Hegranes

Hegranes is the name of the Icelandic peninsula between the branches of the Héraðsvötn river in Skagafjörður. Although Hegranes is called a peninsula (its name is derived from hegri "heron" and nes "peninsula"), it is actually an island about 15 kilometers long with a fairly tall, rocky headland covered in vegetation. Héraðsvötn’s western estuary hews closely to the west side of the peninsula, but there is a large sandy area before the peninsula reaches the eastern estuary. Off the southern end of the peninsula, there is a delta called Austara-Eylendið with diverse avian life and vegetation, which is home to a natural heritage site.

History

Hegranes was previously its own rural district, or hreppur, called Rípurhreppur, which has since become a part of the larger municipality of Skagafjörður.

The Skagafjörður assembly, the Hegranesþing, was held on the grounds of what is now the Garður farm in Hegranes. This location also sometimes hosted a northern quadrant assembly (an assembly historically held for a quadrant of the country). The region’s church is located in Ríp. One of the first women’s schools in the country was founded in Ás in Hegranes in the fall of 1877, but it stayed open for just one year.

In the town of Keldudalur, in Hegranes, there has been extensive progress in archeological excavations where ruins have ruins dated to the 10^th to 12^th centuries have been unearthed.

It has long been believed that many elves, or ‘hidden folk’, settlements are spotted in Hegranes. This belief holds some influence over road construction.