Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.2000, Page 214

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ARBOK FORNLEIFAFELAGSINS
Summary
On the shore of the lake Laugarvatn, in Arnessýsla, South Iceland, there is a small sub-
rectangular pool or basin. It measures 1,72 by 1,85 m and is 0,76 m deep with the water
standing at 0,5 m.The basin is built of stone, with large stones in the bottom and smaller
ones making up the sides. It is built on a small spring where warm water bubbles up, but
more warrn water is led to the basin through an artificial channel from a larger hot
spring further up the slope.The basin has in recent decades been known as „Vígðalaug"
or the „consecrated warm bath“ and has been identified with a warm pool called Reykja-
laug in the 13th century chronicle Kristni saga. Kristni saga deals with the conversion to
Christianity and relates how the men of the Northern and Southern quarters stopped by
this bath to be baptised in warm water after having accepted Christianity at the general
assembly in Þingvellir in the year 1000. The basin has also been connected to another
seminal event in the history of the Icelandic Church, as the corpses of Bishop Jón Arason
and his sons, who had been executed in Skálholt in 1550 for opposing the introduction
of Lutheranism, are supposed to have been washed in it when they were being taken
home to burial.
These traditions are however all recent and it seems that the basin only acquired its
name and reputation in the 1930s when an enthusiast excavated and repaired it so that it
could be used for bathing. A minor excavation of one side of the basin in 1999 described
in this paper revealed that the basin retains its original form and has not been radically al-
tered, as had been suspected. The excavation failed to fmd any evidence to date the ori-
ginal construction of the basin. The earliest mention of it is from 1840 but it could be
considerably older. In the late 19th century the water in the basin was considered to have
healing powers by the people living at the nearby farmstead of Laugarvatn.
The basin is a fme example of warm water bathing pools in Iceland, one of only a
handful that have survived to modern times. FoIIowing the excavation in 1999 the basin
was repaired and made accessible to the public.