An Historical and Descriptive Account of Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands (1841)

Rural Life
The present houses of the Icelanders differ little from those used by their ancestors, who first colonized the island; and though not according to our ideas of beauty or comfort, are probably the best fitted for the climate. They never exceed one story in height, and as each room is in some measure separate from the others, the buildings on a moderate-sized farm bear some resemblance to a village. The walls are occasionally composed of driftwood, but oftener of stone or lava, having the interstices stuffed with moss or earth, and are about four feet high, by six in thickness. Instead of the usual rafters, the roof often consists of whale-ribs, which are more durable, covered with brushwood and turf, producing good grass, which is carefully cut at the proper season.

From a door a long passage extends to the badstofa or principal room, the common sitting, eating, and sleeping compartment of the family. From the sides of the lobby, doors lead to other rooms used by the servants, or for kitchen and dairy. In the better class of houses, the walls of the principal chamber are wainscoted, and the windows glazed; but these luxuries are unknown in most, and the holes in the roof that admit the light are covered by a hoop, with the amnion of a sheep, or a piece of thin skin, stretched over it. They have no chimneys or grate, the smoke escaping by a hole in the roof; and there is no fire even in the coldest weather, except in the kitchen. The beds are merely open frames filled with seaweed, feathers, or down, over which is thrown two or three folds of wadmal, and a coverlet of divers colours.

From the roof hang various articles of domestic economy; the floor is generally nothing more than the damp earth; and the only seats are the bones of a whale or a horse's skull. The houses are usually surrounded by several others for the cows, horses, and fuel, though these frequently open from the common lobby; and also by numerous ricks of hay covered with turf and stones, which closely resemble the former, and increase the apparent extent of the buildings. It is but seldom that the traveller meets a dwelling a little larger, more airy and better built.

Dress
The dress of the Icelandic peasant resembles that of a common sailor, being a short jacket of blue, gray, or black home-made cloth, wide trousers of the same material, woollen stockings, and shoes or short boots of untanned leather, without heels, and laced in front. The higher classes are clothed as in other lands, and even the common people, when going on a long journey or to church, approach nearer the fashion.

The raiment of the females is more peculiar, and highly ornamented, though almost all formed of the wadmal or common cloth of the country. It consists of a red or black bodice, with stripes of velvet covering the seams, and fastened in front with five or six silver clasps; round the neck is a ruff of velvet, adorned in a similar manner; above is the treya or jacket of black cloth, with silver buttons, and, above all, is the hempa, a black cloak lined with velvet, and fastened with clasps. The stockings are dark blue or red, and the shoes somewhat similar to those of the men. The headdress is a fantastic turban of white linen stiffened with pins, and generally from fifteen to twenty inches high. It is round near the head, but soon becomes flat, and curves first backwards and then forwards. It is fastened by a black or coloured handkerchief bound round it several times; and on bridal or other high occasions, is also adorned with gold and silver. By the quantity of these precious metals on the dress, a judgment may be formed of the wealth and station of the proprietor, the silver on that of a lady of rank being frequently worth 400 dollars. But with all this external magnificence, linen is almost unknown, the underclothing of both sexes being chiefly flannel or wadmal, to which many of the diseases prevalent in the country are ascribed.

The Eruption of Laki in 1783
As a particular example of the ravages produced by these terrible convulsions of nature may give the reader a clearer and more vivid idea of their action than any general description, we shall select the eruption of the Skaptar Jokul in 1783; it having been not only very violent, but the one of which we possess the fullest and most authentic accounts.

The preceding winter and the spring of that year had been unusually mild, and nothing seemed to foretell the approaching danger till towards the end of May, when a light bluish fog was seen floating along the ground, succeeded in the beginning of June by earthquakes, which daily increased in violence till the 8th of that month. At nine on the morning of that day numerous pillars of smoke were noticed rising in the hill country towards the north, which, gradually gathering into a dark bank, obscured the atmosphere, and proceeding in a southerly direction against the wind, involved the whole district of Sida in darkness, showering down sand and ashes to the thickness of an inch. This cloud continued to increase till the l0th, when fire-spouts were observed in the mountains, accompanied by earthquakes. Next day the large river Skaptaa, which in the spring had discharged a vast quantity of fetid water mixed with gravel or dust, and had lately been much swollen, totally disappeared. This incident was fully accounted for on the 12th, when a huge current of lava burst from one side of the volcano and rushed with a loud crashing noise down the channel of the river, which it not only filled, but even overflowed, though in many places from four to six hundred feet deep and two hundred broad. The fiery stream, after leaving the hills, threatened to deluge the low country of Medalland, when a lake that lay in its way intercepted it during several days. But at length the incessant torrents filled the basin and proceeded in two streams, one to the east, where its progress was for a short time interrupted by the Skalarfiall, up which, however, the accumulating flood soon forced its way, rolling the mossy covering of the mountain before it like a large piece of cloth. The other current directed its progress towards the south through the district of Medalland, passing over some old tracts of lava, which again began to burn, whilst the air in its cavities escaped with a strange whistling noise, or, suddenly expanding, threw up immense masses into the air to the height of more than 120 feet. The waters of the rivers, swollen by the melting of the jokuls in the interior, and intercepted in their course by the glowing lava, were thrown into a state of violent ebullition, and destroyed many spots spared by the fire. In this district the liquid matter continued to flow until the 20th of July, following principally the course of the Skaptaa, where it poured over the lofty cataract of Stapafoss, filling up the enormous cavity the waters had been hollowing out for ages. During the whole of this eruption the atmosphere was filled with mephitic vapours or darkened with clouds of ashes, by which the syn was either concealed from the miserable inhabitants, or appeared like a blood-red globe, adding to their terror and consternation.

The molten elements had so long confined their fury to the Skaptaa that the inhabitants of the eastern district on the Hverfisfliot, though much incommoded by the showers of ashes, hoped to escape its more immediate visitations. But on the 28th of June a cloud of sand and smoke caused so thick a darkness that in the houses at noon a sheet of white paper held opposite the window could not be distinguished from the black walls, whilst redhot stones and dust burned up the pastures, poisoned the waters, and threatened to set fire to the dwellings. On the 3rd of August a thick vapour rising from the Hverfisfliot, the entire disappearance of its waters, and a foaming fire-stream which on the 9th rushed with indescribable fury down its bed, overflowing the country in one night to the extent of more than four miles, converted the fearful anticipations of the natives into dreadful realities. The eruptions of sand, ashes, pumice, and lava, continued till the end of August, when the volcano appeared completely exhausted; but flames were still seen in February 1784, and thick clouds of smoke even in July of that year. The whole catastrophe closed in August with an earthquake of such extreme violence that men were thrown to the ground.

The immediate source whence this enormous mass of matter issued is entirely unknown, being situated in that great central desert of sand and snow which none of the natives have ever penetrated; and no traditions of any former occurrence of this kind have been preserved. Some persons who went up into the mountains during the continuance of the eruption were, in consequence of the thick smoke, compelled to return, and some subsequent attempts met with no better success. It is not even known whether the current that flowed down the Skaptaa and that in the Hverfisfliot proceeded from the same crater. It is however, probable their sources were different though closely connected.

The extent of the lava can only be accurately known in the inhabited districts. The stream that flowed down the Skaptaa is calculated at about fifty miles in length by twelve or fifteen at its greatest breadth, that in the Hverfisfliot at forty miles in length by seven in breadth. In the narrow channel of the Skaptaa it rose to 500 or 600 feet, but in the plains its extreme height does not exceed 100, and in many places is only eight or ten feet. From its immense thickness, it was a long time in cooling, being so hot in July 1784, twelve months after the eruption, that Mr Stephensen could not cross it, and even then sending up a thick smoke or steam. In the year 1794 it still retained an elevated temperature, emitting vapours from various places, and many of its crevices being filled with warm water. This long retention of heat will appear more extraordinary when we consider the numerous globular cavities and fissures it contained permitting a free circulation of the water and atmosphere.

The destructive effects of this volcano were not confined to its immediate vicinity, vast quantities of sand and ashes being scattered over the remoter parts of the country, and some were conveyed to the Faroe Islands, a distance of nearly 300 miles. The noxious vapours that for many months infected the air were equally pernicious to man and beast, and covered the whole island with a dense fog which obscured the sun, and was perceptible even in England and Holland. The steam rising from the crater, or exhaled from the boiling waters, was condensed in the cooler regions of the atmosphere, and descended in floods, that deluged the fields and consolidated the ashes into a thick black crust. A fall of snow in the middle of June, and frequent showers of hailstones of unusual magnitude, accompanied with tremendous thunder-storms tearing up huge fragments of rock and rolling them down into the plains, completed the scene of desolation. The grass and other plants withered, and became so brittle that the weight of a man's foot reduced them to powder; and even where the pastures seemed to have recovered, the cattle refused to touch them, dying of actual starvation in the midst of the most luxuriant herbage. Small unknown insects covered many of the fields, whilst other portions of the soil formerly the most fertile were changed by the ashes into marshy wastes overgrown with moss and equiseta. A disease resembling scurvy in its most malignant type attacked both men and cattle, occasioned in the former no doubt by the want of food, and the miserable, often disgusting, nature of that which alone they could obtain. Many lived on the bodies of those animals which had perished from hunger or disease, whilst others had recourse to boiled skins, or substances still more nauseous and unwholesome. The numerous earthquakes, with the ashes and other matter thrown into the sea, caused the fish to desert many parts of the coast, whilst the fishermen seldom daring to leave the land, enveloped in thick clouds during most of the summer, were thus deprived of their usual stock of winter provisions.

We cannot better conclude this frightful catalogue of evils than by the following summary of the numbers of men and cattle more or less immediately destroyed by it in two years. The most moderate calculation makes these amount to 1300 human beings, 19,488 horses, 6801 horned cattle, and 129,937 sheep.
Travellers page || Travels in 19th-Century Iceland home page