ABSTRACT
In the register of parishioners for the parish of Munkaþverá in 1820, we find Guðrún at Syðri-Tjarnir in the Öngulsstaðir district, where she lived for the next few years in the home of Sigurður Stefánsson (b. 1801) and his wife, Margrét Pétursdóttir (b. 1799). Guðrún was now in her sixties, while her master and mistress were about 20 years old and beginning their life together. The young couple appear to have lived in severe poverty, as Guðrún recalls always being hungry at Syðri-Tjarnir and remembers some rotten ribs she bought from a certain Magnús, which made her ill. This Magnús, with whom Guðrún bartered for the ribs, did not live at Syðri-Tjarnir in Guðrún's time there. He may have been a farmhand on some neighbouring farm or perhaps a farmer's son, sneaking meat from the household stores to sell. But Guðrún's account gives the impression that she was able to get hold of food for herself, even when her employers were in dire straits. But her relationship with the couple did not end well; it was probably the young farmer at Syðri-Tjarnir whom she identifies with the Devil himself:
Then I got 24 small herring, and many smaller ones; and I got a black sheep, and I told him he could pay the tax himself. And he fell down in the chancel, that devil.
