From 870 to 930 (after Christ) Iceland was settled. Before
that, it says in Icelandic registers, Irish monks had lived here
for a while. They left Iceland around the time when the Vikings came
to the country. Presumably they left because they didn’t want to
live in a community with people that believed in heathen gods.
Landnáma (a sort of a colonization-register) says that
Naddoddur, a viking from Faeroe Islands, was the first of all
Nordic people to stay in Iceland. He stopped here just for a while but
even so he gave the land the name Snow-land.
The Swedish Viking Garðar Svavarsson is supposed to have been
here after Naddoddur. The story says that he sailed around the island and
was the first one to stay on the island for the winter. He called the land
Garðars-islet but when he sailed back home, three people
remained in Iceland. Those people where first of all people to live in
Iceland permanently, but still they are not considered as settlers.
A Norwegian viking, Hrafna Flóki (Raven-Shag), was the last one
who came here before the man who is concidered the official first settler
of Iceland. He took livestock and people to the land because
he was going to settle down on the island. But Flóki forgot to provide
hay for the livestock for the winter so his livestock perished during
the winter. These mistakes made Flóki go homewards to
Norway but before that he named the land it’s current name,
Iceland.
The first man who really settled down in Iceland and the most famous
of the settlers was Ingólfur Arnarson. He is regarded
to be the first one because he settled down for the rest of his life in
Iceland and also brought his family and other people with him to the country.
Ingólfur Arnarson was originally from Dalsfjörður
in Norway. He came to Iceland with his blood brother, Hjörleifur,
because of some troubles that they had with other chieftains in Norway.
They came to Iceland twice, first they came to examine the country's environment
and stayed for one year. Some years later they came back and settled
down for good.
Ingólfur build his farm in Reykjavík. Unfortunately
Hjörliefur's slaves slaves killed him shortly after he came to Iceland
the second time.
Eirikur the Red Þorvaldsson
went with his father from Jaðar in Norway to Iceland and they settled
on Hornstrandir in the Western Fjords and lived at the farm
Drangar. After Þorvaldur’s
death, Eiríkur settled moved to Haukadalur
and called his farm Eiríksstaðir.
Eiríkur killed two men in Haukadalur and was told to leave and never
to come back. Then he moved to the islands Brokey and Öxney.
Later Eiríkur was sentenced to exile from Iceland and he hid
in Dímonarvogur before
he went to search for a new land he had heard about.
