Library's Fiske Icelandic Collection is part of historic national exhibit

Among the holdings in Cornell's renowned Fiske Icelandic Collection is the 1688 Landnámabók, an early history of Iceland's settlement and the first secular work to be printed in Iceland.

By Franklin Crawford

She gave birth to the first child of European descent in the New World, 500 years before Columbus got his sea legs. The president of Iceland calls her "the greatest female explorer of all time," and it's not just hometown hyperbole. The story of Gudridur Thorbjarnardottir -- who explored the New World, returned to Europe, then walked to Rome to give the Vatican a first-person account of her journeys -- is just one facet of a fascinating exhibit titled "Living and Reliving the Icelandic Sagas," opening to the public Thursday, May 25, in the Thomas Jefferson Building at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. A corresponding symposium, "Saga Literature and the Shaping of Icelandic Culture," will be May 24 from 1 to 5 p.m. and May 25 from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Mumford Room of the James Madison Building, also in Washington.

Both events mark a historic collaboration among the National and University Library of Iceland, the Library of Congress, the Fiske Icelandic Collection of Cornell University Library and the Icelandic Collection of the University of Manitoba Library. The exhibition, which is open Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and runs through July 15, draws together an unprecedented collection of historic Icelandic manuscripts and books.

The exhibition consists of approximately 75 items, including Icelandic paper manuscripts never seen before in North America. "Living and Reliving the Icelandic Sagas," which narrates the history of Icelandic saga literature, also features a selection of rare printed books from the Library of Congress and from Cornell's Fiske Icelandic Collection.

The Library of Congress and the Cornell University Library are organizing the symposium. Fifteen scholars from North America, Europe and Australia will speak on the influence of sagas on Western civilization during the last millennium. The 10 major sections of the exhibition will present the sagas themselves, feature the various periods of their development, and examine their influence on western culture in the past and present.

More than a thousand years ago, Northmen and Celts sailed across the North Atlantic and settled a volcanic island they called Iceland. During the Middle Ages, their descendants established colonies in Greenland and explored the North American seaboard. Today, North Americans are discovering the rich culture and literary tradition, preserved for centuries in the Icelandic sagas, of the people who explored America long before Columbus. The Icelandic sagas rank alongside the masterpieces of western civilization, as precious a contribution to literary history as the writings of the Greeks and Romans. But for North Americans, the Icelandic sagas are literally and geographically much closer to home than the works of Homer or Herodotus.

Icelanders lived in a world of feuding and vengeance, yet developed a unique form of democratic government under the rule of law. They lived in a world in which valiant men and women became heroes and heroines in oral tradition and literature. The account of their lives and legends is embodied in the sagas, recorded and handed down through the centuries.

The life of Gudridur Thorbjarnardottir is corroborated in both "The Saga of Eric the Red" and the "Greenlanders' Saga," according to Patrick J. Stevens, the Fiske Collection curator who co-wrote the exhibition's brochure. Gudridur converted from a Norse religion to Christianity and won renown as a pioneer Icelander in North America, where she gave birth to a son, Snorri, whose father died. Having outlived her third husband, Gudridur managed a farm back in Iceland with her son. When Snorri married, Gudridur went on a pilgrimage by foot to Rome. She then returned to Iceland, living the rest of her days as a nun.

Gudridur's story is a remarkable piece of literature and is reflective of the dynamic role Icelandic women have played throughout that country's history. For instance, pre-Christian Icelandic women could seek divorce as well as refuse betrothal -- a range of choices not accorded to most European women during the Middle Ages. Icelandic women also had property rights, and some were quite wealthy.

"Gudridur, who lived between the cultural worlds of receding Norse paganism and advancing Christianity, is emblematic of medieval Iceland's restless, brilliant spirit," Stevens writes in the Fiske Collection's web site (see below). "Visitors [to the exhibition] will want to keep [her] in mind as they contemplate precious manuscripts and rare books that have preserved so much of Iceland's -- and America's -- early heritage."

With more than 39,000 volumes, Cornell's Fiske Icelandic Collection is the most comprehensive collection on Old Norse literature, Icelandic civilization and Nordic medieval studies in the Western Hemisphere. Cornell University Library is one of the largest academic research libraries in the United States. Its holdings comprise more than 6 million printed volumes, with more than 60,000 journal subscriptions and more than 1,000 networked resources.

For more information about the Icelandic exhibit or symposium, contact Elaine Engst by phone at 255-3530, by e-mail at ee11@cornell.edu, or visit the Fiske Collection web site at http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/Fiske.