Drangey
| Drangey | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Waters | Atlantic Ocean | |
| Geographical location | 65 ° 57 ′ 0 ″ N , 19 ° 41 ′ 10 ″ W | |
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| surface | 20 ha | |
| Highest elevation | 180 m | |
| Residents | uninhabited | |
Drangey is an uninhabited Icelandic island located in the middle of the Skagafjörður fjord . It is about 20 hectares in size, rises about 180 m above sea level and consists mainly of volcanic palagonite rock , a type of tuff .
Legend
In literature it is first mentioned in the saga of Grettir , here this outlaw is said to have lived the last years of his life with his brother Illugi and the slave Glaumur. Once he is even said to have swum from the island to the mainland to get a fire there.
Here he was also, then terminally ill, killed in his hut by Þorbjörn Öngull and his people in battle. That could have been just before All Saints Day in 1031 .
An old folk tale says that two trolls were leading their cow across the fjord when the sun was just rising. The trolls and the cow turned to stone. Drangey is the cow, south of her stands the troll woman, a rock in the sea. The troll itself was on the other side of the island, but has collapsed over time.
nature
On Drangey there are various species of birds: mainly are numerous thick-billed murre , guillemot , razorbill and puffin . Guillemots and thick-billed lumens have their nests high in the rock, the razorbills in the scree below. The puffins build small caves at the top of the rock. Kittiwakes and arctic terns also breed here . Drangey is also a refuge for ravens and hawks .
Drangey has been of great importance to the people of the Skagafjörður area for centuries. In the spring they went to the island to collect eggs and catch birds. They lowered themselves to the nests with a rope in order to get to the clutch.
Similar to the Látrabjarg and the Westman Islands, this was an old custom and also a very dangerous undertaking. This is how the legend developed that in the early Middle Ages the bishop Guðmundur góði came to bless the rock and use it to prevent further accidents. When he was just raising his hand, a monster appeared and said: "The bad guys must be somewhere too." Whereupon the bishop would have assigned him another area of activity. The same legend also exists on Látrabjarg.
The birds were mainly caught with rafts that were launched into the water. Each raft was provided with many loops of horse hair. The hunters lived in stalls in Fjaran, a place in the southern part of the island. From there they also went out to catch fish. At times up to 200 people lived in this fishing village and over 200,000 birds were caught in the best years. Catching birds from rafts was banned in 1966.
