Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Transcriber’s Note: Obvious printer’s errors have been corrected. Discrepancies in spelling and hyphenation have generally been left as is, unless there was an overwhelming majority for one option, in which case an error was assumed and rectified. [Illustration: MAP OF ICELAND AFTER ÞORVALDAR THORODDSEN 1900] [Illustration: _Mrs. Russell in the Festal Costume of Iceland. The Author in the Full Dress of the Faroese._] ICELAND HORSEBACK TOURS IN SAGA LAND W. S. C. RUSSELL _Illustrated from Photographs By the Author_ [Illustration] BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER TORONTO: THE COPP CLARK CO., LIMITED Copyright, 1914, by Richard G. Badger All Rights Reserved THE GORHAM PRESS, BOSTON, U. S. A. TO MY WIFE GRACE WHO TWICE COURAGEOUSLY ACCOMPANIED ME OVER ICELANDIC TRAILS AND TWICE DISPLAYED THE GREATER COURAGE REMAINING AT HOME ALONE THIS SIMPLE RECORD OF OUR WANDERINGS AFFECTIONATELY I DEDICATE FOREWORD This Foreword, were it not for the tyrant Custom, might as well be omitted, since a preface is seldom read. Boldly I make my first appearance before the critical public with no excuses to offer and no apology to the reader for adding another volume to the long list of travel books in the English tongue. But I have reasons why I have ventured into print. First,—Iceland has a fascination for all who know it. Its history, its ancient and modern literature, its legends and folklore, the people with their customs of a thousand years unchanged, the magnificence and grandeur of its scenery, its bird and plant life, its unexcelled opportunities for the student of geology,—all these and many more, are reasons why all the English speaking people should know something of this ancient branch of the Gothic line from which time and circumstance have separated the Angle and the Saxon.