What Comes After the "Frá"?
First, a little lesson in Icelandic. Don't worry, it won't be a long lesson beause I don't know much Icelandic!
The Icelandic horse has two parts to its name. For example, I have a horse whose name is Sómi frá Dýrfinnustöðum. First comes the given name, then where the horse is from. Sómi from the farm, Dýrfinnustaðir. Put it together in proper Icelandic grammar and from Dýrfinnustaðir becomes frá Dýfinnustöðum. The accent over "a" in frá causes it to rhyme with "how" and "cow".
It is not just to make life more difficult for foreigners, but Icelanders often use both names when referring to a horse. And even when they don't use it, they know it. It not only clearly identifies the horse, but it gives the farm credit and acknoweldge its role in the breeding.
By now you have probably spent a bit of time at Dýrfinnustaðir with Ingolfur and his five year old daughter, Ingunn, on Hágangur. And you might have guessed that my horse, Sómi, is from that same farm. That is a whole other story that will be told in Hestakaup.com.
Many, if not most, Americans drop that toungue-twister of a name that comes after frá. Understandable. But many don't even know it without looking it up in the papers of ownership. That's really sad because the after-frá is not only where their horse was bred, but also where their horse probably spent the first four or so years of its life and where it started its training. And developed its basic character.
Yes, it had another life before being exported. It was a very important life for that horse.
It is where the very special qualities that made it "Icelandic" took place.
And that is what I would like to show you here.
How Iceland gets into the Icelandic
Come along with me on a video field trip. Literally. To a farm in Northern Iceland. I went to the pastures where Herdis and Indridi keep young horses at their farm, Grafarkot.
The youngsters are moved inside for the harsher months of the winter.
Life in the Barn
We now visit another farm, Homluholt, as Gudny Linda Gisladottir explains what the young horse's life is like in the winter.
Let's go with her into the barn and visit some horses.
About that heating... remember, in Iceland there is abundant geothermal hot water.
At Homluholt, Gudny tells us how they treat the young even when they are in the barn and people are around them.
Life in the herd
After the winter in, it's back outside.
Life in the mountains.
Putting it all together...
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