Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.12.2019, Page 10

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10 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • December 1 2019
Dr. Jósep Skaftason (1802-1875) practiced
medicine in Húnavatnssýsla and
Skagafjarðarsýsla from 1837 until 1856, when
he was appointed district physician for the region, a
position he held for the remainder of his life. Born
at Skeggjastaðir on Langanesströnd, he graduated
from the school at Bessastaðir in 1827 and worked
as the secretary for Sheriff Björn Blöndal until he
left travelled to Copenhagen to study medicine at the
Royal Surgical College in 1831. (As Sheriff Björn’s
secretary, he would have been the court clerk at
the famous trial of Agnes Magnúsdóttir and Friðrik
Sigurðsson in 1830.) He returned to the district
upon his graduation in 1837, married Anna Margrét
Björnsdóttir, the daughter of one of his patrons, Björn
Olsen, and settled at Hnausar in Vatnsdalur. He was
elected to Alþingi in 1852, but the regional governor
barred him from attending the assembly unless he
could recruit a substitute physician in his absence,
so Jósep never took his seat, finally resigning from
Alþingi in 1857.
Four of Jósep’s and Anna’s twelve children
lived to adulthood, two of whom immigrated to
Canada – Björn Stefán Skaptason and Rev. Magnús
J. Skaptason – and they have many descendants in
North America, including their great-granddaughter,
Johanna Wilson, who recently celebrated her 100th
birthday. The community of Hnausa in Manitoba
takes its name from Dr. Jósep’s farmstead in Iceland.
On August 3, 1871, the British poet and novelist
William Morris (1834-1896), who was the most
influential figure in the Arts and Crafts movement,
stayed at Hnausar with Dr. Jósep and his family
while travelling in Iceland with Charles Faulkner,
W.H. Evans, and Eiríkur Magnússon. This is William
Morris’s diary entry from that day. (Morris’s spelling
of Icelandic names and his peculiar punctuation have
been left intact.)
Thursday, August 3rd.
In Dr. Skaptason’s house at Hnausar.
Up rather earlier on a cold grey morning, but not
rainy as yet. I must say I should not have objected to
another day’s idling but on we must: so got away about
10 a.m. the bonder’s son going with us to show us the
way and to point out the historical steads: I bought two
old silver spoons at starting from the kind old goody.
Young Thorstein, the son, was a bright eager fellow &
very well mounted, and the whole stead looked well-
doing.
We were all in very good spirits as we rode off
down the valley, a great flat space between two high
steep mountain-ridges with no break in them, and a
clear river winding down it toward the sea, with only
a little surrounding of shingle, in some places none at
all, for there are no glaciers in this part of the North.
The valley is not clear and smooth however, for knolls
rise up in it that in places run up into spurs that join
the lower slopes of the mountain wall. The hero and
“landnáms-man” of the vale is Ingimund the Old and
most of the steads Thorstein shows us have reference to
him; at the first we come to Ás [where] lived Hrolleifr,
the rascal he protected, and who slew him; it lies under
two little knolls with a pretty tún about it; under the
turf wall of which grow great banks of wild hearts-
ease for as cold as the weather is; we cross the river
after this, and come upon a shut-in nook among the
knolls, the second dwelling-place of Hrolleifr and the
witch Liot his mother: just before this Thorstein points
out a sandy spit running into the river which is the
traditional place of the deadly wounding of Ingimund:
past the aforesaid shut-in nook we turn round a corner
and come upon Ingimund’s own stead lying on a wide
slope of green.
As Thorstein leads us up the road toward the stead
he shows us how it is raised above the meadow instead
of being sunk below it as is usual, and infers from that
the antiquity of the stead; higher up than the house a
low knoll rises from the slope, and this he calls the site
of Ingimund’s temple which names the whole stead
(Hof). Thence we ride on along the slopes till we come
to where a great buttress of bare basalt cliff thrusts
forward from the mountain wall: on the slopes beneath
this lies a handsome stead called Hvammr, where we
make a call, and have the inevitable coffee and brandy:
and then depart into the rain which has just come on
again but not heavily: the call at Hof and Hvammr has
taken us up very close to the mountains, we now ride
down a little way nearer to the river, and see many
steads on the other side; for the valley is populous and
prosperous as indeed it always has been: tradition says
too that it was once so well wooded, that standing in
the middle you couldn’t see the hillsides for the trees:
we saw no wood at all here though there are some
patches marked in the map on the west side.
A little past Hvammr Thorstein brings us to a place
where there is a sudden deep little dell quite round
like an inverted cone sunk in the slope-side, and tell
us that hereby fairs like our “mops” used to be held,
and that the lads and lasses used to dance in this dell
at these fairs: Midsummer-night I think being the time:
the grass grows sweet and deep down it, and it looks a
pleasant place enough to get out of the wind to enjoy
oneself in. Now the buttresses have all sunk back into
the great hills the crests of which rise higher as we
get nearer the sea: down in the valley is a lake said
to be made by a great slip from the hills, as I suppose
it was, for little sand-knolls dot its shores: there is a
traditional tale about this slip of a raven drawing the
girl who used to feed him away from the danger one
Sunday morning: it is told in Magnússon's book.
We go down into the valley a little more now, and
presently come to a big fine-looking tún with a gate
to it of some pretensions in Icelandic architecture,
so – and Thorstein tells us it is Dr. Skaptason’s and
accordingly riding out of it we are presently in front of
the house, a smart newbuilt one; he is at the door in
a twinkling and seems very glad to see us and all is
arranged for our stay that night. I suppose it was about
half past three by now, as our ride had been but a short
one. The rain cleared off somewhat now, so I went out
to see to my gun and look about me: there is a little tarn
in the mead at the back of the house, from the shore of
which the first slopes of the hills arise: I stood looking
at the hills and wondering at how much bigger they
look here than I thought at first they were: our horses,
now feeding on a green slope, some third of the way
up seem little bits of specks: a long way above them
the sheep feed on the slopes of the steps that make the
mountain, and its crest is all hidden in white clouds,
those very clouds we came through the other day from
Búðará: below the clouds is a goodish sprinkling of
snow all along the eastern hill-sides of the valley.
The air was quite full of sea-swallows sweeping
about: I stood and watched them some while, and
thought the whole place beautiful in spite of the
ungenial day: then too we were come close to the
northern sea, and to our turning point: all away from
William Morris visits Dr. Skaptason at Hnausar
Hnausar in Vatnsdalur
PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
William Morris
PHOTO: ALTHINGI.IS
Dr. Jósep Skaftason