49 HECLA AND HOME. “ Fair Iceland, old as fire, M ountain bride our hearts’ desire Sweet foster land. While women loved shall be By man ; or sun shines free; While land is girt by sea, Thou shalt be dear.” When visiting in Iceland it is not unusual for the English traveller to enter the living room with anything but a smiling expression upon his countenance, and often a great many forcible remarks fall from his lips. He then usually sits down and rubs his head. We found ourselves no exception to the rule, for the passages leading into the interior of the houses were usually made of turf and lava blocks, with no lighting whatever, and a roof seldom five feet from the ground. But once inside, coffee was handed round, backed up by slcyr and new milk, which we disposed of whilst lying on the bed. In some parts of the country, owing to the low roof, this is the usual position at meal times, and one frequently finds a cod’s head or a handful of fragments under the quilt, no doubt left by some one who, having previously dined comfortably, has forgotten to remove the debris. As we tackled a portion of cod, we wondered what a Southern epicure would think of being obliged to feed for months together upon the heads of dried cod, which had been exposed to the elements for some weeks to render them hard and fit for eating. The fish themselves are exported to France, Spain and Italy, but the heads are retained, boiled down, and made into a cake, relished alike by the natives and their cattle. We found some of the mud floors almost paved with fish bones, but we could not find any remains of the grand feasts of former days. We are told in the old sagas of banquets, when the tables were covered with linen cloths and bore dishes of roast and boiled meat, eggs, wild fowl, horse flesh, porridge and milk. Bards and minstrels would recite poems composed for the occasion, and story, song and hilarity added Wn rTTT?TTtfTffr»TTtTT*T?TfTTfTfTTTWrf’)

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