Woman, Captain, Rebel: The Extraordinary True Story of a Daring Icelandic Sea Captain
a new book by Margaret Willson as reviewed by Lincoln Paine
December 6, 2023
The southwest coast of Iceland was among the more marginalized communities of the Atlantic world in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Iceland’s Viking Norse origins are well known thanks to a rich body of sagas and other writings, and today the country is celebrated for its rugged volcanic landscape and high quality of life, and as a venue for international meetings. The history of the intervening centuries under Danish rule is bleaker and more obscure.
Life for most was hard. Land ownership was concentrated in the hands of a very few, and those who could not afford even a leasehold worked as contracted farmhands. On the coasts, many worked on land and sea according to the season. Fishing was done from undecked pulling boats built with wood imported from Denmark. Sails were rare until the 1850s. And while the official church was Lutheran, malevolent spirits roamed freely.
Thuridúr Einarsdóttir was born into this world in 1777, the middle child of three and the eldest girl. Her home was in Stokkseyri District, about 70 kilometers southeast of modern Reykjavik, then mostly farmland. When she was six, the Laki volcano erupted, spreading poisonous ash so thickly that more than 10,000 people died, about a quarter of Iceland’s population. Thuridúr’s family survived, but her father turned away a teenage boy seeking shelter and food. He later died and his ghost — Móri — pledged to haunt the family for nine generations. Thuridúr did not escape unscathed.
Thuridúr distinguished herself as a fisherman from the first time she went with her father at the age of 11. It was not uncommon for women to fish (which included rowing), but Thuridúr had an exceptional ability to read the weather, find fish, and steer her boat among the jagged skerries that lined the coast. In 1816, at the age of 39, she was offered the captaincy of an eight-oared boat owned by the local pastor. She fished as a captain for him and others until the age of 63 — and crewed for a few more years thereafter. Although wrecks in the frigid subarctic waters were common and deadly, Thuridúr lost not one of her crew in her half century at sea.
Though known for her wit and bravery, the “maiden king” and “virile goddess” contended with the vicissitudes of rural life in a small coastal setting where most people lived on or close to the margins. Married briefly, she had one daughter who died young, and though dependent on others for her livelihood and a place to live, she later adopted a frail niece her sister had threatened to let die of exposure.
Known for her acute powers of observation, Thuridúr gained renown — and infamy — for helping to solve a robbery by four men, all of them close acquaintances. To add insult to injury, the county commissioner in charge of the case took full credit for the successful investigation, while threats from friends and relatives of the guilty compelled her to move. From 1834 to 1848, she lived most of the year in Hafnarfjörður, near Reykjavik, which had a population of just over 300, working at a merchant’s store and as a messenger and overland guide.
One remarkable thread running through Thuridúr’s life is her engagement with the legal system. She was involved in no less than seven suits involving a crewman who quit before his contract was done (a crime punishable by fines and the lash), back wages from a man whose boat she captained, the district of Stokkseyri for compensation for her niece’s care, and divorce — her own, and that of a friend who was abused by her husband.
Most suits included an element of slander, including when a drunk friend described her as tvítóla (“two-tooled,” or hermaphroditic), because she dressed like a man. She had begun wearing pants in favor of wool skirts when fishing, but gradually adopted a man’s jacket and short top hat. By the age of seventy-six, when this insult was made, these had become her hallmarks.
The rich detail throughout this biography relies on a slew of contemporary sources including petitions (all unsuccessful) for a pension from the Danish throne, her own recollections as written down by younger acquaintances towards the end of her life, and contemporaries’ memoirs. The result is an almost novelistic account of her life, although the details make it more vivid than fiction.
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