ICELAND, Routes Over the Highlands, Daniel Bruun, Reykjavik, 1907. HANDBOOK TO ICELAND, for Sportsmen and Tourists, Geo. V. Turnbull, Leith, 1906. ICELAND, A Handbook for Travellers, Stefán Stefánson, Reykjavik, 1911. CHAPTER II THE LURE “Oh _Frey_ in the north lands, Thou sweetest of powers, Thy breath on the mountains Turns ice into flowers. Thy smile on the meadows Is life to the fold, Thy touch on the maid’s hair Turns flaxen to gold.” —_Anon._ Why do you choose Iceland for a vacation? I would go to a more interesting place, if I were you. This question has been asked so many times and similar comments have followed so often before I could answer the question that I write my answer here, as an inducement to you, who can not take the long journey with me literally, to follow me in imagination through these pages and live with me for a few brief hours in that far off land of fascination. The people interest me. The country was settled, not by serf nor servant. The grand old warriors of the viking period, who overran in quick succession the British Isles, ravaged the coast of France, swept through the Mediterranean and even penetrated to Constantinople, and wherever they went subdued and triumphed,—these are the men who, once the lords and petty kings of ancient Norway, scorning to bend the knee to Harald, chose unknown dangers in a strange and distant land, and going there sat down amidst the frosts and volcanoes of Iceland to relate the story of their deeds. From this virile race are the modern Icelanders descended. They are a kindly, honest and hospitable race; kind to each other and to the stranger within their borders, hospitable with a hospitality which is almost unknown in our selfish race, honest beyond all question. The literature fascinates me. The language, now dead in its ancient Norse valleys, is a living speech in Iceland. Its children read its ancient sagas, centuries upon centuries old, as understandingly as their weekly newspapers. It is just as if some long lost island of the Aegian still held in all its ancient purity the musical accent of the Homeric age, or, as if some forgotten valley in the Italian Alps resounded with the rhetoric of Cicero or vibrated to the tunes of Horace.