Wasteland with Words

A Social History of Iceland

Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781861897336
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia mondiale

Iceland is an enigmatic island country marked by contradiction: it's a part of Europe, yet separated from it by the Atlantic Ocean; it's seemingly inhospitable, yet home to more than 300, 000. Wasteland with Words explores these paradoxes to uncover the mystery of Iceland.In Wasteland with Words Sigurdur Gylfi Magnússon presents a wide-ranging and detailed analysis of the island's history that examines the evolution and transformation of Icelandic culture while investigating the literary and historical factors that created the rich cultural heritage enjoyed by Icelanders today. Magnússon explains how a nineteenth-century economy based on the industries of fishing and agriculture—one of the poorest in Europe—grew to become a disproportionately large economic power in the late twentieth century, while retaining its strong sense of cultural identity. Bringing the story up to the present, he assesses the recent economic and political collapse of the country and how Iceland has coped. Throughout Magnússon seeks to chart the vast changes in this country's history through the impact and effect on the Icelandic people themselves.Up-to-date and fascinating, Wasteland with Words is a comprehensive study of the island's cultural and historical development, from tiny fishing settlements to a global economic power.

1

Modern Times: Society, Work
and Demography

After long years of poverty and stagnation, Icelandic society underwent huge changes in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries – changes that touched people at all levels of society. Some of these changes had their roots in contemporary political upheavals, both elsewhere in Europe and at home in Iceland, around the struggle for independence. Doubtless more important, however, were the new social and cultural opportunities that were opening up to people for the first time in the country’s history. The propertied classes’ fear of any kind of social disruption was hardly a particularly Icelandic phenomenon; it existed in equal measure throughout Europe and in America. The political changes of the nineteenth century threatened the entire social and economic fabric of the Western world and promised to undermine the power of the moneyed classes in Iceland and elsewhere. New groups within society were demanding their say, while others found themselves more downtrodden than ever before as capitalist modes of agriculture began to take root.

The most obvious characteristic of Icelandic society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was the sparse and scattered nature of its settlement. The local farming districts and their culture reigned supreme, dwarfing in influence the little pockets of urban settlement that started to coalesce during the period. The land was poor and its inhabitants were entirely dependent on the vagaries of the weather. For much of the country the eighteenth century was a time of difficult farming conditions and things only started to improve around 1820. Thereafter the changes in living conditions, working practices and culture began to gather pace. The new conditions that appeared in most areas of human life in the nineteenth century laid the foundations for the even greater changes that were to occur in Iceland in the following century.

The island and the people who lived there

Iceland is an island of about 103,000 square kilometres located in the North Atlantic Ocean. It was colonized in the ninth century, mostly by farmers of Norwegian extraction, as part of the Viking migrations. By the eleventh century the population had reached 70,000, around a third of that of Norway at the time.¹ Iceland was incorporated into the kingdom of Norway in the latter half of the thirteenth century, and subsequently, in 1383, it followed Norway when Norway was merged with Denmark. From then up until the twentieth century, the Icelanders were subjects of the Danish crown. Despite this, the people retained a distinct culture shaped by their harsh and isolated island environment. Notably, the Icelanders spoke their own language, which by the later Middle Ages was incomprehensible to speakers of the continental Scandinavian languages: Icelandic remained close to the Old Norse brought by the original settlers, while Norwegian, Danish and Swedish diverged considerably under the influence of other European tongues.²

Iceland’s isolation was somewhat alleviated in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. The country became a focus of interest for a sizeable group of educated European aristocrats interested in the folk cultures of remote European societies.³ In his study of nineteenth-century political developments in Iceland, the historian Guðmundur Hálfdanarson tries to explain the attraction the place exerted over these foreign travellers, and what they might expect to see once they got there:

Drawn to this northern country by their hunger for exploring the exotic, the upper-class travellers certainly got what they were looking for. The landscape of the desolate island was unlike any they had experienced; scars of an unceasing struggle between the natural elements abounded and made large parts of the country a wasteland. Extensive tracts of lava, where only moss seemed to grow, black sand-deserts, hills eroded of all soil, and snow-capped mountains, served as constant reminders of the ever-present ice and fire. Furthermore, the harsh climatic conditions set their distinctive mark on the cultural landscape. Long winters and cool summers, strong winds and incessant rains rendered commercial grain growing impossible in Iceland and severely restricted all arboreal vegetation. Thus, the countryside lacked the familiar and comforting sight of fields or trees, further emphasizing the country’s desolation.⁴

A Swede called Uno von Troil, who accompanied Sir Joseph Banks on his expedition to Iceland in the summer of 1772, described his impressions of the country in the following terms:

We seemed here to be in another world; instead of the fine prospects with which we had fed our eyes, we now saw only the horrid remains of many devastations. Imagine to yourself a country, which from one end to the other presents to your view only barren mountains, whole summits are covered with eternal snow, and between them fields divided by vitrified cliffs, whole high and sharp points seem to vie with each other, to deprive you of the sight of a little grass that springs up scantily among them. These same dreary rocks likewise conceal the few scattered habitations of the natives, and a single tree does no where appear that may afford shelter to friendship and innocence. I suppose, Sir, this will not inspire you with any great inclination of becoming an inhabitant of Iceland; and indeed at first sight of such a country one is tempted to believe it impossible to be inhabited by any human creature, if the sea, near the shores, was not every where covered with boats.⁵

It was not only the landscape and scenery that struck the many foreign travellers from the upper ranks of European society that visited the country as disconcerting and alien; the people too often seemed strange and outlandish. In the summer of 1789 the English baronet Sir John Stanley of Alderley led a party to Iceland which included a young man of West Indian origin named Isaac S. Benners, who was studying chemistry in Edinburgh at the time. Benners’s diary entry for Friday, 17 July, records his observations of the Icelanders he encountered on his journey around the Snæfellsnes peninsula in the west:

The people are very far from being bright, they appear the most stupid wretches I have seen, they are not so well made both here & at Harnefjord [Hafnafjörður] & in short all those we saw from the Inland Country, as the Inhabitants of the Fero Isles, neither are the Women so handsome & well made, but neither of them can boast of beauties, at least I have seen no alluring Objects in neither. We soon had reason to be disgusted with the behaviour of the Icelanders in every part we visited, they shew no marks of obliging, and when they attempt to render one any Service, it is so much clothed in lucrative views, that a penetration of no great depth may soon discover how far their attention leads them to self interest & that with conniving & mean Cunningness & in this they excel. The Icelanders are very indolent, upon fish alone they daily wants depend, happy for them, that this their only support affords them not much trouble, otherwise they would inevitably fall a sacrifice to their own laziness, rather than undergo the least exertion, there are many farms, but far from being in the highest state of Cultivation, Grain, they have not much of, nor have they but a very scanty allowance of Greens, the Inhabitants are most of them afflicted with Scrophulous Ringworms, Itch &c. they all kiss one another upon taking leave, & are not satisfied with one but 3 or 4 kisses.⁶

Given the size of the country and its tiny population, Iceland indeed created a very different impression from anywhere else in Europe. The country was almost entirely rural, with farmsteads scattered usually with long distances between them throughout the lower lying areas. Isolation was the norm rather than the exception. Communication was extremely difficult due to the complete absence of roads and the frequent obstacles presented by glaciers and fast-flowing rivers. Each farm was in this sense an island of its own, often with minimal contact with the outside world, especially during the long, cold, dark months of winter. In addition, the frequency and unpredictability of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, which repeatedly led to the destruction of grazing land and ensuing famine, made all life in Iceland uncertain and problematic. It is against this background, a background of a constant challenge to survive everyday conditions, that we have to consider the individual participants whose lives are described in this book.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Europe went through a period of significant population growth – significant in various respects and with repercussions that were felt at all levels of society. This increase in population has been cited as one of the major causes of the chain of events that led to the Industrial Revolution and the introduction of capitalist modes of agriculture, as well as being an impetus behind the emigration from European countries to the New World. These changes occurred in Iceland in much the same way as elsewhere in Europe and the emigrations of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries form the material for later chapters in this book.

It is worth taking a brief look at the demography of Iceland in the relevant period. The eighteenth century was a time of immense hardship: in the first decades of the century the population fell below 50,000 and did not rise back past this figure again until the second decade of the nineteenth century.⁷ During the century the country suffered repeated catastrophes in the form of epidemics, earthquakes and eruptions. In the eruptions much of the farming land was poisoned by layers of volcanic ash that led to virulent cattle diseases, leading in turn to famines in which a substantial part of the population starved, with mortality particularly high among the most productive members of society. By the last quarter of the eighteenth century the country was unable to support more than a little over 40,000 people. Between 1787 and the end of the century the population recovered rapidly, but then remained stable until 1830. This number of people, however, was barely sufficient to maintain normal life in the country and in many places it became difficult to effect even the most essential tasks.⁸ For most Icelanders life remained very hard for the first two decades of the nineteenth century. Thereafter things began to improve somewhat and the population increased steadily as agriculture, the fisheries and trade began to develop.

A balance was restored in the nineteenth century as the average age of marriage fell, the birth rate increased, and more children survived into adulthood. But as time went on resources became increasingly stretched; young people found it more difficult to obtain land to set up on their own and support a family and the average age of marriage rose again, to about thirty for both sexes, consigning ever more Icelanders to a lifetime of bound service. A further factor in these developments was that for much of the nineteenth century climatic conditions in Iceland were tolerable and at times relatively good. There was little disruption to farming from natural disasters. Infant mortality fell sharply in the second half of the nineteenth century, largely as a result of improved diet and, probably, new ideas about breast feeding and childrearing.⁹ As a result there was a considerable increase in population in the second half of the nineteenth century, a development that had a wide range of consequences for society.

One such consequence was the increased importance acquired by fishing as a source of employment and income in the nineteenth century. The growth of fisheries put great pressure on the existing form of society, based as it was on the pre-eminence of the farming communities, with rural households forming the backbone of the nation. This old system presented few openings for people interested in making their living in any other way. By law, every person had to have a fixed place of abode and, if not an independent farmer, to have a place within the system of tied service. Viable farming land being limited, rural society was hard pressed to accommodate the increase in population. Existing farms were divided into smaller units and new farms were set up on marginal upland. The shortage of land led to an increase in the size of households. Farm workers, most of whom under normal conditions would have eventually established themselves as independent farmers, were constrained to remain in service. Fewer and fewer got the chance to set up on their own and live independently. The structure of society was thus put into a state of flux and for many the solution lay in the urban areas that were beginning to develop along the coasts of the country, or away from Iceland altogether. It was under these conditions that the emigrations to North America got under way around 1870. It is not unreasonable to suppose that one of the main motives was an attempt by ordinary people to break free of the stranglehold of those who controlled society, the landowning farmers. People who found their options severely limited in the rural areas of Iceland chose to move out and settle either on the coast or try their luck even farther away in the New World – in the land of the free and the brave, the USA and Canada.¹⁰

Despite the degree of tension and upheaval within rural society in the second half of the nineteenth century, ordinary people remained fettered within the system of tied service.¹¹ Only a small proportion of farmers owned the land they lived on; the rest were tenants who worked the land armed only with the sweat of their brow and without any but the most rudimentary tools and equipment. Most were sheep farmers and running a farm was a labour-intensive business, with production based on hand power alone. There were a number of months a year during which work went on more or less day and night. In between, the use of manpower was patchy, making production levels throughout society very low. The working year was divided broadly between three different areas: first, there was the work on the land – cultivation, hay making and other matters relating to the upkeep of buildings and meadows – second, there was the animal husbandry and the accumulation of various kinds of supplies for the household; and third, there was the processing of dairy produce and wool. These jobs were distributed fairly evenly across the year, with one taking over from another without large breaks and often overlapping. This pattern was repeated year after year.

This mode of production depended on the availability of a large and cheap labour force. Working people were obliged to contract themselves to a farm for one year at a time. This system of bonded service put severe constraints on people’s freedom and extended to between 35 and 40 per cent of the entire population of Iceland through most of the nineteenth century. Its primary function appears to have been to supply farmers with a ready source of cheap labour; in addition, it prevented poor and unlanded people from establishing families, since permission to marry was dependent on control of enough land to be self-sufficient. In its justification, it also served to provide a safety net for the poor, designed to ensure that everyone was able to keep a secure roof over their head and to prevent them from falling into destitution in times of hardship. However, the laws on bonded service were frequently applied with great inflexibility and severity. One significant effect was that the average age of marriage remained very high in Iceland and a large percentage of each generation never managed to achieve the point where it could change its social status, especially as we move further into the nineteenth century.

At the heart of Icelandic society in this period lay agriculture, which was almost the only source of income and sustenance for the vast majority of the people. Farming in Iceland revolved entirely around livestock and the production of fodder for winter feed. The majority of farms were small and relatively unproductive. The size of farms differed considerably and was determined by the number of cattle the land could support. The number of farms had not changed for centuries, at around 4,000 ‘assessed farms’, many of which were subdivided into independent or dependent farms. At the beginning of the nineteenth century only ten per cent of farms were operated by the person who owned the land. This changed during the latter part of the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth, when the church and state started to sell off their landholdings on reasonable terms in an attempt to bolster the underpinning of the peasant society and to prevent the constant drift of workers from one county to another. A further motive behind this move was to encourage farmers to break new lands and improve their farms. By around 1910 the number of those owning their own farms had reached 37.5 per cent; by 1930 it stood at 58.8 per cent.¹²

The commune

The independent farms formed the core of the commune (hreppur). Each commune contained at least twenty farms. The total number of farming units in Iceland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was around 6,000, taking in farms of all types – assessed farms (lögbýli), independent farms (heimajörð) and dependent farms (hjáleigur). The distinction between these types depended on their different duties to the commune. The social historian Gísli Ágúst Gunnlaugsson points out that the number of dependent farmers, cottars and tenant farmers stood at around 2,200 at the start of the eighteenth century, in addition to the dependent farmers, but that this figure rose as the nineteenth century progressed. To give an indication of the extent of this expansion in the farming community during the nineteenth century we can compare the number of households in the period in question. In 1703 Iceland contained 8,191 households; by 1861 this number had risen to 9,607, the increase being almost entirely the result of the growing number of dependent farms, cottages and tenant farms. Dependent farms were always part of an independent farm, but with a separate farmhouse and operated by a separate family. The farmers of assessed farms were responsible for paying the tithe for both ...