Did Icelanders really consider abandoning their country in the 18th century?

[Heraclitus]

Well?

[Dry]

I went to Iceland some 10 years ago and I didn't hear about that.

but I made some google search and it seems indeed that some major volcano erupted around 1780.

From a blog:

Iceland is of volcanic origin. It’s a large blob of magma welling out of the slowly widening rift between the North Atlantic and the European continental plates. And that’s not just history – they have active volcanos right now. The last period of significant activity was in the 1970s-80s; a new island popped up off the coast of Iceland in the 60s as a result of an underwater volcanic eruption. The last major eruption in the 1780s killed 80% of the sheep in the country, and ashes wrecked agriculture all across the land. Famine reduced the population to 38,000 and according to my book, Denmark actually considered evacuating all survivors, effectively abandoning the country.

Seems it was not the Icelanders who consider abandoning their country, but the Danes who consider evacuating the survivors.

From another site about the Icelandic horse:

In the 12th century, the weather in Iceland took a turn for the worse and became much colder, then deteriorated again considerably in the 18th century. As time passed, the breed adapted to the conditions and became smaller (archeological excavations show that the earlier horses were larger), with less surface area exposed to the weather and therefore shorter legs and necks. The Icelandic horse developed a dense, greasy winter coat with long guard hairs that could shed the rain and deflect the wind, and a yellow fat dispersed throughout the muscles that stored carotene so that the horse could survive on wilted winter grass that was deficient in Vitamin A. The breed also acquired an amazing ability to store fat for the winter (not always an advantage in Texas!) and is capable of remaining outside in winter in Iceland, when the cattle and sheep must be housed.

During 1783-1784, a major volcanic eruption took place, resulting in a period of severe atmospheric pollution and causing the deaths of about 75% of the Icelandic horses due to a lack of food and to fluorine poisoning. The horse population dropped from an estimated 36,000 to only 8,600. It took almost 200 years for the numbers to rebound from this devastating natural disaster. Eruptions are still occurring in Iceland — I trail rode through an area that had experienced one a few years before, and the ground was covered a foot deep with what appeared to be coffee grounds, but was actually volcanic soil.

[MOBIUS]

As Dry says...

Iceland is an awesome country full of fascinating history and sagas.

Another cool thing about the horses is the way they stand in a long line to shelter each other from the icy winds. When we were there in Spring, there were quite bad northerlies and the temp was as low as -40 Celsius if you factored in the wind chill! Nice to drive in with all the snow being blown off the hills...!