Reconstruction
On 8 June 1783, a fissure opened near Lakagígar in Iceland’s southern interior. Eruptive activity continued until 7 February 1784, releasing approximately 15 cubic kilometres of lava as well as ash, sulfur dioxide and fluorine-bearing material. Lava directly destroyed or helped force the abandonment of dozens of farms near the fissure, but the nationwide food crisis arose chiefly from damage to vegetation and livestock. Acidic haze injured grass, while fluorine deposited on pasture poisoned grazing animals. Contemporary descriptions of weak livestock, damaged teeth and deformed bones agree closely with veterinary evidence for fluorosis.
This was disastrous in a society organized around animal husbandry. Cows and sheep supplied milk, dairy stores, meat, wool and tallow; horses carried people and goods between scattered farms, fishing stations and Danish trading posts. Hay was the principal crop because it kept animals alive through winter. After the eruption, grass withered, hay yields and feeding value declined, and milk production sometimes fell immediately to half its previous level or less. Animals died from poisoning, starvation or compulsory slaughter. By 1785, national livestock totals were drastically reduced, particularly among sheep.
The foods that disappeared fastest were therefore milk and other dairy products, followed by reliable supplies of meat and animal fat. Wild supplements—including berries, Iceland moss, birds and freshwater fish—were also reported diminished. Marine fish remained biologically available and became the most important alternative, especially wind-dried cod, but access was unequal. Haze restricted visibility in 1783; sea ice impeded northern fishing in 1784; and many inland farmers lacked healthy workers, horses or goods to barter. Western and southwestern fisheries performed comparatively better, yet dried fish continued to enter commercial channels while hungry districts struggled to obtain it.
Imported grain and dried fish could be distributed through roughly twenty Danish trading posts, but communications with Copenhagen were seasonal and relief was delayed. Government aid arrived only from summer 1784 and amounted, by one modern reconstruction, to roughly two weeks of additional provisions for Iceland as a whole. Local officials attempted emergency loans and restrictions on exports of butter, tallow, meat or other foods, with inconsistent enforcement. Several hundred inhabitants left the eruption district, while later demographic evidence suggests a broader movement from badly affected farming areas toward fishing regions.
Deaths from starvation began after reserves failed in late 1783 and continued into 1785. Parish registers and demographic studies support hunger and famine-amplified infectious disease as the principal explanation for excess mortality. Direct lethal poisoning of large numbers of people by haze or fluorine has been proposed, but recent reassessment finds that evidence weak. The enduring lesson of the Haze Famine is therefore systemic: pasture contamination became livestock collapse, transport failure, unequal access to fish, delayed relief, migration and mass mortality. It exposed the danger of depending heavily on dairy pastoralism while underusing rich marine resources and lacking rapid, dependable food distribution.
Historical context
Iceland was a sparsely populated dependency of the Danish–Norwegian monarchy. About 50,000 people lived mainly on dispersed coastal and lowland farms; Reykjavík had only around 200 inhabitants and no true urban centre existed. Dairy products may have supplied about half of dietary energy, while open rowing boats limited how far fishers could follow cod. Approximately twenty monopoly-era trading posts connected Iceland to imported grain, wood, iron and fishing lines, but winter North Atlantic conditions could halt communication with Copenhagen for months. Elsewhere, the American Revolutionary War had just ended in 1783, while European states were expanding administrative statistics, long-distance trade and scientific observation of weather and volcanic phenomena.
Evidence
Written sources
StrongContemporary reports by Jón Steingrímsson, officials, clergy and other observers document the eruption, vegetation damage, livestock illness, falling milk production, hunger, migration and relief efforts.
Dating
StrongContemporary records and volcanological reconstruction date the main fissure eruption from 8 June 1783 to 7 February 1784; demographic and administrative records trace the associated mortality crisis through 1785 and broader hardship into 1786.
Food identification
ModerateAdministrative reports and later syntheses identify dairy products, livestock meat, dried fish, imported grain and several wild foods as relevant. Exact household diets and substitutions varied greatly by district and wealth.
Preparation method
LimitedWind-drying of cod and the storage of hay and dairy produce are documented features of the food system, but the crisis sources rarely provide complete recipes or meal-level preparation descriptions.
Geographic attribution
StrongThe fissure and local farm destruction are securely located in southern Iceland, while parish, county and trade records establish that food-system effects and mortality varied across the island.
Historical interpretation
ModerateHunger and famine-amplified disease provide the best-supported explanation for most excess mortality. Widespread direct human death from volcanic air pollution or fluorine poisoning remains an inadequately supported interpretation.
Visual reconstruction
InterpretiveAny depiction of meals, food queues, livestock condition or relief distribution would require reconstruction from written descriptions rather than direct visual documentation.
Sources
- 1.Claudia Elisabeth Wieners and Guðmundur Hálfdanarson (2024). “More poison than words can describe”: what did people die of after the 1783 Laki eruption in Iceland?. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 24, 2971–2994. doi:10.5194/nhess-24-2971-2024Scientific literature
- 2.Claudia Elisabeth Wieners (2020). Haze, Hunger, Hesitation: Disaster aid after the 1783 Laki eruption. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 406, 107080. doi:10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2020.107080Scientific literature
- 3.Thorvaldur Thordarson and Stephen Self (2003). Atmospheric and environmental effects of the 1783–1784 Laki eruption: A review and reassessment. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 108(D1), 4011. doi:10.1029/2001JD002042Scientific literature
- 4.Thorvaldur Thordarson and Stephen Self (1993). The Laki (Skaftár Fires) and Grímsvötn eruptions in 1783–1785. Bulletin of Volcanology 55, 233–263. doi:10.1007/BF00624353Scientific literature
- 5.Jón Steingrímsson; translated by Keneva Kunz (1998). Fires of the Earth: The Laki Eruption 1783–1784. Nordic Volcanological Institute. borgarbokasafn.is/en/ting/object/alma99000209167Historical primary source
- 6.Margrét Gunnarsdóttir (2022). The catastrophe of the Laki eruption in Iceland, 1783–1784. 1700-tal: Nordic Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies. doi:10.7557/4.6611Modern synthesis
Limitations
- moderatedescription
The conventional statement that roughly one-fifth of Icelanders died combines total population decline with causal attribution. Recent demographic reassessment estimates eruption-associated excess mortality at about one-sixth of the 1783 population after allowing for ordinary mortality and the partly unrelated smallpox epidemic beginning in November 1785. Total population loss approached one-fifth, but not every death can securely be assigned to the famine.
- minordate end
Starvation deaths were concentrated from late 1783 through summer 1785, so the supplied endpoint is defensible for the acute famine. However, livestock recovery, depressed births, disease and population decline continued into 1786; sources sometimes date the wider Haze Hardships to 1783–1786.
