Iceland review - 2016, Qupperneq 69

ICELAND REVIEW 67
W I T C H H U N T S
with high cheekbones, light on the
foot, sensible in conversation. Among
the most poetic of women”—Margrét
Þórðardóttir, or Galdra-Manga (‘Witch-
Manga’), was another alleged sorceress
who escaped the long arm of the law.
She, too, had lost her father to the
flames: Þórður Guðbrandsson, one of
the three men burnt for witchcraft in
Trékyllisvík in 1654. When proceedings
against her began, Margrét ran away.
In 1656, she was declared wanted at
Alþingi, the legal assembly, and the above
description was released. Eventually, the
jury asked that Margrét be shown mercy
but she wasn’t able to rid herself of the
witch stamp. Legend has it that she
used sorcery to kill the minister’s wife
at Staður in Snæfjallaströnd, the West
Fjords—marrying the widower. Taking
justice into their own hands, people in
the parish pulled a bag over Margrét’s
head and drowned her in a waterfall.
However, this story is disputed, as a cen-
sus indicates that Margrét lived to be an
old woman.
Already in 1576, Danish legislation had
revoked the authority of district courts
to sentence people to death on charg-
es of witchcraft. However, in Iceland,
which was under Danish rule, the leg-
islation wasn’t recognized until 1663,
and district commissioners in the West
Fjords continued to have alleged witches
and sorcerers executed by burning until
1683. The last death sentence by burn-
ing, announced at Alþingi in 1689, was
changed to outlawry. One by one, the
flames of the witch craze died out, leav-
ing behind scorched ground and a black
mark on Iceland’s history. u

View of Trékyllisvík, where the 1654 burnings took place, and Reykjaneshyrna mountain.