Human life at Sund # 50423
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Author
—
Location
Reykjavik
Date
1998
Condition
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Binding
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Human life by the Sound. The village, the settlement and the city. Compiled by Þorgrímur Gestsson.
A clatter on soft ground broke the silence that had reigned since the beginning. A group of men rode up from the east and stopped on the highest point of the hill. Gulls fluttered up but quickly sprang up and settled back down, unused to human travel. At the head of the group rode a man and a woman, elegantly dressed. They dismounted and looked over the sedge- and scrub-covered hills and the marshes on the headland that stretched westward into the bay at their feet, toward the setting sun, over the islands in the straits, and to the mountains that turned blue in the north.
Thus we can try to imagine the first Reykjavikers coming down the heath, to their new home in the summer of 877 and stopping at what is now called Ártúnsholt: Ingólfr Arnarson, Hallveigu Fróðadóttir, Helga Arnardóttir, the widow of his foster brother Hjörleif, and their entourage. In calm weather they have seen plumes of steam rising from large pools in one of the marshes on the northern side of the headland, to the west under a low escarpment, and a warm stream that meandered through the marsh to the sea. Ever since then this land has been known by the pools; the marsh furthest from it is called Laugamýri, now Laugardalur, the hollow to the east of it Laugaholt, later Laugarás, and the stream Laugalækur. On the spit east of the cove where Ingólfur built his farm, Laugarnestangi, a farm was already built during the settlement period, which was also named after the pools and named Laugarnes.
A clatter on soft ground broke the silence that had reigned since the beginning. A group of men rode up from the east and stopped on the highest point of the hill. Gulls fluttered up but quickly sprang up and settled back down, unused to human travel. At the head of the group rode a man and a woman, elegantly dressed. They dismounted and looked over the sedge- and scrub-covered hills and the marshes on the headland that stretched westward into the bay at their feet, toward the setting sun, over the islands in the straits, and to the mountains that turned blue in the north.
Thus we can try to imagine the first Reykjavikers coming down the heath, to their new home in the summer of 877 and stopping at what is now called Ártúnsholt: Ingólfr Arnarson, Hallveigu Fróðadóttir, Helga Arnardóttir, the widow of his foster brother Hjörleif, and their entourage. In calm weather they have seen plumes of steam rising from large pools in one of the marshes on the northern side of the headland, to the west under a low escarpment, and a warm stream that meandered through the marsh to the sea. Ever since then this land has been known by the pools; the marsh furthest from it is called Laugamýri, now Laugardalur, the hollow to the east of it Laugaholt, later Laugarás, and the stream Laugalækur. On the spit east of the cove where Ingólfur built his farm, Laugarnestangi, a farm was already built during the settlement period, which was also named after the pools and named Laugarnes.