Grettislaug – Where the Saga Hero Bathed

The Grettis saga, written in the 14th century but set in the 10th and 11th, tells the story of Grettir Ásmundarson — the strongest man in Iceland, declared an outlaw after a string of killings, and condemned to nineteen years of solitary exile before his death on the island of Drangey. He is Iceland's most famous literary outlaw: immensely strong, unlucky, brave, and ultimately doomed.

The saga describes how Grettir swam across Skagafjörður from his refuge on the island of Drangey to the mainland at Reykjar — a distance of about seven kilometres in the cold North Atlantic. After reaching shore in the dead of winter, his hands had locked into claws from the cold. He found natural hot springs on the beach, plunged into them, and his hands slowly unfastened.

The two small pools known today as Grettislaug — Grettir's Pool — are still there. They sit on the shoreline in exactly the spot described in the saga. The outer pool is seawater at about 28°C; the inner pool is hotter geothermal water at around 39°C. A small changing room and a rusting sign mark the spot. You can sit in the same water Grettir's saga hero is said to have used to revive his frozen hands, looking out across Skagafjörður at the island of Drangey rising from the sea.