Kristinn Magnússon of the Þingvallasund swim in Lake Þingvellir, Iceland is gearing up to attract a number of foreign swimmers for the 5K swim in 11°C (51.8°F) water at midnight.

The initial idea for a swim across came from Fylkir Sævarsson in 2000 – who later completed the swim.

Like many places around the world, the Icelandic open water swimming community is growing – but there was local trepidation about swimming in Lake Þingvallavatn where a local folktale (“Everything that goes down Lake Þingvallavatn never comes up again“) held sway.

But Fylkir stayed on the surface and proved the folktale false.

Linguistic note: Þ = th (same pronunication for the Icelandic letter.

Copyright © 2010 by Steven Munatones