38 | Iceland as reflector

How five days in Iceland showed me Finland instead.

Author

Samantha Garner
June 15, 2025

Deadmedia shares monthly peeks behind the scenes, writing updates, and creativity thoughts from SF/F author Samantha Garner. Learn more here.

Hi everyone,

I had plans for Iceland. Plans for myself. I envisioned the dramatic photos I’d take of myself against an ethereal setting. I felt open to writing inspiration from such a mystical and literary land, and packed my laptop accordingly. I anticipated the need to heal (writing rejections still sting no matter how long I’m at it), and thought there would be no better place to do it.

My husband and I were there for just under a week. We ate and saw and experienced all of the things that were most important to us. Yet I didn’t take dramatic self-portraits. I didn’t receive mystical inspiration. I didn’t heal. In fact, something about the place stirred up silt I’d long thought settled within me. I’m still dealing with the effects of Iceland-as-metaphorical-mirror, so I have nothing profound to say about it at the moment. Instead, I want to share with you an excerpt from the souvenir I bought for myself, a 1977 book called “Elves, Trolls and Elemental Beings: Icelandic Folktales II.”

The Lagarfljot Serpent

In ancient times a certain woman lived at a farm in the Herad by the great inland water Lagarfijot. This woman had a grown-up daughter, to whom she gave a golden ring.

"How should I have the most profit of this gold, mother of mine?" asked the girl.

"Put it under a snake," answered the woman.

The girl then found a snake and put the golden ring under it in her linen-box.

The snake lay there for several days. But when the girl went next to the linen-box, the snake had grown so big that the sides of the box were bursting apart. The girl was frightened at this, and she took the box and threw it with all its contents into the lake.

Years now went by, and people became aware of the serpent in the lake. It now began to kill both men and beasts that tried to cross the water. Sometimes, too, it would reach up the shore and spew out fearful venom. The people of the neighbourhood were greatly troubled by this affliction, and at their wits' end to find a remedy. Finally two Finns were brought there. They were to kill the serpent and get the gold.

The Finns dived into the lake, but soon came up again. They said that this was something beyond their power and they could neither kill the serpent nor get the gold. They said, too, that there was another serpent underneath the gold, and it was much worse than the first. After this, they bound the serpent with two ropes, one behind the head and the other before the tail. The serpent could now kill neither man nor beast, though it would sometimes arch its back, and when this happens it is always taken to be a portent of disaster, such as a bad year or fallure of the hay-crop.

Those who do not believe in the serpent say that this is mere superstition, and they claim to have evidence of a certain pastor who, not very long ago, rowed right across the lake over the place where the serpent is supposed to be, in order to prove thereby that there is none.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Finns appear in this story! Iceland was the first non-Finnish Nordic country I've ever visited, and while I knew it would be different to Finland I can't deny that I went there with certain hopes in my heart. Some of these hopes were satisfied by food: good dark rye, fish, potatoes, dill, open-faced sandwiches on crispbread, cinnamon buns that aren't fucked up with icing. But overall I felt the difference between the two countries, despite the many Nordic similarities in culture and style. I felt too far from my history, my ancestors. Whenever I heard Finnish tourists nearby I stared at them longingly, which of course is a very un-Finnish thing to do.

I brought my mummu's vintage Kalevala Koru brooch with me, the one that looks like a hubcap, and I wore it pinned to my overshirt sometimes while in Iceland. I wanted to mark myself out as same-but-different. I doubt people know what it represents, but to me it felt important. I resolved to wear it more often back at home, recalling how good it felt to wear it pinned to my coat all winter. Maybe I’ll even buy more. And ironically, in Viking World I bought a small art book about Akseli Gallen-Kallela, a Finnish painter who created some stunning art based on the Kalevala, along with other work that helped build an image of Finnishness when it was under Russian rule, after centuries of Swedish rule.

It felt fitting to buy a book like that in a museum focused on Viking achievement and Scandinavian culture (and Icelandic too, don’t worry). Vikings never really bothered much with Finland. And technically speaking, Finns are not Scandinavian. Twist the Branch is inspired by Finland's desire for its own voice despite imposed Scandinavian influence, so to see a piece of pre-independence Finnish identity shining there in that little art book, in that place, was quite validating.

I asked Jay to take this photo of me which, while not the Dramatic Iceland photo I’d thought I’d take, actually feels more like me.

I want to hear from you!

Thanks for reading Deadmedia today. I’d love to hear what you thought—leave me a comment or hit reply to send me an email!

Talk soon,
-Sg.

Thanks for being here! Subscribers get monthly updates & support my work.

Reply

or to participate.