Archive for 'Icelandic history'
Quirks of the Old Icelandic Calendar: Þorri, Bóndadagur, and Hopping On One FootPosted byMegon Jan 16, 2017
Þorri is the name of the fourth month of winter, according to the old Icelandic calendar (more on this later). It starts on a Friday – falling between the 19th and 26th of January, this year the 20th – and ends on the Saturday before the month known as Góa commences. Many of you may…
Ready, steady, rhyme!Posted byhuldaon Nov 10, 2016
This blog post won’t have anything political in it. Instead I’m going to fill it with poetry and cute animals, because every now and then everyone needs at least a few moments of something calming, harmless and good in their lives. Besides, I believe that looking at pictures of cute animals is good for the…
Women’s Day OffPosted byhuldaon Oct 27, 2016
“Why are you still at work, you should be at the demonstration.” The above is a sentence one doesn’t hear from one’s own employer often, but I did hear just that on Monday this week. My workday lasts normally a few hours more, but Monday was a Kvennafrídagurinn (= women’s day off) and my employer wasn’t…
Kilroy may have been here too.Posted byhuldaon Aug 11, 2016
When thinking of Iceland-specific things a guestbook is probably not the first thing that comes to mind, yet the way Icelanders approach the idea is so Icelandic I almost didn’t realize there was anything unusual about it until a friend pointed it out in her blog. Icelandic guestbooks are more than just a list of…
Sons of Iceland.Posted byhulda在6月23日,2016年
Football fever is at record heights right now, but along has come an interesting side feature: if Icelanders try to watch the games in any other language than Icelandic they immediately get a bit confused listening to the announcers. The foreign announcers don’t call the players by their own names! This is due to the…
The day of sailors.Posted byhuldaon Jun 9, 2016
Last weekend we had Sjómannadagurinn, the day of sailors, and the harbor area was full of all kinds of sea-related activities. It’s held annually on the first Sunday of June unless Pentecost falls on that day: on those years it’s held on the second Sunday. It was first held on 6th June 1938 and since…
Four kinds of dreaming.Posted byhuldaon May 26, 2016
In Icelandic fairy tale tradition dreams are given an especially important part in how they affect and shape people’s lives. In old stories and legends gods and elves visit people in the dreaming, explaining dreams has been a valued skill all the way from the settlement era and people have for a long time believed…