Einar HERJÓLFSSON (c. 1365-1412)

Bar svarta dauða til Íslands. Nefndur Hval-Einar. Í Nýja Annál segir við árið 1402 ,, ...kom út Hval-Einar Herjólfsson með það skip, er hann átti sjálfur. Kom þar út í svo mikil bráðasótt, að menn lágu dauðir innan þriggja nátta ... „ Var “stunginn í hel með hnífi upp á uppstigningardag í kirkjugarðinum á Skúmsstöðum„, segir í Lögmannsannál.

1402: Carried the black death to Iceland. It is believed that Black Death entered Iceland in 1402 with the cloths of Einar Herjólfsson on his ship, possibly a ship landing in Maríuhöfn, Kjósarsýsla, Iceland

The Black Death (bubonic plague pandemic) swept through the country between 1402 and 1403 and was devastating. In some towns every single person died and it is even said that whole forces were destroyed; for example, it is said that in Aðalvík and Grunnavík only two young people lived. Priests were especially at risk of infection, as they often visited dying people and gave them writings, and it is said that only three priests survived in the whole of the North, and in addition one monk and three deacons in Þingeyrar; other ordained men died in the plague. It is not known how many died in the Black Death in Iceland; some say as many as two-thirds of the population have fallen, but scholars have used the number of desolate farms a few decades after the plague to point to a halving of the population. Whole families and even clans died and there was a great transfer of property, some inherited large estates from distant relatives and it could sometimes be difficult to find the right heirs, when it was uncertain in what order people had died. The church also acquired a large number of lands because people named churches and saints and gave large sums of money for salvation. However, the value of land fell at the same time as many lands were abandoned and rents fell. There was a great shortage of labor after the plague, and it was many decades before that situation began to improve. This came not least to fishing and resulted in less catches of fish, which was the main export product of Icelanders.