We may, however, be certain that in the following extract La Peyrère expresses the opinions popular at Copenhagen in the seventeenth century:
“Angrim Jonas,[118] as it seems, would not be so averse, to allow that Iseland is the same with the Ancient Thule, provided he could be convinced, that that Isle was inhabited before the time of Ingulph; wherefore, tho’ I have said enough upon this Head for the Satisfaction of unbyass’d Persons; yet will I not think it beyond the purpose, to alledge some undeniable Reasons for the Proof thereof, viz., That Iseland was Inhabited before that time. I have by me two Chronicles of Greenland written in Danish, one in Verse, the other in Prose. That written in Verse, begins with the year 770, when it says Greenland was first discovered. The other assures us, That the Person, that went first from Norway into Greenland pass’d through Iseland, and tells us, expressly, That Iseland was Inhabited at that time; whence it is evident, that Iseland was not first of all Inhabited in the year 874.”
“Angrim Jonas will perhaps object, That my Danish Chronicles don’t agree with that of Iseland, which says, That Greenland was not discovered till the year 982; nor inhabited till 986. But I must tell him, That my Danish Chronicles are founded upon the Authority of Ansgarius, a great Prelate, a Native of France, who has been acknowledged the first Apostle of the Northern World. He was made Archbishop of Hamborough, by Lewis the Mild, his Jurisdiction extended from the River Elbe, all over the Frozen Sea; the Emperor’s Patent, constituting the said Ansgarius the first Archbishop of Hamborough, are dated in the year 834, and were confirmed by Pope Gregory IV.’s Bull in 835. The true Copy, both of the Patent and of the Bull, are to be seen in the 4th Book of Pontanus his Danish History of the year 834, where it is expressly said in the Patent, That the Gates of the Gospel are set open, and that Jesus Christ had been revealed both in Iceland and Greenland; for which the Emperor gives his most humble Thanks to God.”
“Two Inferences are to be made from thence: First, That Iseland was inhabited by Christians in the year 834, and consequently 40 years before the arrival of Ingulph there: Secondly, That Greenland was inhabited by Christians in the same year, 834. Which agrees with my Danish Chronicle, where the first discovery of Greenland is fix’d to the year 770.[119] Angrim Jonas being put to a nonplus, tells us, That he questions the authority of the Bull of Gregory IV. alledged by Pontanus, which he would fain make us believe, is supposititious; but to be plain with him, I think he has taken a Notion of maintaining the Credit of his Native Country, by adhering too strictly to the Authority of its Chronicles; whereas it would have been more for his Reputation, not to have insisted so much upon that Authority, than to rob this Isle of the glory of its Antiquity; who is so ignorant, as not to know, that the Age wherein Ingulph lived, was not very barbarous? The Goths having carried the same together with their Arms throughout all Europe; whoever should go about to persuade me, into a Belief of all what is inserted in the Ancient Chronicles of these barbarous Ages, might as soon make me believe the Romances of Oger the Dane, or the Four Sons of Aymon, of the Archbishop of Turpin, and other such like nonsensical Stories relating to the same time.”
A fair collateral testimony is given by that conscientious writer, Uno Von Troil (p. 224):
“Thus I go further back with regard to the eruptions of fire in Iceland than the common tradition among the vulgar people there, who believe that the first inhabitants of the country, whom they suppose to have been Christians and Irishmen, were so much oppressed by the Norwegian colonists, that they were forced to leave the country, to which they first set fire to revenge themselves.”
And Iceland still contains many traces of its old colonists—Welsh, Hebridian, and Irish. The places occupied by the former are known by the general term Kumbravágr. Arngrím Jónsson mentions one Kalman from the Hebrides (Land. II. i. 51), who first settled in Kalmanstunga or “Doab” of Kalman, the western part of Iceland; and Patrick (Patrekr Biskup, Land. I. xii. 23), a Hebridian bishop, is known to history as having sent the materials of a chapel, which was afterwards built at the base of the Esja mountain; hence Patreksfjörð in the north-west. The signs of the Irish are most numerous,[120] and possibly they supplied “Raven Floki” with food during the two years which he passed in the far north. Such are Briánn or Bran, Melkorka, Nial or Njáll, Konall (Connell), Kormak and Kjartan, Íraá (Irish River); the Írafell, or Irish fell, in the Kjósar Sýsla; and the Írarbuðr, or Irish booths, in the Hvammsfjörð. Hence we can explain the fables of history which have been regarded as simple fabrications. Geoffrey of Monmouth makes Prince Arthur, in A.D. 517, subdue Iceland with an army of 60,000 men. Hence, too, another writer attributes its recovery to Malgo, king of Britain; whilst a third alludes to the mixture of Finns and Scandinavians before the official rediscovery of the island.[121]
Within sixty years after the first settlement by the Northmen, the whole was inhabited; and, writes Uno Von Troil (p. 64), “King Harold, who did not contribute a little towards it by his tyrannical treatment of the petty kings and lords in Norway, was obliged at last to issue an order, that no one should sail to Iceland without paying four ounces of fine silver to the Crown, in order to stop those continual emigrations, which weakened his kingdom.” The stock phrase of the Landnámabók (ii. 12, 92) is, “Fyrir ofríki Haralldar Konungs”—“For the overbearing of King Harold.” But posterity has done justice to Pulchricomus, the Fair-haired Jarl, who, following the example of Egbert, brought under a single sceptre the quasi-independent reguli and heads of clans: the latter remind us of nothing more than the thousand kinglets, each with a family all kinglets, the ridiculous King Boys and King Pepples of Western Africa.
Before the tenth century had reached its half-way period, the Norwegians had fully peopled the island with not less, perhaps, than 50,000 souls. A census taken about A.D. 1100, numbered the franklins who had to pay Thing-tax at 4500, without including cotters and proletarians. The chiefs, who were also the priests, lived each upon his own “Landnám,” or lot, which perhaps he had seized from another. Once more like little kings, they intermarried; they left their possessions to their families; they assigned lands to new comers; and they raised revenue from their clients and freedmen, serfs and slaves. They brought with their language and religion their customs and records; they claimed all the influence which could be commanded by strength and valour, birth and wealth; and they had no common bonds of union save race and religion. The three castes were sharply distinguished, like the four of the Hindús. The first was the Goði, priest and lord, including a rare Jarl, and Hersir (baron). The two latter, descended from Hersir and Erna, are described like our “Barbarians,” as having fair hair, clear complexions, and fine piercing eyes: their duties in life were riding, hunting, and fighting. Secondly came the progeny of Afi and Amma; the Thanes, Churls, Karls, or free peasants: their florid, red-haired sons were Stiffbeard, Landholder, Husbandman, and Smith; and their daughters, Prettyface, Swanlike, Blithespeech, and Chatterbox. Last in the list were the Thralls, begotten by Thræl, son of Ái and Edda, upon Thý: for offspring they had Plumpy, Stumpy, Frousy, Homespun, Sootyface, and Slowpace, the latter a very fruitful parent; and their daughters were Busybody, Cranefoot, Smokeynose, and Tearclout.
But Iceland was already too populous for this “leonine” state of society. In the brave old days when ancient mariners were ancient thieves, the roving islandry throve by piracy and discovery; but the settled Udallers (Óðalsmenn) must have felt that some tie was necessary for the body politic. The Höfðingja-stjórn, or aristocratic republic, was initiated by the establishment of the Althing,[122] and by the adoption of Úlfljót’s oral law in A.D. 929-930. This annual assembly, at once legislative and judicial, was supreme over the local “Things,”[123] comitia or meetings which, independent of one another, and unchecked by a supreme court, could not do justice between rival nobles and franklins. With the Althing was introduced a kind of President, under whom the Icelandic commonwealth at once assumed shape and form. His title was Lögsögumaðr, or Sayer of the Law, and his functions resembled in important points the commoner, who began in A.D. 1377, to speak to (and not for) our Lower House.[124]