Voyages North
The literature of exploration and travel in Iceland (and throughout the north, from Scandinavia to Labrador) forms a significant part of the Fiske Icelandic Collection. For Europeans living during the Age of Discovery, the countries of the North Atlantic were nearly as exotic as the South Seas or the Spice Islands, and presented formidable challenges to exploration. With limited maritime connections to the larger world, Iceland remained relatively isolated well into the nineteenth century. Icelanders serving the Danish crown, notably Eggert Ólafsson and Bjarni Pálsson, and British and French scientific expeditions published early descriptions of the island, which was a Danish possession until 1918.
Narratives of the North were quite popular and appeared in multiple translations. Olaus Magnus’s Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (1555) appears here in a Dutch translation, and in a copiously illustrated Tuscan version in the first section of this exhibition. Similarly, Eggert Ólafsson’s Reise igiennem Island (1772) appeared in English, French and German by the early nineteenth century.
Willard Fiske’s diary preserves a record of his stay in Iceland. Before landing, he sighted the small island of Grímsey, which he never visited. Astonished to learn of its tenacious little community of Icelanders, he generously endowed the remote islet with a library and each household with its own chess set. Fiske’s birthday is still celebrated annually on Grímsey.
Saga Steads
William Gershom Collingwood and Jón Stefánsson. A Pilgrimage to the Saga-steads of Iceland. Ulverston (England), 1899.
The images depict the falls of Öxará, the river running through Þingvellir (Parliament Plains); and Borg, the farmstead of one of medieval Iceland’s greatest poets, Egill Skallagrímsson.
Eggert Ólafsson
Issued in two volumes, this comprehensive description of the natural history of Iceland and surrounding waters includes four dozen copper engravings of fish, fowl and natural phenomena. Eggert Ólafsson and Bjarni Pálsson were both native Icelanders in the service of the Danish crown.
Olaus in Dutch (1652)
This translation from the original Latin edition of 1555 is accompanied by Dithmar Blefken’s Korte en klare beschryvingh van Yslandt en Groenlandt (Short and Clear Description of Greenland), also originally in Latin.
Relation de l'Islande
The Icelandic scholar Arngrímur Jónsson (1568–1648) is the source of much of the information presented in this work. The map, though a recognizable contour of Iceland, is inaccurate regarding several place names and feature locations.
Norse America
North Ludlow Beamish. The Discovery of America by the Northmen, in the Tenth Century, with Notices of the Early Settlements of the Irish in the Western Hemisphere. London, 1841.
Archaeological investigations do not support the theory that there was ever a Norse settlement in North America on Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket, despite what this map represents. Several works in the nineteenth century suggested New England as an American home for these explorers. Archaeologists have proven, however, that a Norse settlement definitely existed at l’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland a millennium ago.