Hvammsvík – A place in history
Hvammsvik is mentioned in the Book of Icelandic Settlement (Landnáma) which means that the land has been a human dwelling place for over 1000 years.
Viking settlers and their brawls
The first settler on this land was Thorir, also known as “Hvamm-Þórir” and his farm known as Hvammur. This particular settler had a famous beef with another settler who lived close by. His name was Refur, which literally translates to Fox! Their beef revolved around an old cow called Brynja. The cow went missing and was lost for a very long time. The cow was finally found in a valley close by which is now called Brynjudalur. The valley was part of Refur’s land. Found with the cow were 40 bulls, all her offspring. The cow and bulls had been living wild there the whole time. Obviously the cow belonged to Thorir, but her bulls, said Refur, were his. Needless to say Thorir did not agree since they were the offspring of his cow. The two men went to war with their men. Their fight went along the hills which are now called Thorir’s Hill (Þórishólar) where Thorir and his men lost their lives – all because of a lost cow and her bulls.
Hvammur remained a settlement despite the loss of Thorir. His son, Ormur, is mentioned in another Icelandic Saga, Harðarsaga og Hólmverja. He was then a regional chieftain and his land among the largest in the area.
A later saga, Sturlunga, mentioned Jörundur the Great from Hvammur who also was a chieftain of the region and a leader of men in the Bæjarbardagi battle of 1237. From the Sagas you can tell that Hvammur was among the largest estates in the region.
Once a place of worship
The oldest known documents of a church on the Hvammsvik land are from 1367. This church was dedicated to St. Lucas and its assets were considerable. The church was only a “half-church” meaning it only had masses every other Sunday because it did not have a priest. Documents from 1705 say that it was still a half-church at the time but the church was desecrated in 1765.
Living of the land
Living in Hvammur and Hvammsvík from settlement had its perks but also its downsides. People living on the estate foraged eider-down and hunted seals, collected shellfish and dules (a reddish brown seaweed) for food and caught fish from the sea. They also used peat, dry seaweed and driftwood found on the land for their fires, Hvammsvík was also an excellent place to land boats but considered hard for farming due to the tussocks in the grasslands and steep and rocky hills above. Hvammsvík was also very vulnerable to extreme winter weathers which were said to happen every winter. Additionally, keeping sheep on the land was hard because they were vulnerable to the sea tides.
More recent history
Despite hardships Hvammur and Hvammsvik was a farm until the 1970’s. Not much is known of where the old farmhouses stood although there are some hints as to where some of them were. The houses that still remain on the estate and have now been renovated were built in the 1930’s. The tussocked grasslands were leveled in the beginning of the 20th century to make farming easier but a lot of those fields were destroyed by the British army during the first world war. After that they were leveled again and expanded into the flat fields you can see today.