Hjörleifshöfði – The First Viking Murder

Hjörleifshöfði is a volcanic headland rising abruptly from the flat glacial outwash plain of Iceland's south coast. Surrounded on three sides by black sand stretching to the horizon, it is an isolated and atmospheric place long before you know its history.

According to the Landnámabók — Iceland's Book of Settlements — Hjörleifr Hróðmarsson arrived here in approximately 874 AD and built a farm at the base of the headland. He is recorded as one of Iceland's earliest settlers, though his stay was short. His Irish slaves, chafing under brutal treatment, murdered him and fled by boat to the islands later named Vestmannaeyjar (the Westman Islands, literally 'Islands of the Irish Slaves').

Hjörleifr is buried in a burial mound on top of the headland. His sworn brother, Ingólfr Arnarson — the man traditionally credited as Iceland's very first settler — found the body and named the headland after him. Standing at the burial mound on a grey day, the black plains stretching in every direction, it is easy to feel the isolation that surrounded those first settlers.

Locals have long described unusual phenomena on the headland after dark — sounds without obvious source, lights that cannot be explained by lighthouse or vehicle, and an oppressive atmosphere that keeps most people away. The mound is never disturbed, and even archaeologists have historically been reluctant to excavate it.