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 Great Travels
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Icelandic Sagas: That was the golden age of literary development, when the chief Icelandic sagas were written and it is an interesting fact that of all the Scandinavian tongues Icelandic alone has retained the pure, original form to such extent that schoolchildren can easily read the ancient sagas without any translating. Iceland fell under the domination first of Norway, then, for many centuries, of Denmark, but in 1944 it finally became an independent republic—of Europe, and five years later a party to the Atlantic Pact.
6. Icelandic Literature, Ancient and Modern I must allow literature to make an intrusion here that I admit is unique in the pattern of this book. The 12th- and 13th-century sagas of this remote island are the "mother lode" from which Scandinavian literature as a whole was mined.
4, 5. Icelandic Art, Ancient and Modern The National Art Gallery, a splendid modern building, houses Icelandic treasures dating back, in some cases, to about 900. There are beautiful wood carvings, finely fashioned drinking horns, Viking Ornaments in various materials and early ecclesiastical vestments and works of religious art. There is one original sculpture by Bertel Thorvaldsen, whose father was an Icelandic wood carver.
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