On the coast fishing and fowling were of help, but
nine-tenths of the folk lived by their sheep and cattle.
Potatoes, carrots, turnips, and several kinds of cabbage have,
however, been lately grown with success. They produced their own
food and clothing, and could export enough wool, cloth, horn,
dried fish, etc., as enabled them to obtain wood for building,
iron for tools, honey, wine, grain, etc, to the extent of their
simple needs. Life and work was lotted by the seasons and their
changes; outdoor work -- fishing, herding, hay-making, and fuel-
getting -- filling the long days of summer, while the long, dark
winter was used in weaving and a hundred indoor crafts. The
climate is not so bad as might be expected, seeing that the
island touches the polar circle, the mean temperature at
Reykjavik being 39 degrees.
The religion which the settlers took with them into Iceland --
the ethnic religion of the Norsefolk, which fought its last great
fight at Sticklestead, where Olaf Haraldsson lost his life and
won the name of Saint -- was, like all religions, a compound of
myths, those which had survived from savage days, and those which
expressed the various degrees of a growing knowledge of life and
better understanding of nature.
Pages:
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35