In that strange island Iceland, — burst up, the geologists say, by fire from the bottom of the sea; a wild land of barrenness and lava; swallowed many months of every year in black tempests, yet with a wild gleaming beauty in summertime; towering up there, stern and grim, in the North Ocean with its snow jokuls, roaring geysers, sulphur-pools and horrid volcanic chasms, like the waste chaotic battle-field of Frost and Fire; — where of all places we least looked for Literature or written memorials, the record of these things was written down.

Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Lecture (1840-05-05), “The Hero as Divinity,” Home House, Portman Square, London
    (Source)

Speaking of the Eddas (e.g.).

The lecture notes were collected by Carlyle into On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History, Lecture 1, (1841).