The Seal Woman - A Legend Retold

I encountered the Faroese legend of seal women in the Toronto Reference Library's rare book stacks. While I copied poems from a Faroese anthology, Jane flipped through a book called The Farthest Shore.  Turning the pages, she described the tales of unmarried suicides who lured men to sea from the safety of the shore.

Published to inspire and inform travellers to the islands, The Farthest Shore has two distinct parts. Jørgan-Frantz Jacobsen introduces the Faroe Islands with the poetic and tragic legend of the seal woman. The legend was just one of many handed down by oral tradition and placed into the written form by one of the Faroe's greatest writers. In the second half, Niels Elkaer-Hansen describes the culture and customs of early 20th century Faroe. A boat buoyed below a bird cliff illustrates the cover and is one of many of Ib Spang Olsen’s pencil illustrations in the book.

While Hansen informed, Jacobsen inspired. Tucked inside Jacobsen’s essay was a poetic backdrop that fused the Faroese storytelling tradition with the people, the place, and the legends of the islands. In the poetic tale, Jacobsen informed travellers in a way no travel guide could. Beyond the dates, names and places, and beyond the monetary, political and legal customs imported from the Danish Crown, were the beliefs of the fledgling dependency and the lifeblood of their threatened language. With this infused spirit, Jacobsen lured readers from the safety of their homes to the inhospitable islands at the edge of the world.

Legends of creatures that swim in the sea and live in the hills abound in the Faroese tradition of storytelling. Heðin Brú and other notable writers from the mid 20th century wrote in the midst of a modernizing Faroe, fusing folk legend and modern elements into their works. But are the storytelling traditions and legends still incorporated into Faroese literature today? Are the legends still important?

The Seal Woman - a legend retold and explored is a reflection on the spoken language before the written word and the growth of the Faroese literary form. Authors, Enna Garðshorn Mikkelsen and Elsa Heinesen, explore how early islanders experienced the seal woman legend long before modern writers put it to paper in the 19th century. They go on to explain why oral legends and storytelling are still meaningful to the Faroese today.

The Seal Woman is available in print from Sprotin in both English and Faroese.

Faroe - New York Times 'Not to miss in 2015'

The New York Times named the Faroe Islands as one the Places to Go in 2015. Because of the beautiful, unspoiled landscapes? Not exactly. What about the turf-roofed houses and quaint seaside villages straddling steep green hillsides? Not quite. For food? . . .

Cuisines from the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Scotland may have suffered in the past, watching as their great bounty of seafood was shipped to foreign lands. But recently, talented chefs from these countries have been sticking around, making the most of what their homelands have to offer, from both the sea and the land. Scotland is perhaps more well known for this right now. Anthony Bourdain visited Edinburgh, in No Reservations, to prove once and for all that Scotland isn't just haggis, fish and chips, and deep fried Mars Bars.

Nordic cuisine has been in a revival over the past decade and Torshavn is the far-away, misty, isolated hot-spot of this new cuisine. People drawn to the Faroe Islands for their cuisine will be in for a surprise, but hopefully they will get a chance to explore beyond the capital of Torshavn, where the food isn't so new-new-new Nordic. Luckily for them, the Faroes is a synch to get around, and day trips from the bustling capital are plentiful.

Here are a few suggestions to make the most of a trip to the Faroe Islands:

• Keep the umbrella at home and invest in a waterproof jacket with a hood if you don't already have one. In fact, bring waterproof pants and boots, too.
• Don't have expectations of the weather. The mist and fog (and wind!) of the Faroes is part of the experience. It's this subtle give and take of light that provides the Faroes with so much expression. 
• Faroe is easy to get around, especially with a car, but travellers often miss utilizing one the Faroes' greatest offering - the helicopter. Helicopters provide services to some remote islands and settlements. It's surprisingly inexpensive, but book ahead and don't be surprised if the weather doesn't cooperate.
• Take the ferry to Mykines (pronounced Mit-chee-nes), but bring a spare plastic bag. This route travels across open sea, which means big waves and seasick passengers lining up to throw-up in the bathrooms...if they can make it. This is one of the best islands to visit, but if you can't handle the boat ride back, take the helicopter. 
• If you have one hike in you, go to the lighthouse at the northern tip of Kalsoy. This will bring you into the mountainous Northern Islands (Norðoyggjar). Take the short ferry from Klaksvik to Kalsoy, then drive below some of the most beautiful mountains Faroe has to offer, in and out of five narrow tunnels, before arriving at a red gate at the foot of a mountain. The hike to the lighthouse, Kallur, provides sweeping views of four of the Faroes most mountainous islands, including a view of the steep cliff, Enniberg on Viðoy, and Slættaratindur on Eysturoy.
  

Reading in Faroese

It was only a few weeks after purchasing our tickets to Iceland sometime in June that we decided to add flights to Faroe. We couldn't resist, and thought, how could we be so close and not go? And, if life treats us well, we are hoping to visit the islands again next summer.

With school and life, it's been difficult to find the time to pick up the language, but the return to my favourite island nation this past summer rekindled that interest. I purchased a few books and an audio book during our visit to help me get in the spirit. I'm moving away from learning conversational Faroese and am focusing on reading literature. There is something about attempting to translate a short story. You learn so much about syntax, word usage and you get to see first hand how the language abounds with idiomatic expressions. It does take time, but I do it in the evenings now and I actually find it relaxing after a long day. I like learning conversational Faroese, but when I'm already studying for school, I need something a little more, well, like a puzzle and less like a lesson.

For those who enjoy this method of learning the language, Sprotin publishes the Faroese version of the "Old Man and His Sons", by Heðin Brú. Both paper, cd and electronic versions are available and the English version is readily available from Amazon or Book Depository. It is the only Faroese book that has all English, Faroese and audio versions available that I am aware of, but it is a little daunting due to its length, despite being a short novel. Other English translations of literature written in the Faroese language are not easily available, but you may be able to locate the rare "Faroese Short Stories" from the Library of Scandinavian Literature, published by Twayne Pub. and The American-Scandinavian Foundation. Even if you are not learning the language this way, it's a great book to bring you back to a favourite place that also gives you a peek into the development of earlier Faroese literature.

The Faroese short stories are filled with the landscape that I enjoy so much. Heðin Brú delivers some of the best and are among my personal favourites. From reading the handful of his stories available to me, I couldn't resist purchasing the newly published collection of his stories, despite being illiterate in Faroese. The collection of short stories stands as a monument to my time in Faroe this past summer, spending time on Sandoy, the island of his birth, and the long discussions of language, politics and literature with our bus driver who also happened to be a descendent from the poet Janus Djuurhus!

For now, I use a story written by Heðin Brú that I found in Lockwood's "Introduction to Modern Faroese". "Krossvatn" has no English translation, but that almost works to an advantage. It takes time, but the slow process allows you to soak in the grammar naturally. I'm still trying to make sense of the first paragraph, but I know the story is about a lake which is more of a pond, but despite its small stature, has something about it that's bigger than life -- or maybe it's deathly still but something is alive. Lockwood's text does a good job of providing some of the idiomatic expressions in the glossary.

Return to Iceland (and a retrospective)

Orginally Published in June

We have just purchased two return tickets to Reykjavik for late August. Unfortunately, Faroe will remain the faraway islands during this trip. We decided to save Faroe for another year when we have more time. Our trip was squeezed down to two weeks in part to take advantage of lower flight tickets in September and also because of work and school. Our time in Iceland will actually be digging in to my first week of school, well aware of where my priorities stand. Since our trip last year through Denmark, Faroe and Iceland, we have contemplated the idea of our unfinished business in these lands. Iceland loomed in my mind greatly. The aborted Laugavegurin trek with the added climb up between the glaciers on Eyjafjellajokull and back down to the coast had seemed too much a missed opportunity.

August-September 2012: a recollection of events leading to the aborted trek

The sleepless nights of travel from the flight to Denmark and the trains and buses across Denmark to the ferry terminal were wearing us down. When we boarded the ferry and entered our cabin, we didn't last long before crashing on the bed. We awoke late that evening, missing the departure from mainland and stepping out to the faint and distant lights of the seaside towns Norway's jagged coast. On the last night of our two day sailing, we awoke hours before dawn to watch the lighthouses on Nolsoy appear far in the distance and to witness the silhouette of Faroe's mountains slowly approaching from the sea.

Disembarking the ferry, we were excited but still worn down. We had no regularity to our sleep. On that early morning, we had no precise plans. We had familiarized ourselves with Faroe enough but were feeling weighed down by packs, damp air, and poor sleep. We were chilled too, having made the decision to dress one layer lower and purchase Faroese sweaters on our arrival. We decided to take the first available bus and set off for Klaksvik and the northern islands with their tall and steep mountains. We slept in our tent through two days of heavy wind and rain before setting out to find sweaters. 

In the following days, we took advantage of the weather and headed to the peaks and saddles of the Faroese mountains. On one day, setting out by helicopter to Fugloy, the weather gradually worsened and the wind picked up, whipping up the rain, leaving us to find refuge after an aborted attempt to pass the mountain road into the islands only other village. That day, we were nearly stranded on the isolated island of Fugloy in a gale, as the post boat and ferry approached the jetty, before deciding against the landing and setting off back to Hvannasund, without us. We were lucky enough to be let in by two Islanders for tea to wait the storm out in hopes for a second attempt at a successful landing in the evening by the postal boat, Ritvan. That evening, the seas and skies calmed, and beyond the cliffs and fog off Svinoy, we watched the ship emerge and gradually approach, as waves crashed over the jetty. Ritvan managed a landing and we jumped onto the rolling ship to head back to the larger islands and our base camp in Klaksvik. 

The day of our time in Faroe, we packed up the tent in morning dew and travelled back to Torshavn for the ferry to Iceland. With an approaching hurricane, we sailed hurriedly across the North Atlantic. The ship rolled in the storm throughout the night, our drinks, books, and papers on the night table sliding onto the floor. As we slept, I held on to Jane and wedged my feet between the mattress and frame of the bed to prevent us from sliding off the bed. That morning, we awoke in silence, the boat was still; we were docked in Seyðisfjorður. With wobbly legs, we disembarked the ship and left the customs terminal gripping each other in the fierce wind. 

The wind soon died off as our taxi climbed the mountains towards the airport. The flights that morning were cancelled, but resumed in the afternoon, and we took off and landed safely in Reykjavik. The sun came out late as we made our way to the Reykjavik camp ground. Our intentions were to camp the following night in Hveragerði and make our way to Landmannalaugar by bus and hike the Laugavegurin, but we both knew that we were too wiped out. Our bags were packed with our base camp tent and while only 3.5 kg we were still overburdened. Our packs were lighter than average, but the sleepless nights, wind and rain were getting the best of us. To make our way out of Reykjavik and on to Hveragerði, we took a Golden Circle tour and requested to be dropped off in the town. The rain was steady the entire day and many on the tour were unprepared, wearing jeans, and sneakers with light cotton sweaters and carrying umbrellas. I admit, we this plan worked to our advantage, we made the best of that rainy day.

Our gear had been put to the test on this trip and performed well, but we needed a good nights sleep. In the town of Hveragerði, we decided against camping and booked a room at a guest house. We organized ourselves. We bought food, cleaned our tent and laid it out to dry, repacked and tested our pack weight. We decided to ditch our planned hike and instead travel to Thorsmork to set up camp and do day hikes through the area.

Thorsmork is a spectacular place, a rare birch-wood forest nestled under the north side Eyjafjallajokull and Goðaland. The hiking trails lead in all directions to the glacial tongues of Myrðalsjokull and Eyjafjallajokull, north towards the interior and the steaming Landmannalaugar, through deep canyons, across ridges, onto plateaus, and up the steep cone shaped mountain of Rjupnafell. The weather during the days were sunny and warm, and we relaxed and hiked as we pleased. Although Thorsmork was a last ditch effort to get into the interior, it was well worth it, but we hastily purchased our return tickets for a few days later than we had packed food. As the days passed, the quality of out food was running thin.

The temperatures were dropping in those final days. Nights inside the tent were dropping into the negatives, and we awoke to snow on the nearby mountains. Not an unusual site, especially in mid September, but our bodies were unsatisfied and we were getting fatigued and cold, uncomfortable and in poor spirits. Jane was too cold to step out in the middle of the night to watch her long desired dream of finally seeing the northern lights. I was getting ill. We wouldn't make use of our time here anymore, either by hiking or otherwise enjoying ourselves. We needed to pack up and wait for the return bus to Reykjavik. We decided to leave Thorsmork a day early.

We had overextended ourselves on this trip. We had planned to not plan, attempting to do as we please. I wanted to get away from schedules and truly wander. In that style of travel, you have to expect things will not go perfectly, but it's better than planning the perfect trip only to realize that plans get in the way of true adventure. We enjoyed making decisions as we went, but what kept us back were our packs. We were well set up for base camp, but not for wandering. To be prepared for anything, it's just as important to be fast and light; to be able to pack up and go without a heavy burden wherever you wish. In this mentality, everything you bring goes with you everywhere. You don't leave a pack behind to explore, forced to return that evening to reclaim your possessions.

Iceland and Faroe can get the better of anyone and travellers should learn to enjoy having days off, being cold and windblown. There is nothing unusual with being in low spirits in these areas. But there has to be some underlying appreciation of it; knowing and understanding what went wrong. Our trip in August will be a return to that mentality, but we can be better prepared. Our packs are now half the weight, a base weight of less than 4kg each, including a slightly heavier, well stuffed and well designed two person sleeping bag (see note below); smaller, lighter, and more versatile packs; and the equipment we learned to love on our wet and windy trips: our boots, waterproofs, and Icebreaker...everything. Our modified Mountain Hardwear tent. No stove, no pots, no bowls no cups.

Finding Faroese Paths

A Cicerone walking guide may be in the works. It's hard to find specific details, but travel writer and photographer Rudolf Abraham has a Faroe guidebook in the works. The guide will published by Cicerone and (we hope) can be expected sometime in 2016.

Rudolf travelled to the Faroe Islands in April of last year and is planning another trip sometime this year. He has photos of his travels posted on his website, so be sure to take a look at them too. And I'll be looking forward to this publication especially, as Cicerone is an indispensable source of information for hiking and trekking all over the world. A guide like this will be well worth the investment and anyone who has hiked on a Faroese path (gøta) will be looking for one singular piece of information from them...where does the path begin?

These paths originated from travel between the villages, often to visit church or for supplies in a neighbouring settlement (bygd). Since the development of the road and tunnel system, and the changing needs of the Faroese people, many of the paths have lost their significance and use. A lot of the paths have faded, and while the cairns remain, the beginning of some of these paths are unmarked. Finding the paths often requires a bit of help from the local Faroese, and with that help often comes some (often vital) information to what the path entails and if the weather is suitable.

On a side note, I think this may be the most important feature for travellers to Faroe to understand: sometimes: you need to ask. A lot of us are used to seeing a large sign for groceries, or a rest stop, a café, but in many of the villages in Faroe and for some lucky travellers, that rest stop and café often becomes a villagers home, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Jane and I were lucky enough to find just this as we became temporarily stranded on Fugloy during a storm.

Where Everything Begins

To these cliffs

To these rocks in the great ocean

The world is anchored,

Here is the place 

Where everything begins

And where everything returns in the end.

Gunnar Hoydal

Nothing but the North Sea

I'm looking at a map of Scotland and... here we are. It's fairly easy to spot the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry lines linking the islands to the each other and the mainland with all these dotted lines criss-crossing each other. When I first visited Scotland nearly a decade ago I fell in love with this form of transportation. My sister took us to the Isle of Arran on the large CalMac ferry and to Cumbrae on a much smaller but no less impressive boat. Both were so exciting that I set out to become better acquainted with travel at sea.

Studying this very same map I hold in my hands now, I could see so many possibilities… too many. We can even go from one place to the other and another, like this: Ardrossan to Brodick on Arran, to Kintyre to Islay to Colonsay and back to mainland, and so on, till you're at the top in the Highlands. From Ardrossan to Arran was about an hour by sea. Now, some of these are much further away, like the ferry lines to the Outer Hebrides. Searching the CalMac website, they could take up to 3 hours. Three hours at sea. that's no short time. A three hour ferry ride would be incredible.

Looking back at my map, I shift my thoughts to Scotland's eastern coast and begin following a dotted line from Aberdeen. This line must be at least five times the length of any of the routes in the western isles. And as it turned out, the ferry from Aberdeen ends up in Lerwick, the largest town in the Shetlands, and was an overnight trip of about 12 hours. Overnight on a ferry. In the middle of the sea. My mind was turned on. Now, 12 hours on a boat is not like on any other form of transportation. If the boat was anything like Arran's Caledonian Isles, your not cramped like you are on a bus, train or plane.

Travelling by ferry may be the only form of transportation where you can walk outside as it's moving along, right to the railings and look down below. You can go to the front of the boat and to the back, left and right. You can also have a cabin or berth. On a boat, you're more inclined to keep an eye out for land ahead, and when spotted, you're glued to the deck in all manner of wind and rain and weather, awaiting the landing. You're excited but also saddened that the journey couldn't go on. Travelling by ferry is really the one of the few ways to give a proper farewell to the places you visited too, as you can stand on deck and watch the islands, towns and villages you spent days or weeks or even months becoming acquainted with gradually recede into the distance. And so you resolve to make a life out of travelling between islands. And with this, I'm reminded of how Jane and I came to our trip, how I came to know about the Faroe Islands, and how they sparked my imagination like no other place on earth could.

A lot of time was spent studying the island groups and ferry networks of Shetland and Orkney. I imagined sleeping in these places and being surrounded by miles of dark sea. Shetland is about 100 kilometers northeast of mainland Scotland and I could think, if I were on these islands, I would really be there and no where else. There is the treeless landscape too, where the true shape of the landscape reveals itself, with rolling hills, jagged coastal cliffs and sharp sea stacks. But on the map my mind drifted along this one dotted line...

There is something about being led by a dotted line into what seems like the edge of the world, into sea and darkness. Did the line lead to a remote island like St. Kilda? I couldn't imagine the destination being very large in size or hospitable. It couldn't be... and it couldn't be too far north and yet, it was off the map... what could i make of this dotted line with the strange looking name of Tórshavn?-- it doesn't look or sound Scottish. I couldn't imagine thinking of anything above the Shetlands. To me, they seemed like the edge of the world... What and where is this Tórshavn? . . .

Depending on the map available, the line leads you northwest of Sheltand from Lerwick. I wasn't wrong in thinking that the Shetlands are the northernmost inhabited islands of Scotland. So then, what was Tórshavn?

Land ho! Shetland ahead!

It's important to understand why we seek out learning a new language, where that inspiration comes from, and how learning the language and culture becomes a passion. We should never forget where this enthusiasm comes from. We should always return to it in the end.

The poem above was found in the book 'The Faroe Islands' by Liv Kjørsvik Schei and Gunnie Moberg and can be purchased online from Solberg. Gunnar Hoydal is a Faroese writer and architect living in Tórshavn today. 

The Wind and Faroese Travel Guides

Strúkur í vindi!

James Proctor and Bradt Travel Guides will be releasing the third edition of their Faroe Islands guidebook sometime in May of 2013.

In Faroe, there is the land, but truly experiencing the land comes at the expense of another feature of Faroese distinction: the weather. And as one traveller soon found out, if you don't like weather, and I mean quickly changing, variable weather of all types, then you may not be able to appreciate Faroese landscape, or its people, or your idea that travelling to Faroe would be a joyous gallop with the sheep through heather covered glens. Luckily for us, Proctor's guide gives us some very useful translations of weather related terms (page 20). So when the gusts of wind are battering you, at least you can call them what they are, instead of the common expletive that spill out of tourists's mouths. And maybe my Faroese is poor, but when I'm trying to yell out to Jane in a gale (skrið) 'damn these hvirlur are strong,' it'll sound Faroese enough to us. Remember your etiquette though, since it's not proper to talk with your mouth full...or just very difficult when Faroe is filling it with wind.

Our trip to Faroe last September culminated with a particularly windy time...windier than usual. It was Jane's idea that camping with a tent would be a good idea and, to her credit, it was. If you enjoy a little bit of unpredictability, like whether you'll wake up in puddle of water or in a tent at all, then by all means, bring a tent. It does help if you have a well-suited tent, and a well placed tent... and a tent that is guyed down properly. An anemometer is also a fun tool to test the wind speeds. The video below shows our first day in the campground just outside of Klaksvík. The highest winds we measured were just below 30 meters per second, which is just over 100 kilometer per hour.

I don't recall there being a Faroese word for tent, but it might be synonymous with the word for "travelling fool". Regardless, if you like a challenge, go camping in the shoulder seasons, which is basically anytime of the year. Faroe and its weather requires a little patience, or a little more than a little. Jane and I were stuck in this tent for well over 24 hours. So when my friends ask sarcastically ''why didn't you get the 'big one'?'' we can think to ourselves what it would be like to ride out a storm in a small shrivelled up plastic bag. All that patience and waiting out storms is for afternoons like these:

Thanks for reading, takk fyri og farvæl!

Eg oyggjar veit - I know some islands

Eg oyggjar veit, sum hava fjøll 
og grøna lìð,
og taktar eru tær við mjøll 
um vetratìð,
og àir renna vakrar har 
og fossa nògv,
tær vilja allar skunda sær 
ì blàan sjogv
Gud signi mìtt føðiland Føroyar

This is the first verse of the song Eg Oyggjar Veit, written by Frìðrikur Petersen. The audio track of this verse can be heard, along with all other tracks from the textbook "Faroese: A Language Course for Beginners" on the Stiðin website (Stiðin is a Faroese publisher).

The verse sums up the Faroe Islands almost too well, although there is much more to the Faroe's than the steep mountains and cascading rivers described in it. Yet, it's likely to be this image that holds our imagination best. There are six verses to this song but I have yet to find a complete translation of it. Maybe the rest of the song adequately describes the other beautiful aspects of the Faroes, like life, the birds, the fog and clouds, the wind and sea... okay, it was written some time in the 19th century and we know much has changed since then, and though the nature remains, I don't imagine the song reflects on the network of tunnels that wind through the mountains and under the sea, and the modern network of paved roads that has begun to replace the village paths. Well, I can think of these as I experienced them last summer, or as I've known about them for some time before that, thinking in wonderment about these islands and their mountains and the roads that keep the Faroese people connected. Only later did I learn about the ferry and helicopter connections between the remote villages, and later about the language that has connected the Faroese people for so long. And I only need to recall 'I know some islands' to be connected to the wealth of thoughts, images and feelings that I now have of this place.