Iceland, Settlement of

The Danes and Norwegians move west into the Atlantic Ocean, settling on the Shetland Isles, Iceland, and Greenland.

Brief Viking expeditions to North America around 1000 will not result in any settlements, and they will soon be driven off by natives.

Other Viking raids into Germany and the Mediterranean are short-lived and have no lasting effect.

The settlement of Iceland is generally believed to have begun in the second half of the ninth century, when Norse settlers migrated across the North Atlantic.

The reasons for the migration may be traced to a shortage of arable land in Scandinavia, and civil strife brought about by the ambitions of the Norse king Harald the Fair-haired.

Unlike Britain and Ireland, Iceland is unsettled land, and can be claimed without warring on the inhabitants.

Historians typically refer to the year 874 as the first year of settlement.

Iceland may originally have been settled as early as the second half of the seventh century, as suggested by controversial results of recent carbon dating work, published in the journal Skírnir.

Celtic monks known as the Papar, possibly members of a Hiberno-Scottish mission, already live in Iceland when the Norse settlers arrive, according to both the Icelandic sagas Landnámabók and Íslendingabók. 

The medieval chronicler Ari Thorgilsson will state that Ingólfur Arnarson had been the first Nordic settler in Iceland, but mentioned that "Papar—i.e., Irish monks and hermits—had been in the country before the Norsemen.

He wrote that they left because they did not want to live among the newly arrived pagans.

Recent archaeological excavations have revealed the ruins of a cabin in Hafnir on the Reykjanes peninsula.

Carbon dating indicates that it was abandoned somewhere between 770 and 880, suggesting that Iceland was populated well before 874.

This archaeological find may also indicate that the monks left Iceland before the Norse arrived.

Swedish Viking explorer Garðar Svavarsson is the first to circumnavigate Iceland in 870 and establish that it is an island.

He stays over winter and builds a house in Húsavík.

Garðar departs the following summer but one of his men, Náttfari, decides to stay behind with two slaves.

Náttfari settles in what is now known as Náttfaravík and becomes the first permanent resident of Iceland.

Ingólfur Arnarson in the year 874 builds his homestead in present-day Reykjavík.

Ingólfr is followed by many other emigrant settlers, largely Norsemen and their thralls, many of whom are Irish or Scoti.

Landnáma (written two to three centuries after the settlement) contains a long story about Ingólf's settlement.

The book claims he left Norway after becoming involved in a blood feud.

He had heard about a new island which Garðarr Svavarsson, Flóki Vilgerðarson and others had found in the Atlantic Ocean.

With his step brother Hjörleifr Hróðmarsson, he sailed for Iceland.

When land was in sight, he threw his high seat pillars (a sign of his being a chieftain) overboard and promised to settle where the gods decided to bring them ashore.

Two of his slaves then searched the coasts for three years before finding the pillars in the small bay that will eventually become Reykjavík.

In the meantime, Hjörleifr had been murdered by his Irish slaves because of his ill-treatment.

Ingólfr hunted them down and killed them in the Westman Islands (Vestmannaeyjar, named after the slaves).

Ingólfr was said to settle a large part of the southwestern part of Iceland, but after his settlement nothing more was known.

His son, Bjorsteinn Ingólfsson, is a major chieftain and is said to have founded the first thing, or parliament, in Iceland.

It is a forerunner of the Althingi.

The name Ingolf, similar to the name Adolf that means "aristocratic wolf", would be translated as "royal or kingly wolf."

Landnámabók lists four hundred and thirty-five men as the initial settlers, the majority of them settling in the northern and southwestern parts of the island.

Tønsberg had been founded, according to Snorri Sturluson, before the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which, according to Snorri, took place in 871.

What year the battle took place is disputed, however, and most current historians believe the battle took place closer to 900.

If, however, the battle did in fact take place in 871, this would make Tønsberg the oldest present Scandinavian city.

Scandinavian warrior chief Harald Fairhair, the son of Halfdan the Black, ruler of southeastern Norway, wins control of most of Norway by alliances and conquests, culminating in his victory at Hafrsfjord near Stavanger.

It was formerly believed that this battle was the decisive event in the unification of Norway.

Although most scholars currently tend to regard the unification as a process lasting centuries, rather than being the result of a single battle, the Battle of Hafrsfjord ranks high in the popular imagination of Norway.

It is the conclusion of King Harald I of Norway's declaration to become the sole ruler of Norway.

This battle may well have been the largest in Norway up to that time and for a good while after.

According to Snorri's saga, King Harald controlled large parts of Norway's southeast portion before the battle; but other sources claim that the eastern portion of Norway was under the Danish king.

The Battle of Hafrsfjord marks the final crushing of opposition from Norway's southwestern portion (primarily Rogaland, but also chieftains from the Sognefjord area).

This makes it possible for King Harald to subdue the country and collect taxes from a large part of it.

Later historiography regards him as the first legitimate King of Norway.

The Icelandic historian Ólafia Einarsdóttir in the 1970s will concluded that the battle took place some time between 870 and 875.

However still disputed, most scholars will agree that the battle took place during the 880s.

In any case, many of the losers emigrate to Iceland, stopping en route in the Orkney and Shetland Islands to take on island women as partners, willing or unwilling, in the new life they intend for themselves.

The age of settlement in Iceland is considered to have begun with Ingólfur's settlement, for he was the first to sail to Iceland with the express purpose of settling the land.

He has been followed by many others—within about sixty years, all the usable land has been taken.

Landnámabók manuscripts mention fifteen hundred farm and place names as well as more than thirty-five hundred people.

The material is arranged in a geographical fashion and seems to give a relatively complete picture of how the country was settled.

It is difficult to estimate with any great precision the number of the migrants to the country during the Age of Settlement, but scholars estimate that it was between fifteen thousand and twenty thousand people.

The age of settlement is considered to have ended in the year 930 with the establishment of Alþingi, when almost all land in the country had been claimed by settlers.