Tag Archives: so icelandic
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…
Greetings from the Grímsvatn volcano. Posted by hulda on May 23, 2012
It began by somewhat of a surprise around seven o’clock in the evening of Monday, 21st May. As I stood at the bus stop waiting for my bus to come and take me downtown for a choir meeting I noticed something odd about the way the air looked like over the city. Although fog is…
When the volcanoes wake up. Posted by hulda on May 16, 2012
As the weather gets warmer yet another very Icelandic feature begins to take place when eldfjöll, the volcanoes, begin to show more signs of life when the layer of ice on top of them grows lighter in weight or disappears altogether depending on whether the volcano is beneath a glacier or not. At the moment the…
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…
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…
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…
Þetta reddast, þetta kemur. Posted by hulda on Apr 10, 2012
One of the most Icelandic expressions I can think of is Þetta reddast, “it’ll work out”/”it’ll fix itself”. It’s used in any kind of a situation where someone’s facing a problem, no matter how difficult. It can be anything ranging from a confusing schedule at work to a situation that’s so desperate it would take…