When thinking of Iceland, two specific types of ice come to mind: the ice that is formed on the many glaciers in the country, and the sea ice that is brought to the coasts by winds and ocean currents. Because of space constraints in this volume, the discussion here will focus entirely on the phenomenon of sea ice. This paper is not concerned with ice as a scientific phenomenon, but with the image of sea ice as presented in a variety of different narrative genres concerning Iceland. However, a few words of elucidation will set the stage for the discussion. Ice on the sea is formed in two main ways. Either by being broken off in the form of ice bergs from calving glaciers, or else it may form directly on the surface of the sea as frozen seawater. Most of the ice reaching Iceland is of the latter kind, and arrives by way of the East Greenland current. It is the northern, northwestern, and eastern coasts of Iceland which are most frequently affected, and, in the past, it occurred most often in the winter and spring seasons. It is an infrequent visitor in the present climate.