Outlaws of the Highland Interior

The Icelandic legal term was útlegðarmaður — outlaw. A person declared an outlaw under the old Alþingi parliament was cast from all protection of law and society. Anyone could kill them without legal consequence. The only place to survive was the interior — the Highlands, which had no farms, no villages, and only minimal patrol. It was a death sentence dressed as exile.

The most famous outlaw of the Highlands was Fjalla-Eyvindur — Eyvindur of the Mountains — who lived as a fugitive in the Highland interior for over twenty years in the 18th century. He and his wife Halla survived winters that would have killed most people, sheltering in caves and natural overhangs, hunting and living on the land. Their shelter near Hveravellir on the Kjölur route is still pointed out to visitors: a low stone enclosure tucked into a geothermal area where the ground stayed above freezing even in the depths of winter.

Fjalla-Eyvindur became a folk hero — a symbol of endurance, defiance and Highland survival. His story has been told in plays, films and novels. The shelter at Hveravellir is one of the oldest surviving man-made structures in the Highlands.