The Little Book of Icelanders of Olden Times by Alda Sigmundsdóttir

// Essay // Humor // History // Published: 2014, French translation 2015 // 176 pages

The author of The Little Book of Icelanders , Alda Sigmundsdóttir, delves this time into the customs and traditions of her ancestors, whose oddities and contradictions she mischievously dissects, but also sometimes... common sense.

Neither a scholarly work nor a boring catalogue, this nevertheless very well-documented "little book" sprinkles in 50 chapters a wealth of information that sheds light on Iceland today: why is it a country without any notable trace of its ancient architecture and today (almost) without forest despite its wooded past; where does this intense relationship of Icelanders with poetry and more generally with reading come from, made compulsory from the ^18th century by the ecclesiastical authorities; why did the latter ban dancing in the ^12th century – one of the rare leisure activities – without any notable effect on practices, a ban more firmly reiterated in the ^17th and for 300 years!; how a simple chess piece (the game, not the unfinished human undertakings) motivated the creation of a museum; why on earth did Icelanders invent "anti-sleep sticks"? how the already highly structured ^18th century agricultural society was organized; how dental caries appeared in everyday life... and a host of other essential questions, all narrated with the spirit of synthesis and caustic humor that characterizes the author, in particular when she looks at the culinary antics of her compatriots of yesteryear or tackles a few totems, such as the Icelanders' belief in elves (on this point allow me to distance myself from the author... who wrote The Little Book of the Hidden People).

As you will have understood, I am a big fan of Alda's work, an inexhaustible source of knowledge and laughter.