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Modern Art Icelander: First, an Icelander, whose name we commonly spell Leif Ericsson, almost certainly was the first to "discover us," and second, there is no doubt whatever that Europe's first modern art Icelander parliamentary assembly, Iceland's Althing, met in 930 at Thingvellir, in a setting of such strange, volcanic nature that a visit to it is of double interest, historical and scenic.
The whole island was obviously fashioned in Vulcan's smithy and the fire god still makes himself very much at home there. The Geysir, whose name invaded all the world's dictionaries as a common noun, hurls its hot steam 200 feet in the air when provoked by a bucket of soap, and Mt.
PARAGRAPH OF THE PAST I have spoken of Norway as a pioneering nation but her intelligently inquisitive spirit is not a new development. We recall, when we take time out to think of it, that the Icelander Leii Ericsson received his missionary stimulus in Norway, being there converted to Christianity. He took the new religion with him on a missionary voyage to Greenland, and being blown far off his course, discovered America just 492 years before Columbus did. And Saint Olav, early in the llth century, imposed Christianity on the Scandinavian main lands, especially Norway.
There's a corollary to this. Linker's wife, an extraordinarily beautiful young blonde, spoke with a slight accent, so I ventured to ask if she was of Scandinavian origin.
"I'm an Icelander," she said, and then I learned from Linker that he had noticed her on a street in Reykjavik, at a time when she was a graduating student of the university. Thinking she would make an ideal model for his camera, he managed, through the Tourist Bureau, to make acquaintance with the family and secure her services. Cupid quickly entered the picture and Halla Gudmundsdottir, for that was her name, became Mrs. Linker. |
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