Childbirth is overwhelming enough as it is without feeling lost in the language.  more

A provision on shortening the parental leave in Iceland has been taken out of a bill presented by the minister for social affairs, as Sigrídur Ingibjörg Ingadóttir, chairperson of the Athingi Parliament’s Social Affairs Committee, stated last weekend.  more

Click on the picture to watch an audio slideshow on how to make the uniquely Icelandic laufabraud Christmas bread. Icelandic families often gather on the First Day of Advent to make and carve the bread together. Afterwards they eat it with hangikjöt (smoked lamb), which is usually their first taste of Christmas each year.  more

Located just 40 minutes by car and six minutes from Keflavík International Airport, Sandgerdi (“Sandy Hedge”) is a growing town of 1,700 with a storied history and loads to see. Read this special promotion about the hidden secrets of one of Iceland's most charming seaside villages.  more

Fall is the time when sheep are herded in from the highlands of Iceland. Every district and valley has its own sheep pen where people gather to have a great day out. The farmers have a strong drink or two and sing songs after finding their sheep in the communal pen. In the larger farming communities the day usually ends with a big dance. Bjarni Brynjólfsson went to the north and attended the pens at Mýri in Bárdardalur and Gljúfurá in Eyjafjördur.

Published in the 2009 autumn issue of Iceland Review – IR 47.03. By Bjarni Brynjólfsson, photos by Páll Stefánsson.

The valley of Fnjóskadalur is covered by ice fog which is lying low like a blanket of the whitest wool. The high straws of summer look like they’ve been dipped in icing. Everything is absolutely still in this world of cool. Above the icy fog the sun has risen to a clear sky. It’s going to get warmer today although it’s only - 4.5 degrees celsius (24.8ºF) in the valley. We are heading to Bárdardalur valley to attend the sheep pen which has been held at Mýri, the single farm in the valley closest to the highlands, for centuries. The farmers have already driven a herd of over one thousand sheep in from the highlands. It’s a three day drive on horseback covering the highland ridge up to the Kidagil pass, more than 100 km into the black desert of Sprengisandur, with the fourteen drivers staying overnight in cabins built for this purpose. Every rider has two horses in order not to exhaust the horse that is ridden. The landscape covered on this long and hard ride is extremely coarse and difficult: lava fields and black deserts. This is the first of three searches of the district, combing for the ewes and their lambs who were let out on these rough pastures in the spring and have lived wild in the heather along the Skjálfandafljót river.

It’s a shiny, beautiful day and the farmers start sorting out their sheep at eight o’clock in the morning on the dot. This is a relatively small pen and there are hardly any visiting onlookers apart from us—it’s only the farmers and their families; a low-key affair compared to the big pens where thousands of sheep are herded in.

The sheep look incredibly white, clean and healthy after spending the summer in the wilderness. The whole herd has been kept overnight in the big communal pen. Now each family starts searching for their sheep in the herd. The farmers here know their sheep by name and the lambs are earmarked for each farm. Tryggvi Höskuldsson, the farmer at Mýri, has by far the most sheep in the pen. He keeps four hundred sheep over winter. Every farmer has his designated lot, beside the large communal pen, which the ewes and the grown lambs are dragged into. There is a smile on everyone’s face as the drive went well and both horses and people came back unharmed from the highlands. This is a kind of festival. The children enjoy the contact with the animals—some of them have their own sheep given to them by their grandparents and they are excited to find out if they have returned from the highlands.

You can read the rest of this article in the 2009 autumn issue of Iceland Review – IR 47.03. Four times a year the print edition of Iceland Review brings you a wealth of articles on all aspects of life in Iceland including Páll Stefánsson's latest images of the country's majestic landscape. Click here to subscribe and here to browse through a selection of pages from the current issue.

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The newly opened Einstakar Ostakökur [unique cheesecakes] on Klapparstígur may strike you as an unusual name for a women’s clothing shop. However, what the shop fails to deliver in terms of satisfying a sweet tooth, it more than delivers in bringing nostalgia, glamour and a glorious burst of color onto the women’s clothing scene in Reykjavík.  more

Fall is the time when sheep are herded in from the highlands of Iceland. Every district and valley has its own sheep pen where people gather to have a great day out. The farmers have a strong drink or two and sing songs after finding their sheep in the communal pen. In the larger farming communities the day usually ends with a big dance.  more

From the bubbling hot water at the local swimming pool, to the steam rising over the mountains east of Reykjavík, to the tumbling waterfalls in the countryside, it is visible everywhere: Iceland is brimming with renewable energy. While Iceland is still suffering from its worst financial fall-out, plans are underway to move the nation closer to renewable energy independence.  more

Amiina’s sound is intimate and rife with mellifluous dialogue. Though lyrics are few and far between, that’s not to say Amiina's new album Kurr doesn’t strike a chord with its listeners. On the contrary, it resonates in the most unexpected of ways.  more

Click on the picture to watch an audio slideshow on how to make the uniquely Icelandic laufabraud Christmas bread. Icelandic families often gather on the First Day of Advent to make and carve the bread together. Afterwards they eat it with hangikjöt (smoked lamb), which is usually their first taste of Christmas each year.  more

New subscribers to the quarterly Iceland Review magazine will receive the photography book Puffins, which contains a wealth of information about this colorful bird, as a gift. Additionally, all subscribers will enter a draw to win a trip to Iceland. Click here to subscribe to Iceland Review. The new issue will be out next week!  more

Brian Pilkington has made a name for himself in Iceland as an illustrator of children’s books. This time, in both pictures and words, he gives life to the 13 Icelandic Yule Lads, the unruly sons of the ogre couple Grýla and Leppalúdi, who are Iceland’s answer to Santa Claus. It is a beautiful and enjoyable little book, which every child would be thrilled to read.  more

This week take a mental trip to the France of Hungarian photographer André Kertész (1894-1985), whose classic work of the daily life in Paris is currently on display in the Reykjavík Museum of Photography. Born in Budapest in 1894, Kertész took his first photograph in 1912. In 1925, he settled in Paris where he enjoyed strolling along the Seine and in the Parisian gardens.  more