Wait...Spaniards? Really? Was there like a special reason for this banning? O vo;;
Oh yes... story time!
In 1615 two Spanish whaling ships came over and, reaching a deal with the locals, stayed to catch whales. Both ships sunk in a horrible storm and about 80 men survived: 50 went to the south of the country but 30 stayed in the Westfjords. This group further split in two.
One half came across a house they thought to be abandoned and took all dry fish there was inside. Alas, the house was not abandoned at all and this was already autumn, the owner became quite angry for losing his winter food storage. He banded together with some locals and attacked the Spanish group, killing them all.
Next the local authorities passed the law that killing a Spanish person was not illegal. They then went and found the other half of the group and killed them too, almost to the last person (I think two men survived). The attacks were criticized but alas, by then it was too late and afterwards the law just held on, first probably because there's a certain lack of Spanish people in the Westfjords in general and eventually it was probably forgotten, until this year when it at last was overthrown. Very quietly.
Btw the reason why Iceland's total prohibition failed early was because Spain threatened to stop buying Icelandic goods if Spanish wines weren't sold in Iceland, so Iceland quickly added a "
except for Spanish wines" to the no-alcohol -rule.
