Christianity was established in Iceland in the year 1000. Fifty-seven years later, Isleif, Bishop of Skálholt, first introduced the art of writing the Roman alphabet, thus enabling them to fix oral lessons of history and song; for, the Runic characters previously in use were chiefly employed for monuments and memorial inscriptions, and were carved on wood staves, on stone or metal. On analysis, these rude letters will be found to be crude forms and abridgments of the Greek or Roman alphabet. We have identified them all, with the exception of a few letters, and are quite satisfied on this point, so simple and obvious is it, although we have not previously had our attention directed to the fact.
Snorro Sturleson was perhaps one of the most learned and remarkable men that Iceland has produced.
In 1264, through fear and fraud, the island submitted to the rule of Haco, king of Norway:—he who died at Kirkwall, after his forces were routed by the Scots at the battle of Largs. In 1387, along with Norway, it became subject to Denmark. In 1529, a printing press was established; and in 1550 the Lutheran reformation was introduced into the island—which form of worship is still retained.
True to the instinct of race, the early settlers in Iceland did not remain inactive, but looked westward, and found scope for their hereditary maritime skill in the discovery and colonising of Greenland. They also discovered Helluland (Newfoundland), Markland (Nova Scotia), and Vineland (New England). They were also acquainted with American land, which they called Hvitramannaland, (the land of the white men), thought to have been North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. We have read authentic records of these various voyages, extending from A.D. 877 to A.D. 1347. The names of the principal navigators are Gunnbiorn, Eric the Red, Biarni, Leif, Thorwald, &c. But the most distinguished of these American discoverers is Thorfinn Karlsefne, an Icelander, “whose genealogy,” says Rafn, “is carried back, in the old northern annals, to Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Scottish, and Irish ancestors, some of them of royal blood.” With singular interest we also read that, “in A.D. 1266, some priests at Gardar, in Greenland, set on foot a voyage of discovery to the arctic regions of America. An astronomical observation proves that this took place through Lancaster Sound and Barrow’s Strait to the latitude of Wellington’s Channel.”
When Columbus visited Iceland in A.D. 1467, he may have obtained confirmation of his theories as to the existence of a great continent in the west; for, these authentic records prove the discovery and colonisation of America, by the Northmen from Iceland, upwards of five hundred years before he re-discovered it.
The Norman outgoing is the last to which we shall here allude. In A.D. 876 the Northmen, under Rollo, wrested Normandy from the Franks; and from thence, in A.D. 1065, William, sprung from the same stock, landed at Hastings, vanquished Harold, and to this day is known as the Conqueror of England. It was a contest of Northmen with Northmen, where diamond cut diamond.
Instead of a chapter, this subject, we feel, would require a volume. At the outset we asserted that northern subjects possessed singular interest for the British race. In a very cursory manner we have endeavoured to prove it, by shewing that to Scandinavia, as its cradle, we must look for the germs of that spirit of enterprise which has peopled America, raised an Indian empire, and colonised Australia, and which has bound together, as one, dominions on which the sun never sets; all, too, either speaking, or fast acquiring, a noble language, which bids fair one day to become universal.
The various germs, tendencies, and traits of Scandinavian character, knit together and amalgamated in the British race, go to form the essential elements of greatness and success, and, where sanctified and directed into right channels, are noble materials to work upon.
It is Britain’s pride to be at once the mistress of the seas, the home of freedom, and the sanctuary of the oppressed. May it also be her high honour, by wisely improving outward privileges, and yet further developing her inborn capabilities, pre-eminently to become the torch-bearer of pure Christianity—with its ever-accompanying freedom and civilisation—to the whole world!