A trip to Strandir, Iceland (Part 6 / Finale)

In this last chapter about my trip to Strandir I will show you pictures and tell you about my trip to Ingólfsfjörður with the mysterious smell on the shore as well as show you a video-clip of the Icelandic lullaby "Sofðu unga ástin mín" that I sang in the fish oil tank and is linked to the storie of the outlaw Fjalla - Eyvindur whoom lived in Iceland from the year 1714 to 1783.

From the geothermal swimming pool in Krossanes we drove for half an hour or 20 minutes through another dirt track and came into this deserted but beautiful bay Ingólfsfjörður with another crumbled herring factory.

The bay is apr. 8 km long but the storie of the herring factory is similar as the storie in Djúpavik.

They started to process herring in 1919 then stoped and built this factory in the 1930´s. When the herring dissapeard from the bay in 1952 they stoped using the factory.

The property is now a private property and was carefully marked as private and people asked to stay away.
They had put wood over the window gaps but the lower part of the factory that is total ruins is of course open to walk through.
There are a couple of summer houses there and someone is rebuilding one of the old workers hose.

When we arrived there and got out of the car the first thing we noticed was the horrible smell by the beech. Me and my daughter really wondered about it but we had to rech for sticks because of the crazy sterns hovering over us. They can be very aggressive so it´s better to hold a stick on top of your head while walking so the wont pick you in the head. (That is something you learn as a kid in Iceland).

We walked away from the beach and toward the factory and the smell faded away. We then walked through a drive through under the factory and into the old ruins.

It was all rather crumbled down but as I love ruins and old trash I took some photos.

You had to wach your steps though.

They obviously had some kind of trolley train in the herring factory back in the old days.

I had to follow that track to the end of it as it was beautiful to sea the mountain outside through the ruins.

I also like the dryed chalk that once had been running through the old cement.

I loved how the shadows made it´s pattern in the grass and the ruins.

Up in a small hill you could look into the fish oil tank but it had the same kind of hole as in Djúpavík.

I think this tank had even a better sound then the tank in Djúpavík so I recorded while singing this famous Icelandic lullaby "Sofðu unga ástin mín".

That song was used in a a play about the famous outlaw Fjalla Eyvindur but he was born and raised in Steingrímsfjörður on Strandir.

I recorded the first verse of the song sung in fist soprano but added second soprano to it afterwards (just at home) but you can hear the different in sound even though it´s all just my voice. It´s in this youtube link if you want to check it out :)

The storie of Fjallaeyvindur varies a bit but some say that he abandoned his wife with his lover Halla and some say that he was working on a farm and stole a piece of cheese from a traveling lady. The lady put a spell on him, saying to him that he would always be a thief hereafter. Eyvindur later talked to the lady again, apologizing and asking her to take the spell back but she told him she could´t do that. She could only lay another spell on him that said that he would never be cached for his stealing.

He married Halla whom was a widower and had a few Children from her former marriage. One story says that after the couple killed a man working on their farm in Hrafnsfjarðareyri where Halla came from they put fire to the house and fled. But her children got away as they ran to the next farm. What the reson was is reallity is not quite known today but it is known that they were on the run for at least 20 years and lived in the highlands of Iceland stealing food from travelers and shippers.

They lived in caves and holes in the cliffs and beside stealing sheaps and food they hunted birds and various animals to eat. A few times the government cached them and once the were cached in the mountains of Strandir but they always managed to flee again.

The lullaby was connected to them as one story said that Halla and Eyvindur had a few children while on the run but Halla usually got rid of them while new born. One of them a young girl they wanted to keep and could keep her for two years but then the government was on their track and Halla had to throw the child of a cliff or into a waterfall.

The lyric is by Jóhann Sigurjónsson and the song is composed by Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson. It was used in a play about Fjalla Eyvindur and Halla by Jóhann in 1912 and later the play was made into the Swedish film The Outlaw and His Wife, directed by Victor Sjöström.

The lyric goes like this in a rough translation:

Sleep my young love,
while the rain cry´s outside
Mom will keep your golds safe (gold s= childs toy´s)
old bones and your Vala´s box
We shall not be awake in the darkest of night.

(Vala is a anklebone used as toy in the old times and for casting to make a prophet. The childrens toybox was called Völuskrín)

There are two other verses in this song but I only recorded the first one.
The lyrics for the two others goes somewhat like this:

There is a lot known by the darkness
my mind feels heavy
Often have I looked over the black sand
while it burns the green field of land
you can hear the death deep cracks of the glacier howl

Sleep long, sleep tight
it´s best to wake up late
Soon the harchness will tech you
while the daylight dies fast
that the humans love, loose, cry and regret.

(I know I´m not the best translator but this is just for fun).

Fjalla Eyvindur and halla were granted their rights again after 20 years of being outlaws and both of them lived a long life. Halla was suposedly found dead at an old age in the mountains with two rams hooked on their horns around her belt. Some people thought she was going to live int the wilderness for her last days of life.

But on with my travel storie.
After my recording we turned back to the car and again we felt this horrible smell. I realy wondered if there was a rotting horse by the beach like when we went there more than 10 years ago and my son (then at the same age as my daughter now) found the horse head he wasn't aloud to take in the car unless he would cut the rest of the meat and skin of it.
I still have a few old photos of that adventure seen here:

Yes he was a little discusted at times.

But he could also joke about it and pose as crazy horse killer ;)

But that was a detour and we didn´t find any horse head.

While me and my daughter wanted to hurry into the car and drive back to Hólmavík my friends Sóla and Mayra wanted to check out a jeep trail that would go from Ingólfsfjörður in to Ófeigsfjörður where there would be a total dead end of the road. We tried to follow them on the Toyota for a bit but then we turned around as I didn´t wana get stuck.
Then I tried to call my friends to let them know but there was no mobile connection. We could actually see the jeep going further and further on the other side of the bay but weren't able to reach them by phone.

Instead of waiting we just headed back and I tried to call them every 15 minutes but we were a little worried about them. People should never go on a jeep trail in Iceland unless you are driving a real jeep but they were just driving a small Suzuki jeep. But on we went and the weather was beautiful for photographing so I stopped here and there to take a photo.

We even saw three ravens on a cliff by one bech we passed.

I try´d to zoom them up with my phone but the phone camera is not that grate in zooming.

I also stoped for a photo of the old church in Árnes.

And the Reyjaneshyrna was beautifull in the deep blue sky and sea (No filters).

When reaching the road heading to Hólmavík I heard from them. They were going to get dinner at Hotel Djúpavík but we went back to the camping place with our two tired Chihuahuas in the car.

The sun was going a bit down and we had been all day on the road.

All in all we were on the road that day for 8 hours but in beautiful weather surrounded by beautiful landscape so it was well worth it.

.

The sunset was beautiful that night and the day after we headed home to Kopavogur.

P.s.
Yesterday I found an online newsclip from a local website in Árneshreppur. They said that two women living in Ingólfsfjörður during summer had found a bad smelling sea-monster by the beach. Well they think it could be somekind of a whale that has drifted to the shore. That explained the horrible smell we found.

With best regards from Iceland
M.