Every month the National and University Library of Iceland picks one item from its collections and tells its story: a manuscript, photograph, map, poster or letter that has lain untouched for decades. Some of the items are well known; others have never been shown in public.
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Islendsk Urtagards Bok : Søfnud og samannteken Bændum og Alþydu aa Islande til reynslu og nota.
In 1770 Ólafur Ólafsson (Ólafur Olavius, 1741-1788) wrote a book about how to grow vegetables; it was intended for both farmers and the general public. Ólafur was born at Eyri in Seyðisfjörður in the Westfjords. He went to Skálholtsskóli and then studied medicine with Bjarni Pálsson, the Icelandic Director of Health. Later, Olavius went to…
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The first telephone directory 1905. Publisher The Reykjavik Telephone Corporation.
The Reykjavik Telephone Corporation was established in 1904 and telephone users in Reykjavik were 20 in March 1905 when a telephone station was opened. But when the directory was published in August telephone numbers were 145 in total. In January 1906 a supplement was published and then the numbers were 173. The Iceland State Telephone…
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The Rivers of Iceland and The Mountains of Iceland by Samúel Eggertsson
The works by surveyor Samúel Eggertsson (1864-1949), Ár Íslands (The Rivers of Iceland) and Íslands fjöll (The Mountains of Iceland), contain a lot of information. The Mountains of Iceland shows the altitude of the country’s highest mountains and The Rivers of Iceland shows the geographical orientation of most of the rivers from west to east…
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Íslensk sagnablöð
The Icelandic Literary Society published the journal Íslensk Sagnablöð from the year 1817 to 1826. Two volumes in ten divisions were issued, one division for each year. The first volume was published in 300 copies and was distributed free to members. Finnur Magnússon, professor in Copenhagen and the president of the society, wrote all news,…
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Theodóra Thoroddsen: Þulur
Þulur by Theódóra Thoroddsen (1 July 1863 – 23 February 1954) were first published in 1916. Þulur represent a poetic genre that is comparatively free in form, with no division into stanzas and with a narrative thread that is often confusing. Over the centuries þulur were transmitted orally from generation to generation and were often…
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The story of the “Ptarmigan’s nest” by Asthildur Guðmundsdóttir with drawings by Muggur
A women’s reading society operated in Reykjavík in 1911-1961 and the society’s monthly magazine, Mánaðarrit, was first published in 1912. In an issue written in February 1916, there is a story by Ásthildur Guðmundsdóttir (1857-1938), entitled “The Ptarmigan’s nest”. Along with the story there are published two drawings by her son, Muggur (Guðmundur Thorsteinsson) (1891-1924), who…
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Guðbrandsbiblía
Guðbrandsbiblía is the first Icelandic translation of the Bible; it was the work of Guðbrandur Þorláksson, Bishop of Hólar, and was completed in 1584. It is said that seven people worked on printing the volume and that it took them 2 years to print 500 copies. Each printed copy was expensive, costing the equivalent of…
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Folktale Playing Cards by Ásta Sigurðardóttir
For some reason the playing cards that author Ásta Sigurðardóttir drew up from Icelandic folk stories in the years 1960-63 were never printed and so we only have her original sketches. The drawings are coloured with watercolours. Around the mid section of each card is a rather large diagonal border splitting the card into two…
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Um Úrnat
(About Úrnat) by Björk Guðmundsdóttir Björk Guðmundsdóttir self-published the fairy tale Um Úrnat (About Úrnat) which was manifolded on watercolor paper in a limited edition in 1984. The booklet is 16 pages with a handwritten text and drawings by Björk which she has colored with watercolors and crayons. Björk herself remarks that with this edition…
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What is in the lead cylinder?
Svava Jakobsdóttir Hvað er í blýhólknum? (What is in the lead cylinder?) Svava Jakobsdóttir (1930-2004) remarked in an interview in Þjóðviljinn on the 27th of June 1974: „Maybe I’m a born feminist? It is safe to say that my first aim in life was to be taken seriously in spite of being a girl!“ In…
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The Slaying of the Spaniards in 1615
„A true account of the shipwreck of the Spaniards and their ensuing struggle“, by Jón Guðmundsson the Learned, is preserved in nine manuscripts in the Manuscript Department of The National and University Library of Iceland. It recounts the slaying of the Spanish sailors in 1615. None of the manuscripts are from the 17th century and…
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Vice-Lavmand Eggert Olafsens og Land-Physici Biarne Povelsens Reise igiennem Island, foranstaltet af Videnskabernes Sælskab i Kiøbenhavn
Eggert Ólafsson (1726-1768) and Bjarni Pálsson (1719-1779) received a special grant from the Danish government to travel around Iceland for five years from 1752 in order to investigate natural phenomena, describe the general condition of the inhabitants, and make proposals as to how best to improve their condition of life. Their findings were published in…