THE LITERACY OF THE ICELANDERS

Three things no Icelandic farm wants books, a coffee-pot, and a portrait of Jon Sigurdsson, the illustrious leader of the patriotic party. . . . Few are the houses in Iceland which do not contain a library; and twice, in spots of rather exceptional wretchedness, I found exceptionally good ones one chiefly of legal and historical treatises, the other an excellent collection of Sagas and poetry. James Bryce, Impressions of Iceland (1872)1