Tag Archives: culture
Glíma, the ancient wrestling style. Posted by hulda on May 30, 2012
When it comes to sports in Iceland there probably isn’t any as traditional as glíma, or glima as it’s written outside of Iceland (the only difference is the accent – i / í – that signals correct pronunciation in Icelandic). As a word (að) glíma means (to) wrestle or (to) fight, in some cases also…
Móðir mín í kví, kví. Posted by hulda on May 27, 2012
“Icelandic ghosts are so different from the ones in my homecountry”, a classmate of mine told me once while explaining why she wanted to write her þjóðsögur ritgerð, folk tales essay, about them. Even having a completely different background I had to agree. Icelandic ghosts, draugar, are really a type of their own. They can be…
Víkingahátíð, the viking festival. Posted by hulda on May 14, 2012
“Sögumenn, götulistamenn, handverksmenn sem bæði höggva í steina og tré eða berja glóandi járn, bardagamenn og bogmenn, svo eitthvað sé nefnt.” June is nearing and with it the annual festival held at the Viking* Village in Hafnarfjörður: Víkingahátíð, the viking festival. I went there last year and I wholeheartedly recommend paying it a visit in…
Pronunciation of vowels. Posted by hulda on May 10, 2012
Or: how to avoid saying “penis” or something equally embarrassing by accident. While it’s ok to have an accent it’s still crucial to learn to pronounce as correctly as possible and the reason for this is that words easily change their meaning in Icelandic. Before we go on I feel like apologizing for the chosen topic…
The myth of Sæmundur fróði. Posted by hulda on May 7, 2012
In the middle of the clearing, right outside of the old main building of the University of Iceland stands a peculiar statue of a man raising a book against what appears to be a fish of sorts. The fish is actually not a fish but a seal – and the seal is not in fact…
Differences between America and Iceland Posted by sequoia on Apr 28, 2012
These are things I had to learn by myself in most cases. I have mentioned similar things in my previous posts too. – Most Icelandic business’ webpages are just a homepage. A physical shop in Iceland very likely has no website that you can buy things from, you have to actually go there in person…
The old Nordic calendar. Posted by hulda on Apr 25, 2012
It’s finally summer, at least going by the old Nordic calendar! Last Thursday (19th April) was Sumardagurinn fyrsti, the first day of summer. Despite commonly using the Gregorian calendar just like everybody else, Icelanders still note certain parts of the year according to their old one, Norræna tímatalið, often called Germanic calendar in English. It…