During the centuries we have been discussing--especially, however,
the seventeenth--the Icelanders probably wrote more verse than any
other nation has ever done--ranging in quality, to be sure, from the
lowest to the highest. When, in the sixteenth century, they had got
paper to take the place of the more expensive parchment, they could
universally indulge in copying old literature and writing new, an
opportunity which they certainly made use of. It was their only
luxury--and, at the same time, a vital need.

We have said that the Icelanders had never waged war against any
other people. But they have had to struggle against foreign rulers,
and against hardships caused by the nature of their country. After
the Reformation, the intervention of the Crown greatly increased,
and, at the same time, its revenues from the country. A Crown
monopoly of all trade was imposed (in 1602). Nature joined forces
with mismanagement by the authorities; on the seas surrounding the
island pack-ice frequently became a menace to shipping, and there
also occurred unusually long and vicious series of volcanic
eruptions. These culminated in the late eighteenth century (1783),
when the world's most extensive lava fields of historical times were
formed, and the mist from the eruption was carried all over Europe
and far into the continent of Asia. Directly or indirectly as a
consequence of this eruption, the greater part of the live-stock,
and a fifth of the human population of the country perished.

Still the people continued to tell stories and to compose poems. No
doubt the Icelanders have thus wasted on poetical fantasies and
visionary daydreams much of the energy that they might otherwise
have used in life's real battle. But the greyness of commonplace