10 Surprising and Offbeat Facts About Icelandic Society

10 Surprising and Offbeat Facts About Icelandic Society

Iceland, the land of ice and fire, is renowned for its breathtaking volcanoes, giant glaciers, and the mesmerizing Northern Lights. But underlying its staggering natural beauty lies a society that is equally fascinating, rooted in a unique set of customs, beliefs, and social norms that seem strange to outsiders. From ancient elves to a national app for incest prevention, Icelandic society is a blend of deep-seated tradition and hyper-modern progress. Here are ten facts about Icelandic society that sound strange but are perfectly normal on this remote North Atlantic island.

**1. The Invisible Real Estate: The Unseen World of the Huldufólk**

Most strikingly unusual of all, perhaps, is the widespread belief in, or at least acceptance of, the *huldufólk* (hidden people) or elves. Not the small, winged beings of other mythologies, but human-sized people who live in rocks, cliffs, and hills. What's strange is how this belief becomes part of everyday life. It's not uncommon for construction projects to be delayed or rerouted to avoid disrupting known elf habitats. There are even official "elf representatives" who consult with road and building crews. While not every Icelander literally believes in their existence, the majority respect the stories as an important part of their cultural heritage. This is not considered superstition, but a form of environmental respect—a recognition that the land itself possesses a spirit and history that precedes human arrival. Icelanders have maintained, in a country of steel and concrete, a link to their mythological landscape that is tangible.

**2. The Viking Phonebook: The Patronymic Naming System**

Iceland is one of the few countries in the world that still uses a patronymic (and sometimes matronymic) system instead of traditional family surnames. That means that your last name isn't taken from your father, but is instead formed by taking your father's (or mother's) first name and adding "-son" (son) or "-dóttir" (daughter). So, for example, a man named Jón whose father was Pétur would be Jón Pétursson. His sister would be Anna Pétursdóttir. This has several strange but logical repercussions. Firstly, families don't have a single common surname; a husband, wife, and children all bear different surnames. Secondly, the Icelandic telephone directory is indexed by *first name*, not surname. This works to encourage a robust sense of equality and individualism, linking one's identity directly with one's parents rather than some distant ancestral line.

**3. The National Genetic Tinder: The Íslendingabók App**

A population of only around 370,000, descended from a small group of Norse and Celtic settlers, means that Iceland is essentially one big, messy family. This creates a very modern, and somewhat strange, problem: dating. How do you know if that attractive guy or girl you've just met in a Reykjavík bar is a distant cousin? The answer is an app. Icelanders have the *Íslendingabók* (The Book of Icelanders) app, a huge online database that traces the genealogical descent of virtually every Icelander back to the time of settlement. It's jokingly referred to as the "anti-incest app." When things begin to get serious, it's not uncommon for young Icelanders to "app bump"—checking their phones to ensure that they're not too closely related. This odd mix of traditional genealogy and modern technology is an Icelandic solution to an Icelandic problem.

**4. The Crime-Free TV News Spoiler**

In a country with one of the lowest crime rates in the world, the evening news is another matter. The strangeness lies in what *doesn't* happen. On a slow news day, the lead story on the national broadcast will be that someone's wallet was returned or that a new puffin colony was discovered on one of the outer islands. But the truly bizarre aspect is that when a major crime *does* occur, like a peculiar murder, it is a national tragedy. Because of the small and interconnected population, it's highly likely that one knows a friend of the victim or the perpetrator. The newsreaders, who are themselves national celebrities, read such stories with a palpable, gut-wrenching shock and horror, very different from the too-often-detached reporting in larger countries.

**5. The Swimming Pool as Parliament**

Icelanders have a profound and strange relationship with their geothermal swimming pools. A visit to the neighborhood pool (*sundlaug*) is not just about recreation; it's a social lifeline. Politicians, businessmen, artists, and students all meet in the hot pots (*heitir pottar*), the collection of outdoor geothermal pools of various temperatures. It is in the warm, steamy waters that business is done, gossip exchanged, and local issues debated. Stripped of status symbols and professional accessories, Icelanders greet each other as equals. This bathing ritual, which starts in infancy, produces a society with very low social barriers and an embedded sense of trust and informality.

**6. The Christmas Book Flood (Jólabókaflóð)**

In most countries, Christmas Eve might be a time to give any type of gift. In Iceland, the most significant gift is a book. This has come to be known as *Jólabókaflóð*, the "Christmas Book Flood." In the months leading up to Christmas, every household is sent the *Bókatíðindi*, a catalog of every new book published in Iceland. The book industry flourishes during this time of the year, and on Christmas Eve, after having dinner together as a family, they all exchange books and then stay up reading through the night, typically while drinking hot chocolate or a Christmas spirits called *jólabland*. In our age of digital distraction, this countrywide, simultaneous love-in of books is a beautiful and strange anomaly that has kept the passion for physical books and for the Icelandic language amazingly strong.

**7. The Missing McDonald's**

McDonald's arrived in Iceland in 1993. It left in 2009. The 2008 financial crisis, which hit Iceland with apocalyptic force, led to the meltdown of the Icelandic Krona. The franchise owner, unable to import the ingredients at a viable cost, decided to shut down. On the final day, Icelanders lined up for miles to buy their very final available Big Macs. The strange legacy lives on to this day. One of the country's most popular fast-food restaurants, *Metro*, is owned by the former McDonald's franchise holder and sells a burger that is a virtual replica of the Big Mac, often called "the Icelandic Big Mac." The defeat of the global giant is surely a point of national pride, a reassertion of local identity after a period of excessive globalization.

**8. The Prohibition of Beer**

For most of the 20th century, Iceland's affair with alcohol was complicated and odd. While wine and spirits were legal (if heavily taxed and state-controlled), beer with an alcohol content of more than 2.25% was banned outright. The ban, which lasted from 1915 to 1 March 1989, was founded on a growing temperance movement and a belief that beer, being a less expensive and more enjoyable beverage than spirits, would lead to even greater debauchery. The strangeness of this logic was not lost on Icelanders, who would simply mix legal low-alcohol beer with spirits like Brennivín to create a homemade strong beer. The repeal is nowadays commemorated annually as *Bjórdagurinn* (Beer Day), a sort of national holiday when the country happily raises a glass to its right to have a good pint.

**9. A Language Frozen in Time**

The Icelandic language is another sphere of strangeness. It has been so little changed since the Viking Age that modern Icelanders can read the original Sagas, written on calfskin in the 12th and 13th centuries, with relative ease. This linguistic deep-freeze is far from accidental; it is the result of a rigorous and fiercely defended policy of language purity. Instead of adopting foreign words for new concepts, Icelanders create new words from Old Norse roots. For example, a computer is *tölva* (a combination of *tala*, number, and *völva*, prophetess), a podcast is *hlaðvarp* (*hlaða*, download, and *varp*, broadcast), and an SIM card is *símtengiminni* (call-connection-memory). This project keeps the language pure and ties modern Icelanders inextricably to their epic past.

**10. The Teenage Rebellion That Built a Hot Dog Empire**

In a nation that is home to some of the world's most famous New Nordic cuisine, the national dish is incontrovertibly the humble hot dog, or *pylsa*. The story of how it got there is strange and delightful. In the early 20th century, a group of teenage boys who had been impressed by hot dogs in Copenhagen set about building their own sausage machine out of scrap metal. They began selling their lamb-based hot dogs, and their venture quickly expanded into *Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur* ("The Town's Best Hot Dogs"), a Reykjavík hot dog cart. The cart is now an institution in Reykjavík, drawing patrons ranging from construction workers to Bill Clinton, and it has cemented the hot dog as a symbol of Icelandic ingenuity and unconceit.

In conclusion, Icelandic society is an intriguing paradox. It is a country where they read old sagas on their phones, use DNA to date, and where a belief in secret people affects urban planning. These strange and wonderful things are more than eccentricities; they are the building blocks of a society that has so gracefully poised its profound respect for the past with a fearless embracing of the future, and yet managed to hold on to a fierce sense of community amidst some of the most isolated and breathtaking landscapes on earth.