The Icelandic horse and its home

Once out of Reykjavik and the lava fields, there are horses basically everywhere you look.

I felt like I was driving through Rohan as it is depicted in the film The Lord of the Rings. The horses grazed on the yellow grass on the flat plains, sometimes broken by ridges and large rocks, or small hills. Behind it all the blue mountains capped with white snow rose with majesty.

Horses

The plains

Driving through Rohan yet in Iceland

Rohan was shot in New Zealand. It's interesting how similar the landscape is.

Although the landscape is similar to Rohan, the horses are not like those in the book or film. The book says, "Their horses were of great stature, strong and clean-limbed; their grey coats glistened, their long tails flowed in the wind, their, manes were braided on their proud necks." -The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien 

The Icelandic horse is a short animal (extra shaggy in my photos because it is winter). Foreign horses are not allowed to enter the country and once an Icelandic horse leaves the country it can never return, so all horses on the island are purebred Icelandic horses.

The horses are generally friendly too. Whenever they saw us nearing the fences, a few of them would come over to it and let you pet them. Also, they seem to be kept in groups. I don't remember seeing a lone horse in a pen.

Coming to say hello

Grass

Shaggy coat

Iceland is my home

All photos are my own. Please give all photo credit to Edana A.