People from the Basque region can feel reassured now because they can once more enter Iceland without fear of being killed on sight.
A law dating back 400 years permitted, indeed encouraged, the murder of anyone from the Basque part of Spain who dared step foot in Iceland’s Westfjords area.
Westfjord forms the country’s northern peninsula and is the most remote part of the nation.
In 1615 a Basque whaling vessel ran aground in Strandir, in the far north of Westfjords.
The welcome the sailors received was death threats, as the sheriff, Ari Magnusson, declared it legal to kill any of them on the spot.
In all, 32 were killed.
The decree was never repealed until this month at a ceremony at the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery.
The symbolic gesture was celebrated with a ceremonial reconciliation between Xabier Irujo, a descendant of one of the murdered whale hunters and Magnus Rafnsson, who descended from one of the murderers.
