Day 12: Snæfellsnes and Berserkers!

[life_of_glamour]

Today we spent on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, which is capped by a glacier, however we never got to see it as the weather was uncooperative, and in fact at one point the clouds were openly mocking us by descending to practically sea level to prevent our attempts. We saw five glaciers in one day last week so we didn't care. I only had one thing I wanted to see today, but we saved it for the end.

First up, though, a waterfall. You can't have a day in Iceland without one!


Then, we did some wandering in a lava field old enough to be covered with moss, and there was a chapel there but we didn't go in because, dude, I've seen enough European churches to last me the rest of my life. And I'm seriously sad that Catholicism had to go and ruin the perfectly good pantheistic system they had going here before. So no churches for you, at least not from me.

We had lunch on a patio of a little cafe overlooking a sea cave echoing with hoardes of sea birds, it was a glorious noise.



After lunch we took a hike out to some towering columns of basalt, across large lava flagstones. Have I mentioned this whole country is made of lava? It is a volcano-chaser heaven. And both cathyn and I, who are both something of amateur immature geologists, are loving it.



Now I'm going to tell you a little bit of Icelandic vocabulary we picked up last week at the Whale Museum in Husavik: Hvalreki. Hvalreki originally meant "beached whale" but over time, because of what a beached whale meant to a poor, starving village that found it, the word came to mean a windfall or bit of unexpected luck or fortune. This is still in use as an idiomatic expression, I believe. We saw this sign that we saw as we drove around the tip of the peninsula today:



We didn't follow the sign though. I don't need to see any dead animals.

Finally we made it to the only thing I really wanted to see on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula:

Berserkjahraun, the "Berserker Lava Fields". Here's the (extremely abridged and summarized) story: In the late 10th Century, according to the Eyrbyggja Saga, a guy brought a couple of berserkers over from Norway. He found he couldn't handle them so he gave them to his brother who lived at the next farm over, across the lava fields. One of them fell in love with the brother's daughter and asked to marry her. The brother told him that he would agree if the berserkers cleared a path through the lava field for him. They did the task in record time, but the brother reneged on the deal and killed them both, leaving their bodies in a gully in the lava field. According to Frommers, "The story could indeed have some basis in truth. A path through the lava field can still be found, and in a late-19th-century excavation alongside it, researchers uncovered the skeletons of two men -- both of average height but powerfully built. The trail extends about 1km (1/2 mile) through the lava field, and halfway along is the hollow, now marked only by a stone cairn and a blank, weather-beaten sign."

I wanted to go to the Berserkers Lava Field and walk that path, so we did. In the middle of this picture you can see the stone cairn and weatherbeaten sign.



We walked the full length of the trail to the end:



That story really resonated with me and I wanted to walk the trail and see the Berserker Lava Field myself. A little piece of a Saga for real.