Ponies Of Mykillengi
Lonzo Anderson, il. Adrienne Adams
1966, Charles Scribner's Sons

After the long winter, a spring thaw brings new life to the Icelandic farm Mykillengi. Rauf and Egli take their ponies out for a ride in the warming air, and become trapped when an earthquake opens a cracks in the earth between them and home. To make mattes worse, Egli's pony is about to foal.

A picture book with warm, soft paintings of shaggy Icelandic ponies and their children struggling across a dark, snowy plain to find home. Lovely, simply illustrations and an exciting plot.

The ponies, coated with winter fur, have a shelter open to the south, closed off from the cold north wind. There they wait out the winter storms, munching the dried fish-heads the children have given them because the last of the hay is gone

Fish heads!

Another in a long list of books where the boy is of course the leader and there is a strict gender split with boys riding geldings and girls riding mares. And this simultaneously graphic and rosy picture of the mare's feelings about foaling - It is like the beating of her heart, but much stronger, slower - deeply exciting and satisfying - is a bit much.

Ponies
Hekla - grey Icelandic pony with white mane and tail (name means 'volcano')
Jokull - red roan Icelandic pony (name means 'glacier')