In 1607 the book Islandia by Dithmar Blefken, about Iceland and the Icelanders, was published in Leiden in Holland. The picture it painted was ugly, and many were shocked. Icelanders have long been sensitive about how foreigners see them. At the beginning of the 17th century Icelanders therefore had an “image problem”, and Arngrímur Jónsson lærði (the Learned) wrote the book Anatome Blefkeniana to refute what Blefken said in his notorious book. Blefken reported, among other things, that “the Icelanders are all much given to superstition and have demons and spirits in their service. The only men who catch fish are those whom the devil wakes at night to row out fishing.” Blefken tells more stories of the Icelanders’ close ties with Satan and describes their disgusting drinking habits in detail. Surprisingly, according to him, they live to be as much as 300 years old. Blefken also describes various customs of the islanders and reports that “at night the master of the house and his whole family, wife and children, sleep in one loft under a woollen blanket … They all piss in the same pot, and in the morning they wash their faces, mouths, teeth and hands in it. They think this has many virtues, and say that it beautifies the face, keeps up their strength, strengthens the sinews of the hands and protects the teeth from decay”.
Blefken’s Islandia is the Highlight of the month for October. It is shown together with Haraldur Sigurðsson’s translation, published in the book Glöggt er gests augað (The guest’s eye is keen) in 1946. The translation is published here by kind permission of his widow, Sigrún Ástrós Sigurðardóttir. Haraldur worked at the National Library of Iceland from 1946 to 1978.
