Þingvellir June 27, 2002
Thursday in 10th week of summer
  Salvör Gissurardóttir photos and collection of texts.

We went on a family picnic to Thingvellir in the evening of June 27. 2002 and a historic walking tour arranged by the national park Dr. Gunnar Kristjánsson preast at Reynivöllum in Kjós talked about Jon Hreggvidsson and his battle with the justice system in Iceland and Denmark. Jon Hreggvidsson is the main character in the novel Íslandsklukkan (1943-46; "Iceland's Bell" - translated by Philip Roughton) by the Nobel Prize winning Icelandic author Halldor Laxness. Íslandsklukkan is set in the late 17th and early 18th centuries and has an nationalist theme; its style is influenced by that of the medieval Icelandic sagas.

Thingvellir (The Parliamentary Plains) are the most important historic site of Iceland.. The oldest parliament of the world was founded here in 930 on the lake Thingvallavatn, the largest natural lake of the country.


We gathered at the viewspot at Hakið at 20:00 o´clock where a footpath
leads down into the great Almannagjá rift. Here is the view from the viewspot.

Þingvellir (“Parliament Plains”)

In the Age of Settlements (c. 870-930), people in Iceland began to establish a formal system of government. District assemblies were set up based upon the Nordic model - with a general assembly, the Alþing, which first convened at Þingvellir just before 930. At Þingvellir, the inhabitants of the country became the Icelandic nation.

The Alþing was Iceland’s legislative and chief judicial authority for the duration of the Commonwealth, until 1271.Every year during the Commonwealth period people would flock to Þingvellir from all over the country, sometimes numbering in the thousands. They set up booths with walls of turf and rock and temporary roofing and stayed in them for the two weeks of the assembly.

Lautarferð nálægt Peningagjá.
We had our picnic at Peningagjá (“Money Fault”) which is part of Flosagjá, one of the main faults at Þingvellir, with clear water up to 25 metres deep. Where it faces the main assembly site it assumes a prolonged fork; the eastern branch is named Nikulásargjá. After this was bridged in 1907, visitors began throwing coins into the water below and this part of the fault gradually became known as Peningagjá (“Money Fault”).

Map of Thingvellir

Lögberg

The assembly site was the area including the Lögberg (the Law Rock) and the Law Council, where the Alþing performed its duties. Lögberg, the Law Rock, was the focal point of the Alþing and a natural platform for holding speeches. The Lawspeaker, a kind of chairman of the assembly elected for three years at a time, recited the law of the land. Before the law was written down he was expected to recite it from memory on the Law Rock over the course of three summers, along with the complete assembly procedures every summer.

 

On the footpath leading down into the great Almannagjá rift

 

Here we sit at Lögberg were the Lawspeaker recited the law of the land

Öxará river has been a feature of Þingvellir ever since the assemblies began there. The Saga of the Sturlungs tells how the river was diverted into Almannagjá to give people at the assembly easy access to fresh water

 


Systur við Öxará.
To the east of the Parliamentary Plains one of the thousands of chasms of the rift valley was used to burn sorcerers and witches at the stake during the late middle ages, and was named accordingly The Fire Chasms. Here Asta Lilja and Kristin Helga are sitting by the spot in the Öxará river where they used to drown witches.

 


The Asatru pagan religion group gathered in Thingvellir this evening because now it was Thursday in the 10th week of summer - A holy day for pagans.


In Lögrétta listening to the storyteller.


Kristín Helga in Almannagjá.

 


Map of Thingvellir

 

Þingvellir in 1836.
"General view of Almanna Gorge, taken from the church at Þingvellir" (original 1842 caption). Members of the Gaimard expedition are seen riding across Axe River. When he made the sketch for this lithograph on 21 June, the artist Auguste Mayer was standing a little north of the present-day church and looking northwest toward Almanna Gorge.

"Snorri's old site"; (Snorrabúð) and the Law Rock (Lögberg) are across the river on the slope (to the left). Above them soars Eagle Bluff (Arnarklettur); on the distant horizon is the mountain Botnsúlur; to the right are the roots of the mountain Ármannsfell. Axe River Falls, not visible in the picture, is located about a kilometer north of where Mayer was standing. (source Jonas Hallgrimsson)

Textar eru af : thingvellir.is, nat.is, nesbud.is o.fl. Kort eru frá thingvellir.is
Salvör Gissurardóttir tók myndir, safnaði saman textum og setti á vefsíðu í júní 2002.