one crucial point, though never received recognition for it: Sveinn Pálsson was the first to grasp the nature of advancing glaciers, a problem with which people had long wrestled. He presented his theory in his book Glacier Writings along with a study of glaciology; if it had been printed right away in 1795, it would have become the foundational article for the academic community; Sveinn Pálsson is the secret father of glacial studies. In Glacier Writings it states, according to National Geographic, that farmers in Öræfi had for centuries known the glaciers’ character; though it was said that Sveinn had been the first to set foot on Öræfajökull, the Öræfings had long gone out onto the glacier, though only if they had an errand, not for fun like nowadays; they knew the languor which seizes you as you head over the top of the crater, what’s now called Antarctic stare. Sveinn was first and foremost a doctor, he translated Core Questions in Health by Dr. Bernharður Faust, which came out around 1800 and was on my father’s bookshelves along with Travelogue and Glacier Writings. In Faust’s book, in a chapter about traveling that I used to prepare for my Iceland journey and glacier hiking, it says: What should you do if you get frostbite? Avoid going into a warm building, or near a hot flame. What instead? The frostbitten limb needs submerging in ice-cold water, or to be packed in ice and snow, until it has completely thawed, and life and feeling return to it. Wouldn’t the pain be intense? Yes, deeply painful, but you must do it anyway, because the limb, which otherwise might have been forfeit, will come to life again and heal completely if you follow this method.
From National Geographic I got a love of maps: the magazine often came with maps that I hung on my wall while my peers hung posters of singers and band photos from magazines like Bravo and Popcorn. I was teased for my interest in maps, always being asked if I needed to find my way home to my mother, which often upset me. The map of Öræfi held the place of honor: it was drawn by the Danish captain J. P. Koch in 1903. One gloomy day in my room, I saw my name on the map; I was startled, uncontrollably happy, afraid. Fingurbjörg, it was within Mávabyggðir, inside Vatnajökull, in Öræfi; J. P. Koch had been there and there I too would go, I want to go to Fingurbjörg in Mávabyggðir, I later said to my professor in the Nordic Studies Department at the University of Vienna. I read up on local knowledge, I groped around in the books in the library of the Nordic Studies Department, in one source or other I stumbled on the fact that, despite the name, no gulls live in Mávabyggðir, and I had trouble believing it, there must formerly have been some avian settlers who gave rise to the place name, in the 18th century Travelogue of Eggert and Bjarni, which the library had in Danish, German, French, and English, I found out that there had still been gulls living at Mávabyggðir back then, and I also read about wild sheep, how there were two strains still alive in Iceland, in Núpsstaðarskógar and far out on the glacier at Mávabyggðir. I felt a burning need to study the history and the meanings of the place name Mávabyggðir, I would defend my doctoral thesis on this, resolve all the uncertainty, go to Iceland and climb Fingurbjörg and investigate Mávabyggðir deep inside the glacier, taking samples of rocks and soil, looking into the relationship of folklore and place names, and also conduct, if it warranted space in the thesis, a comparative grammatical study of mountain place names in Öræfi and Týrol, using the teachings of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure as a guiding light. My professor at the Nordic Studies Department jumped head height with joy when I brought him the topic, Bernharður said on his sickbed in Freysnes, wrote Dr. Lassi.
So far I had been considered eccentric for having Iceland on the brain: a certain shame has afflicted Nordic Studies since the Nazi era; the field has been cursed since that time. Now, though, interest has re-arisen around the world, mainly in medieval Icelandic literature and Nordic mythology, although these topics are not absolutely the foundation of the State like they were the last time they were in fashion. I was always fond of Burnt-Njal’s Saga in my classes in the Nordic Studies Department; my father had the Halldór Laxness edition of the story in Icelandic, featuring large, beautiful pictures that enchanted me; he had given me it in German, Die Saga vom Weisen Njal (1978), when he became aware of my interest through National Geographic. I became obsessed with Suðurland, I pored over the map, I dreamt dreams about Flosi, the ruler of Svínafell, I dreamt dreams about Flosi’s dream when the giant Járngrímur appeared to him and said that poisonous serpents would rise up, how he enumerated all those who were doomed, except in my dream he named the names of the classmates who teased me, I told them that they would all die and I believe that has for the most part come to pass. I felt connected to Flosi from Svínafell, how he was sucked into a scenario that he did not understand and how he responded by putting on traveling pants, a sort of medieval leggings, and headed off on foot from Svínafell across the lava and sand and glacial lakes for several hundreds of miles—my professor in Nordic Studies was astonished at this and danced with joy and fury and went pirouetting down the columned hall, up until now Flosi has been a villain! ha ha ha! said the professor, Flosi who went on the journey to torch the dwelling at Bergþórshvol, burning up Njal and his wife and family and many other people, Flosi’s an arsonist and villain! the professor retorted and laughed loudly and rolled around the room, but I maintained Flosi was human, perhaps all too human, he goes along with or rather gets caught up in the plot and acts against his better judgment, he is forced to bow before customs and habits that actually displease him, he is out of keeping with his time, under the yoke of civilization, I said to my professor who now had stopped dancing and giggling and was stood bent over the pages on the big lectern, the time still hasn’t come for a Nietzschean interpretation of ancient Icelandic literature, he said, nor Freudian neither … Flosi is by nature a chieftain, a bellwether, I said, that makes him an empath …Well, said the professor, have it your way. So I went and wrote a master’s thesis about the place names in Burnt-Njal’s Saga.
I wanted to wend my way onto the glacier, standing down on the plain near the Visitor Center in Skaftafell and looking at the mountains and glaciers towering over the country, this beautiful monster that could destroy everything at any moment, I went out on the sand, watching from there; I pored over the map in my trunk, stored the place names in my memory, went out and matched the map to the territory; the glaciers had retreated drastically in the hundred years since Captain Koch measured Öræfi in 1903. I had read that the way up to Mávabyggðir is to follow the so-called moraine streaks in the glacier that originate at Mávabyggðir and reach down to the plains, known as the Mávabyggðarönd, although they are really a belt of rocks which the advancing glacier ferries from the mountains down to the lowlands; you can establish the direction of glacial movement using these streaks. There was no hope left and I knew I had to study my maps well to orient myself better for the trip.
Hafrafell is a hideous mountain, I said to Snorri’s-Edda when I re-entered the trunk and pored over the map, Bernharður said, and the author of this report can agree with that, Dr. Lassi wrote, having subsequently gone on a journey to hunt the wild sheep with the farmers in Öræfi, as discussed in greater detail later in this report. Hafrafell separates Skaftafellsjökull and Svínafellsjökull, but until almost the middle of the previous century the glaciers proceeded together in front of Hafrafell and sealed off the mountain, creating a very good highland pasture, which is still the reality, but the glaciers have now retreated to such an extent that Hafrafell protrudes into the country, surrounded by moraine; sky-high, sheer, rough-edged, like a rusty knife thrust out of the glacier. In Hafrafell there is a treasure trove of place names for you to investigate, said Snorri’s-Edda, because animals have gone about there since the settlement. I go on the livestock round-up there every autumn and am beginning to know it a bit; it’s impossible if no one knows place names, for then shepherding is pointless and hopeless.
We opened the trunk up and gazed out at Hafrafell. Evil rocks, for sure, said Snorri’s-Edda, impassable, up there on the mountain ridges are pillars known as the Upper Men and the Front Men because they seem like people standing there, visible far and wide, the key characteristic of Hafrafell, some people call them the Upper and Lower Men but that is not right, it’s Upper and Front Men, although the front men are below the upper men. I tried to note down everything Snorri’s-Edda said, looking at the mountain and the map and scribbling, there is also Illagil, or Evil Gully, and Einstigir, the Narrow Stair, and Stóraskarð, the Great
