The Arctic fox is the only mammal native to the island. Without many natural predators, birds such as the puffin have fared well. (RAFN HAFNJORD / ICELANDIC TOURIST BOARD)

Icelanders do not break the horses until the animals have had about five years to frolic. Bryndis Einarsdottir, an Ishestar expert, explains, "And that is another feature about the Icelandic horse--it's independent. We don't like to break it too much. We don't like to mold it." She says that this is because they want each horse to have its own personality so it will be able to think on its own, a necessity in Iceland's harsh environment. She agrees that this is typical of Icelanders in general. "We enjoy our independence," she says brightly. "We don't wish to be told too much what to do."
       
This attitude comes across in all aspects of Icelandic society. In an article about the burgeoning Reykjav’k music scene, Neil Strauss quotes Arni Mattiason, an Icelandic music journalist, discussing the appreciation of individuality in that art form. "Each band is a scene in itself--and it' because each band tries to be distinct because they don't want to sound like their neighbor." This fervent feeling of both individual and national independence comes from the long fight for political autonomy. While under foreign rule, Iceland developed some of its strongest and most distinctive qualities and policies. It looked to its unique possessions as symbols of patriotism. "When we were under the Danes," Bryndis says, "we admired the horse because it kept its independence when we couldn't. That's why it became such a symbol."

 The independent Icelanders Independence is easily recognized in Icelanders' devotion to both the art of language and their own language, an almost unchanged version of Old Norse. A purist movement, still in fashion though it originated in the nineteenth century, bars borrowing words from any other language and advocates giving children only typical names. Any new terms for concepts or technologies are created using native elements. The word for computer is therefore made from the words for "counting" and "machine." Children must also be given names that are typically Icelandic, although one of my guides, Helgi, explains that names do go in and out of fashion. Despite the high degree of English fluency and proliferation of colloquialisms, Icelandic has remained so consistent that schoolchildren can read the high literature of the Middle Ages without difficulty.