Modern Icelandic Plays

Modern Icelandic Plays, by
Jóhann

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Modern Icelandic Plays, by Jóhann
Sigurjónsson, Translated by Henninge Krohn Schanche
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Modern Icelandic Plays Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm
Author: Jóhann Sigurjónsson

Release Date: June 25, 2007 [eBook #21937]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN
ICELANDIC PLAYS***
E-text prepared by Louise Hope, David Starner, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which
includes the original visual illustrations. The HTML version also
includes the songs in three forms: raw lilypond (.ly extension, can be
converted to other formats), .pdf (image), and MIDI (sound). See
21937-h.htm or 21937-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/1/9/3/21937/21937-h/21937-h.htm) or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/1/9/3/21937/21937-h.zip)
Transcriber's note:
The first few pages of the book, before the Contents, have been
rearranged in the order 4, 5, 2, 1, 3. Rows of asterisks show the original
page breaks.
The word "cooperation" was printed with dieresis (dots) over the
second "o". The dieresis was omitted from this e-text to minimize
confusion with the letter "ö". Variation between ö (Introduction and
Advertising sections, including all references to "Björnstjerne
Björnson") and ø (names within the plays) is unchanged.
The letters á and æ do not occur in the translations.

MODERN ICELANDIC PLAYS
Eyvind of the Hills The Hraun Farm
by
JÓHANN SIGURJÓNSSON
Translated by Henninge Krohn Schanche

New York The American-Scandinavian Foundation London:
Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press 1916
* * * * *

Copyright, 1916, by The American-Scandinavian Foundation All Stage
Rights reserved by Henninge Krohn Schanche
D. B. Updike · The Merrymount Press · Boston · U.S.A.
* * * * *
SCANDINAVIAN CLASSICS
VOLUME VI
·.·
MODERN ICELANDIC PLAYS
* * * * *
This series of SCANDINAVIAN CLASSICS is published by The
American-Scandinavian Foundation in the belief that greater familiarity
with the chief literary monuments of the North will help Americans to a
better understanding of Scandinavians, and thus serve to stimulate their
sympathetic cooperation to good ends.
* * * * *
[Illustration: (AMERICAN SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION)
Established by Niels Poulson]
* * * * *
CONTENTS
Introduction vii Eyvind Of The Hills 1 The Hraun Farm 81

INTRODUCTION
Both volumes of the SCANDINAVIAN CLASSICS selected to appear
in 1916 are by natives of Iceland. They belong, however, to periods of

time and to modes of writing remote from each other. Snorri Sturluson,
the greatest of Icelandic historians, was born in 1179. His Prose Edda,
the companion-piece of the present volume, is a Christian's account of
Old Norse myths and poetic conceptions thus happily preserved as they
were about to pass into oblivion. More than seven hundred years
separate Jóhann Sigurjónsson from Snorri, and his work is in dramatic,
not saga form. But even as in outward appearance modern Iceland is
not unlike ancient Iceland, so the Icelandic writers of the present have
marked kinship with the past. Despite many centuries of relative
neglect, the old traditions lived on, cherished by scholars, until now, at
the beginning of the twentieth century, the Icelandic mind appears to be
again renascent and creative. Einar Jónsson, the sculptor, has his
counterpart in the domain of letters in such recent writers as Jónas
Jónasson, Emar Hjörleifsson, Gudmundur Magnússon, Jónas
Gudlaugsson, Gunnar Gunnarson, and Gudmundur Kamban, while
every important fjord and valley can claim its own poet or novelist. As
yet, the most distinguished performance of these younger authors is the
play printed in this volume, Eyvind of the Hills (Bjærg-Ejvind og hans
Hustru), by Jóhann Sigurjónsson. Among literary phenomena Eyvind of
the Hills is a surprise, almost as though Iceland woke to find her naked
mountains clothed in forest in a night.
Let Sigurjónsson tell his life story in his own words:[1] "I was born
June 19, 1880, on a large farm in the northern part of Iceland. Our
household numbered about twenty people. A broad stream, well
stocked with salmon; on both sides of the river, rocks where thousands
of eider-ducks had their nests; a view out over the Atlantic with high
cliffs where sea-birds lived; lava-fields with unusual flowers; and in the
distance blue mountains; such was the theatre where I acted my
childhood pieces and where I wrote my first poems.
[Footnote 1: A letter dated November 7, 1912, to M. Leon Pineau,
published in La Revue (Paris), July 1, 1914.]
"When fourteen years old, I was sent to school at Reykjavik; but after
pocketing the diploma of the upper class, my longing led me down to
Copenhagen, where