Some things I can’t see or understand. Not even with my FUJI camera.
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Prime Minister of Iceland Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir travels to Canada today. She will travel around Canada and the US until Monday and participate in the Icelandic Festivals held by the Icelandic communities in both countries.
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Click on the picture to watch this audio slideshow about bird watching at Óshólmar, an area at the mouth of Eyjafjardará river just outside Akureyri in north Iceland, the largest Icelandic town outside the capital region. Not many tourists know about this attraction, which is perfect for a walk in the sun.
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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.
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Members of Ásatrúarfélagid, a religious association which honors the old Norse gods, celebrated Iceland’s Sovereignty Day on Monday by honoring the country’s protective spirits, the landvaettir as described in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla.
According to Heimskringla, the landvaettir thwart a sorcerer disguised as a whale from swimming ashore and thus prevent him from spying on the Icelandic people for the Danish king.
During the ceremony, high chieftain of Ásatrúarfélagid Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson said these guardian spirits are still protecting the Icelandic country and nation, Morgunbladid reports.
High chieftain Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson at an earlier ceremony in Thingvellir. Copyright: Icelandic Photo Agency.
The pagan association organized landvaettir ceremonies in five places in Iceland, Vopnafjördur in the east, Eyjafjördur in the north, Snaefellsnes in the west and Straumsvík (by Hafnarfjördur) in the south, all places where the sorcerer-whale tried to swim ashore, and in Thingvellir, where Iceland’s Althingi parliament was founded in 930 AD.
During the Straumsvík ceremony, pagan priests of Reykjanes, Haukur Halldórsson, burned a picture of Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde.
The landvaettir—the Giant, the Dragon, the Eagle and the Bull—are depicted in Iceland’s coat of arms and on the Icelandic króna.
Click here to watch a video of a pagan ceremony.
The second issue of the print edition of Iceland Review 2010 has just been published. Entitled “Under the Volcano” the magazine dedicates 20 pages, words and pictures, to the volcanic eruption in Eyjafjallajökull glacier which made headlines all over the word. New subscribers will receive the book Puffins as a gift and all subscribers are part of a draw to win a trip to Iceland. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
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Hendrikka Waage is an accomplished jewellery designer whose first children’s book Rikka and Her Magic Ring in Iceland, takes readers on an enchanted and educational journey through the country. It’s beautifully illustrated and a good lesson in geography, but the plot could have been better thought through and the moral of the story is a bit too prominent.
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On the third day of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption we drove from Skógar to Hvolsvöllur in total darkness, a distance of 18 kilometers. It was frightening, the darkness being so impenetrable that we could hardly see out the windows of the car. We could see faint lights from the farm standing right next to the highway.
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Ásmundur Sveinsson is among the foremost Icelandic sculptors. The current exhibition in the Ásmundur Sveinsson Museum in Reykjavík is entitled “I choose women who thrive…” and features women as symbols in the sculptor’s art. The works in the exhibition are selected from his entire career.
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