Oldest authorities
The island of Iceland is mentioned, as we have seen, for the first time in literature by Dicuil, in 825, who calls it Thyle and speaks of its discovery by the Irish. As he says nothing about “Nortmannic” pirates having arrived there, whereas he mentions their having expelled the Irish monks from the Faroes, we may conclude that the Norsemen had not yet reached Iceland at that time. The first certain mention of the name Iceland is in the German poem “Meregarto” (see [p. 181]),[231] and in Adam of Bremen, where we find the first description of the island derived from a Scandinavian source (see [p. 193]).
Narratives of its discovery by the Norsemen and of their first settlement there are to be found in Norse-Icelandic literature; but they were written down 250 or 300 years after the events. These narratives of the first discoverers mentioned by name and their deeds, which were handed down by tradition for so long a time, can therefore scarcely be regarded as more than legendary; nevertheless they may give us a picture in broad outlines of how voyages of discovery were accomplished in those times.
As the Norwegians visited the Scottish islands and Ireland many centuries before they discovered Iceland, it is highly probable that they had information from the Irish of this great island to the north-west; if so, it was natural that they should afterwards search for it, although according to most Norse-Icelandic accounts it is said to have been found accidentally by mariners driven out of their course.
Are Frode on the settlement of Iceland
According to the sagas a Norwegian Viking, Grim Kamban, had established himself in the Faroes (about 800 A.D.) and had expelled thence the Irish priests; but possibly there was a Celtic population, at any rate in the southern islands (cf. [p. 164]). After that time there was comparatively active communication between the islands and Norway, and it was on the way to the Faroes or to the Scottish islands that certain voyagers were said to have been driven northward by a storm to the great unknown island. The earliest and, without comparison, the most trustworthy authority, Are Frode,[232] gives in his “Íslendingabók” (of about 1120-1130) no information of any such discovery, and this fact does not tend to strengthen one’s belief in it. Are tells us briefly and plainly:
“Iceland was first settled from Norway in the days of Harold Fairhair, the son of Halfdan the Black; it was at that time—according to Teit, Bishop Isleif’s son, my foster-brother, the wisest man I have known, and Thorkel Gellisson, my uncle, whose memory was long, and Thorid, Snorre Gode’s daughter, who was both exceeding wise and truthful—when Ivar, Ragnar Lodbrok’s son, caused St. Edmund, the king of the Angles [i.e., the English king], to be slain. And that was 870 winters after the birth of Christ, as it is written in his saga. Ingolf hight the Norseman of whom it is truthfully related that he first fared thence [from Norway] to Iceland, when Harold Fairhair was sixteen winters old, and for the second time a few winters later; he settled south in Reykjarvik; the place is called Ingolfshövde; Minthakseyre, where he first came to land, but Ingolfsfell, west of Ölfosså, of which he afterwards possessed himself. At that time Iceland was clothed with forest [i.e., birch forest] from the mountains to the strand. There were Christian men here, whom the Norsemen called ‘Papar’ ...” and who were Irish, as already mentioned, [pp. 165 f.] “And then there was great resort of men hither from Norway, until King Harold forbade it, since he thought that the land [i.e., Norway] would be deserted,” etc.
We may certainly assume that this description of Are’s is at least as trustworthy as the later statements on the same subject; but as Are probably also wrote a larger Íslendingabók, which is now lost, there is a possibility that he there related the discovery of Iceland in greater detail, and that the later authors have drawn from it.
Dragon-ship with a king and warrior (from the Flateyjarbók, circa 1390)