Jon Gudmundsson Laedi's true Account And The Massacre of Basque Whalers In Iceland in 1615

Jon Gudmundsson Laedi's true Account And The Massacre of Basque Whalers In Iceland in 1615

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On the night of September 20, 1615, the eve of the feast of St. Matthew, an expedition of Basque whalers lost their ships in a fjord near Trékyllisvík, Iceland, during a terrible storm. This led to a series of events that culminated in their October massacre at hands of the islanders. The Basque mariners’ bodies, dismembered, would not be buried. However, not all Icelanders saw that massacre with good eyes. One of them, Jón Guðmundsson, better known as Jón lærði (1574–1658) or “the wise man”, wrote an essay on those events in defense of the victims titled “Sönn frásaga” (The true story). Four hundred years later, on April 20, 2015, an international conference investigated various aspects of this tragic episode of the history of Iceland and the Basque Country. The academic meeting took place at the National Library of Iceland with the participation of experts from all over the world. The program, commemorating the fourth centenary of the massacre of Basque whalers in Iceland, was sponsored by the Government of Gipuzkoa and the Government of Iceland and organized by the Etxepare Institute, the Basque-Finnish Association, the Center for Basque Studies of the University of Nevada, Reno and the Barandiaran Chair of the University of California, Santa Barbara.