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Paper short abstract

The Grímseyjarvísur (Grímsey Verses) from ca. 1632–1634 recount the events of an ill-fated ocean crossing between the remote island community of Grímsey and the Icelandic mainland. This paper examines them as the earliest known Icelandic poem to give a detailed first-hand account of disaster at sea.

Paper long abstract

Icelandic poet and parson Guðmundur Erlendsson (c. 1595–1670) was sent in disgrace to the isolated fishing community of Grímsey following a drunken quarrel in 1631. He authored several poems describing his experiences on the tiny island, which in his day could be reached from the mainland only by rowing across the open ocean in a precariously small boat. His Grímseyjarvísur (Grímsey Verses) from ca. 1632–1634 recount the events of one such crossing, which proved nearly fatal for the entire crew, including the poet himself.

Guðmundur Erlendsson was no stranger to calamity, and his poetry serves as a chronicle of the horrors of the seventeenth century from the perspective of an inquisitive rural minister on the periphery of Europe: smallpox and measles epidemics, the 1627 slave raid on the Westman Islands, a catastrophic earthquake in Italy, bitter religious conflicts in mainland Europe, the English Civil War and the execution of King Charles I of England. In this paper, I argue that Guðmundur Erlendsson rejects the battles of saga-heroes and monsters in favour of the human struggle for survival in a hostile environment at world’s end. In Grímseyjarvísur, he offers his audience an innovative first-person account of seafaring at its most dangerous. Heavily influenced by the language of disaster ballads, his poem served as an inspiration and a model for later generations of Icelandic poets to tell the stories of ordinary Icelanders forced to face the seas at their most terrifying.