The Giant's Footprints of Þórsmörk

Þórsmörk, South Iceland

In the valley of Þórsmörk — named for the Norse god Thor — a series of shallow depressions in the lava rock are identified in the local tradition as the footprints of the giant Skrymir, who wrestled Thor to exhaustion.

Þórsmörk — Thor's Forest — is a valley in southern Iceland, sheltered between three glaciers: Eyjafjallajökull, Mýrdalsjökull, and Tindfjallajökull. The forest of birch trees that gives it the second part of its name is unusual in Iceland, where trees are scarce. The name connects the valley to Norse mythology directly. Thor — Þór — is associated in the traditions with Iceland's landscape in ways that suggest the Norse settlers brought his mythology into the landscape as they named it. The footprint tradition: a sequence of circular depressions in the lava rock near the valley floor, roughly circular, roughly the size of what a very large person's foot would make if pressed into warm rock. They are real geological features — lava formations have many such depressions — but in the tradition they are the prints of Skrymir, the giant whose cap Thor mistook for a mountain when he slept inside it. Skrymir was the giant who outmanoeuvred Thor in a series of contests that seemed to favour the giant enormously: Thor could not lift his cat (which was actually the Midgard Serpent), could not outdrink his opponent (who was drinking the sea), could not outrun a competitor (who was actually thought made manifest). The depressions in the valley floor are from when Skrymir crossed Iceland on his way to the giants' hall in the east, before the contest. The tradition is presented matter-of-factly in the area. The depressions are pointed out on guided walks.