The Founding of Iceland

Iceland is a rare thing: a country that remembers its own founding. Before the Norse, it may have been glimpsed by the Greek explorer Pytheas around 325 BC, whose “Thule” some identify with Iceland. Irish monks, the papar, apparently spent summers there in search of solitude; the Icelandic historian Ari the Learned says they left when the heathen Norse arrived, leaving behind books, bells, and staffs. From about 874, Norse settlers, with Celtic wives and slaves from the British Isles, made the island their permanent home.

The Founding of Iceland at a Glance

• About 325 BC – the Greek explorer Pytheas may have reached Iceland, his “Thule.”
• Before the Norse – Irish monks, the papar, spend summers on the island.
• The discovery – Naddodd and Garðar Svavarsson find the island by accident; Flóki Vilgerðarson sails there on purpose and names it Ísland.
• From about 874 – Norse settlers arrive; tradition names Ingólfr Arnarson, at Reykjavík, as the first.
• The next 60 years or so – more than 400 named settlers claim land across the island.
• 930 – the Althing first meets at Þingvellir.

Viking Discovery of Iceland

The Vikings discovered Iceland in a typically Viking way. On two different occasions, Viking sailors lost their ways and found the island. The first sailor, Naddodd, called it “Snowland.” A Swedish sailor, Garðar Svavarsson, was the second person to land on Iceland. He modestly called the island “Garðarshólmi,” which translates to ‘Garðar’s Islet’. Garðar overwintered in what is now Húsavík. There is the possibility that one of Garðar’s men, Natfarri, stayed permanently on the island though he is not traditionally credited as the first Viking settler of the island.

The first man known to sail to Iceland on purpose was the Norwegian Flóki Vilgerðarson, nicknamed Hrafna-Flóki, ‘Raven-Flóki,’ for the ravens he released to find land. His settlement failed after a hard winter killed his livestock. But while climbing a mountain he saw a fjord choked with drift ice and gave the island the name it still carries: Ísland, ‘Iceland.’ Later, the same accident of navigation led to the discovery of Greenland.

Ingólfr Arnarson and the Traditional Founding of Iceland

The traditional first settler is Ingólfr Arnarson, who came with his wife Hallveig Fróðadóttir. Later tradition says settlers like him were fleeing the harsh rule of King Harald Fairhair. As Ingólfr sighted land, he threw his high-seat pillars, the carved posts of his chieftain’s seat, overboard and vowed to settle wherever they washed ashore. His slaves searched the coast for three years before they found them, in a smoky bay he named Reykjavík, ‘Smoke Bay.’

Ingólfr’s blood brother, Hjörleifr Hróðmarsson, settled on the south coast at a headland still called Hjörleifshöfði. His Irish slaves rose up and killed him. Ingólfr hunted them down in the islands now called the Vestmannaeyjar (‘Islands of the Westmen’) and freed the women they had taken.

Over the next 60 years or so, the Book of Settlements records more than 400 named settlers claiming land across the island. The settlement sits on our Viking Timeline, and what those settlers wove, traded, and used for money is told in Viking Cloth Money.

Historical Sources

Our main sources are Íslendingabók (the Book of the Icelanders), written by Ari Thorgilsson “the Learned” around the 1120s, and Landnámabók (the Book of Settlements), which names the settlers and their land claims. Its oldest surviving version was compiled by Sturla Thordarson between about 1275 and 1280.

Keep reading with the Vikings’ discovery of Greenland, or join Axe and Anchor, Asgard Alaska’s Newsletter, to follow the story of the Norse world.