VISITING MUSEUMS IN REYKJAVIK, ICELAND: Guest Post by Caroline Hatton

Wax figure at the Saga Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland.

My friend Caroline Hatton, a children’s writer and frequent contributor to this blog, visited a few museums in Reykjavik and took the photos in this post in June 2023.

While in downtown Reykjavik for three days, I didn’t buy a City Card (24-, 48- or 72-hour pass to buses, hot pools, and some museums) because it would have cost more than the few admission tickets I wanted. Here are glimpses of the museums I visited.

THE SAGA MUSEUM

The Saga Museum is about Icelandic history, simply because that’s what the Icelandic Sagas are about. They are family oral histories written down a few centuries after the events they document. I loved the two I had read previously, Njáls’ Saga and the Saga of Erik the Red.

The museum contains no historical artefacts, only exquisite, life-like, costumed wax figures (photo above) posed in key historic scenes. I enjoyed feasting my eyes on them while reading the chronological info panels, the entire content of which is at the museum website (above link, “Overview” button).

Having recently picked which saga to read next, namely Egil’s Saga, I was glad to hear the audio guide pronounce the name: like ey-yee-tl and said quickly and briefly with barely any T and L sound. Not an easy name to yell at a naughty boy. Not an easy boy to handle. Big for his age. The first person he killed, when he was seven years old, was an older playmate who annoyed him. I can’t wait to read about what he did as a grown Viking. The only other thing I already know about him is that he was a precocious, gifted, mesmerizing poet.

In the museum play area full of costumes and toy weapons, I gratefully noted the absence of horned helmets, because contrary to common belief, the Vikings did not wear such. My visit ended with the obligatory gift shop browsing, but no purchase.

THE SETTLEMENT EXHIBITION

The Settlement Exhibition building.

Located in one of the many corrugated-iron-clad buildings in an old part of Reykjavik, The Settlement Exhibition begins chronologically on the bottom floor, with archeological remains from the time when Vikings first settled in Iceland, in the local area. Discovered in 2001, the base of the stone wall of a 10^th-century Viking longhouse (a home for an extended family) was left where it was found. It is now surrounded by excellent displays which paint a picture of what life was like at the early settlers’ farm on the shore of the bay.

Model of 1906 Reykjavik.

The museum’s upper floors present the development of Reykjavik from a farm to a city. Because I love miniatures, my favorite was a top-quality model of Reykjavik as it might have appeared on September 14, 1906, a Friday. The street across one end of the model is Aðalstræti, the oldest street in Iceland, where the museum is now located.

Model of 1906 Reykjavik, detail.

Model of 1906 Reykjavik, detail.

Could Friday have been bed linens laundry day? I wondered, judging by the mini clotheslines with mini clothespins holding mini sheets. Looking through viewing devices mounted at the edges of the model and aimed at specific spots in town, I saw and heard ghostly moving images of mini people busy working.

Adalstraeti 10, Reykjavik's oldest house.

The museum ticket included admission to Aðalstræti 10, Reykjavik’s oldest house still standing just down the street, but I didn’t have enough leisurely time to go inside.

THE HOUSE OF COLLECTIONS

The House of Collections.

Built in 1909 as the Culture House to contain the National Library, National Archives, and National Museum collections, the building is now kept by the National Gallery of Iceland as an extra exhibition space called the House of Collections.

Tomasarfjall (Mount Thomas) by Brynhildur Porgeirsdottir.

The exhibition of Icelandic artists’ works inspired by nature, and dating from the late 19^th century to the present, matched my interests perfectly. The different floors focused on Air, Land, Ocean, and Play. All kinds of media were represented in paintings, drawings, textiles, mobiles, projected images… letting visitors experience works on the selected themes, and intended to be thought-provoking and to trigger the desire to take part in transforming society toward a sustainable future.

Each floor had a kids’ craft area with supplies! As is normal for me, I liked only a few pieces in the entire museum and loved looking for them. As the only visitor, I lingered.

At one end of the former library reading room, the card catalog cabinet was full of handwritten cards. I followed the posted instructions to write down a wish, date, and first name, and to file the card alphabetically. It worked! My secret wish has since come true.

Before leaving the House of Collections, I spent a moment alone in the bottom floor café, at one of the bistro tables. I didn’t try the free coffee, tea, or sweet pastry bites. Instead I thumbed through art books and magazines from the wall shelf and scribbled in my mini notepad.

My ticket included admission to the National Gallery of Iceland and Hús Ásgrims Jónssonar, the artist’s house-turned-museum covered in my previous guest post on this blog (9/4/23).

FOR MORE INFO

Read some of Caroline Hatton’s other guest posts about Iceland:

Walking Around Reykjavik Part 1 and Part 2 

In the land of Njáls’ Saga in Iceland 

All text and photos, copyright Caroline Arnold. www.theintrepidtourist.blogspot.com 

IN THE LAND OF NJÁL’S SAGA IN ICELAND Guest post by Karla Chucsdottir (a.k.a. Caroline Hatton)

The author with an axe to cut quiche and a sword as a toothpick. Photo by husband Viljam Glennsson. Viking costume, weapons, and picnic table courtesy of the Saga Centre (Hvolsvöllur, Iceland).

My friend and fellow children’s book author Caroline Hatton visited Iceland in June 2019 with her husband Bill. She took all but one of the photos in this post. For more information about her, visit www.carolinehattonauthor.com.

Before my first visit to Iceland in 2007, I had long been fond of its first inhabitants, the Vikings—those formidable, endearing brutes. But I had not yet read their stories, the Icelandic Sagas, widely considered gems of world literature. They are set long ago when Iceland resembled America’s Wild West, and the Viking settlers’ idea of exercise was to go around skewering neighbors. The Sagas are family oral histories written down a few centuries after they had happened. Scholars speculate that following generations of deft storytellers, the anonymous recorders captured optimized history.

Today in the south of Iceland, the setting of Njál’s Saga.

After returning home in 2007, I learned that one of the most famous Icelandic Sagas is Njál’s Saga (Njála in Icelandic, also known as The Story of Burnt Njál [pronounced nyahl]). I devoured the English version and loved it. This epic lawyering novel is set around the year 1000 CE in the south of Iceland. It’s about Njál Þorgeirsson of Bergþórshvoll and Gunnar Hámundarson of Hlíðarendi, who were very good friends. Unfortunately, their wives were anything but. It was between them that the trouble began. One mean wife ordered the killing of a servant of the other wife’s, the other wife returned the favor, and the next thing they knew, the whole situation snowballed into decades of bloodshed.

The story delivers (in alphabetical order) affronts to family honor, ambushes, battles, betrothals, dead bodies, deceit, grievances, matings, mediation, revenge, and much, much more, against a backdrop of historic commotion—the conversion of Iceland from Norse paganism to Christianity. The English version of Njál’s Saga is available online, easy to read, fascinating, heartbreaking, and haunting.

The Viking world, the context of the sagas, as shown at the Saga Centre in Hvolsvöllur, Iceland. The Vikings sailed from Norway to Iceland, Greenland, and America.

A great way to learn more about Njál’s Saga is by visiting the Saga Centre in Hvolsvöllur in the south of Iceland where the story takes place. I jumped at the chance in 2019, during my second trip to Iceland. The Centre's exhibits introduce Njál’s Saga’s characters and plot in the context of the Viking world. Once educated, I borrowed a costume and toy sword, axe, shield, and helmet, to defend my picnic. The Saga Centre is located an easy hour-and-a-half drive from Reykjavik via the excellent Ring Road that loops all around Iceland. The Centre is one of the milestones on the multicountry Saga Trail .

Seen at the Saga Centre: Njala (Njál’s Saga) Tapestry design detail, as printed for display. This woman might be Gunnar’s wife, who was not a nice lady: “Hallgerda, the fairest of women, tall of stature, fair-haired, and had so much of it she could hide herself in it; but she was lavish and hard-hearted.”

The Saga Centre is also the home of the Njala (Njál’s Saga) Tapestry. Contemporary Icelandic creators dreamed it up. It is reminiscent of the world famous Bayeux Tapestry, which is a 70-meter long, 50-centimeter tall, embroidered cloth that depicts the conquest of England in the year 1066 by William, Duke of Normandy. The Njala Tapestry, which depicts Njál’s Saga, consists of 90 meters by 50 centimeters of linen in the process of being embroidered with Icelandic, plant-dyed wool yarn.

As a horse lover, all the photos I took of the Njala Tapestry designs were of horses, until I caught myself doing it. Then I made sure to take this photo of something else. It’s not my fault if there are horses in this ship.

The project is unusual in that anyone can pick up a needle and help. I would have loved to learn the Bayeux stitch used to embroider the tapestry, but we visited on a Sunday when the sewing room was closed. Before leaving town, I consulted a map highlighting nearby locations identified in Njál’s Saga.

Njál and his friends and foes bonded and bled in settings like this one.

The saga’s characters lived on farmsteads spread across a landscape that looked much as it still does today.

Njál’s Saga mentions Keldur where this farm, now a museum, is located. In 2019, drought associated with climate change killed roof sod that had naturally stayed lush for centuries.

One character, an uncle of Njál’s illegitimate son, lived at Keldur, where the Keldur Farm Museum  is located, a 15-minute drive from Hvolsvöllur. The turf buildings are the oldest of their kind still standing in Iceland. They were lived in, added on, and “updated” into the 1900s, though they remained rustic.

Inside the medieval part of the Keldur Farm building: cow’s stomach windows panes (not in photo) let daylight in near the cow dung fire (not lit) used to cook cow soup (not on the day I took this photo).

Some seven hundred years ago, Vikings were immortalized in the Icelandic Sagas. Today, you can visit many of the sites where their lives unfolded, and stand where they once fought literal and legal battles. Of all the sagas, Njál’s Saga is the only one set in the south of Iceland, where I can’t seem to get enough of the stunning, dramatic scenery.

FOR MORE INFO 

Links to more about Njal’s Saga.