EN - 4 - INCEST: The Sunnefa Cases - Part 1

In the first part of The Sunnefa Cases, I tell you about the siblings Sunnefa Jónsdóttir and Jón Jónsson, who at the age of 16 and 14 had a child together. According to an order of the Grand Judgment, this was an incestuous crime, and therefore, they were sentenced to death; Sunnefa was to be drowned and Jón to be beheaded. But then there‘s a turning point in their case when Sunnefa gives birth to another child in the custody of the magistrate Hans Wium, and she accuses her brother of being the child‘s father, but then she declares Hans Wium is the real father, who had forced her and Jón to confess to committing yet another incest. This causes a commotion at the Icelandic Parliament Alþingi, and a 20-year legal proceeding ensues which looks like it‘s never going to end.