By Birna Lárusdóttir
Searching for the settler
In August 1880, Sigurður Vigfússon — a goldsmith and curator of the Antiquities Collection in Reykjavík — visited the farm Önundarholt in Flói, S-Iceland. He was traveling on behalf of the Icelandic Archaeological Society, primarily to investigate sites mentioned in the Icelandic sagas and other medieval sources. During his travels through the region, he had heard of the burial mound of the settler Önundur bíldur, said to lie just outside the homefield of the farm — the very place where, according to Landnámabók, he had been killed alongside many others in a battle. The location of this conflict, known as Orrustudalur (“Battle Valley”), remains a recognized place-name in the area.
Led by the place-names, Sigurður — sometimes referred to as Sigurður forni (“Sigurður the ancient”) — was eager to examine the mound by excavating it. But the lady of the house at Önundarholt would hear nothing of it! He recounts this somewhat sheepishly in a footnote in the Yearbook of the Archaeological Society:
Thus it came to pass: when I arrived at Önundarholt, the farmer was down in the meadows. I went to him and requested that he show me the said Önundr’s mound, which he accordingly did. I also asked that he lend me a digging tool and grant me permission to examine the mound. He agreed to this, though somewhat reluctantly, and went home to fetch the tools. He was indoors for some time, and when he returned, he brought no implements — and the housewife came with him. I greeted her courteously, but she inquired what business I had there. I told her plainly; whereupon she forbade me, in many words, from touching anything at all on the site, and declared that if I did so, she would leave the farm — “and that this very evening.”
The farmer was no man of boldness and took no real part in the matter; I then saw that there was nothing further to be done. Yet I do not believe the housewife acted out of malice, but rather from a conviction that evil would come of it should old Önundr be unearthed. This, it seems to me, is yet another remnant of the old superstitions.
One might bear in mind that Sigurður arrived during the height of the haymaking season, interrupting the farmer during important work and, moreover, requesting to borrow tools. Nevertheless, Sigurður managed to take a quick look at the site before departing, and describes an oval-shaped structure, measuring 7 by 14 feet, rounded at the top, with a sunken depression running all the way around it. He also notes several similar structures in the immediate vicinity.
Reinterpreting Önundarleiði
Despite his unsuccsessful attempt in 1880, interest in Önundarleiði did not fade. Around the turn of the century — more precisely in 1904 — another eager antiquarian entered the scene: Brynjúlfur Jónsson from Minni-Núpur. He brought his own tools and thus had no need to rely on the goodwill of the housewife. Brynjúlfur counted ten mounds. With the help of the farmer, he excavated two of them and, in short, found nothing: just beneath the surface was undisturbed soil, with no bones or other evidence to indicate a burial. Brynjúlfur had seen many similar structures in southern Iceland and proposed a different interpretation: that these were raised platforms used for stacking turf or hay, with the surrounding ditch intended for water drainage. He also pointed out that it would have been more likely for a man such as Önundur bíldur to have been buried closer to the farmstead.
Despite Brynjúlfur’s theory, the notion of the site as a burial place was clearly not dismissed entirely: Önundarleiði was placed on a list of registered sites by the National Museum in 1927. Nothing more is recorded about the site for many decades. In the meantime, however, all visible traces of the mounds were leveled — the area is now a smooth, grassy field.
The real graves of the unnamed
Around the year 2000, the farmer at Önundarholt contacted the National Museum to express concern about archaeological remains that could be endangered by gravel extraction on the property. He specifically mentioned Önundarleiði, although its exact location was by then no longer known, along with other sites that might also be at risk. A year later, while a trench was being dug in the farmyard between the house and the byre, bones surfaced in the excavated soil. Archaeologists were called in, and their investigation soon revealed the outlines of several graves within the trench, containing human remains. The settler himself was, however, unlikely to be among them: soil stratigraphy showed clearly that the burials dated to the 13th–17th centuries and belonged to a Christian graveyard. The bones were identified as those of a woman, likely over 30 years of age.
Memory and myth in the landscape
So what insights can we gain from this unusual “biography” of Önundarleiði and the significance of its place-name?
Önundarleiði may never have been an actual burial site — and even if it was, there is no certainty that it was truly the final resting place of Önundur bíldur. The place name may have originated as a speculative interpretation by those interested in connecting a forgotten site or structure with the account in Landnámabók of battles and bloodshed — and, perhaps more significantly, in associating the name of the farm with the settler himself, thereby locating him within the landscape. Over time, the term leiðið (“the grave”) came to serve, possibly for centuries, as a symbolic link between the contemporary community and the Age of Settlement, a connection that culminates in the visit of Sigurður Vigfússon. One could argue that the idea of Önundur’s burial site continued to shape perceptions well into the 21st century — albeit in a different form — when a local farmer expressed concern over potential archaeological disturbance. That sideline narrative ends with the unexpected discovery of human remains in an unrelated location, revealing an entirely different, unconnected, and previously undocumented story from the past.