Book Description

It was night-drawing on to midnight-in summer, that I who write this book arrived at the littlelonely farm of Biarg, on the Middle River, in the north of Iceland. It was night, near on midnight, and yet I could hardly call it night, for the sky overhead was full of light of the clearest amethyst, andevery stock and stone was distinctly visible. Across the valley rose a rugged moor, and above itsshoulder a snow-clad mountain, turned to rosy gold by the night sun. As I stood there watching themist form on the cold river in the vale below, all at once I heard a strange sound like horns blowingfar away in the sky, and looking up, I saw a train of swans flying from west to east, bathed insunlight, their wings of silver, and their feathers as gold.I had come all the way from England to see Biarg, for there was born, about the year A.D. 997, a man called Grettir, whose history I had read, and which interested me so much that I was resolvedto see his native home, and the principal scenes where his stormy life was passed.The landscape was the same as that on which Grettir's childish eyes had looked more thaneight hundred and fifty years ago. The same outline of dreary moor, the same snowy ridge ofmountain standing above it, catching the midnight summer sun, the same mist forming over theriver; but the house was altogether different. Now there stood only a poor heap of farm-buildings, erected of turf and wood, where had once been a noble hall of wood, with carved gable-ends, surrounded by many out-hou