Thorgerd mine; do not strike those hands, for they are bishop's hands!"[22]

John not only survived this spoiling, but fulfilled the prophecy of the kindly queen. In due course, bearing a letter from Bishop Gizor, he sailed to Denmark for his consecration; "the Archbishop was at church at evensong, and when John, the holy bishop-elect, got to the church (presumably the Cathedral at Lund), evensong was well-nigh over. He took his place outside the quire, and began to sing evensong with his clerks. The Archbishop had forbidden all his clerks, old and young alike, to look out of the quire while the hours were being sung, and he set a penalty to be taken if his command were broken. But as soon as the Archbishop heard the chanting of the holy John, he looked out down the church, trying to see who the man was that had such a voice. But when evensong was over, the Archbishop's clerks said to him, 'How now, my lord bishop, have ye not yourself broken the rules ye made?' The Archbishop answered, 'I confess that it is true as ye say, but yet I have not done it for nought, for a voice was borne into my ears such as I have never heard before, and it may rather be likened to the voice of an angel than of a man.'"[23]

The Primate perceived that his very dear brother had all the qualities desirable in a bishop, and so favourable was the impression made that the canonical difficulty to the consecration—that John had been twice married—was surmounted with little trouble.[24]

Well did the new bishop regulate the affairs of the church on his arrival at Holar, where he rebuilt the Cathedral, and at the bishopstead, west of the church door, set up a school. A master he chose from Gothland and he paid him a great wage, both to teach the priestlings and to give such support to holy Christendom along with the bishop himself as he could manage in his teachings and addresses. By this time the days of transition in Iceland were over, and John felt strong enough not only to destroy the material relics of paganism, but also to anticipate George Fox in objecting to pagan names for the days of the week. "He also forbade all omens, which the men of old had been wont to take from the coming of the moon and observance of days, and dedicating days to heathen men or gods—as it is when they are called Tew's day, Woden's day, or Thor's, and so of all the week-days; but he bade men to keep the reckoning which the holy fathers have set in the Scriptures, and call them the Second Day of the week, and the Third Day, and so on—and all other things beside, which he thought sprung from ill roots."[25] At last, in 1121, on April 23, he departed out of this world into everlasting bliss.

As might perhaps be expected, by far the most interesting object in Reykjavik is the National Museum, into which is gathered, Scandinavian fashion, much choice carved work from many an Icelandic church. For their inability to raise great fabrics like those of southern lands, the disciples of the White Christ in Iceland, much as in Ireland, resolved as far as possible to atone by wealth of detail. Here accordingly are quaint or beautiful works of art whose composition beguiled many a long winter night of old. Even Mallet (p. 151) most patronisingly remarks: "Nor is this sculpture so bad as might be expected." The sagas here and there refer to the use of timber from the Icelandic forests for purposes of building, but soft drift-wood is by far the commonest material used for carving figures of saints, many of which are extremely crude and some grotesque. The ornate "Kirkjustodir" are rather like the totem poles of North American Indians. Many things there are of post-Reformation date, as pulpits, bas-reliefs and fonts. Runic inscriptions survive into the eighteenth century. The finest feature is the magnificent retable in alabaster and wood, representing scenes from the Passion, that came from Holar Cathedral.[26] Carving of similar kind, though much earlier in date, for Skalholt Cathedral is described in the Pols Saga.[27] Margaret was the most cunning carver of all folk in Iceland, and she was surnamed the Skilful. "Bishop Paul had put in hand, and had her begin a tabula for the altar before he died, and had meant to spend on it much money, both gold and silver, and Margaret carved it most nobly out of tusk-ivory, and this would have been the greatest jewel or masterpiece if, according to his plan, both Thorstan the shrine-maker and Margaret had wrought it out with their craft. But his death was a big black blow, and such things had to be put off for the sake of many other things that had to be done."

Some objects illustrate things other than ecclesiastical, but, comparatively speaking, they are few. Among them are old Icelandic chair-saddles with huge and unwieldy stirrups, and guns of wood with iron rings.

The country surrounding the city seems dreary enough until the intense fascination of the wildly desolate land and the extreme purity of the air grows more and more upon the mind. The jagged rock-hills all round are never quite free from snow, but they were thrown up by the earth fires too late to be planed down by ice. The well-known little ponies of Iceland in considerable numbers wander at will over the rough rolling pasture land, save that some are ridden by tourists from the south, and some by radiant Icelandic girls. These come jogging in from the country on their curious flat side-saddles, both feet resting on a wide hanging step. They wear their hair in four plaits, the ends of which are looped up under a little flat cap of black cloth. From the centre of the cap there hangs through a little silver cylinder a long black tassel which reaches to the shoulder.

The ground is largely dug into hummocks so as to increase the area available for grass. A good road, fringed by telegraph poles each side and patronised by a fair number of cyclists, leads out of the town, and after a mile or two crosses the Ellidaar, which has cut a broad winding channel through the hard volcanic rock, and is famous for fishing.

Nearer the sea are the hot springs whose waters send up steam that is visible from far, and gave the capital its name. The ponies are kept from burning their noses by stretches of barbed wire. In water heated by the fires that burn far down, beyond the reach of man, the people of Reykjavik have long been wont to wash their linen and their clothes. A constant procession of women bear soiled things to the spring and clean things to the town.

Many Icelanders speak English, and they are often surprisingly well-informed, both concerning their own history and the affairs of foreign lands. Still read are the sagas in the land of their birth, and they were Englished largely by Icelandic minds. There are very good secondary schools in the towns, and a College at Reykjavik itself. Though no elementary schools exist, almost every one can read and write from the excellent teaching in the homes. Reykjavik, Akureyri and Isafjordr are fair-sized towns, the former has a population of about ten thousand souls, but the loneliness of life in many parts is evident from the fact that the rest of the nation, about fifty or sixty thousand in number, tending cattle and ponies, and fishing for whale and cod, is thinly sprinkled through some two hundred and eighty parishes.

HOT SPRINGS NEAR REYKJAVIK

[Face page 60

Of the rocky islands in Reykjavik Harbour by far the most interesting is Videy, the resort to-day of ptarmigan and eider duck, in past years the seat of one of the chief religious houses of Iceland, a Priory of the Benedictine order. The founder and the first Prior (1226-35) was one Thorvald, son of a Speaker of the Law, who was fifth in descent from Gizor the White. He was succeeded by Styrmir, surnamed hinn fródi or the Wise, who was one of the editors of the Landnama-bok, and died in 1245. The chapel in which he worshipped still exists, a rude early thirteenth century structure, plain oblong with gables, built roughly of volcanic stone. The sole original features are the very plainest of windows under segmental arches. It is still used for service, and has plain eighteenth century fittings with tall screen, and pulpit rising behind the altar, all painted green and blue and red. Three bells are dated 1735, 1752 and 1785. In the loft under the roof is a collection of old spinning wheels. The absence of surnames, which is still a characteristic of the unchanged Norse tradition of Iceland, appears on a gravestone of 1820, to Viefus Scheving and his wife, Aunnu Stephansdóttur.

This little chapel appears to have been almost the only stone church in mediæval Iceland; even the famous Cathedral at Skalholt, which was in every way glorious above any other building in Iceland, the finest and most precious in the island, was merely a structure of wood.

From the highest point of the island of Videy there is a really superb view over the plantless mountains and the steepleless city across a few miles of blue-black, white-crested sea. The island pastures support fifty head of cattle and slope right down to the shore, where the waves have carved arches and caverns in the yielding rocks. The farmhouse by the chapel is a long stone building, whose weathering by the storms of some two hundred winters is concealed by a coat of whitewash, while the rooms are comfortably panelled within. The outhouses seem in some cases to be on foundations that were laid by the monks, for the monastic buildings were evidently detached in the Celtic fashion; there was no attempt to reproduce the conventional plan of a monastery that is so unvaried in southern lands.

Iceland belongs geographically rather to America than to Europe, a much wider stretch of ocean divides her from Norway than from Greenland. But so close are the lands in the Far North that a present-day steamer might sail with ease from London to New York, permitting her passengers to go ashore for some part of every day.[28]

Five hundred years before Columbus crossed the Western Ocean Icelandic barks had plowed their way, first to Greenland, then to the American mainland. The latter their crews called Vinland from its vines and surnamed from its character "the Good." In the Saga of Olaf Tryggvison we read: "That same spring also King Olaf sent Leif Ericson to Greenland to bid christening there; so that same summer he went thither. He took up a ship's crew on the sea who had come to nought, and were lying on the wreck of the ship; and in that journey found he Vinland the Good, and came back in harvest-tide to Greenland." In the Vinland Voyages, commonly called the Saga of Eric the Red, the North American coast is described with great accuracy, but unfortunately still greater brevity, "The land seemed to them fair and thick wooded, and but a short space between the woods and the sea, and white sands. There were many islands and great shallows." Many Icelanders in these latter days have emigrated to the United States or Canada, and the son of one of them is V. Stefansson, who, in the service of the American Museum of Natural History, discovered the blond Eskimo of Victoria Land known as Akuliakattamiut, just possibly descended from the ancient Norse settlers in Greenland. To-day (1913), in the service of the Government of Canada, he is exploring the polar ocean to the north of that wide land.

Sturdy independence and passionate attachment to their weirdly beautiful island have always marked the Icelanders, and though since the fall of the Republic more than six and a half centuries have worn away, the spirit of the nation has not decayed. Even by the great Margaret (p. 120) they would not consent to be taxed. In 1393 it is recorded[29]: "The Stadholder brought forward the Queen's demand at the meeting, when all the chief men promised to give sixteen feet of vadmal (cloth used for barter) for Vigfus' sake—he was very much beloved in Iceland; but on this condition, that it should not be called a tax, and should not be demanded again. But the inhabitants of Eyafjordr refused to give anything."

And about the year 1000, while other Europeans were trembling for the end of the world or wondering why it had not come, Icelandic sailors, who knew not fear, were wandering admiringly through the woods of the North American Continent, were warring with the Scraelings or Indians, were eating the grapes of the New World, were planning settlements, possibly building churches,[30] in what became New England more than six centuries later. What boundless possibilities were before them had they only realised the value of that land! How different the history of mankind if any considerable number of their countrymen, sprinkled through all lands from the ice-fields of Greenland to the Russian steppes, and from the North Cape to Constantinople, had been summoned from their widely-scattered stations for the settlement of Vinland the Good!