Kóngurinn í Gullá (The King of the Golden River) is a children’s book written in the style of a folk tale. It tells of a valley where people live a good and happy life. The story is about three brothers. Two of them are very selfish and cruel and are unwilling to pay their tithe to the community. Their wickedness brings disaster on the fertile valley and its people. The third brother is a very good man, and in the end he manages to save the valley from ruin through his unselfish love.
The book was first published in England in 1841 and came out in an Icelandic translation by Einar Hjörleifsson in Winnipeg in 1891. Einar later took the surname Kvaran, and an exhibition on him is now on in the glass case in the entrance hall of Þjóðarbókhlaða, the library building at Arngrímsgata 3. Kóngurinn í Gullá was widely read in Iceland and was published again in 1941 and 1951. These later editions were illustrated by Barbara Árnason.
John Ruskin (1819–1900) was a highly respected social thinker in 19th-century Britain. He had a great influence on the development of British socialism, which emphasised the ethical foundations of society. Ruskin was one of the leaders of Christian socialism. He championed small workshops against large-scale industry and was a pioneer of the movement that criticises both state socialism and the market system and wants the share of the social economy, that is, of voluntary associations, to be as large as possible in society.
Ruskin founded the famous Ruskin College in Oxford to give working people of small means an education. As is well known, Jónas Jónsson frá Hriflu attended Ruskin College in Oxford for one term in 1908; for decades he was one of the main leaders of the co-operative movement and the youth associations in Iceland. Ruskin College was in many ways the model for Jónas’s college at Bifröst.
Kóngurinn í Gullá is the first Highlight of the month of 2010.