existence became more bearable when they listened to tales of the
heroic deeds of the past. In the evening, the living-room
(baðstofa), built of turf and stone, became a little more cheerful,
and hunger was forgotten, while a member of the household read, or
sang, about far-away knights and heroes, and the banquets they gave
in splendid halls. In their imagination people thus tended to make
their environment seem larger, and better, than life, as did Hrolfur
with his fishing-boat in the story When I was on the Frigate.




III


About 1800, things began to improve. The monopoly of trade, which
had been relaxed in 1787, was finally abolished in 1854. In the year
1874 Iceland got self-government in its internal affairs, and in
1904 its first minister of state with residence in the country. It
became a sovereign kingdom in union with Denmark in 1918, and an
independent republic in 1944.

The climate of the country has improved during the last hundred and
fifty years, though there were a number of severe years in the
eighteen eighties. It was at this time that emigration to the North-
American Continent reached a peak, especially to Canada, where one
of the settlements came to be called New Iceland--the title given to
the last story in this book. Many of these emigrants suffered great
hardships, and, as the story tells, several of them became
disillusioned with the land of promise. Their descendants, however,