In his popular travel poem “Á Sprengisandi” (“On Sprengisandur”, 1877) the Icelandic poet and literary scholar Grímur Thomsen guides his readers – or singing companions – in three short verses into a world which is concurrently familiar and exotic, static and in motion. There he describes a long journey of horse riders on a mountain road which traverses the rugged and barren Icelandic central highlands, encountering well-known terrain; vast deserts, glacier-covered peaks, formidable lava fields, and deep gorges. And as the poet renders objective and realistic snapshots of this uninhabitable and terrifying landscape, he lets the reader inside the mind of one of the travelers who anxiously watches the sun set behind the mountains and dusk move over the glaciers, and there is still a long way to a safe resting place, though the horses...
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Citation: Óskarsson, Þórir. "Grímur Thomsen". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 March 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=15008, accessed 12 September 2026.]
