The Development and Role of the Fjallkona (Mountain Woman) in Icelandic National Day Celebrations and Other Contexts

Abstract

In this paper, I will be examining an Icelandic invented tradition that has come to play a central role in Icelandic National Day ceremonies at home and abroad. Part of the movement to “create” Icelandic culture in the late nineteenth century, the figure of the “Mountain Woman” dressed in Icelandic national costume, who nowadays gives a speech every year on the Icelandic National Day (17th June), has her origin in 19th century romantic poetry as an image for Iceland (comparable to England’s Brittania and France’s Liberté). However, in visual terms, she took shape as an image in the frontispiece of the first English translation of Jón Árnason’s Icelandic Folk Legends, and as a flag-waving elf-woman in Indriði Einarsson’s national drama, New Year’s Eve (end of the 1860s). As time has gone on, this figure has maintained her role in annual National Day ceremonies, but also gained new aspects. For example, when Vigdís Finnbogadóttir became Iceland’s first female president, it is clear
that she, directly or indirectly, played on the image.