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KOLLABUDIR

Region: Westfjords
Coordinates: 65.5918755° N 22.0540689° W

The ancient, Saga Age, local parliament site for the spring assemblies of the Westfiord Area at the end of the Thorskafjordur Bay, is called Kollabudir. The autumn sessions were held on the Dyrafiord Bay. The spring sessions were also the meeting place of those who were headed for the Parliamentary Plains (Thingvellir), where the common assembly for the whole country took place.

Sagas of Iceland The Gisla Saga and The Book of Settlements are reliable sources of events of those spring and autumn gatherings. Kvalkrokur is the place of executions near the assembly site.
An important event in the history of the independence struggle of the 19th century took place at Kollabudir. On the initiative of Jon Sigurdsson, the president of the Parliament, meetings at Kollabudir and in the Helgafell County on the Snaefell Peninsula were organized during the period 1849-95 at the end of June each year to further the goal of independence. Those meetings resulted in continuous demands for free trading, the revival of the common Parliament at Thingvellir, the official acknowledgement of the Icelandic language and economic and financial reports for the country. The site was declared inviolate in 1974 and a memorial of the Kollabudir Meetings was unveiled on River Musara.

Another memorial was unveiled on the eastern side of the bay at the farm Skogar to commemorate the poet Matthias Jochumsson, who was born there. A nice hiking trail lies around the peninsula to the abandoned farm Grof on the other side and on the way is another abandoned farm, Hallsteinsnes, where the first settler built his farm.

When the power structure of the chieftaincies crumbled after the loss of independence in 1262, the sessions of the Thorskafiord Parliament continued. In 1804-05 the Members of the Common Parliament in the northwest denied to attend because they had not been paid and the governor received much smaller funds for expenses.

Kollabudir is on nat.is Saga Trail Westfjord

Kollabudir in Icelandic