With fond memories of Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson

4th April 1924 – 24 December 1993

Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson, the son of the farmer Beinteinn Einarsson from Litlabotni-on-Hvaljardsbeach and Helga Pétursdóttir from Drághals in Svindal, was born on Apr 4th 1924. He died on the December 24th 1993 from heart failure.

In 1972 he founded the Ásatrúarfélag , the Icelandic heathen organization, of which he was the chief góði until his death.

From 1991 until his death Sveinbjörn lived on his land in Drághals in Bergmassiv Skardheiði (approx. 60 miles from Reykjavik), where the 6½ foot statue of Thor can be found.

It’s now more than 20 years since I met Sveinbjörn at his farm  in Iceland. At the time this was 1985 or 1986 In June. I will never forget it.  particularly because when I walked through the door at Iceland Air in Grosvenor Street, all the computers went  down immediately and I could not buy the ticket which would have  enabled me to attend the Althing. So I ended up staying in Iceland  for some  weeks after that.

My host was Eyolfur Haldarsson a close friend of Hilmar Orn  Hilmarsson who was the first one to suggest for me to go to  Iceland. I think Hilmar was either living in my basement or was  staying there with the musician David Tibet who was renting my basement. Oh  boy, that basement has seen some famous figures!

Eyolfur took me to see Sveinbjörn, I was just entering  Asatrú and was very overawed by him. He was a Big Man in many respects,  he was an opener of the Way to the Aesir/Vanir and all other  wights. In my opinion he has had as great an effect as Aleister  Crowley or Dion Fortune to name two other hero’s of mine. It’s  only now twenty years later I have the maturity to fully  appreciate his influence on us all, where and whenever we  started exploring Asatru.

He gave me gifts – a recording in his own voice of Havamal  Sigsrifulam and Voluspo, as well as a magical grimoire handwritten in Icelandic  (which of  course I never managed to read). The music however is a  different matter. Well, I  received a nice message from Sveinbjörn’s son, which I reproduce  here:

Hail Freya!
I am glad that I found your page and I’ll probably be visiting  it often in the future.

I am very interested in Asatrú and I guess the interest is  attributable to my late father, Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson, who as  you probably know, was the high priest of Ásatrúrafélagið in  Iceland until his untimely death in 1993.

All the best,

Georg Pétur Sveinbjörnsson