Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and the Reykjanes Peninsula before descending on the Vestmannaeyjar in 1627. The de-
fenceless population attempted to hide in Heimaey's cliffs and caves, but the pirates ran-
sacked the island, killing indiscriminately and loading 242 people onto their ships. The un-
fortunate Icelanders were taken to Algiers, where most were sold into slavery. Back home,
money was scrimped and saved as ransom, and eventually 13 of the captives were freed.
The most famous was Guðríður Símonardóttir, who returned to Iceland and married
Hallgrímur Pétursson, one of Iceland's most famous poets - the three bells in Hallgrím-
skirkja are named after the couple and their daughter.
During the same period, Europe's witch-hunting craze reached Icelandic shores.
Icelandic witches turned out mostly to be men - of the 130 cases that appear in the court
annals, only 10% involve women. The luckiest defendants were brutally flogged; 21 of the
unluckiest were burned at the stake, mostly for making their neighbours sick or for pos-
sessing magical writing or suspicious-looking amulets.
It may have been the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, but it's a wonder any Icelanders
survived the 18th century. In this remote outpost in the North Atlantic, the population (all
of 50,000) was holding on for dear life, in the face of a powerful smallpox epidemic
(which arrived in 1707 and killed an estimated 18,000 people) and a series of volcanic
eruptions: Katla in 1660, 1721 and again in 1755; Hekla in 1693 and 1766; and Öræfa-
jökull in 1727.
And then things got really bad. In 1783 the Laki crater row erupted, spewing out bil-
lions of tonnes of lava and poisonous gas clouds for a full eight months. Fifty farms in the
immediate area were wiped out, and the noxious dust and vapours and consequent Haze
Famine went on to kill around 9000 Icelanders - first the plants died, then the livestock,
then the people. The ash clouds affected the whole of Europe, causing freak weather con-
ditions, including acid rain and floods. Authorities in Denmark seriously contemplated re-
locating the remaining Icelandic population (which numbered only 47,000 in 1801) to
Denmark.
Island on Fire,
by Alexandra Witze and Jeff Kanipe, examines the Laki eruptions - the
cataclysmic event by which Icelanders measure all other volcanic eruptions.
