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Borg in Myrar

Region: West Iceland
Coordinates: 64.6061° N 22.2417° W

About Borg in Mýrar

The parsonage Borg is situated a short distance northeast of the small town Borgarnes. During Catholic times the churches there were dedicated to the archangel Michael. The present church was consecrated in 1880, but the first one in 1003.

Sagas of Iceland The settler Skalla-Grimur Kveldulfsson built his farm there and others elsewhere in the Borgarfiord area. His son, Egill, the so-called last Viking, continued his father’s work. Egill was a brave man, scrimpy and a good poet. Once he was seized by his worst enemy, King Erich Blood Axe, and had to compose a laudatory poem to soothe Erich’s anger to save his head.

The second time he faced death, this time voluntarily, after having lost two of his sons, one drowned and the other died from a disease, his daughter convinced him to compose a poem to vent his sorrow instead of starving himself to death. Skallagrimur’s burial mound is where the small park in the town Borgarnes is situated now. All of this and more can be read in the so-called Egil’s Saga.

According to the Laxdaela Saga, its hero, Kjartan Olafsson, lies buried in the cemetery at Borg. Snorri Sturluson, the country’s most powerful chieftain of the 12th century and its most revered historian, married the priest’s daughter at Borg and started the accumulation of his wealth by that marriage. They divorced in 1206 and Snorri moved to Reykholt. The memorial Sonatorrek (Grief), by sculptor Asmundur Sveinsson, was unveiled at Borg in 1985 to commemorate Egill Skalla-Grimsson and the poem he composed after his sons’ deaths.

The above mentioned Sagas are available in several foreign languages and some of them read like exciting novels.

Borg in Myrar is on nat.is West Iceland Saga Trail

Borg in Myrar in Icelandic