Photo by Rentzb0711, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
🇮🇸 Iceland · Dalir, West Iceland
Photo by Rentzb0711, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
🇮🇸 Iceland · Dalir, West Iceland
♨ Temperature
37°C
⛰ Altitude
—
⚗ pH
—
💧 TDS
—
🌊 Flow rate
—
📅 Established
Rebuilt 2009 (original pool destroyed by a landslide around 1869)
✓ Verified on 2026-07-28
Guðrúnarlaug is a small natural hot pool on a grassy slope above Laugar in Sælingsdalur, in the Dalir region of West Iceland, about 20 km from Búðardalur. The pool is named for Guðrún Ósvífursdóttir, a central figure of the 13th-century Laxdæla Saga, who tradition says bathed here. The original pool was buried by a landslide around 1869 and lay unused for roughly 140 years until locals rebuilt it in 2009 with a turf-roofed changing hut. The spring-fed water sits at around 37°C, and the site remains free and unstaffed.
Named for Guðrún Ósvífursdóttir, a leading character of the 13th-century Laxdæla Saga, who according to the saga loved to bathe in a hot spring at this site and is said to have held important conversations here. A dream interpreter in the saga foretold she would marry four times, with each husband dying before her; she later became a nun at Helgafell and, per the saga, died in 1008. The original pool was destroyed by a landslide around 1869 and rebuilt in 2009.