ICELAND, AN ANONYMOUS STORY, 1991

Helen   Tuesday, 02 February 2021

I think we can be fairly sure the story isn't true. The country is nothing like what he describes; the sun does not rise late in the morning and set early early in the afternoon in August, and Church of Iceland is Lutheran, not Anglican, and so on. But it has its charms nonetheless!

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Michael Rice   Monday, 08 February 2021

I should think someone who had had a confused understanding of the origins of the Church of Iceland before he went to the country, and was as uninterested in Christianity as he sounds from his tone, could easily spend several months there without having his understanding of it corrected.

On the other hand, it is so very well known that the summer days are long in the far north that his saying the sun rose late in August seems to me more likely a confusion of seasons in his writing than the sort of genuine ignorance that would have been corrected by experience.

So I'm not sure we can be so sure.