Tjodrik Monk on the discovery of Iceland
The next written account of the discovery of Iceland is found in the “Historia de Antiquitate regum Norwagiensium”[233] of the Norwegian monk Tjodrik (written about 1180), where we read:
“In Harold’s ninth year—some think in his tenth—certain merchants sailed to the islands which we call ‘Phariæ’ [‘Færeyjar’ == the Faroes]; there they were attacked by tempest and wearied long and sore, until at last they were driven by the sea to a far distant land, which some think to have been the island of Thule; but I cannot either confirm or deny this, as I do not know the true state of the matter. They landed and wandered far and wide; but although they climbed mountains, they nowhere found trace of human habitation. When they returned to Norway they told of the country they had found and by their praises incited many to seek it. Among them especially a chief named Ingolf, from the district that is called Hordaland; he made ready a ship, associated with himself his brother-in-law Hjorleif and many others, and sought and found the country we speak of, and began to settle it together with his companions, about the tenth year of Harold’s reign. This was the beginning of the settlement of that country which we now call Iceland—unless we take into account that certain persons, very few in number, from Ireland (that is, little Britain) are believed to have been there in older times, to judge from certain books and other articles that were found after them. Nevertheless two others preceded Ingolf in this matter; the first was named Garðar, after whom the land was at first called Garðarsholmr, the second was named Floki. But what I have related may suffice concerning this matter.”
“Historia Norwegiæ”
It is probable that Tjodrik Monk was acquainted with Are Frode’s Íslendingabók, or at least had sources connected with it. In the “Historia Norwegiæ” by an unknown Norwegian author (written according to G. Storm about 1180-1190, but probably later, in the thirteenth century)[234] we read of the discovery of Iceland [Storm, 1880, p. 92]:
“Next, to the west, comes the great island which by the Italians is called Ultima Tile; but now it is inhabited by a considerable multitude, while formerly it was waste land, and unknown to men, until the time of Harold Fairhair. Then certain Norsemen, namely Ingolf and Hjorleif, fled thither from their native land, being guilty of homicide, with their wives and children, and resorted to this island, which was first discovered by Gardar and afterwards by another (?), and found it at last, by probing the waves with the lead.”
The Landnáma on the discovery of Iceland
In Sturla’s Landnámabók, called the Sturlubók, of about 1250, we find almost the same story of the first discovery as in Tjodrik Monk. It runs:
“Thus it is related that men were to go from Norway to the Faroes—some mention Naddodd the Viking among them—but were driven westward in the ocean and there found a great land. They went up a high mountain in the East-fjords and looked around them, whether they could see smoke or any sign that the land was inhabited, and they saw nothing. They returned in the autumn to the Faroes. And as they sailed from the land, much snow fell upon the mountains, and therefore they called the land Snowland. They praised the land much. It is now called Reydarfjeld in the East-fjords, where they landed, so said the priest Sæmund the Learned. There was a man named Gardar Svavarsson, of Swedish kin, and he went forth to seek Snowland, by the advice of his mother, who had second sight. He reached land east of East Horn, where there was then a harbour. Gardar sailed around the country and proved that it was an island. He wintered in the north at Husavik in Skialfanda and there built a house. In the spring, when he was ready for sea, a man in a boat, whose name was Nattfari, was driven away from him, and a thrall and a bondwoman. He afterwards dwelt at the place called Natfaravik. Gardar then went to Norway and praised the land much. He was the father of Uni, the father of Hroar Tungugodi. After that the land was called Gardarsholm, and there was then forest between the mountains and the strand.”
In Hauk’s Landnámabók (of the beginning of the fourteenth century) Gardar’s voyage is mentioned as the first, and Naddodd’s as the second, and it is said of Gardar that he was “son of Svavar the Swede; he owned lands in Sealand, but was born in Sweden. He went to the Southern isles [Hebrides] to fetch her father’s inheritance for his wife. But as he was sailing through Pettlands firth [Pentland, between Orkney and Shetland] a storm drove him back, and he drifted westward in the ocean, etc.” The Sturlubók was doubtless written some fifty years before Hauk’s Landnámabók, and was the authority for the latter and for the lost Landnámabók of Styrmir enn froði[235] (ob. 1245); but as the copy that has come down to us of the Sturlubók is later (about 1400), many have thought that on this point the Hauksbók is more to be relied upon, and have therefore held that according to the oldest Icelandic tradition the Swedish-born Dane Gardar was the first Scandinavian discoverer of Iceland. Support for this view has also been found in the fact that in another passage of the Sturlubók we read: “Uni, son of Gardar who first found Iceland.” It has therefore been held that it was not till after 1300 that a transposition was made in the order of Gardar’s and Naddodd’s voyages at the beginning of the book [cf. F. Jônsson, 1900, p. xxx.]. But this assertion may be doubtful; it seems rather as though the Icelandic tradition itself was uncertain on this point. We have seen above that the Norwegian work “Historia Norwegiæ” mentions Gardar as the first; while the yet earlier Tjodrik Monk [1177-1180] has a tale of a first accidental voyage to Iceland, which is the same, in parts word for word, as the stories of both the Sturlubók and the Hauksbók of Naddodd’s voyage, only that Tjodrik mentions no name in connection with it. He certainly says later that Gardar and Floki went there before Ingolf; but this must mean that all three came after the first-mentioned nameless voyage. If we compare with this the vague expression of the Sturlubók that “some mention Naddodd the Viking” in connection with that first accidental voyage, the logical conclusion must be that there was an old tradition that some one, whose identity is uncertain, had been long ago driven by weather to this Snowland, in the same way as there was a tradition in Iceland that Gunnbjörn had been driven long ago to Gunnbjörnskerries, before Greenland was discovered by Eric the Red. Some have then connected this first storm-driven mariner with a Norwegian Viking-name, Naddodd. Thus are legends formed. But the first man to circumnavigate the country and to become more closely acquainted with it was, according to the tradition, Gardar, whose name was more certainly known; for which reason he was also readily named as the first discoverer of the country (just as Eric the Red and not Gunnbjörn was named as the discoverer of Greenland). Hauk Erlendsson then, in agreement with this, amended the Landnámabók by placing Gardar’s voyage first, while at the same time he made the mention of Naddodd more precise, which was necessary, since his was to be a later and therefore equally well-known voyage. He also gives Naddodd’s kin, which is not alluded to in the Sturlubók. This hypothesis is strengthened by the latter’s vague expression, above referred to, about Naddodd, and by the fact that only Gardar’s and Floki’s names are mentioned by Tjodrik Monk, and only Gardar and another (Floki ?) in the “Historia Norwegiæ.” If Naddodd’s voyage had come after Gardar’s, and consequently was equally well known, it would be strange that it should not be mentioned together with his and with the third voyage that succeeded them. But the whole question is of little importance, since, as we have said, these narratives must be regarded as mere legends.