Show THE WIn OF IIJE ICELN DIC IlONKBIl DAY Iulrioti make one wish to live and tiara to dieCampbell It may interest many of the readers of The Press to get to know tho brief outline of the important historical event in which memory tho Icelanders celebrate tho second of August It was in A D 860 or thereabout there-about that a military chieftain known by tlio name of Herald Hnrfuger undertook to unito all of Norway into subjection to himself and succeeding in this imposed hcayy taxes and unlimited authority on tho people This caused many of tho greatest free holders to leave their vast estates and go olswboro Iceland was about that time inci dently discovered but the first ones to start for that islo for tho purpolo to make it their future homos were Ingolf Arnason and Iljorleif llrodmarson who on according ac-cording to the best historical accounts ac-counts on tho second day of August Au-gust in A D 87i landed in Iceland At tho grand national celebration held in Iceland in AD 1871 the thousandth anniversary of this event the Icing of Denmark by his own hand brought and handed the governor of Iceland and its people a constitution for the people of that island to bo governed by Very few realize how important the settlement of Iceland is to the I people of Europe There as early A D ISO a national parliment was established and a constitutioualre public formed which lasted till in the year A D 1202 when it lost its indipondonco and became subject sub-ject to King Hakon of Norway In A D 1888 Iceland tocother with Norway became subject to Denmark Den-mark From literary standpoint no country in Europe excells Iceland The Eddas and sagas consisting of over twenty volumes wore written mostly during tho eleventh and twolyth centuries Snorra Edda was written during tho thirteenth In those volumes is mostly preserved pre-served all that is known regarding the Scandinavians previous to that date It was there that a trial by jury was preserved and brought from there to England from whence it came to America The Icelandic language is by the leading philologists philolo-gists termed tho Greek of tho North It is the oldest living language in tho world The people peo-ple of Iceland have since its settlement always reached amongst tho most intelligent tho best civilized civi-lized and the best educated people in the world John Thorgeirson |