Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2005, Page 12

Torfi Tulinius
interior of the peninsula. From here,
there are short and comparatively low
mountain passes over to the south coast.
ísaijarðardjúp, simply called ísafjörður in
the Middle Ages, is by far the deepest,
widest and longest of these fjords. It
reaches right into the heart of the penin-
sula. The farm of Vatnsfjörður, for sever-
al centuries one of, if not the major
power centre of the region is, not surpris-
ingly, almost exactly at the centre of the
triangle. ísafjarðardjúp is an excellent
channel for communications with all of
the fjords and bays that open into it.
There are also mountain passes over to
most of the other parts of the Wcstfjords
peninsula, giving it access to other
regions of the country as well as to the
different resources available in the area.
These resources are quite vari-
ous. The region is mountainous and
therefore farmland is comparatively
scarce. However, there is good grazing in
the fjord valleys and several of them have
extensive flatlands where it is possible to
grow hay to feed livestock during the
winter months. Not surprisingly, power
bases usually developed around areas
such as these, for example the ecclesias-
tical benefícium of Holt in Önundar-
fjörður, the Reykjanes peninsula and
Rauðisandur on the south coast,
Hrafnseyri and Selárdalur in Arnar-
fjörður, Mýrar and Núpur in Dýraijörður
and, of course, Vatnsijörður. However,
the raising of livestock, a dominant activ-
ity in many parts of Iceland, is not the
only - and probably not the main -
resource of the Westijords area.
Driftwood has already been
mentioned. Whales seem also to have
made a difference, since beaching of
whales, especially in the Strandir and
Homstrandir area was a common occur-
rence. There is also evidence of whaling
activities in the area. Fishing is, however,
the most interesting of the resources of
the Westfjords, because its changing role
through the centuries has been a driving
force behind economic and social change,
not only in the region but possibly in the
country as a whole.
If we move now to the history of
the Westijords, we see that it is docu-
mented in varied sources which are to
some extent quite rich. Conceming the
earliest period, we have to rely on the
same material as most other regions of
Iceland, i.e. Landnámabók, the twelfth
century account of how Iceland was
settled, now only preserved in thirteenth
and fourteenth century versions.
Landnámabók devotes quite a lot of
space to the area. The compilers of this
history of the settlement of Iceland
seemed to have had at their disposal a
significant amount of knowledge about
the settlers of each part of the peninsula.
Sometimes it is just a name and a list of
descendants, occasionally reaching all
the way down to people living at the time
of writing, in the thirteenth or early four-
teenth century. Often, however, there is
information about where the settlers
came from, as well as a few anecdotes,
sometimes quite substantial, conceming
settlers or their immediate descendants.
This information is of course to be taken
with reasonable suspicion, since several
centuries elapsed between the actual set-
tlement and the composition of
Landnámabók. It is perhaps wiser to con-
sider the book as a snapshot of oral tradi-
tion conceming the settlement seven to
ten generations after it took place.
Though information such as this is
inevitably modified by oral transmission,
it gives an image of what should have
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