On Icelandic culture

In the past week I have learned a lot about the culture I am now living in, primarily through reading the stories from Iceland's history. The stories a culture tells say a lot about their lives and their perceptions of the world, the process in which they understood the things around them and rationalized them. Even though cultures change (Greek mythology may not give you a good picture of modern day Greeks) I think it's important to see where people come from, and this is very true of Iceland, a country with a rather unique tie to its heritage through a number of prolific writers.

It seems the Icelandic people have always been scholarly. Anywhere they settled, they had books. For a period of time it was popular in Iceland to copy books by hand. Iceland remains a very educated country that has produced some remarkable feats of literature that often go unnoticed. The Icelandic sagas make a massive book of stories about heroes and history that, were it published in a major European nation, might be regarded as a much bigger achievement. Poems were composed on a number of subjects, including general wisdom for everyday living; how much you should eat or drink when you're a guest in someone's home. Histories of the settlement age were kept as well.

Accompanying the Sagas are the Elder (or Poetic) Edda-comprised of earlier sources-and the Prose Edda, written by Snorri Sturluson in the 13th century. These are the most complete sources of Norse mythology that we have. I met with a local teacher of Icelandic literature to talk about them, as I had started drawing conclusions from them that I wanted to confirm with a native before running too amok with my own notions:

The Icelandic people are, generally, optimistic despite some of the conditions that they live in (cold, long winter months, long periods of darkness) and despite a difficult settlement period followed soon after by bloody civil wars between ruling families all striving for power. A (very) inebriated woman in a bar told me that Icelanders have the saying: "everything will be okay" something that might be said when you don't plan something out very well and it falls apart.

This seems to me to be reflected in the Eddur, the story of the Norse gods. The stories often follow the gods in their desperate attempt to prepare for Ragnarök, a final war which they know they can't win. They continue on in the hopes of preserving some part of the world, leaving something left for humans to return to. Thus far, it seems a sort of theme: hope in the face of huge obstacles.

The people here have a very close connection to the land, which I am still figuring out. It seems as though the land as an entity is very much a part of the people and their lives. The prose Edda describes the process in which the world was made from the body of a giant: his skull made into the sky, his blood the oceans and the rocks in the ground from his teeth and bones.

Iceland is almost entirely powered by the island itself: mostly from hydro power and geothermal energy. Wikipedia lists its fossil fuel usage for power as .1%. Every town I have seen has geothermal swimming pools and hot tubs and the swimming pool seems to be the place to go to get news. You might think that farming and growing crops would be impossible in an area with such rocky volcanic soil, cold temperatures and so little sunlight for a chunk of the year, but because of Iceland's unique spot on the planet, they are able to grow in greenhouses year round: tomatoes, cucumbers, flowers, even bananas. With one hand it takes, with the other it gives.

Tomatoes at Hædarendi

My meeting with the literature teacher showed me I have more reading to do, but I'm moving past character development and moving into outlining the whole project. This weekend I'll pick up some more books: some of the sagas and epic poems.

Following my literature discussion was a small Icelandic Folk Music museum located in nearby Siglufjörður. The heart of traditional Icelandic music is the rímur, an epic poem written in meter. They have simple, Gregorian chant-like melodies that employ a kind of half-singing similar to recitative in opera. I have a book full of traditional melodies to look through. More complex forms exist like the Tvísöngur, songs that alternate between unison singing and two parts, characterized by parallel fifths.

The oldest musical traditions are vocal, but there are a handful of traditional Icelandic instruments, mostly stringed instruments with strings made from horse hair. 

An Iceland violin (right) and Lanspil (left).

Other musical styles and instruments came later: polka was popular for a time, as an example. Even modern bands from Iceland sometimes use the traditional styles in their music (Sigur Rós comes to mind). There have been a series of more modern interpretations of traditional folk tunes, many of which I have enjoyed a lot. Guitar Islancio is a guitar trio of very talented guitarists headed by Björn Thoroddsen that do very eclectic jazzy interpretations, and are well worth looking up.

In other news, the weather is looking better after a big blizzard this week which left the town covered in snow. I made it to Hrísey island with one of my flatmates and made contact with some more artists at a residency there.

Ólafsfjörður

Hrísey

Another view from Hrísey.

In the next few days I will have some more time in Akureyri to see the city when everything is not closed for Easter. In the near(ish) future, a trip to Mývatn to see the dimmu borgir, hot springs, and a volcano hike is in order.