Hólmavik‘s ‘jewel in the crown’ – as far as I am concerned – is Galdrasýning á Ströndum (http://www.galdrasyning.is/), the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery & Witchcraft, and of course I had to take Tineke, Ranulph and Ingrid there when they came to visit.
It is quite a modest exhibition, but the only one (as far as I am aware) devoted to this particular subject. It is housed in a wooden building with a turf roof by the harbour, extended in the summer with a tent structure to provide a café where one can enjoy a variety of simple dishes (such as blueberry pie with cream) and beverages. The eldritch atmosphere of the place is enhanced by a variety of whale skulls and other bones adorning the forecourt, providing a strange juxtaposition as you enjoy your coffee and listen to the screaming of the sea birds and the rattle of the wind against the canvas. On paying a fairly modest sum, visitors are issued with a recorded audio guide to the exhibits. These include reproductions of very Icelandic magical devices such as the tilberi (a kind of vampiric worm), a níðstang (cursing pole) and the outrageous nábrok, or ‘necropants’. There is also a genuine, sacrificial bowl, which is a local archaeological find and the pride of the museum.
The exhibition in Hólmavik is supplemented by the Sorcerer’s Cottage (Kotbýli kuklarans), about half an hour’s drive away in nearby Bjarnafjörður. Here you can see the kind of dwelling where local people lived from the time of the first settlements in the 9th Century even up to the 20th Century. Who knows? There may well be someone living in such a cottage even in these days. There are some very remote parts in Iceland.
Magical staves are carved or written in various places among the beams and artefacts in this gloomy hut and children can have some fun playing ‘I spy the magic’ for a while here. The guide book gives clues to the staves and incantations that are to be found and to their hidden meanings. It is quite a task to find all of them in the twilight of the cottage: such cottages did not have windows. I have tried 3 times to upload a picture of the inside of the cottage, but something goes wrong every time so perhaps the local Elves and Land-wights don't want me to do that. Instead, another picture of the cottage. Iceland is the kind of country where you have to accept such things.
When the children and their parents get tired of that, they can swim and relax in the swimming bath and hot pools just next door. All the pools are heated naturally by geothermal activity and, when you relax in the stone pools, you can be sure that you are experiencing exactly the same pleasure that Viking settlers experienced over 1,000 years ago. After viewing the sorcerer’s cottage, we enjoyed these warm pools, braving the fairly chilly wind in our bathing attire as we ran to them from the changing rooms.
The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery & Witchcraft is quite a young project and it runs, of necessity, on a limited budget. I think it has enormous potential and I would love to see it expand and deepen in so many ways, for its own sake, for the sake of academic study and for the sake of the local economy. The tourist season in these parts – as in most of Iceland – is limited to 3 or 4 months of the year when the weather is relatively fine, so they need as much income as they can get in those few months. Since the financial crash of 2008, there is not much hope of funding from the national coffers, but there is a tremendous sense of community in this place with a lot of voluntary work. I hope to make a contribution to this community and repay the kindness that has been shown to me in so many ways.