Iceland (Lonely Planet, 7th Edition) - Fran Parnell [10]
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THE VIKINGS
Scandinavia’s greatest impact on world history probably occurred during the Viking Age. In the 8th century, an increase in the numbers of restless, landless young men in western Norway coincided with advances in technology, as Nordic shipbuilders developed fast, manoeuvrable boats sturdy enough for ocean crossings.
Norwegian farmers had peacefully settled in Orkney and the Shetlands as early as the 780s, but the Viking Age officially began in bloodshed in the year 793, when Norsemen plundered St Cuthbert’s monastery on the island of Lindisfarne, off Britain’s Northumberland coast.
The Vikings quickly realised that monasteries were places of wealth, where a speedy raid could result in handsome rewards. They destroyed Christian communities and slaughtered the monks of Britain and Ireland, who could only wonder what sin they had committed to invite the heathen hordes. Despite this apparent predilection for warfare, the Vikings’ barbarism was probably no greater than the standard of the day – it was the success and extent of the raids that led to their fearsome reputation.
In the following years Viking raiders returned with great fleets, terrorising, murdering, enslaving, assimilating or displacing the local population, and capturing many coastal and inland regions of Britain, Ireland, France and Russia. The Vikings travelled as far as Moorish Spain (Seville was raided in 844) and the Middle East (they even reached Baghdad). Constantinople was attacked six times but never yielded, and ultimately Vikings served as mercenaries with the forces of the Holy Roman Empire.
Icelandic tradition officially credits the Norse settlement of Iceland to a single mainland phenomenon. From the mid- to late 9th century the tyrannical Harald Haarfager (Harald Finehair, or Fairhair), the king of Vestfold district of southeastern Norway, was taken with expansionist aspirations. In 890 he won a significant naval victory at Hafrsfjord (Stavanger), and the deposed chieftains and landowners chose to flee rather than submit. Many wound up in Iceland and the Faeroes.
While Viking raids continued in Europe, Eiríkur Rauðe (Erik the Red), having been exiled from Iceland, headed west with around 500 others to found the first permanent European colony in Greenland in 987. Eiríkur’s son, Leif the Lucky, went on to explore the coastline of northeast America in the year 1000. He called at Helluland (literally ‘land of flat stones’, probably Baffin Island), Markland (‘land of woods’, most likely Newfoundland or Labrador) and Vinland (‘land of wine’, probably somewhere between Newfoundland and New Jersey) – but permanent settlement was thwarted by the skrælings (Native Americans), who were anything but welcoming.
Viking raids petered out over the 11th century. The end of the Viking Age was marked by the death of King Harald Harðráði, the last of the great Viking kings, who died at the battle of Stamford Bridge in England in 1066.
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Around 860 the Norwegian Flóki Vilgerðarson uprooted his farm and family and headed for Snæland. He navigated with ravens, which, after some trial and error, led him to his destination and provided his nickname, Hrafna-Flóki (Raven-Flóki). Hrafna-Flóki sailed to Vatnsfjörður on the west coast but became disenchanted on seeing icebergs floating in the fjord. He renamed the country Ísland (Ice Land), and returned to Norway; although he did eventually come back to Iceland, settling in the Skagafjörður district on the north coast.
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Iceland’s 1100 Years: The History of a Marginal Society, by Gunnar Karlsson, provides an insightful, contemporary history of Iceland from settlement to the present.
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Credit for the first intentional settlement, according to the Íslendingabók (Click here), goes to Ingólfur Arnarson, who fled