Island Fagurey is relatively flat and vegetated.  Low cliffs decorate its northern side.  The main advantages of the island were seal hunting, egg and down collecting, sea weed (dulse) collecting and the puffin catch.

The island was inhabited from the Age of Settlement to 1937, when it was abandoned for good.  One of the most renowned writers of the Saga literature, Sturla Thordarson, spent the last decade of his live there and died in 1284.  He probably wrote his book, The Saga of the Icelanders, and others during his stay there.