Iceland (Lonely Planet, 7th Edition) - Fran Parnell [20]
Icelanders peacefully converted to Christianity more than 1000 years ago, but the old gods are being revived. The Ásatrú religion evolved in the 1970s, almost simultaneously in Iceland, the US and the UK. Farmer-poet and high priest Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson managed to get the Íslenska Ásatrúarfélagið (www.asatru.is) recognised by the Icelandic government as early as 1973.
The two main rituals of Ásatrú are blót (sacrifice) and sumbel (toast). Nowadays sacrifices, which take place on the winter and summer solstices, on the first day of winter and summer, and at Þorrablót (see the boxed text), are usually libations made with mead, beer or cider. The sumbel is a ritualised three-part toast: the first is made to the god Óðinn (it’s also wise to pour a few drops for Loki, the trickster, to ward off nasty surprises); the second round is to the ancestors and honourable dead; and the third round is to whomever one wishes to honour.
Whereas membership of other religions in Iceland has remained fairly constant, Ásatrúarfélagið is growing and now has 1270 registered members and eight priests (five of whom can perform marriage ceremonies). It’s Iceland’s largest non-Christian religious organisation. In early 2008 the society bought a plot of land at Öskjuhlíð in Reykjavík, where it planned to build its first temple, but the financial crash later that year has put these plans temporarily on ice.
Christianity
Traditionally, the date of the decree that officially converted Iceland to Christianity has been given as 1000, but research has determined that it probably occurred in 999. What is known is that the changeover of religions was a political decision. In the Icelandic Alþing (National Assembly), Christians and pagans had been polarising into two radically opposite factions, threatening to divide the country. Þorgeir, the lögsögumaður (law speaker), appealed for moderation on both sides, and eventually it was agreed that Christianity would officially become the new religion, although pagans were still allowed to practise in private.
Today, as in mainland Scandinavia, most Icelanders (around 79%) belong to the Protestant Lutheran Church.
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ARTS
Literature
Bloody, black and powerful, the late 12th- and 13th-century sagas are without doubt Iceland’s greatest cultural achievement. Written in terse Old Norse, these epics continue to entertain Icelanders and provide them with a rich sense of heritage.
But Icelanders are never ones to rest on their literary laurels, and today the country produces the most writers and literary translations per capita of any country in the world.
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Betra er berfættum en bókarlausum að vera. (It’s better to be barefoot than bookless.)
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THE SAGAS
Iceland’s medieval family sagas have often been called the world’s first novels. They’re certainly some of the most imaginative and enduring works of early literature – epic and brutal tales that suddenly flower with words of wisdom, elegy or love.
Written down during the late 12th to late 13th centuries, sagas generally look to earlier times – they’re tales of bloodthirsty disputes, doomed romances and the larger-than-life characters who lived during the Settlement Era. Most were written anonymously, though Egil’s Saga has been attributed to Snorri Sturluson (see the boxed text).
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SUPERNATURAL ICELAND: GHOSTS, TROLLS & HIDDEN PEOPLE
Once you’ve seen some of the lava fields, eerie natural formations and isolated farms that characterise much of the Icelandic landscape, it will come as no surprise that many Icelanders believe their country is populated by huldufólk (hidden people) and ghosts.
In the lava are jarðvergar (gnomes), álfar (elves), ljósálfar (fairies), dvergar (dwarves), ljúflingar (lovelings), tívar (mountain spirits), and englar (angels). Stories about them have been handed down through generations, and many modern Icelanders claim to have seen them…or to at least know someone who has.
As in Ireland, there are stories about projects going wrong when workers try to build roads