Öndvegissúlur (Icelandic pronunciation:[ˈœntˌveijɪsˌsuːlʏr̥]), orhigh-seat pillars, were a pair of woodenpoles placed on each side of the high-seat—the place where the head of household would have sat—in a Viking-period Scandinavian house.
According to descriptions inLandnámabók and several sagas, written long after settlement ofIceland, some of the first settlers brought high-seat pillars with them from Norway. Once land was sighted, the high-seat pillars were thrown overboard, and a permanent farm was established where the pillars washed ashore. The first farm established in Iceland, located where the capital,Reykjavík, stands today, was allegedly founded using this method.[1]
One saga refers to a high-seat pillar having been carved with an image of the godThor, andIcelandic sagaEyrbyggja saga relates that when Þórólfur Mostrarskegg (Thorolf Most-Beard) constructed a temple after reaching Iceland, the high seat pillars hadreginnaglar (Old Icelandic "god-nails" or "power-nails") in them.[2] Otherwise, very little is known about what they might have looked like.
