Icelandic traditions and information about FAS

Þorrablót: Find your nearest lamb heads and pickled testicles! - Iceland MonitorÞorrinn is a period of time with a few different days and traditions. But the food on Þorrinn is very interesting, we have pickled ram balls, sheep heads, sour shark meat and slátur which is mixed sheep intestines’, blood and fat.

Þorrinn starts between 19th – 26th January every year. Þorrinn is a period of time with a few different days and traditions. First day of Þorrinn is called Bóndadagur which has been known since the middle of the 19th century.  Þorrinn ends on a Saturday which is called Þorraþræll.​ It is a tradition in each town in Iceland to do a show that is about the people in the town and it is called Þorrablót. People in the Þorrablót usually eat food which is called þorramatur or þorrafood but the food is very interesting, we have pickled ram balls, sheep heads, sour shark meat and slátur which is mixed sheep intestens, blood and fat.

Bóndadagur is one of the days in Þorrinn where the housewife welcomes the Þorri, the night before. The housewife’s took care of their husbands for an example, made them good food and took care of them and the household. It has also always been a tradition in Bóndadagur where men would run around their town with few to  no clothes on.

Sprengidagur is on some day beetween 3rd of february to the 9th of mars. In the old days the farm workers had to eat as much as they could of salted meat and bean soup on sprengidagur because they wouldn´t get anything else to eat until easter. Bolludagur is 7 weeks before easter so they had to fill their gut until then.

Bolludagur people eat buns (or bollur) with whipped cream, jam, chocolate, caramel and many more things. ​People made a bouquet and hit each other with the bouquet on the bum. Especially kids, but some older folks still have the humor. Sprengidagur, bolludagur an öskudagur are all part of langafasta or longfasting. Langafasta begins on Ash Wednesday, Wednesday of the 7th week before Easter.

Ættarmót is a very large family gathering. People meet their relatives and play games and get to know each other. Usually the family or kin decide to meet every two years, less or more.

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In Iceland we have 13 santa clauses or exactly translated, Christmas lads. The Christmas lads have a quality, like we have one Christmas lad called hurðaskellir or doorslammer. The Christmas lads have a mom called Grýla who is very scary and parents told their kids that if they wouldn´t be nice on christmas Grýla would come to town and take them. Grýla has a husband called leppalúði which is translated exactly to eyepad looser.  There is also a Christmas cat and his purpose was to eat kids that didn´t get new Christmas clothes.

All of the highschool graduates get together in costumes and spent all day together in teams were they play pranks and score games. Then they end the day with partying.

FAS was established in 1987 and had their housing in Nesjahverfi which is about 7 minutes from Höfn where we live. But the school moved from Nesin to central town Höfn in 2002. The house is called Nýheimar and it has a library, some offices and our classrooms. We also have a study earia. In FAS we have 7 phases that you can choose from. One of those Phases is mountain eering class where people learn everything about mountains and nature from rock climbing to glacier walking. We are the only secondary school with this option of studies.

Written by Dagmar and Júlíana

Presentation about Icelandic traditions and about FAS