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HOLT Onunarfjordur

Region: Westfjords
Coordinates: 66.0518° N 23.5138° W

Holt has been an estate and a parsonage for centuries and always counted among the best benefices of the country because of the many advantages it offered. The present church, Holtskirkja, was built in 1869.

Sagas of Iceland Tradition has it, that bishop Oddur Einarsson at Skalholt once visited Holt and told the Rev. and his wife he suspected one of their sons to succeed him in office. After having met their sons he shook his head and put his hand on the wife’s belly and told them he was on his way.

He was right, Brynjolfur Sveinsson (1605-75) became the bishop of the southern See, a prominent personality, a writer and a collector of the old literature of the country. Among the manuscripts he saved was The Book of the Flatey Island (Flateyjarbok), which is the most illustrated and precious of the Manuscript Museum in the capital. The bishop gave it to King Frederic III of Denmark, but it found its way back, when the Danish government passed a law to return most of the Icelandic literature kept in Denmark.

Rev. Jon Eggertsson (1731-83) rode off a high cliff and managed to crawl home, where he died shortly afterwards from his wounds. His successor, Jon Sigurdsson, drowned in the estuary of the nearby river and since then the area around it is considered haunted by his ghost.

Holt is on nat.is Saga Trail Westfjords

Holt in Icelandic