Selárdalskirkja

The abandoned country church in Selárdalur valley in Arnarfjörður, NW-Iceland. The valley is now uninhabited, as the last year-long resident, Ólafur Gíslason, passed away in 2010. The church was built in 1861 and extensively renovated around its centennial anniversary. Despite being in a remote valley, the church used to be rich by Icelandic standards, thanks to the abundant fisheries from the church land. The most famous minister to serve the church was Páll Björnsson (1621-1706), who was said to have declined an offer to become bishop at Skálholt because he did not want to abandon Selárdalur. He was the most learned Icelander of his time; knew many languages, including Hebrew, and calculated the longitude and latitude of Bjargtangar, Iceland's westernmost point. He also had a decked fishing ship built, long before Icelanders started to generally upgrade from their tiny rowboats. Sadly, he is now best known for a darker side, as he had five people burned at the stake after his wife became mad and he blamed sorcery. All in all, 21 persons are known to have been burned for witchcraft in Iceland in the late 17th Century, most in the Westfjords. Still, witch-hunts in Iceland were relatively tame compared to many other parts of Europe at the period, where some 40-100,000 people, mostly women, were executed in hysterical persecutions in the 16th and 17th Century. In contrast, all but one of the persons burned for sorcery in Iceland were men.