@brittarnhild
The surface is thin in Iceland, and many places boiling water is reaching the surface from deep inside the earth. This gives life to many a folktale and legend. Like the one about Gunnhver, or Gunna.
Gunna, or Gudrun Önundardottir is mentioned in a cencus from 1703, so we know for sure that she has lived. Her legend is an oral one though. Gunna was a cofter near Kirkjuból in Sandgerdi (not far from where you find Keflavik International Airport today). The owner of the land was the lawyer Vilhjálmur Jónsson. One day Gunna was unable to pay her rent, and Vilhjálmur came to collect the only thing she owned, a cooking pot. Gunna became mad with fury. The tale tells that she refused to drink holy water and fell dead. On the way to her funeral, the men carrying her coffin felt the coffin getting lighter and lighter, and they heard a voice calling: "No need deep to dig. No plans long to lie." The next day Vilhjálmur´s body was found, Gunna had got her revenge. And it didn´t take long till the whole penninsula was haunted. Pastor Eirikur was sent for. He was a well known sorcerer, and to help put Gunna down into her grave, he took a ball of yarn, telling them that the plan was that Gunna should take the loose end and follow the ball down to a place where she could do no harm. It happend like sira Eirik said, Gunna fell down the pit and got the name Gunnuhver.
If you have to right eyes to see with, you can still see Gunnuhver run along the edge of the burning water, and you can hear the noise she makes when she falls.
Iceland has a great many geirirs and hot spring. Over the years we have been luck to bath in a few of the hot springs where the temperature is perfectly hot. Finding a natural one is of course the best, like we did here (click on the link to get to my post about it), but if you don´t, second best, and believe me, this is a very good second best, is to swim in:
The Blue Lagoon
We hadn´t planned to visit The Blue Lagoon this time. It has become very expensive, and quite crowdy. Not at all like the place we visited with all four kids back in 1998, and we had to make sure not to swim out where the water was too hot. marta was only 18 months then, and we soon discovered that the water was too hot for her all over the place.
But as we were driving back to Reykjavik in the afternoon, we passed the place, we had swimsuits in the car, just in case, and we just had to look at each other to know that we couldn´t miss it.
When we came to the tivket boot, we got the two last tickets available.......
