Iceland review - 2016, Page 61

ICELAND REVIEW 59
HISTORY
THE WIND BLOWS HIGH
In 1252, King Haakon sent Gissur and
two others of his courtiers, Þorgils skarði
Böðvarsson and Finnbjörn Helgason,
to Iceland, to continue Þórður’s task.
Gissur moved to Flugumýri in
Skagafjörður. Attempting a rec-
onciliation, Gissur and Sturla
Þórðarson had their chil-
dren, Hallur Gissurarson
and Ingibjörg
Sturludóttir, wed at
Flugumýri in 1253.
The night after the
wedding, October 22,
the men of Þórður
kakali, who was in
Norway, set the farm
on fire. Gissur’s wife,
their three sons and
many others, 25 in
all, died in the arson.
Gissur himself sur-
vived by hiding in a
barrel of whey. Bishop
Heinrekur pardoned the
arsonists and sent Gissur
to Norway.
In the meantime, the
Icelanders carried on with mur-
ders until most of the arsonists
and all of the king’s courtiers, apart
from Gissur, had been killed. Gissur
returned to Iceland in 1254, and in 1258
King Haakon made him Earl of Iceland.
In turn, Gissur was to claim territories
for the king. In 1261, the king’s agent
Hallvarður gullskór arrived in the coun-
try. It turned out that Gissur hadn’t been
true to the cause. Hallvarður, however,
succeeded in making Icelanders pledge
their allegiance to the Norwegian king,
and the following year, the Old Covenant
was made.
At last, peace had come to the war-torn
land. The Age of the Sturlungs was over,
as was Iceland’s self-rule. Independence
wouldn’t be fully reclaimed until 1944,
almost 700 years later. *
SOURCES:
* Kjartansson, Helgi Skúli. ‘Ísland og “Evrópusamruni” miðalda’ in Andvari,
issue 117, 1992, p. 149-162.
Sturlunga Saga. Volume I – The Saga of Hvamm-Sturla and the Saga of the
Icelanders. Translated from the Old Icelandic by Julia H. McGrew. Twayne
Publishers, Inc., New York, and The American-Scandinavian Foundation,
1970-1974.
Þorsteinsson, Björn. Íslensk miðaldasaga. Sögufélag. Reykjavík, 1978, p. 153-176.
The ruling chieftains fought for power
during the Age of the Sturlungs.