Iceland is hot. That’s the word from travelers. In addition to the January 2008 article (Top of the World) in the print version of Car & Travel, here are some more notes from writer Jeanine Barone on this beautiful and occasionally strange country.

Westmann Islands

Flying into Heimaey, the largest and only inhabited of the 15 Westmann Islands (also spelt as Vestmann) off Iceland's south coast, I spied spectacular sea cliffs, once, that is, the thick fog lifted. This volcanic island is most famous for two events, one being the 1973 eruption that buried the town’s east end. I surveyed the recent excavation, in which they recovered a portion of a house with its windowpane still intact. Eldfell, a volcano that remains active, makes for a scenic hike. During it, my guide baked rye bread in the hot earth, which he served with butter. The other event was equally enjoyable, watching children scamper through the streets to rescue pufflings, baby Atlantic puffins, that have lost their way on their first flights. This they do every August. Some pufflings are helped on their way, but, if local menus are anything to go by, not all. Smoked puffin was the dish I saw most, and no, it doesn’t taste like chicken, but more like liver. An 18-hole golf course, home to the Volcano Open each summer, is in a lush volcanic crater. I spent one day walking along the cliff tops on the island’s west side, past puffin colonies, racks of drying fish heads, black-sand beaches with mini-craters and a windswept spot with a lighthouse that has stood up to 110 knot (126.7 miles per hour) winds.

East Fjords

Borgarfjördur Eystri (as mentioned in Car & Travel, January 2008) is home to some of the best walks and hikes in Iceland. Among those that can easily be done in a day is a path that winds to Brunavik, a quiet cove with a black-sand beach where I dipped my toes in icy water. The next day, I trekked to Storurd, a boulder-ridden meadow with a glacial lake colored teal green. Remote, it was the perfect spot for a picnic. On the outskirts of Bakkagerdi, I spotted a rounded hill that’s said to be the dwelling place of the Queen of the Elves (The King is said to live in the picturesque Door Mountains, the snow-crowned peaks that stand in the distance). Meanwhile in Seydisfjördur, a great stop is the Skaftfell Cultural Center, where you can sip coffee in the casual bistro while taking in the artwork on display. This pretty village also houses a new, minuscule movie theater, Mini-Ciné, which is in a 19th-century former shop. It features shorts and independent film.

West Fjords

In the Maritime Museum in Isafjördur (also mentioned in Car & Travel, January 2008), make sure to see the displays of sealskin pants, needles for making nets and poles for drying fish. Later, biking past the nine-hole golf course, I meandered through a lovely landscaped garden called Simonsgardur. Nearby, Tunguskogar is a forest popular with locals for berry and mushroom picking. Within it, on cross-country ski trails, you'll course past waterfalls by paths lined with pine and larch trees.

THE SAGAS: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO ICELANDIC LITERATURE
by Terence Baker

In the article on the Bay of Fundy in the November 2007 issue of Car & Travel, the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow makes an appearance, as it does in the December 2007 issue in an article on the Holidays in New England. Numerous mentions of literature have their place in travel writing, I believe. One of the best ways for prepping any trip to anywhere is to read the literature of that place, either by those who have traveled there or those who were born there. For the latter, you needn’t look farther than the list of Nobel Prize for Literature winners. Going to Spain? Read Camilo José Cela (who won in 1989). Portugal? Then, read José Saramago (1998). Trinidad & Tobago? That would be V.S. Naipul (2001). And if you plan a trip to South Africa, then you have a choice between two recent winners: Nadine Gordimer (1991) or J.M. Coetzee (2003). Following this logic, Iceland also can be included in your travel wish list.

The first time I visited the northerly island of Iceland I was told, almost immediately and with no prompting, that Iceland had received more Nobel Laureate prizes per population than anywhere else on earth. To say that Icelanders are merely proud of this is to embark on an exercise of understatement, perhaps ironically, as Icelanders, like most Scandinavians, are not prone to boasting.

Of those many winners, only one Icelander was awarded the prize for his literature: the winner of the 1955 Nobel, Halldór Laxness (1902-1988), who, among other works, wrote the spellbinding novel Independent People (in Icelandic, “Sjálfstætt fólk”), published in 1935. It reads like a modern-day version of Iceland’s celebrated sagas, ancient tales orally handed down from generation to generation that tell of giants, solitary warriors, stupendous feats of strength, fugitives from law and bad weather.

Elias Wessén, a member of the Swedish Academy, which awards the literature Nobel, said, during Laxness’s acceptance speech, that the “Icelandic saga, very largely anonymous, is the product of a whole nation’s literary talent and independent creative power. In Iceland, the saga has always been held in great honor. To the Icelanders themselves, it has given consolation and strength during dark centuries of poverty and hardship. To this very day Iceland stands out as the literary nation of the North par excellence, in relation to its population and its resources.” (There, that mention of “awards per population” again.) This has not changed, although Iceland is no longer poor.

Here are a few of the more known sagas that are available from online distributors in the United States. Experts and devotees will likely tell you that there is a great deal of difference between each one, but for the first-time reader, I believe anyone will do. They are all wonderful books, and all tend to be rather bloody affairs. Chapters often end with the simple, masking words, “Many men died.” Apart from that, heads are lopped off, arms go missing, property disputes are finalized after much violence and whole villages are put to the sword, but the words and sentences also are poetic, flowing and lush.

· Egil’s Saga
· Gisli’s Saga
· Grettir’s Saga
· Hrafnkel's Saga
· (The) Laxdaela Saga
· Njal’s Saga
· (The) Prose Edda
· (The) Saga of the Volsungs

The adaptations of sagas by Snorri Sturluson (1178-1241) remain popular. Sturluson also was the speaker in Iceland’s parliament, the Althing, as mentioned in the Iceland article. Another work by Laxness worth reading is Paradise Reclaimed (Paradísarheimt; 1960), a novel that, while sets the early parts of the story in Iceland, mainly chronicles the lives of the sizable number of Icelanders who moved to the United States in the 19th century to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormons. This was the first time I had heard of this emigration.

The sagas are full of some of the best names in print. These names are descriptive and designed to instill terror, and no one’s name is complete without at least the previous three generations being honored: Bjorn the Hitdale Warrior, son of Arngeir, son of Bersi the Godless, son of Balki (from Grettir’s Saga); Ranveig the Silly, son of Valgard, son of Aefar, son of Vemund Wordstopper, son of Thorolf Hooknose, son of Thrand the Old, son of Harold Hilditann, son of Hraereck Ringscatterer (Njal’s Saga); and Starkad, son of Bork the Waxy-toothed-blade, son of Thorkell Clubfoot (from Egil’s Saga).

Also, try and find a collection of any of the Icelandic folk tales collected by Jón Arnason (1819-1888), who was known as the Grimm of Iceland, a reference to the story-collecting Brothers Grimm of Germany. These stories certainly involve less bloodshed.

AAA Travel Information:
www.AAA.com/travel

Tourism information:
Iceland: www.visiticeland.com
Greenland: www.greenland.com