Eyþór Guðmundsson

 

Growing up on a farm in Iceland, you learn to turn your hand to any job that needs doing. My father believed that if I could walk, I could work, and I was driving a tractor by the age of five. If you didn’t know how to do something, you would consult a book or someone who had the knowledge. From an early age I was fascinated by antiquarian books as physical objects, and the craftsmanship that they represented - from papermaking to bookbinding. It reminds me of the Samurai sword, in which a different specialist is required for each element - from the blade itself to the scabbard. My childhood home was full of books, and I loved going on visits with my parents to the neighbouring farms where there would always be some old books and manuscripts, mainly concerned with practical information. For many centuries Iceland was a country of farmers, who had to rely on themselves. In a remote community, there might only be one copy of a useful book, in which case the simplest option was to copy it by hand.

The history of printing in Iceland begins around the year 1530 when Bishop Jón Arason established a printing press in Breiðabólstaður in southwest Iceland. It fascinates me to think how that first printing press was brought to Iceland. Bishop Arason had to make his way to mainland Europe, learn how to use a printing press - probably in Germany or Holland - buy all the necessary supplies, including paper, and then transfer everything to an open boat and sail to the North Atlantic. On arrival in southwest Iceland, all the heavy equipment had to be loaded into a smaller boat in order to approach the shore. I picture the Bishop wading in the sea for the last few metres, holding the paper aloft to keep it dry. Everything was then conveyed inland by horses for the journey to Breiðabólstaður. From there the press was moved to the bishopric of Hólar in the north of the country. For a short period at the end of the seventeenth century it moved to Skálholt, and then back to Hólar in 1703. A century later, printing activity moved to Leirárgarðar near the farm where I grew up. After brief periods elsewhere, printing activity began in Reykjavik in 1844.

I was in my mid-thirties when I began collecting in a serious way. By that stage, I had moved away from my agricultural roots, and was leading an urban life. Reykjavik is hardly the biggest city in the world, but it’s still a city and it lacks that sense of freedom and peace that comes from living closer to nature. To this day, my heart skips a beat when I drive in the country. Nowadays I live on the outskirts of the capital, and I’m a security consultant and close protection officer. I would say that the two leading rare booksellers in Iceland are Bókin, and Bókakaffið - a book café where they sell new and old books. Bókin is celebrating its sixtieth year in business, and is the only survivor from a time when Reykjavik had at least fifteen old bookshops.

It’s important to preserve our heritage, and to increase our knowledge of the past in order to prepare for the future. In that sense I had no choice but to collect and therefore protect old Icelandic books. I’ve (jokingly) been compared to Árni Magnússon, the great Icelandic scholar in the eighteenth century, who bequeathed his incredible collection of manuscripts to the University of Copenhagen. It should be remembered that Iceland was under the control of the Crown of Denmark from 1380 until 1944. Many of those manuscripts have been returned by Denmark to Iceland during the last fifty years, and there are plans for the entire collection to return to Reykjavic, for which the Árni Magnússon Institute is building a new centre for their conservation and study.

When I visited antiquarian booksellers in Denmark last year, they told me that whenever they had Icelandic books, they were bought by Icelanders. There are fewer than 400,000 of us, of whom 140,000 live in Reykjavik - hardly more people than a crowded street in London! I believe that we share an obligation to look after and respect our strong literary tradition, and ancient language. I have greatly enjoyed learning more about my heritage from collecting old books, and I’m passionate about encouraging my compatriots to take an interest in them.

Spoken Icelandic hasn’t changed much since the Vikings, but the written language is very different. Ironically, I’m learning to read Old Icelandic from an Italian friend and scholar, Roberto Luigi Pagani, who has a wonderful website called An Italian in Iceland. Recently I had a visit from a group of students from the UK, the USA, the Netherlands, China and Chile, who are studying Icelandic in Reykjavik. It was wonderful to see their interest in my collection, and it gives me hope for the future. 

The film industry has had a tremendous impact in promoting worldwide interest in Norse mythology and the Vikings, although their portrayal tends to be one-sided and historically inaccurate, which bothers many Icelanders and Scandinavians. If you take the example of The Lord of The Rings, it has reached a global audience through numerous translations, film adaptations and computer games. Although Tolkien never visited Iceland, he was fascinated by Norse mythology and studied Old Norse (the parent language of Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Icelandic) as a student at Oxford. During their early married life, the Tolkiens employed Arndís, a young Icelandic woman, to look after their children.

Although Tolkien had already begun writing The Hobbit before Arndís joined the household, he enjoyed listening to the folktales that she told his children, and improving his knowledge of Icelandic. As a novelist, he made use of whatever he learned on Iceland as an inspiration for his writings. A good example is William Morris’s journal of his travels in Iceland in the 1870s, which describes an excursion on horseback, which is identical to Bilbo Baggins's ride to ‘the last homely house’ of Rivendell. Morris spoke fluent Icelandic, and the respect for craftsmanship was an aspect of our culture that he most admired. Incidentally if we want to praise a fine example of craftsmanship, we call it ‘elves’ work’.

As a collector, I feel like a custodian who is responsible for passing on my books to the next generation in good condition. Preservation is at the heart of my interest in old books, and so I taught myself the craft of bookbinding. I watched lots of YouTube videos, and read books and talked to specialists and, slowly, day by day my knowledge and skill increased. Nowadays I’m able to repair my own books, and many people bring their books to me for rebinding - and sometimes they donate them, because they appreciate what I’m trying to do for our heritage. There’s nothing as exciting as discovering a fragment of a medieval manuscript being used as binder’s waste.

For many years the Central Bank of Iceland employed a bookbinder to look after its magnificent library, which was subsequently donated to the National Library of Iceland. The present Governor of the Bank, Ásgeir Jónsson, is a serious book collector. He visited my house not long ago, and we had a great discussion about everything to do with Icelandic books.   I use social media to highlight my conservation work, and have posted on Instagram a number of videos showing the various processes involved in rebinding a book. It has helped me to connect with collectors and dealers around the world, and I now have a handful of people with whom I chat regularly. Many of Iceland’s most creative people are very interested in our history and traditions. Three of our finest musicians - Guðrún Ýr Eyfjörð, Magnús Jóhann and Sigga Ózk - have visited me recently, and I was glad to see their joy and interest in handling Icelandic rare books and manuscripts.

Thanks to my Instagram account ‘Old Icelandic Books’, I’ve attracted the attention of Dr Gregory Cattano, a scholar of medieval manuscripts and a historian, who is the manager of a  travel agency. He would like to cooperate with me on planning a specialised tour. There’s no doubt that old Nordic culture and the Icelandic sagas are ‘fashionable’ at the moment, and perhaps we can put together something that gives the tourist a more meaningful introduction to the country. Ultimately my dream is to open a museum devoted to the history of the book in Iceland. Meanwhile I’m looking forward to working with Þorsteinn Dagur Rafnsson - also met through Instagram - on a podcast in which we discuss Icelandic history and culture, and its preservation through the written and printed word.