Dauðadæmd: sakamál frá 18. öld

In the summer of 1769, a young servant girl at the farm of Gerði in Skagafjörður, northern Iceland, was accused of secretly giving birth to a child and then killing it. Her name was Oddný Jónsdóttir, and she was just 22 years old. Some time later, she was sentenced to death at a district court in Skagafjörður. The sheriff’s verdict stipulated that she was to be beheaded and that her head should be displayed on a stake.

Oddný was convicted of what was known as a dulsmál – a criminal case in which a woman was believed to have concealed a birth and either killed or abandoned her newborn child, sometimes with the knowledge or assistance of the child’s father. Well over a hundred such cases were brought before Icelandic authorities between 1600 and 1900.

In this book, historian Guðný Hallgrímsdóttir explores Oddný’s life, the origins and history of dulsmál cases, and the struggles of women as they faced the judicial system in eighteenth-century Iceland.

Guðný Hallgrímsdóttir holds a master’s degree in history and works as an independent scholar. Her research has focused primarily on the history of women in the eighteenth century, and she has published numerous articles on the subject.

Dauðadæmd is her third book. Her first, Sagan af Guðrúnu Ketilsdóttur: Einsögurannsókn á ævi 18. aldar vinnukonu, was published in 2013 and received the Fjöruverðlaunin literary award in the non-fiction category in 2014. The book was also nominated for a Hagþenkir award that same year. Her second book, A Tale of a Fool? A Microhistory of an 18th-Century Peasant Woman, was published by Routledge in 2019.

ISBN 9789935332851

Author Guðný Hallgrímsdóttir

Publisher Ugla, 2026

Format Hardcover

Pages 155