Tag Archives: culture
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…
Thor son of Odin wears it best. Posted by hulda on Nov 30, 2013
“What’s the most typical syllable that names begin in Medieval, Norwegian sagas?” our professor asked on our this week’s Medieval literature lesson. People guessed immediately Þór/Þor, which was actually not correct for Norway but rather Iceland. If you’ve ever read Icelandic sagas you’ll totally understand this one… it’s almost comical to try to follow the…
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…
I read the news today Posted by hulda on Nov 7, 2013
Oh boy. Despite the small size of Iceland there’s always something going on here, be it a lost tourist, strange accidents with lots of luck included, the mayor dressing up as a jedi and so forth. I collected some highlights from the most recent news here for you so without further ado let’s see what…
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…
The legend of Lagarfljót. Posted by hulda on Oct 23, 2013
It’s not long now until Halloween so let’s get in the mood of it and have a look at more Icelandic monsters. This time I’ll be concentrating on one particular monster that, unlike the others, has been seen on regular intervals up to our day: the Lagarfljótsormurinn (= the worm of Lagarfljót). What’s known of…