Iceland review - 2016, Page 66

Trékyllisvík, Strandir region, fall
1652. The remote communi-
ty’s inhabitants have gathered
in the small Árneskirkja church to lis-
ten to the Lord’s words. Suddenly, up
to 12 women—mostly virgins—start to
“scream, gasp, foam and panic” so that
the sermon must be paused until they’ve
been carried out of the church. Annals
state that the community is plagued by
When the flames of the European witch craze were
dying down, persecutions reached their height in
Iceland. Twenty-five people were burned at the stake
on charges of witchcraft and ‘devilish practices’
in the country, primarily in the 17th century.
an evil spirit or a ghost, which enters
through peoples’ mouths, causing them
to belch and “feel overfilled” to the
point of bursting. The situation per-
sists until Þorleifur Kortsson, who had
recently taken over as district commis-
sioner of part of the West Fjords, arrives
in Trékyllisvík in the spring of 1654 to
investigate. Þorleifur holds three local
farmers, Þórður Guðbrandsson, Egill
REDUCED TO
ASHES
Bjarnason and Grímur Jónsson, responsi-
ble, convicts them as sorcerers and burns
them at the stake.
WILDFIRE
The 1654 burnings in Trékyllisvík mark
a turning point in the persecution of sor-
cerers in Iceland. While the first burning
took place in 1343—when the church
BY EYGLÓ SVALA ARNARSDÓTTIR.
ILLUSTRATION BY FREYDÍS KRISTJÁNSDÓTTIR.
PHOTO BY PÁLL STEFÁNSSON.
64 ICELAND REVIEW