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Paper short abstract

A snow avalanche struck the farm Goðdalur in Strandir 1948, killing six and leaving the farm abandoned. This paper explores how the story of an álagablettur (“enchanted spot”) and media coverage shaped powerful disaster narratives and how it reshaped the identity of the local community to this day.

Paper long abstract

In December 1948, a massive snow avalanche struck the remote farm Goðdalur in Bjarnarfjörður, Westfjords, killing six household members and forcing the farm into permanent abandonment. This lecture approaches the catastrophe through a folklorist’s perspective, examining how disaster narratives are created, circulated, and remembered, and how they shape both local and national identities.

Central to the narrative is an álagablettur (“enchanted spot”), where a new farmhouse had been built shortly before the avalanche. In subsequent accounts, the disaster was interpreted through the lens of this place of enchantment, blending traditional folklore with collective attempts to explain the violence of nature. National newspapers emphasized uncanny motifs and supernatural explanations, while within the local community and the people close to the family of Goðdalur the tragedy was marked by silence, unease, and fragmented remembrance. Two parallel narrative strands thus emerged: one projecting myth and enchantment, the other defined by grief, guilt, and muteness.

By analyzing media coverage, oral accounts, and local memory, this lecture demonstrates how folklore offered cultural frameworks to interpret and cope with the trauma of the avalanche at a time when no institutional physiological support existed. The Goðdalur tragedy highlights how narratives of fierce nature are never only about the event itself, but also about identity, belonging, and the struggle to make meaning in the aftermath of a catastrophe.