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Once
there were three night ogres, who intended to cut the Westjords
from the mainland by digging a trench through the narrowest
connection between the Breidafjordur Bay and the Hunafloi Bay.
For inspiration they decided to create as many islands on the
bays as possible from the material at hand.
They split forces and started the project, an
ogre and an
ogress on the west side and an
ogress on the east side.
The couple in the west dug out the Gilsfjordur Bay and put in their
best effort. The Breidafjordur Bay is shallow and it was an easy task to dot it with
islands. In the east,
however, the Hunafloi Bay is deep and very little was accomplished in the
creation of islands. This
bay only became dotted with islets and skerries, which made the bay
dangerous for navigation.
The
three ogres slaved night and day, and one early morning they did not
realize that day was braking and took to their heels to get home to
their cave in time. The two
in the west ran as fast as possible across the moorland
Steinadalsheidi down into the lowlands of the Kollafjordur bay looking for shelter.
They were struck by the first rays of the sun near the Kollafjordur
peninsula, where they turned into stone on the cove called Drangavik
after the incident. The
rocks are very prominent from the main road.
The ogress working on the eastern
side also forgot to keep track of time the same morning and
sprinted north across the Steingrimsfjordur Bay
and got as far as the cliffs Malarhorn.
There she looked across the Hunafloi Bay and realized, that she had
not managed to create a single island.
She was furious and struck the ground at Malarhorn with her
shovel and a piece of the coastline was cut off and sent
flying onto the Steingrimsfjordur Bay where the island Grimsey was the result.
At the north end of the island is a rock shaped like an ox and
was named accordingly. Actually
her own ox was standing on the piece of land she sent flying onto the
bay and it also turned into stone. The
ogre did not get much further herself, because she was
turned into stone, where
the hamlet Drangsnes is nowadays. |