Goðafoss
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The Goðafoss (roughly God's falls) is one of the most spectacular waterfalls in Iceland. It is located in the Mývatn district of North-Central Iceland at the beginning of Sprengisandur Highland road. The water of the river Skjálfandafljót falls from a height of 12 meters over a width of 30 meters.
In 999 or 1000 A.D., at the meeting of the Althing, the Icelanders voted to adopt Christianity. The wooden idols of the Norse mythology were thrown into the falls in a symbolic gesture that swept away the old religion. In the year 999 or 1000 the Lawspeaker Þorgeir Ljósvetningagoði made Christianity the official religion of Iceland. After his conversion it is said that, upon returning from the Alþingi (Althing), Þorgeir then threw his statues of the old Norse gods into the waterfall that is now named Goðafoss. Þorgeirr's story is preserved in Ari Þorgilsson's Íslendingabók.
Thus the Goðafoss literally means the "Waterfall of the Gods." A window in the Cathedral of Akureyri (Akureyrarkirkja) illustrates this story.
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