“Ertu þá farin, ertu þá farin frá mér?”

If you’ve visited the Mál og Menning bookstore in Reykjavik, you’ve seen them: rows and rows of original works, many of them tantalizing, most of them inaccessible to outsiders. Unfortunately, we recently lost one of the rare souls who helped to share Icelandic literature with the English-speaking world: translator Bernard Scudder, whose death in October went virtually unnoticed.

Scudder wasn’t the only translator of Icelandic writing, but he was, arguably, the most versatile. He contributed to The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, the massive, five-volume set published in 1997; he translated hip works of literary fiction such as Angels of the Universe and Epilogue of the Raindrops; he introduced readers in North America and the U.K. to Icelandic crime novels, including Silence of the Grave and Jar City; and, God bless him, he helped pay the bills with such gimmicky fare as The Vikings’ Guide to Good Business.

Sadly, no English-language newspaper or magazine has published an obituary for Bernard Scudder. The Iceland Review Web site hasn’t noted his death, and Guardian book-blogger Sarah Weinman only learned of his passing because someone at MediaBistro happened to be visiting Reykjavik.

Even now, the prolific translator remains something of an enigma. Weinman writes:

All we know is that Scudder died suddenly on October 15, that he was married, and that Harvill Secker, Indridason’s UK publisher, commented in a statement that they held Scudder’s work “in high regard and that he was a pleasure to work with.”

Perhaps, in its own way, the obscurity of Bernard Scudder is suitably Icelandic. Consider this notion from the 1955 award speech of Nobel laureate Halldor Laxness:

My thoughts fly to the old Icelandic storytellers who created our classics, whose personalities were so bound up with the masses that their names, unlike their lives’ work, have not been preserved for posterity. They live in their immortal creations and are as much a part of Iceland as her landscape.

Bernard Scudder will never be famous; he won no renown in life, and the literary world will likely forget him in death. Fortunately, his efforts will endure, and for some of us, he will always be an integral part of our Iceland, that stark and beguiling and weirdly secretive country we first beheld with our own startled eyes—but which we only really saw in translation.

UPDATE – January 10, 2007: A UK newspaper has finally published an obituary of Scudder.

“Gleymum sorg og sút, og sinnisgrút…”

Once upon a time, I spent two weeks in Iceland, where I stayed in the home of an elderly couple. They thought I was there for the intensive Icelandic language course—but since I wasn’t there for the intensive Icelandic language course, I was unable to dispel their misapprehension. I was similarly unable to keep them from throwing dictionaries at me or forcing me to watch subtitled television shows about clever German police dogs. I developed a huge crush on their country nonetheless.

A decade later, I’ve introduced my students to medieval Icelandic literature through the Saga of the Volsungs and translations of eddic poetry. Lately, though, they’ve begun to fret about their grades, their papers, and their final exams. Empathetic teacher that I am, I decided to send them this: “Hakuna Matata” translated and dubbed in Icelandic.

Whether or not they appreciate the intention behind it remains to be seen.

“On we sweep, with threshing oar…”

It may not be a day off from work, but today, my fellow Americans, is Leif Eriksson Day. By happy coincidence, I’m teaching The Saga of the Volsungs tonight. Why not find your own way to mark this marvelous manifestation of medievalism?

If your belly cries out for a taste of goopy, chilled curds, then swing by your local Whole Foods. It’s the only chain in the U.S. that sells skyr, the “yogurt” of the Vikings, in all its tart, rennety goodness.

It’s never too early to plan a trip to L’Anse aux Meadows, the remote site in Newfoundland where the Northmen landed. (Just be prepared to eat the occasional cod tongue.)

Why not groove to a little neo-Viking pop? Take in a Skitamorall video or two, or read a very old article about Sigur Ros.

If you’re pining for the fjords, you can order a VHS copy of The Outlaw, the 1981 film adaptation of Gisli’s Saga, for only $68.63. You can specifically commemorate Leif Eriksson by reading the Vinland Sagas—or, for kicks, you can read the Havamal:

Deyr fé, deyja fraendr,
deyr sjálfr it sama;
en orðstírr deyr aldregi
hveim er sér góðan getr.

Deyr fé, deyja fraendr,
deyr sjálfr it sama;
ek veit einn at aldri deyr:
dómr um dauðan hvern.

Wealth dies, kin die,
The self must die as well;
But reputation never dies
For one who can obtain it.

Wealth dies, kin die,
The self must die as well;
I know one thing that never dies:
The renown of every dead man.

Leif Eriksson surely knew these bits of Nordic wisdom. A thousand years later, these eddic verses still find validation in the statues and airports that bear his name. Like this quasi-holiday, they’re unlikely and often overlooked tributes to a brave and lucky traveler—the one medieval Icelander whose name we Vinlanders are most likely to remember.