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636 VON TROIL’S LETTERS ON ICELAND.
little bread from the Danifh company, that there is hardly any peafant who eats it above
three or four months in the year. ‘They likewife boil groats, ofa kind of mofs (Lichen
Iflandicus) which has an agreeable tafte. The principal occupation of the men is fifh-
ing, which they follow both winter and fummer. The women take care of the cattle,
knit {tockings, &c. They likewife drefs, gut, and dry the fifhes brought home by the
men, and otherwife ailiftin preparing this {taple commodity of the country.
Befides this, the company who yearly fend fifteen or twenty fhips hither, and who
poffefs a monopoly which is very burthenfome to the country, export from hence fome
meat, edder-down, and fome falcons, which are fold in the country for feven, ten, and
fifteen rix-dollars a-piece. Money is very rare, which is the reafon that all the trade
is carried on by fifhes and ells of coarfe unfhorn cloth, called here Wadmal; one ell
of wadmal is worth two fifhes ; and forty-eight fifhes are worth a rix-dollar in {pecie.
With gold they were better acquainted at our departure, than on our arrival.
They are well provided with cattle, which are generally without horns: they have
likewife fheep, and very good horfes ; both the laft are the whole winter in the fields :
dogs and cats they have in abundance. Of wild and undomefticated animals they
have only rats and foxes, and fome bears*, which come every year from Greenland
with the floating ice: thefe, however, are killed as foon as they appear, partly on ac-
count of the reward of ten dollars, which the king pays for every bear, and partly to
prevent them from deftroying their cattle. The prefent governor has introduced rein-
deer into the ifland ; but out of thirteen, ten died on their paflage, the other three are
alive with their young.
It is extraordinary that no wood grows fucccefsfully in Iceland ; nay, there is fearcely
a fingle tree to be found on the whole ifland, though there are certain proofs of wood
having formerly grown there in great abundance. Corn cannot be cultivated here to
any advantage; though I have met with cabbages, parfley, turnips, peafe, &c. &c. in
five or fix gardens, which were the only ones in the whole ifland.
I muft now beg leave to add a few words about the Icelandic literature. Four or
five centuries ago the Icelanders were celebrated on account of their poetry and know-
ledge in hiftory. I could name many of their poets, who celebrated in fongs the war-
like deeds of the northern kings; and the famous Snorre Sturlefon is the man to
whom even the Swedes are indebted for the firft illuftration of their hiftory. We, for
this reafon, fet fo high a value upon the antient Icelandic records and writings, that
they have almoft all been drawn out of the country: fo exceedingly fearce they are
become, that, notwithftanding the pains I took during the whole time of my {tay there,
I got a fight of only four or five Icelandic manufcripts. In the inland parts of the
country, our old language has been preferved almoft quite pure; but on the coafts,
where the natives have an intercourfe with the Danifh merchants, it has been fome-
what altered. Some {peak the Danifh language very well; but thofe who did not, could
fooner make themfelves intelligible to us Swedes, than to the Danes. We likewife found
three or four Runic infcriptions, but they were all modern, and confequently of no
value. Ihave faid before that the Icelanders took pleafure in liftening to their old
traditional fayings and ftories; and this is almoft the only thing that remains among
them of the fpirit of their anceftors; for they have at prefent but few poets; and
their clergy know little befides fome Latin, which they pick up in the fchools eftablifhed
in the epilcopal fees at Skallholt and Hoolum. Some of them, however, have ftudied
* The bears here mentioned are the white polar or arétic carnivorous bears, abfolutely forming a fpecies
widely diftin& from our brown and black bears ; though the celebrated Linneus only fufpected them to be
a new fpecies, not having feen and examined any of thefe animals.
at
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