Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1971, Qupperneq 136

136
ÁRBÓK FORNLEIFAFÉLAGSINS
S UMMARY
Three halberds recently found in Iceland.
In 1965 a ptarmigan shooter happened to find three halberds in a rather inacces-
sible place some 650 metres high in the mountains called Grísatunguf jöll southeast
of the small town of Húsavík in the north of Iceland. The weapons were handed over
to the National Museum of Iceland. They have kept remarkably well, the wooden
shafts no less than the iron heads, although broken to several pieces when íound,
a damage caused by boulders having rolled down upon them. The pieces were
easy to assemble, but a few fragments were missing or could not be found, among
them the best part of one of the shafts.
All three halberds are solid but plain weapons of previously well known shape.
One of them (Fig. 4) is a halberd of the socalled Italian type, not unlikely from
about 1500, the two others (Figs. 5 and 6) of the socalled German or Swiss type,
probably from 1510—1520 and 1520-1530 respectively. Quite obviously they are
of foreign origin, the work of professional weapon-makers, very likely German.
The first-mentioned halberd (Fig. 4) has a maker’s mark, in the form of three
connected dots, hammered into one side of the head.
It is true that these halberds do not add much to our general knowledge about
weapons of this period. But in Iceland, where real armies were unknown, a find
such as this is unique. From contemporary records and pictorial art it is clear,
however, that the Icelanders possessed and no doubt used such weapons, acquired
from abroad. For instance, in the hostilities caused by Bishop Jón Arason’s resistance
against Lutheranism in the period 1540—1550, the peasants must certainly have
carried halberds to a certain extent. But how and why the owner or owners of
these three halberds left them high up in the mountains, apparently in a very
rarely visited locality, will have to remain an unsettled question.