Friday 27 May 2011

Iceland: land of sagas, land of volcanoes


From Flateyjarbók, written ca. 1387.  The beginning of the Saga of King Sverrir.

Iceland wasn't settled until around 900BC.  The sagas, although written much later, describe the Viking settlements of this time and epic battles with larger than life heroes.  The Saga of King Sverrir tells the story of the King of Norway supposedly dictated by King Sverrir himself.  The illustrations on the card show some of the battle scenes quite graphically - much cutting off of arms with swords.



Iceland - 39,768 square miles (103,ooo sq km).  Population 2004: 293,966.  Iceland is bounded by latitudes 66° 30' (the Arctic Circle) and 63° 15' N being about 220 miles north to south and 335 miles east to west.

Iceland sits on the mid-Atlantic Ridge which spreads at the rate of 2.5 cm a year, and this remarkable geological position gives Iceland a large number of active volcanoes, 130 of them.  Both the volcanoes which have given European airlines so much trouble recently are marked on the map, in tiny, tiny print.  The first, Eyjafjallajökull, is to the south west by the Mýrdalsjökull marked as a white area.  The most recent and also the most active, is the Grímsvötn marked on the much larger white area, the Vatnajökul.

For such a small country, Iceland has had a remarkable impact on the world, even as far as having the President of the United States of America change his travel plans recently.  President Obama arrived in the UK 12 hours early when flying from Ireland, in order to avoid any disruption from volcanic ash.


This is a post for Postcard Friday, which is hosted by Beth Niquette at The Best Hearts are Crunchy.
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15 comments:

  1. What a COOL postcard! Wow! I love it--I've never seen one like this before.

    Thank you for the heads up! I fixed it! ((hugs))

    Happy PFF!

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  2. What a unique and interesting card!!

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  3. Very interesting, hard to imagine 130 Volcanos on such a small area.

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  4. Iceland is TOP on my list of places I plan to visit one day! It's also the land of Sigur Ros, Jonsi and Bjork!

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  5. Interesting card, I would like to see the original book (glad it once again resides in Iceland).

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  6. That is a beautiful card - and nice to learn more about Iceland!

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  7. There are 225 pages to that manuscript. It's beautiful, despite the arm removal!

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  8. That's a lot of volcanoes! Beautiful manuscript. Happy PFF!

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  9. That's an interesting postcard. Mine is up - My PFF Entry.

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  10. What a nice card showing an ancient manuscript. Those times were not really a good time to be living in, yeah?
    Sheila, I'm reminded of the saying "small but terrible". Although I don't mean Iceland is a terrible country but as you said, it caused a huge impact in the world. As my grandma would always say, even a tiny speck can hurt the eye. Iceland is also in my list of destination.

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  11. As a child I often wondered why people chose to live in places where it was cold and desolate most of the time and there were no trees or grass. Why didn't they just keep traveling south until they could plant a tomato and some green peppers. I guess I still do. That's a beautiful postcard!

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  12. i think Iceland have a lot of beauty to offer. :)

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  13. I am much nicer with my sword. actually, it's a foil and I only stab my opponents who are properly protected. No hacking off arms as that is much to messy.

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  14. I feel so sad for the residents of Iceland these days with the eruption of their large volcano and life polluted with so much ash on their beautiful island!

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  15. WOW... 130 volcanoes and the volcanoes such and impact on Europe for such a small country. Thanks for sharing... Happy PFF!

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