Iceland review - 2015, Qupperneq 41

ICELAND REVIEW 39
Hámundur were twins. If not, they at least looked the same.
Hámundur is the heir while Geirmundur is used to strengthen
relations,” he muses. Then the dice were cast. “When Haraldur
Fairhair takes over Norway everything changes.” The man who
wanted to be the mightiest of all kings closed the transport
route to Bjarmaland and drove his opponents away. The broth-
ers migrated to Ireland—where Geirmundur acquired the lab-
orers he needed at a slave market—and from there to Iceland,
albeit to different regions.
UNEARTHING THE EVIDENCE
“I never would have written this book if it hadn’t been for
genetic research,” Bergsveinn reveals. To support his theory of
Geirmundur’s origin, he references Agnar Helgason’s research
of the Icelandic gene pool at deCODE genetic biopharmaceut-
ical company and the discovery of a special mutation in the hap-
logroup Z1a by Dr. Peter Forster at Cambridge, which confirms
the nation’s part Mongolian ancestry. This is still apparent in
some Icelanders today, Bergsveinn points out, such as in musi-
cian Björk, who has an Asian look in spite of being ethnically
Icelandic. “We see it in Björk because she’s famous but many
more people have the Mongolian [epicanthic] eye fold. I have a
long list by now, especially of people living in the Borgarfjörður
and Breiðafjörður area.”
Bergsveinn is hoping archaeological research will further
back his theory. Near Skarð, Geirmundur’s head farm in
Breiðafjörður, is a cairn of the unusual name Illþurrka. In
Icelandic, it could mean something like ‘poor drought,’ but the
area is very dry so that doesn’t make sense. Some sources state
that Illþurrka was the name of Geirmundur’s first wife from
Bjarmaland. “The cairn isn’t located in a spot were cairns would
usually be. The stones have been piled at a later date but under-
neath is a circle of older flagstones, each of which weighs 20-30
kilos.” Testing has determined that the stones had to be carried
quite a distance; they originate from a location many kilometers
away. “In Russia they have a DNA database of all the indigenous
people. Hopefully Russian archaeologists would be interested
in analyzing the human remains which might exist under the
cairn.” Geirmundur himself is likely buried under the church at
Skarð, Bergsveinn concludes.
Bergsveinn doesn’t hold a grudge against the saga authors’
selective documentation. “Every nation has its history, which
might not be strictly true in every aspect. It’s called ‘myth of
origin’ or ‘myth of nation.’ Geirmundur doesn’t fit that image
and there were others too. I don’t blame those who documented
history, their position was understandable. But now it’s time to
tell Geirmundur’s story,” he declares. “I’m almost finished with
a novel in old Norse, which will be published in Iceland next
autumn, before the other book. It’s the saga which was never
written—or perhaps it was written but lost in time.” *
HISTORY
All sources agree that Geirmundur
was “black and ugly.” While
‘black’ isn’t always to be taken
literally ... Bergsveinn believes in
this case it should. “One doesn’t
make up nicknames,” he argues.
“Heljarskinn means ‘black skin.’”