The earliest voyages northward to the Arctic Circle, of which there is certain literary mention in the early Middle Ages, are the Irish monks’ expeditions across the sea in their small boats, whereby they discovered the Faroes and Iceland, and, at all events for a time, lived there. Of these the Irish monk Dicuil gave an account, as early as about the year 825, in his description of the earth, “De Mensura Orbis Terræ” [cf. Letronne, 1814, pp. 38 f., 131 f.]. It is characteristic of the spiritual tendency of that period of the Middle Ages that these remarkable voyages were not, like other voyages of discovery, undertaken from love of gain, thirst for adventure, or desire of knowledge, but chiefly from the wish to find lonely places, where these anchorites might dwell in peace, undisturbed by the turmoil and temptations of the world.[154] In this way the unknown islands near the Arctic Ocean must have seemed to satisfy all their requirements; but their joy was short-lived; the disturbers of the North, the Vikings from Norway, soon came there also and drove them out or oppressed them.
What Dicuil tells us of the Scandinavian North is chiefly derived from Pliny, and contains nothing new. But of the unknown islands in the northern ocean he writes [7, 3]:
Discovery of the Faroes by the Irish
“There are many more islands in the ocean north of Britain, which can be reached from the northern British Isles in two days’ and two nights’ direct sailing with full sail and a favourable wind. A trustworthy priest (‘presbyter religiosus’) told me that he had sailed for two summer-days and an intervening night in a little boat with two thwarts [i.e., two pairs of oars],[155] and landed on one of these islands. These islands are for the most part small; nearly all are divided from one another by narrow sounds, and upon them anchorites, who proceeded from our Scotia [i.e., Ireland], have lived for about a hundred years (‘in centum ferme annis’). But as since the beginning of the world they had always been deserted, so are they now by reason of the Northman pirates emptied of anchorites, but full of innumerable sheep and a great number of different kinds of sea-birds. We have never found these islands spoken of in the books of authors.”
The Faroes
This description best suits the Faroes,[156] where, therefore, Irish monks had previously lived, and from whence they had been driven out by Norwegian seafarers, probably at the close of the eighth century. As, however, Dicuil is so well aware of the islands being full of sheep, the Irish may have continued to visit them occasionally, like the trustworthy priest referred to, who sailed there in a boat with two thwarts. Dicuil’s statement that they were then “emptied of anchorites” must doubtless be interpreted to mean that they were uninhabited; but this does not sound very probable. Rather, there are many indications that the islands had an original Celtic population, which continued to live there after the settlement of the Norsemen.
There are some Celtic place-names, such as “Dímon” (the islands “Stora Dímon” and “Litla Dímon,” or “Dímun meiri” and “Dímun minni”) from the Celtic “dimun” (== double neck, thus like Norwegian “Tviberg”).[157] As such Celtic place-names cannot have been introduced later, the Norwegians must have got them from the Celts who were there before, and with whom they had intercourse. The language of the Faroes has also many loan-words from Celtic, mostly for agriculture and cattle-farming, and for the flora and fauna of the islands. These might be explained by many of the Norwegian settlers having previously lived in the Scottish islands or in Ireland, or having had frequent communication with those countries [cf. A. Bugge, 1905, p. 358]; but it seems more natural to suppose that the loan-words are derived from a primitive Celtic population. To this must be added that the people of the Southern Faroes are still dark, with dark eyes and black hair, and differ from the more Germanic type of the northern islands [cf. D. Bruun, 1902, p. 5]. The name “Færöene” (sheep-islands) shows that there probably were sheep before the Norsemen came, which so far agrees with Dicuil; these sheep must then have been introduced by the earlier Celts.
According to this it seems possible that the Irish monks came to the islands not merely as anchorites, but also to spread Christianity among a Celtic population. The Norwegians arrived later, took possession of the islands, and oppressed the Celts.
Irish Discovery of Iceland