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Tag Archives: culture

Halloween or Hrekkjavaka? Posted by on Oct 29, 2015

The end of October is almost at hand now so what better time to learn some spooky vocabulary! Hrekkjavaka = Halloween Grasker = pumpkin Kónguló = spider. Spiderman is naturally Kóngulóarmaðurinn. Kölski = the devil. He can also be called f.ex. andskoti, ári, fjandinn, flugnahöfðingi (= lord of flies), myrkrahöfðingi (= lord of darakness), óvinur…

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7 Icelandic monsters: survival guide. Posted by on Oct 22, 2015

Halloween is almost here so let’s continue with the spooky theme! Today’s post will teach you something about the most famous Icelandic monsters and how to survive them, should you come across one. Trolls Description: size ranges from large human to very, very big but nowhere near as big as the Norwegian ones can get…

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Run for your life! Posted by on Oct 15, 2015

The autumn nights are growing colder and we’re heading for the long dark season, so let’s talk about spooky things! Icelanders of old thought that the only safe place in the world was within the walls of a house (and occasionally not even there, but more on that later on) and well, they were right…

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Soon landing in Reykjavík! Posted by on Sep 17, 2015

The ravens have returned to the villages and towns. In Iceland ravens are a seasonal sight, living the spring and summer in the countryside but spending the dark, cold season among humans. During the summer seagulls take over but come autumn they make way for the true kings who return to take their thrones atop…

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Réttir, the annual sheep roundup. Posted by on Sep 10, 2015

Food is my favourite way of following how the seasons change. Earlier this week as I was grocery shopping I realized the early autumn was here, summer was now entirely over though some sunny days might still be in store for us, and that it was time to go get the warm clothes out and…

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Sleep, you pig – scary Icelandic lullabies. Posted by on Sep 3, 2015

Sofðu nú svínið þitt svartur í augum Farðu í fúlan pytt fullan af draugum. (= Sleep now you black-eyed pig, fall in a deep pit of ghosts.) Lately this little lullaby has been popular on quite a few social media sites, gathering people’s attention simply by being a really horrible-sounding thing to sing to the…

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Reciting Icelandic poetry. Posted by on Aug 27, 2015

If I had to describe Icelandic as a language, one word would come to mind immediately: poetic. For most of their existence Icelanders have always valued poets highly, so highly in fact that an important person was practically assumed to be a skilled poet and even the poorest farmer could (and often would) show off…

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