Ultima Thule; or, A Summer in Iceland. vol. 1/2 — Themes and Context

A Preface on Perspective

Burton's preface is not a mere apology for tardiness but a statement of method. He contrasts the unartistic sketch produced during a journey with the composed picture that emerges after reflection, when details gain relation and distinction. This metaphor of visual art—sketch versus finished painting—recurs implicitly in the descriptive passages that follow. The preface also establishes Burton's self-awareness as a potentially controversial commentator: he dedicates the work to Robert Mackay Smith, a known friend to Iceland, and asks not to be held responsible for his 'over freedom of speech' or unpopular opinions. This defensive posture suggests that the reader should expect critical judgments, not mere praise of the island.

Birds in Ordered Ranks

Section VIII presents a dense catalogue of Icelandic birds, each entry giving the scientific name, the Icelandic name, and often a brief remark on use or appearance. The harlequin duck is 'Straum-önd or stream-duck'; the cormorant appears in three varieties—Skarfur, Toppskarfur, Dílaskarfur—and is noted as never taught to fish in Europe. The list proceeds methodically through skuas, gulls, guillemots, geese, ducks, and phalaropes, with prices for feathers and notes on edibility. This taxonomic impulse reveals Burton's commitment to empirical observation and his desire to leave nothing unnamed. The catalogue also serves as a verbal map of the island's coastal avifauna, each species a fixed point in a landscape otherwise subject to fog, cold, and volcanic change.

The Edda's Continental Roots

In Section IX, Burton directly challenges the popular notion that Iceland is the 'home of the Eddas.' He argues that the Elder or poetical Edda is 'distinctly Continental,' pointing to imagery unfamiliar to the untravelled Icelander: the sun-stag, the wolf, the snake, the pine forest. This is a precise, evidence-based claim, not a vague assertion. Burton then outlines a four-age scheme for Icelandic literature, borrowed from the Bishop of Skálholt: Infancy (874–1000), Youth (to 1110), Manhood (to 1350), and Decline (to the Reformation). He notes that the Augustan age lasted an unusually long two and a half centuries, and attributes this literary flowering to slavery, long winters, and piratical wanderings. The passage is a compact lesson in literary history, delivered with the confidence of a scholar who has read widely.

Movement Between Scene and Study

The excerpts reveal a work that shuttles between two modes: the traveller's immediate observation and the scholar's retrospective analysis. The bird catalogue is pure field note, while the discussion of the Edda is library work, citing bishops and sagas. Burton himself acknowledges this duality in the preface, where he admits that before finishing the Iceland book he was diverted by a study of Istrian castellieri. The volume thus mirrors its author's restless intellect, moving from the specific (a duck's bill) to the general (the decline of a literary culture). Readers should expect abrupt transitions and a willingness to pause the narrative for extended disquisition. The work is not a continuous story but a collection of linked investigations, each with its own method and pace.

Burton's Iceland is a place of lists and arguments, where a bird's feather price sits beside a theory of saga origins. The reader who expects a smooth narrative will be disappointed; the reader who enjoys watching a learned mind work through a landscape will find much to admire. Pay attention to the footnotes and the asides—they often contain the sharpest observations. And remember Burton's own warning: time gives perspective, and this book is the product of reflection, not haste.

That rainy afternoon, Burton’s Icelandic catalogue blurred into his quieter meditations on how landscapes shape the stories we tell ourselves. I lingered on his patient effort to see clearly, unhurried. The same reflective patience seemed to echo later in Greek Lands and Letters — A Closer Reading, where place and text breathe together. One book simply handed me to the next, like a shared, suspended hour.