In the cold north sea, a little below the arctic circle, lay a great
island. As early as the year 860, it had been made known to the Northmen
by a Dane of Swedish descent named Gardar, who called it Gardar's
island, and four years later by the pirate Nadodd, who sailed thither in
864 and called it Snowland. Presenting in the main the form of an
irregular elipse, this island occupies an area of about one hundred and
thirty-seven square miles, affording the dull diversity of valleys
without verdure and mountains without trees.[22] Desolation has there
fixed its abode. It broods among the dells, and looks down upon the
gloomy fiords. The country is threaded with streams and dotted with
tarns, yet the geologist finds but little evidence in the structure of
the earth to point to the action of water. On the other hand, every rock
and hillside is covered with signs that prove their igneous origin, and
indicate that the entire island, at some distant period, has already
seethed and bubbled in the fervent heat, in anticipation of the long
promised _Palingenesia_. Even now the ground trembles in the throes of
the earthquake, the Geyser spouts scalding water, and the plain belches
mud; while the great jokull, clad in white robes of eternal snow--true
priest of Ormuzd--brandishes aloft its volcanic torch, and threatens to
be the incendiary of the sky.
The greater portion of the land forms the homestead of the reindeer and
the fox, who share their domain with the occasional white bear that may
float over from Greenland on some berg. Only two quadrupeds, the fox and
the moose, are indigenous. Life is here purchased with a struggle.
Indeed the neighboring ocean is more hospitable than the dry land, for
of the thirty-four species of mammalia twenty-four find their food in
the roaring main. The same is true of the feathered tribes, fifty-four
out of ninety being water fowl. Here and there may be seen patches of
meadow and a few sheep pastures and tracts of arable land warmed into
fruitfulness by the brief summer's sun; yet, on the whole, so poor is
the soil that man, like the lower orders, must eke out a scanty
subsistence by resorting to the sea.
It was towards this land, which the settlers called Iceland, that the
proud Norwegian jarl turned his eyes, and there he resolved to found a
home.
The first settler was Ingolf. He approached the coast in the year 875,
threw overboard his seat-posts,[23] and waited to see them touch the
land. But in this he was disappointed, and those sacred columns, carved
with the images of the gods, drifted away from sight. He nevertheless
landed on a pleasant promontory at the southeastern extremity of the
island, and built his habitation on the spot which is called
Ingolfshofdi to this day. Three years after, his servants found the
seat-posts in the southwestern part of the island, and hither, in
obedience to what was held to be the expressed wish of the gods, he
removed his household, laying the foundation of Reikiavik, the capital
of this ice-bound isle. He was rapidly followed by others, and in a
short time no inconsiderable population was gathered here.
But the first settlers did not find this barren country entirely
destitute of human beings. Ari Frode,[24] than whom there is no higher
authority, says: "Then were here Christian people, whom the Northmen
called papas, but they afterwards went away, because they would not be
here among heathens; and left behind them Irish books, and bells, and
croziers, from which it could be seen that they were Irishmen." He
repeats substantially the same thing in the _Landanama Book_, the
authority of which, no one acquainted with the subject, will question,
adding that books and other relics were found in the island of Papey and
Papyli, and that the circumstance is also mentioned in English books.
The English writings referred to are those of the Venerable Bede. This
is also stated in an edition of King Olaf Tryggvesson's Saga, made near
the end of the fourteenth century.[25]
The monks or Culdees, who had come hither from Ireland and the Isles of
Iona, to be alone with God, all took their departure on the arrival of
the heathen followers of Odin and Thor, and the Northmen were thus left
in undisputed possession of the soil. In about twenty years the island
became quite thickly settled, though the tide of immigration continued
to flow in strongly for fifty years, so that at the beginning of the
tenth century Iceland possessed a population variously estimated from
sixty to seventy thousand souls. But few undertook the voyage who were
not able to buy their own vessels, in which they carried over their own
cattle, and thralls, and household goods. So great was the number of
people who left Norway at the outset that King Harold tried to prevent
emigration by royal authority, though, as might have been predicted, his
efforts were altogether in vain. Here, therefore, was formed a large
community, taking the shape of an aristocratic republic, which framed
its own laws, and for a long time maintained a genuine independence, in
opposition to all the assumptions and threats of the Norwegian king.