Whale Fjord

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Gerdur’s Hollow had terrified Jón when he was a little boy.

Even now, after spending the entire fifty-eight years of his life on the farm of Selvík on whose margins it lay, it made him uneasy.

It was his grandmother’s fault. She had told him about Gerdur, the witch who had lived in a hovel along the track between Selvík and the larger, more prosperous, neighbouring farm at Laxahóll. Sometime in the distant past, Gerdur had lain a curse upon the farmer at Laxahóll, and his daughter had died. Appalled, the locals had turned on her and stoned her to death, burying her in a shallow cave covered with rocks in the hollow, which from then on bore her name.

The hollow lay in a fold in the steep, rock-strewn hillside, out of sight of the road. It was a dangerous place. This was either because it was haunted by the tormented Gerdur, or because the rock face was unstable, or both.

According to Jón’s grandmother, there used to be a small cairn at the base of the hollow. Anyone who ventured in there was supposed to place a stone on the cairn. Once, eighty years ago, Jón’s grandfather had omitted to do this, and the following night there had been an earthquake which loosened the stones and toppled the cairn.

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