#do i dare tag this with the characters? with a heart of steel clamber onto the overturned keel i fucken guess

[historia-vitae-magistras]

what sort of relationship does Iceland have with Canada & America? From wiki it tells me that Canada’s the big destination, but it’s paltry to the number of Katya’s people. I also think America was among the first to recognize Icelandic independence after one of the world wars? So, just what are those relationships like? if there even are relationships.

Okay, so to prelude this, I was very very interested in medieval Scandinavia and had an extremely cringy phase of being a practitioner of Scandinavian reconstructions of Norse Paganism and most of my knowledge comes from the Icelandic Saga's or Íslendingasögur and other related interests I carried before it became even more tightly linked with neo-nazism and other absolutely disgusting racist tendencies as was especially relevant to me in Canada and the US but elsewhere as well. So my knowledge does lean into their world before Alfred even exists. Also, I have only minimally interacted with the side of the fandom of the Scandinavians so I'm not overly familiar with what takes are out there so if I contradict fandom or anything else, I didn't mean to. That said, lets go a-viking to Vinland I fucken guess.

With Matt, I'd say there's some importance with the Icelandic immigration. For example, skyr as a dairy product was available and known to Canadians and made in Canada for generations before it was in the US. There's tons of Icelandic-Canadians in Winnipeg/Manitoba. There's also a lot of awareness of Iceland and its ties to Vinland/L'Anse aux Meadows. Also the odd headline about Iceland using Canada's currency when the banking issues went bad. Egill has probably seen the dual nature of Matt as Arthur's favourite knife and his more subdued version. So, barring further research into the Canadian occupation of 1940-1941 I think there's a level of trust there? Certainly familiarity. A random fun-fact is how heavily the initial Norwegian settlers just blazed through the existing trees on Iceland. I can see Egill with distant memories of the sacred ash tree Mímameiðr or Yggdrasill putting a hand out to the great Canadian old growths with a bit of reverence. He might quote the saga's to Matt and Alfred. Ber er hver að baki nema sér bróður eigi. Your back is vulnerable without a brother. Quite literally for both of them.

As for Alfred and Egill, Iceland is important in a way that far outsizes its population or immigration. It's geo-thermal capacities means its the cheapest and most secure data centre in the western world. The same location that brought Iceland into the Scandinavian world a thousand years ago is the same one that makes it invaluable to NATO and more generally to North American and North Atlantic security. Egill can do whatever the fuck he wants, including not having a functional military beyond a 200-odd person civilian coast guard and Alfred can't say shit. My step mom is 2nd gen and her parents have a very very mixed opinion of the US. They admire it, enjoy our hardworking culture and open friendliness in contrast to how closed off Íslendingar themselves are. They both remember the controversy about being in NATO. So I think Egill would recognize dark things in Alfred even as much as they enjoy each other's company. Egill would roll his eyes when Alfred asks yet again about elves but Alfred, a child of the witch-years might seriously give him pause when he asks about Egill's fylgjur. I can see them being fond of each other. I do think there is something of an uneasy relationship there. The great superpower and the valuable and respected but still tiny island country it's dependent on. Also their relationships with Arthur and Sigurd might be a point of commonality. The colony who broke free and became an empire and the colony who was born a commonwealth and then retaken into Norwegian and later Danish and Swedish monarchy would make for a very interesting duo.