Saga - 1974, Page 76

68
HÖRÐUR ÁGÚSTSSON
Summary — Bishop Brynjólfur’s stove room
Measurements of farm-houses are very rare in Icelandic
sources from earlier times, and especially rare are measurements
of wall construction. The author has found one source, a valuation
dated 1659, which describes the measurements of farm buildings at
Vatnsenda-Grund in Skorradalur in the West of Iceland. The mea-
surements are shown on pp. 18—19. Diagrams 1 and 4 (pp. 20, 35)
show the arrangement to be as follows: In the main bulding the door
is at the front, with the hall (sk&li) to the left and the living room
(stofa) to the right. Behind the hall is the bedroom (sængurhús),
behind the living a pantry (búr). Above and at the back was an-
other living room (baðstofa){ and adjoining that the stove room (ón-
stofa). To the west of the hall and notj far away are the kitchen
(eldliús)j, the smithy (smiðja), and the drying shed (hjallur). A
chapel is situated in front of the buildings. The arrangement of the
buildings is similar to that generally found before the gable house
(burstabær) period.
The author then goes on to describe what else he has found con-
cerning ónstofa in other valuations and documents from earlier
centuries. Tables II—-VI on pages 37—41 show which farms con-
tained ónstofa, according to sources from the 15th to the 19th
century. The use of ónstofa clearly varies from one part of the
country to another; they decreased in the 18th century and dis-
appeared after 1800. Maps I—IV show both those farm buildings
which appear in valuations and those buildings which contain stove
rooms in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The ónstofa seems to have been built adjoining baðstofa and were
small, usually only about 2 metres wide and with a simple pitched
roof construction. The author shows that the stove was constructed
primitively of stone blocks with an opening at the front. There are
similar stoves still to be seen in old bathing rooms in Norway,
Sweden and Finland, and their remains are to be found in the sites
of Nordic settlers in Greenland (see plate VI) and in Icelandic
ruins from the Middle Ages (diagram 10, 11). Water was splashed
on the hot stones. The main fuel was probably Icelandic birch.
Map V shows farms that had nearby woods suitable for fuel after
1700, and Table VII shows the number of those farms in each
county (there are no sources from the East and South-east). Table
VIII shows the number of ónstofa in each county. There is clearly
a direct relationship between woods and the occurrence of ónstofa.