Manners and Customs
Mrs. Disney Leith, Peeps At Many Lands: Iceland (1908).

I think it may amuse you to hear something about the manners and customs of the Iceland people. When I speak of "manners," I must begin by saying that these are generally very good, although not exactly the same as our own. Of course many of them seem a little rough to us; but the people have what may be called natural good manners, and I think this arises from their nature being so kindly and simple. Any one of them would do his best to help a stranger, or show him hospitality, or make him understand anything he wanted to know. In country or town they seldom pass without a salutation - men raise their hats to each other as well as to ladies; the men also kiss each other when they are near relatives and friends, but this is not so universal as it used to be in the past. The greetings between parents and children are pretty. I have seen a boy, on meeting his mother after a short absence, carefully rein up his pony beside hers for a kiss.

After meals it is the custom for each person present to shake hands with the host, saying, " Thak fyrir mat," which means "Thanks for meat." This seems to take the place of saying grace nowadays, but in old books you find quite long hymns for grace called "board psalms." At table, the master of the house and the guests sit down, and the ladies of the family do all the waiting; occasionally they sit down and partake, but always have to rise and go to fetch the next course. Sometimes they have their meal quite apart. It seems strange at first, and almost uncomfortable for Englishmen to sit still and let the hostess do all the work; but it is the custom, even as in the old days when, as we read, Njal's wife set meat on the board; and it is like the Eastern custom mentioned in the Bible.

Hospitality
Lord Dufferin, Letters From High Latitudes (1857).
... by the second day after our arrival we found ourselves no longer in a strange land. With a frank energetic cordiality that quite took one by surprise, the gentlemen of the place at once welcomed us to their firesides, and made us feel that we could give them no greater pleasure than by claiming their hospitality.... The next few days were spent in making short expeditions in the neighbourhood, in preparing our baggage train, and in paying visits. It would be too long for me to enumerate all the marks of kindness and hospitality I received during this short period. Suffice it to say that I had the satisfaction of making many very interesting acquaintances, of beholding a great number of very pretty faces, and of partaking of an innumerable quantity of luncheons. In fact, to break bread, or, more correctly speaking, to crack a bottle with the master of the house, is as essential an element of a morning call as the making a bow or shaking hands, and to refuse to take off your glass would be as great an incivility as to decline taking off your hat.
Snuff-Taking
John Ross Browne, The Land of Thor (1867).
The first time I witnessed the favorite ceremony of snuff-taking I was at a loss to understand what it meant. A man with a small horn flask, which it was reasonable to suppose was filled with powder and only used for loading guns or pistols, drew the plug from it, and, stopping quite still in the middle of the road, threw his head back and applied the tube to his nose. Surely the fellow was not trying to blow his brains out with the powder-flask! Two or three times he repeated this strange proceeding, snorting all the time as if in the agonies of suffocation. The gravity of his countenance was extraordinary. I could not believe my eyes.

"What an absurd way of committing suicide!" I remarked to Zoega.
"Oh, sir, he is only taking snuff!" was the reply.
"But if he stops up both nostrils, how is he going to breathe?" was my natural inquiry.

Zoega kindly explained that when the man's nose was full he would naturally open his mouth, and as the snuff was very fine and strong it would eventually cause him to sneeze. In this way it was quite practicable to blow out the load.

"But don't they ever hang fire and burst their heads?" I asked, with some concern.
"Why no, sir, I've never heard of a case," answered Zoega, in his usual grave manner; "in this country everybody takes snuff, but I never knew it to burst any body's head."

It was really refreshing the matter-of-fact manner in which my guide regarded all the affairs of life. He took every thing in a literal sense, and was of so obliging a disposition that he would spend hours in the vain endeavor to satisfy my curiosity on any doubtful point.

"Why, Zoega," said I, "this is a monstrous practice. I never saw any thing like it. Are you quite sure that fellow won't kick when he tries to blow his nose?"
"Yes, sir, they never kick."
"Tell me, Zoega, are their breeches strong?"
"Oh yes, sir."
"That's lucky." I was thinking of an accident that once occurred to a young man of my acquaintance. Owing to a defect in the breech of his gun, the whole load entered his head and killed him instantaneously.

The gravity of these good people in their forms of politeness is one of the most striking features in their social intercourse. The commonest peasant takes off his cap to another when they meet, and shaking hands and snuff-taking are conducted on the most ceremonious princip1es. They do not, however, wholly confine themselves to stimulant for the nose. As soon as they get down to Reykjavik and finish their business, they are very apt to indulge in what we call in California "a bender;" that is to say, they drink a little too much whisky, and hang around the stores and streets for a day or two in a state of intoxication.
Religion, Crime, Marriage, and Divorce
Lord Dufferin, Letters From High Latitudes (1857)
The next day, being Sunday, I read prayers on board, and then went for a short time to the cathedral church, the only stone building in Reykjavik. It is a moderate sized, unpretending place, capable of holding three or four hundred persons, erected in very ancient times, but lately restored. The Icelanders are of the Lutheran religion; and a Lutheran clergyman, in a black gown, etc., with a ruff round his neck, such as our bishops are painted in about the time of James the First, was preaching a sermon. It was the first time I had heard Icelandic spoken continuously, and it struck me as a singularly sweet, caressing language, although I disliked the particular cadence, amounting almost to a chant, with which each sentence ended.

Before dismissing his people, the preacher descended from the pulpit, and putting on a splendid cope of crimson velvet (in which some bishop had in ages past been murdered), turned his back to the congregation, and chanted some Latin sentences, in good round Roman style. Though still retaining in their ceremonies a few vestiges of the old religion, though altars, candles, pictures, and crucifixes yet remain in many of their churches, the Icelanders are staunch Protestants, and, by all accounts, the most devout, innocent, pure-hearted people in the world. Crime, theft, debauchery, cruelty, are unknown amongst them; they have neither prison, gallows, soldiers, nor police; and in the manner of the lives they lead among their secluded valleys there is something of a patriarchal simplicity that reminds one of the Old World princes, of whom it has been said, that they were" upright and perfect, eschewing evil, and in their hearts no guile."

The law with regard to marriage, however, is sufficiently peculiar. When, from some unhappy incompatibility of temper, a married couple live so miserably together as to render life insupportable, it is competent for them to apply to the Danish Governor of the island for a divorce. If, after the lapse of three years from the date of the application, both are still of the same mind, and equally eager to be free, the divorce is granted, and each is at liberty to marry again.

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