Arnarstapi
West Iceland · Coastal paths
Walk the coastal paths around Arnarstapi's rock formations and harbour.
- 1 hr visit
- 85 km from Borgarnes as the crow flies
The guardian who vanished into the glacier
Arnarstapi’s stone figure recalls Bárður Snæfellsás, the half-human, half-troll figure of a local saga.
In Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss, Bárður belongs partly to the human world and partly to that of trolls. After a violent family conflict, he disappears into Snæfellsjökull. Tradition makes him a guardian of the country around the glacier, a presence associated with the mountain rather than an ordinary inhabitant of a farm.
At Arnarstapi, Ragnar Kjartansson’s stone sculpture gives that character a form you can stand beside. Nearby place names also echo the saga. Read the story while looking between the coast and glacier: you are seeing a landscape that has been named and imagined through literature. The sculpture is a modern commemoration, not a medieval monument or evidence of a supernatural being.
