Jökull - 01.01.2021, Page 78

Gísladóttir et al.
The herders knew the area very well and had often
been herding there either on foot or horseback. The
annual sheep roundup took place according to a tra-
ditional plan, with the first roundup for this season
completed three weeks earlier (personal communica-
tion, Þórarinn Eggersson, 13 August 2020). On 10
October, the three areas of Merkigil, Axlir and Sand-
fell were herded to Atlaey (Figure 3).
In the evening the herders went with their horses
to the shepherd hut near the river Hólmsá (Figure 3)
where they spent the night. On 11 October, the four
areas of Brytalækir, Háfjöll, Utanundir and Öldufell
were herded, on foot and horseback. By the end of
the day all sheep were rounded and kept overnight be-
tween Hólmsá and Leirá rivers. The sheep herders
again stayed overnight with their horses at the shep-
herd hut near Atlaey.
It was a mild autumn day on 12 October 1918, and
the sky was clear except for a greyish mist shroud-
ing the Mýrdalsjökull ice cap, hiding it from view.
The herders left Atlaey together and herded the flock
south of the river Leirá. There the men separated: one
group herded the sheep onwards to the Fossarétt sort-
ing pens, while the other went off to round up sheep
on the mountain Rjúpnafell. The Rjúpnafell group
split in two, one group going west of the mountain to
the pastures closest to Mýrdalsjökull, while the other
went east of Rjúpnafell and worked the pastures to the
east and south. Two men herded the so called Sandar
(Figure 3) east of Rjúpnafell and the remaining group
herded on the outwash plain area further to the east.
The roundup went well, and by around 3pm on 12
October, the herders and sorters were in various loca-
tions on the outwash plain in the Upphagar pastures
between Rjúpnafell and the Skálm river, the northern
part of Selhólmur and just south of Hrísneshólmur.
Then, events unfolded rapidly. On Selhólmur, the
men had taken a short break, and from one hillock
there was a view to the west. One herder, Vilhjálmur
Bjarnason from Herjólfsstaðir, noticed a commotion
in the west and realised that an eruption had begun
in Katla. Vilhjálmur (Bjarnason 1985, pages 159–
160) described what he saw: “I looked across the area
around us and over towards the waterfall Hrúthálsa-
foss (Figure 4). Although it was now some distance
away, its sound reached us quite loudly, fluctuating
with the wind. [I thought] [n]othing interesting about
that, it was just the waterfall. But the waterfall was
tricking my ears now. Of course, the sound of the
flood had begun to merge with the noise of the wa-
terfall, although we did not realise it. I looked further
along the Hrútháls ridge, where the southernmost tip
reached the outwash plain as a series of quite high
sandy knolls that I knew well. But now I sensed a
change there, something unexpected. A bank of fog
was moving across, caused by the outburst flood of
course, so that visibility was not good at this distance.
I can hardly believe my eyes. Inside the fog every-
thing seems to be in motion. What on earth is hap-
pening? I wonder. I watched for a while, stunned by
this terrifying sight. The flood that emerged east of
the mountain Hafursey (Figure 3) raced across there
and had barely begun to spread out. So it looked like
a mountain side that hurtled forwards with a shifting
surface on which dark icebergs towered and the flood-
wave sprayed water in all directions, depending on
how the crest of ice rolled forward. Katla! I immedi-
ately thought.”
After experiencing this, the companions hurried
off, one to warn the men herding in the Upphagar
pastures, others towards the sorting pen to warn the
sorters. Bjarnason (1985, page 161) describes the
flood in this area in more detail: “When we first saw
the main flood, I estimated that it was about 5 km
away from us, but on the outwash plain glacial water
was flooding out, filling the Skálm [river] and several
of its tributaries. This pre-flood, as you might call
it, didn’t carry any ice to slow its progress, and was
much closer than the main flood which rolled a mass
of ice ahead of it, including towering icebergs. When
we noticed this pre-flood, which was scarily close, it
was obvious that it was more than enough to make the
Skálm impassable once it reached its main course.”
The sheep sorters were now becoming concerned.
They had heard a strange hum and thudding that
seemed to come from Mýrdalsjökull. One of the
sorters, Sigurður Jónsson from Þykkvabæjarklaustur
in Álftaver, rode along the Ljósavatnaháls ridge (Fig-
ure 4), which commanded a good view of the sheep-
sorting pen towards the northwest, and there he met
76 JÖKULL No. 71, 2021