An Ethnography of an Imaginary Road: Fear, Death, and Storytelling in the Icelandic Westfjords

Abstract

The article presents a historical ethnography of an imaginary road. Drawing on printed sources, archival material, and new field research, it analyses the Icelandic folktale of ‘Loss of Men on Heiðarbæjarheiði’ (Manntjónið á Heiðarbæjarheiði), a story of regional importance in the Strandir district of the Icelandic Westfjords, esp. on the fjord of Steingrímsfjörður. The article shows the contrast between the presentation of the story in its printed ‘standard’ form and the shape that its appearances take when it is encountered locally, where its main Sitz im Leben is found in minimalist place-storytelling that is actualised in the engagement with particular places. In this local form as place-storytelling, the narrative shows a considerable amount of variation and a strong focus on the interpretation of local place-names. Based on the contexts of and the variation observed in the different variants of the story, the article presents an interpretation of ‘Loss of Men on Heiðarbæjarheiði’ which reads it as a formulation of collective fears.