A viking great country ! ICELAND IS TOO COOL
ENGLAND take on Iceland in football’s Nations League tonight – but how much do you actually know about this fascinating island nation?
Gareth Southgate’s men will be seeking revenge on the team which booted them out of Euro 2016. So while you get ready for tonight’s clash in the capital Reykjavik, check out NADINE LINGE’S super- cool Iceland facts…
Famous for glaciers and 20 active volcanoes, Iceland is known as the Land Of Fire And Ice, and lies between Greenland and the UK. It is a three- hour flight away from Britain.
The Vikings were the first to settle in Iceland in 870. The nation became independent of Denmark in 1918 and it also has one of the oldest parliaments in the world, established in 930AD. More than 60% of openminded Icelandic people believe in elves – just like Rachel Mcadams’ character Sigrit in Netflix’s recent Eurovision Song Contest hit film.
They are believed to be peaceful creatures that coexist alongside humans and sometimes lend a helping hand.
But beware the Yule Grýla – a monstrous ogress who comes down from the mountain around Christmas to kidnap and eat naughty children. Her 13 sons the Yule Lads, with names including Meat Hook, Window Peeper and Doorway Sniffer, also devour misbehaving kids. Reykjavik has a museum all about willies. The Icelandic Phallological Museum is the world’s largest collection of penises and penile objects, with more than 300 including those of animals and sculptures of the manhoods of Iceland’s Olympic silver medal- winning handball team. Museum chiefs have long been after their first human penis to display and in 2011 obtained one from a donor who had died. But the detachment didn’t
SETTLERS: Viking go to plan and it was reduced to a greyish- brown shrivelled mess which was put in a pickling jar. They continue their search for a “younger, bigger and better” one. Along with munching whale meat and raw puffin heart, Icelanders also enjoy hakarl – a dish of rotten shark meat. It’s buried six weeks before being eaten. Pickled ram’s testicles are also popular.
It is the only Nato country without an army, navy or air force. The Icelandic flag’s colours are blue for mountains, red for fire and lava, and white for ice and snow.
Iceland has had two female prime ministers. The first, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, was the first openly lesbian head of government and the second, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, is currently in power.
Icelandic babies
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outside to nap in are left freezing temperatures. It is thought the practice dates back to when Icelanders lived inside stoneandgrass huts, which were often smoky and stuffy.
March 1 is celebrated as Beer Day in Iceland, marking the date in 1989 when the nation’s ban on brews, introduced in 1915, was finally lifted. In 2010, the nation also banned strip clubs.
It is the only country in the world not to have mosquitoes. No- one is exactly sure why but one theory is temperatures rise and drop so rapidly in Iceland the pests cannot successfully complete their life cycles. Famous Icelandic stars include quirky singer Björk, who wore a swan dress to the Oscars in 2001, the band Sigur Rós, ex- Chelsea star Eidur Gudjohnsen and Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, aka The Mountain in Game of Thrones.