Archive for 'Icelandic customs'
A Yule story Posted by hulda on Dec 21, 2013
Many Icelandic stories of Christmas time are about elves visiting humans, for one reason or another. They’re not always evil after all, many times they may be in need of help instead or just generally curious, even well-meaning if they like their human neighbours. Elves often gave gifts to people they liked in particular and…
The Christmas Cat is coming to town! Posted by hulda on Dec 12, 2013
You better watch out, you better not cry… and you better receive at least one item of clothing for Christmas. This is how you’ll live to see the New Year, at least according to an Icelandic tradition. As a typical Christmas time scare for children, Urðarkötturinn (= the cliff cat) is actually so frightening that…
Ice is news in Iceland Posted by hulda on Nov 25, 2013
Continuing on the November theme: news and how to read them in Icelandic. It’s a sad fact that the web translators invariably fail to translate Icelandic for the same reasons a language learner does: the complex declensions, homonyms, freely used proverbs (some of which can be as old as to be Medieval), loan words, unusual…
Harðrok in the whole country! Posted by hulda on Nov 14, 2013
On the news this week: what about the killer pheasant? Is the rok really harð? Is Jón Gnarr ok? Let’s see: The queen is here Margrét Danadrottning* is currently in the country. Her visit is due to the Medieval literature collector Árni Magnusson’s 300th birthday celebrations so naturally the entertainment has all been linked heavily…
Draugasetrið, the haunted ghost-museum. Posted by hulda on Oct 29, 2013
“The man whose voice you heard on the tape died a while ago. Ingólfur, who made the ghost movie also died recently, of cancer. Then I died too but they started me up again.” It’s a little bit difficult to take our ghost museum guide 100% seriously but as he is one of the specialists…
Ice Cream Iceland! Posted by hulda on Oct 16, 2013
“It’s too cold for ice cream” – said no Icelandic person ever. I have no explanation to how a country that has a cold climate, has its capital city located 66°north and is even called Iceland is able to develop such a fierce passion for ice cream as the Icelanders have. They’re more than willing…
A house called The House. Posted by hulda on Aug 31, 2013
The House of Eyrarbakki, Húsið á Eyrarbakka, was among our must-stop list during the camping trip. I’ve already described how Icelanders typically lived (link), but this example is exceptional because the house in question used to belong to a very wealthy family. Of course it pales in comparison to many, larger and fancier houses all…