Post: Western Iceland: The story is Snorri, and a walk around Husafell

We are staying in the small town of Reykholt that once was a major landholding of Iceland’s medieval bold face name, Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241).

He had quite a career. He seems to have been the author of Egil’s saga, yesterday’s main character at the Settlement Center. Snorri was extremely well educated on account of being the foster son of a major chief. Like his protagonist, Egil, Snorri was a poet, and his poetry made him popular with at least one of Norway’s major leaders.

Snorri wrote Prose Edda, which is sort of a textbook and also a compilation of Norse gods. He wrote about the Norwegian kings. And he wrote poems.

He had a series of women, not all of them wives, and survived some of his children. With his way with words, he was also a statesman. The statesman part didn’t help him in the end, though, as he somehow angered the then king of Norway by leaving Norway without permission. The king had a posse go after Snorri and he was killed. Sounds like a saga, to me.

And inside of that little church:

After a slow walk around Reykholt (my ankle!) we decided to drive a bit north to Husafell, a mountain resort town.

With my swollen ankle we were not able to do a strenuous hike, but did have a walk through some historical ruins. This too, was the land of Snorri, and his descendent, Rev. Snorri (1711-1803) preserved the church area, and innovated by building sheep folds made of rock. He was the Tom Sawyer of his day, getting the men to move the rocks into position by making the labor a strength contest.

Another innovation in this area was rock borders, an innovative idea by another farmer. This farmer had men move rocks while they waited for their grain to be milled.

We took a less traveled route back to Reykholt, and Iceland’s biggest glacier (Lanjökull) was in view and then in the rear view. It is so big, at first the white snow looks like the horizon.

The route had us off the map for a little while:

We saw maybe two other cars on the way back. Iceland is not a crowded country.

Two plants for today.

Meet Mountain Avens, the national flower of Iceland…found today, in fruit. It has a white flower and is in the rose family. When in fruit we see fuzz like a dandelion, and the seeds are carried away by the wind.

And second, is the Rowan tree:

We came upon these trees in Reykholt near Snorri’s museum. There is one growing, fenced in, on a gravesite near the old church. A birch grows next to it, and you can see them both if you scroll back up (rowan on the left, birch on the right.)

Rowan (mountain ash) has many stories associated in myths of the Norse and Celts. In Norse mythology, the first woman was made from a Rowan tree. It’s been considered a good luck charm, unless you cut it down, and then it will bring bad luck. Interesting that different cultures all found this tree to be special.

It grows well if birch trees are nearby.