Viðvík is a farm in Viðvíkursveit on the eastern side of

Skagafjörður Skagafjörður () is a deep fjord and its valley in northern Iceland. Location Skagafjörður, the fjord, is about 40 km long and 15 km wide, situated between Tröllaskagi to the east and the Skagi, Skagi Peninsula to the west. Ther ...

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

right at the opening of

Hjaltadalur Hjaltadalur is a valley on the east side of Skagafjörður, Iceland that was previously a part of Hólahreppur. The majority of the valley is surrounded by 1,000–2,000-meter-tall mountains, and it intersects with various remote valleys. Hjalt ...

valley, and south of Hjaltadalsá river. It was home the area's manor in past centuries.

Description

There has been a church site in Viðvík for a long time; the first mention of the church was in 1189 and Guðmundur "the good" Arason was the home priest there. The

parsonage A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, pa ...

was located there for a time, but now the church is served by priests from

Hólar Hólar (; also Hólar í Hjaltadal ) is a small community in the Skagafjörður district of northern Iceland. Location Hólar is in the valley Hjaltadalur, some from the national capital of Reykjavík. It has a population of around 100. It is t ...

. The current church was built in 1886 and the tower in 1893. Viðvík was the homestead of Öndóttur who settled Viðvíkursveit, but later, Þorbjörn "the fishhook" Þórðarson, who killed Grettir "the strong" Ásmundarson, lived there. Accordingly,

Grettis saga ''Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar'' (modern , reconstructed ), also known as ''Grettla'', ''Grettir's Saga'' or ''The Saga of Grettir the Strong'', is one of the Icelanders' sagas. It details the life of Grettir Ásmundarson, a bellicose Icelandic ou ...

mentions that Þorbjörn moved Grettir's head to his home in Viðvík and preserved it in salt during the winter in a storehouse, which was later called (Grettir's cage). In the

Age of the Sturlungs The Age of the Sturlungs or the Sturlung Era ( ) was a 42-/44-year period of violent internal strife in mid-13th-century Iceland. It is documented in the '' Sturlunga saga''. This period is marked by the conflicts of local chieftains, '' goðar'' ...

, Þorgils skarði Böðvarsson lived in Viðvík for a time and the land there is often mentioned in the

Sturlunga saga ''Sturlunga saga'' (often called simply ''Sturlunga'') is a collection of Icelandic Norse saga, sagas by various authors from the 12th and 13th centuries; it was assembled in about 1300, in Old Norse. It mostly deals with the story of the Sturlun ...

including, among other things, the lively social scene of 1255:

References

{{coord, 65, 45, 54, N, 19, 16, 40, W, display=title, region:IS_type:city Populated places in Northwestern Region (Iceland) Skagafjörður Churches in Iceland Farms in Iceland