 20 million years old. It can now only be seen in the east and north-west of the country, because so much of it has been overlaid by subsequent frenzied periods of volcanic activity. At the start of the Pleistocene period, about 3 million years ago, there were violent effusions of dolerite (grey basalt); and during the latter stages of the Ice Age, some 700,000 years ago, when Iceland lay submerged under the successive polar ice-sheets which invaded most of the northern hemisphere, the plume under Iceland erupted again and again. A thousand metres under the ice-fields furious conflicts raged, as volcano after volcano tried to force a way up through the ice. The mountains which were born under this chilly shroud were formed of compacted volcanic tuffs and breccias called palagonite (Icelandic móberg); this is a rather soft rock, rich in brownish hydrated glass, easily moulded into the individual and readily identifiable mountains which delineate the horizon at every turn.

When the covers came off at the end of the last Ice Age, some 10,000 years ago, Iceland began to emerge in something like the shape we know today: a brawling mass of mountains, young and dishevelled still, interspersed with fertile valleys gouged by the raking passage of the ice as it went grinding inexorably towards the coast. But the shaping has never ceased: no less than one-tenth of the surface of Iceland is covered by lava-flows which have spilled from more than 200 active volcanoes in geologically 'recent' time, in the post-glacial period. Some of the cover still remains, in a number of extravagantly beautiful glaciers and ice-caps covering another tenth of the country, including Europe's largest glacier, Vatnajökull ('Waters Glacier') on the south coast.

At least 30 volcanoes are known to have been active in Iceland since the discovery and settlement of the country, only 1,100 years ago – and several of them many times over. Mount Hekla, which used to be renowned throughout Europe during the Middle Ages as one of the vents of Hell itself, has erupted on some 20 occasions, most recently in February 2000. In earlier times Hekla was hated and feared: a map of Iceland made in 1585 shows the volcano in full fury, captioned HEKLA perpetuis damnata estib. et nivib. horrendo boatu lapides evomit ('Hekla, cursed with eternal fires and snow, vomits rocks with a hideous sound'); but today's Icelanders are only concerned lest a new eruption destroys the classic beauty of its majestic shape!

The Lakagígar eruptions

Some volcanic eruptions have been devastatingly destructive. More than two centuries ago, in 1783, the mountain Laki in south-east Iceland burst open in the most catastrophic volcanic event in the history of Iceland. In June 1783 the earth here split into a fissure about 25km long. This fissure contained more than a hundred separate craters, the Lakagígar ('Laki Craters'). From those craters poured the most extensive lava-flows on earth in historical times, covering 565km of the southlands. But that was not the worst of it. The long eruption (it lasted for seven months) was accompanied by an enormous effusion of sulphur dioxide which shrouded Iceland with a bluish haze, and the pastures were poisoned by a mantle of volcanic ash which contained a fluorine compound. Three-quarters of Iceland's livestock – horses, cattle, goats, sheep – died of starvation. In the resultant famine over the next three years, known as the Móðuharðindi ('Haze Famine'), Iceland's population plummeted by a quarter to some 38,000 people.

In the appalled aftermath of the Lakagígar eruptions there was talk of evacuating the surviving population of Iceland and resettling them in Jutland in Denmark – all 38,000 of them. But no one took the proposal very seriously, least of all the Icelanders. They had grown used to their volcanoes, however devastating. Today the Lakagígar area is regarded with awe and even pride. It is spectacularly and eerily beautiful: the sombre black ash-cones, the silent craters with their walls of re-burned scoria, the lunar reaches of lava deeply carpeted with soft grey moss which turns a brilliant green in the rain. Visitors instinctively take care not to injure or despoil the environment, treating it as if it were a vast memorial to some ancient cosmic war.

Surtsey

It is only within the last few years that the world at large has come to realise how intensely volcanic Iceland actually is. On 14 November 1963 a colossal undersea explosion, accompanied by towering plumes of steam and ash nearly 10,000m high, heralded a submarine eruption off the south coast, 18km from Vestmannaeyjar ('Westmen Islands'). It was a new island, Surtsey ('Surtur's Island'), named after Surtur, the fire-giant of Norse mythology. Millions of television viewers were given a vivid action-replay of the way in which the world itself was formed. The eruption lasted for three years. By 1967 Surtsey had reached a height of 150m and covered an area of 3km. More than 30 per cent of the new island was soon eroded by the sea, but the high temperatures in the crater fused the remaining material into a more resistant rock. Surtsey is now a science preserve, off-limits to all but authorised scientific personnel, a sanctuary in which scientists can study the processes whereby newly-wrought land, isolated by the ocean, is colonised by plant and animal life.

Heimaey

It may not have been the largest eruption of recent times, but it was certainly the most spectacular – the eruption on Heimaey ('Home Island') in the Vestmannaeyjar ('Westmen Islands') on 23 January 1973.

Heimaey is the largest of the 16 islands which make up the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago. It is also the only inhabited island; the town of Heimaey, on the island of the same name, has a population of some 6,000 people, mostly fishermen.

Ten years earlier, Surtsey had emerged from the surrounding sea; no one expected another volcanic outburst so soon; after all, the volcano had been dormant for some 5,000 years. But at 2am on 23 January 1973, when the town was asleep, the eastern slope of Mt Helgafell ('Holy Mountain') above the town cracked in a great fissure nearly a mile long. The town itself was to a certain extent shielded from the full force of the volcano, because the fissure was on the far side of the ridge. Throughout the length of the chasm red-hot lava was spouting into the air. It was a classic fissure eruption of a kind only now found in Iceland: not a huge amount of lava-flow, but a constant bombardment of burning pumice and tephra (volcanic ashes). Yet although it happened on the very threshold of the town, there was not a single casualty. The fishing fleet was providentially in harbour that night, and throughout the night the whole population abandoned their prosperous homes and possessions and took to the sea in the island's 80 fishing boats. By dawn they were all safe on the mainland.

Over the next five months a prodigious amount of volcanic material was spewed out – more than 30 million tonnes of lava and tephra. The destruction wasn't sudden. Within the first few days only half a dozen houses in the town had been burned down by splashes of lava and eventually smothered by a slow-moving lava-flow. But another 50 had been wrecked by the weight of the volcanic ash spewed from the mountain.

What were the islanders feeling? Above all there was a sense of helplessness and of grudging admiration; not dread, but awe – an awed respect for the appalling forces of Nature going berserk, of the fierce subterranean forge of the world cutting loose and breaking out. There was nothing to be done, it seemed, other than to try to save what could be salvaged and then wait patiently for the paroxysm to exhaust itself – many weeks, perhaps, many months, perhaps even a year or two.

The devastation of Heimaey was a terrible blow to Iceland. It was much the most important fishing centre in the whole county, supplying 20 per cent of the fish exports on which Iceland depends so heavily. Where else was this capacity to be found? Where else was the fish to be processed for export?

Six months later the eruption was over. One third of the houses had been destroyed under a new mountain of lava or smothered under volcanic ash; in fact, the area of the island had grown by 15 per cent. But the fight-back had already started.

There had been a very real danger that the harbour would be destroyed by the advancing wall of lava. Without a harbour, Heimaey could have no future. In an inspired move, the islanders hosed cold seawater on to the outskirts of the molten lava in order to slow its advance and divert its course. Eventually, a million litres of seawater per minute were being pumped on to the molten lava. Whether as a result of these efforts or not, the lava flow halted 175m short of closing off the harbour – in fact, the harbour facilities were improved by the increased shelter provided by the new lava breakwater.

A million tons of volcanic ash were cleared away and exported as valuable building and road-making material. The rest was used to improve the airfield and smooth out the hollows and dells in the rocky areas of the island. And – most tellingly, to my mind – a host of young back-packer volunteers from all over the world descended on Heimaey to excavate, of all places, the old churchyard. It was the most symbolic act of the whole drama.

Today, Heimaey has been transformed. Most of the original population has returned and resumed fishing. The town has become a splendid tourist haven, where people can see how a determined community can take on the power of a volcano – and win.

Early history

Such is the dramatic, eventful, new-formed landscape which provides the setting for the Iceland Saga. Historically as well as geologically Iceland is comparatively young; indeed, it is the only country which claims to be able to remember its own beginnings, enshrined in the memories of its early settlers and the written works of its early historians.

There is no evidence that Iceland was ever inhabited in prehistoric times: Iceland has history in abundance, but no prehistory at all, which makes it unique among the world's nations. However, it is clear that people in classical times had an inkling, at least, that Iceland existed, even if they knew little about it. Around 400 BC a resourceful Greek navigator named Pytheas of Marseilles (Massilia) was commissioned by his local city fathers to reconnoitre the relatively unknown world of northern Europe, in order to chart a new trade route by sea to the tin and amber markets there. His original report on his voyage has not survived, but it is possible to surmise some of its contents from references in later classical sources. He seems to have told people that he had discovered a country named 'Thule' or 'Ultima Thule', which lay six days' sail to the north of Britain. A day's further sail to the north lay 'the lung of the ocean', where the sea was said to be congealed into a sort of primeval jelly. Contemporary authors ridiculed him for centuries because he had claimed that the sun could be seen all night long in this country around the summer solstice. There is no way of telling whether Pytheas meant Iceland or the arctic regions of Norway; but the name has since adhered to Iceland: 'Ultima Thule', the island at the end of the world.

There is a possibility – but no more than that – that a stray Roman ship may have reached Iceland, because four Roman copper coins from the period AD 270-305 have been found at three separate sites in the south of Iceland. They are certainly the oldest artefacts so far discovered in Iceland, and because they date from a period of peak Roman naval power under the command of the British governor Carausius (AD 286-293), it has been suggested that they found their way there on board a Roman galley on long-range patrol, or perhaps storm-swept off its course, and were then hoarded as souvenirs by the early Norse settlers of Iceland several centuries later. But since coins of this kind have been widely found in Britain, it is considered much more probable that they were taken to Iceland during the Viking Age as curios, antique relics without monetary value.

In the Middle Ages it is clear that the name 'Thule' had become attached to Iceland as a matter of academic dogma. The great Anglo-Saxon scholar, the Venerable Bede (c. 673-735), early in the eighth century, referred to Thule more than once in his De temporibus (AD 703) and the larger De temporum ratione (AD 725), and was cited as an authority by the early Icelandic historians:

In his book De temporibus the Venerable priest Bede makes mention of an island called Thule, which in other books is said to lie six days' sail to the north of Britain. He says that there is neither daylight there in winter, nor darkness during summer when the day is at its longest. For that reason, learned men reckon that Thule must be Iceland, because there are many places in the land where the sun shines throughout the night during the longest days and where it cannot be seen during the day when the nights are longest.

(Landnámabók, 'Book of Settlements')

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Excerpted from Iceland Saga by Magnus Magnusson. Copyright © 2005 Magnus Magnusson. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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