Tag Archives: history
Falling Fall and Mountain Moo. Posted by hulda on Jul 13, 2012
Despite that it’s föstudagurinn þrettándi (= the Friday 13th) I hope you’re all doing well! One of the quickest and the most effective ways of widening your vocabulary in any foreign language is to pick up a map and begin to translate the names of places. It’s not only easy – the repetition of certain…
A hot dog for Mr. Clinton. Posted by hulda on Jul 9, 2012
Today I put together a short grammar lesson with some easy rules on the use of hjá, við and með, three prepositions that can all be translated as “with”. The difficulty lies in the different nuances and usage of all three, and getting them mixed up will hardly ever work in a grammatical sense. And…
Is your neighbour an elf? Posted by hulda on Jun 22, 2012
Happy Midsummer/Solstice everyone! Unlike many European countries, this time of the year is not celebrated very much in Iceland, at least in comparison. There’s Þórláksmessa (the summer version of it – one is held on 20th June and another on 23rd December) held in the memory of Þórlák hinn helga Þórláksson, the patron saint of…
Happy Birthday, Iceland! Posted by hulda on Jun 17, 2012
“Hæ, hó, jibbí, jei og jibbí, jei – Það er kominn 17. júní!” In other words, happy Independence Day Iceland and Icelanders! Today’s a big fest downtown that began in the morning and will go on until at least seven p.m. We have been lucky with the weather today, it’s been sunny and warm with…
Beautiful and dangerous. Posted by hulda on Jun 5, 2012
Elves in the Icelandic lore are quite different creatures from what people have come to think of after reading Tolkien. Depending on the tale they can be either a little too interested in humans, kidnapping people or trying to lure them to live in their homes, which are built in rocks and cliffs, or even…
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…