The Boundless Sea

by David Abulafia

  The colonization of the Faroe Islands is said to have begun under Harald Fairhair at the end of the ninth century, a good hundred years after the first raids on England, so it probably resulted from King Harald’s attempt to impose rule across great swathes of Norway, and from the decision of unruly Norsemen to escape from the taxes he was trying to impose.21 On the other hand, the first colonist mentioned in the admittedly jumbled saga record was a certain Grim Kamban, whose second name is Gaelic, which suggests once again that there had been a continuous injection of Celtic blood into the Norse community ever since the Scandinavians entered British waters. The other implication is that many of the early settlers came not from Norway but from the Scottish isles, Ireland and the growing ‘Viking diaspora’. The obvious attraction of this chain of rocky islands was pasture, and the meaning of the name Faroe is ‘sheep island’, Færeyjar.22 Cultivable land is very limited, amounting to only 5 per cent today, but there was plenty of driftwood available, which was carried across from America, while better-quality timber had to be brought from Norway or Britain. There was nothing to take away as Viking booty. The climate was milder than one might expect so far north, as the Faroes are bathed by warm currents coming across the Atlantic.23

  Whether or not these islands had been seen by Pytheas centuries earlier, the only regular visitors when the Norse settlers began to take an interest in them were Irish hermits, who may already have been living in the Faroes by 700. It is now known, from the carbon-dating of some peat ash and burnt barley grain, that there were settlers there in the fourth to sixth centuries, and again in the couple of centuries thereafter, but their presence was almost certainly spasmodic – conceivably they were seasonal migrants moving north from Shetland.24 They were not sitting on the spectacular wealth that had been accumulated in abbeys such as Lindisfarne. According to the Irish monk and geographer Dicuil, the monks still felt threatened by the occasional Viking visits to their remote hermitages:

  On these islands hermits sailing from our country Scotia [Ireland] have lived for nearly a hundred years. But just as they were always deserted from the beginning of the world, so now because of the Norse pirates they are emptied of anchorites and filled with countless sheep and a great variety of sea fowls.25

  The anchorites would have brought sheep to the islands, and these, along with seabirds, eggs and fish, provided them with a rich diet; moreover, just about every part of a sheep can be used for some purpose, whether making cloth, fashioning tools out of bone, manufacturing cheese, butter and tallow, or (less likely among the monks) a feast of roasted lamb. Whales were driven ashore, a thirteenth-century Faroese law code says, but once they were above the high-water mark the owner of the land could claim a large share of the animal, and the hunters would only receive one quarter.26

  These references to ancient anchorites raise issues concerning the voyages of the Irish monks, which have generated an interest out of proportion to their real significance. One of them, St Brendan, has been presented as the first navigator to cross the Atlantic, so that the Irish voyages have become entangled with the hoary, and in many ways unenlightening, question of who reached America first. Irish saints’ lives tell of adventurous monks who, in their wish to escape normal human company, set out in small leather-hulled currachs for islands in the open sea, from at least the sixth century onwards: ‘thrice twenty men who went with Brendan to seek the land of promise’, to cite an ancient document known as the Litany of Oengus. St Brendan became associated with a good many points along the western flank of Ireland and Scotland which he is said to have visited in the early sixth century. The list is so long that it sounds as if it was formed out of ‘the collective sea experience of successive generations of Irish mariners’, which suggests that one or another Irish saint did indeed set foot at these places.27 In other words, St Brendan the Navigator was not one person but several, based on the image of a real Brendan of Clonfert (the home of a monastic school), who inspired his followers to take ship with him and sail into the open ocean. Brendan was of noble birth – indeed, his birth in the Irish kingdom of Munster was accompanied by miracles and prophecies.28

  Brendan’s search for paradise is recorded in the short text known as the Navigatio Brendani, which tells how Brendan was inspired by the stories of the adventures at sea of a fellow monk to find some of the communities that were said to be scattered across the open ocean. He decided to take fourteen monks on his own expedition to find the ‘Land of the Promise of the Saints’, but all the detail in the text is generic: rocky islands with steep cliffs; islands crowded with flocks of pure white sheep; a barren island that proved to be the back of a whale; an island where the birds sang psalms in praise of Jerusalem for an hour; but also an island inhabited by devout monks who never suffered from illness and never grew old, and another one inhabited by three classes, boys, young men and old men – the absence of women does make one wonder where all the boys came from. The Navigatio Brendani eloquently portrays the dangers of the seas, such as fogs and waterspouts, not to mention battling sea monsters and angry savages on remote shores, as well as ‘Judas the most miserable of men’, who was given a day’s rest from the torments of Hell every Easter Sunday.29 It is hard to see how anyone can read the description of Brendan’s voyage as an account of a real journey across the Atlantic, rather than a series of exhortations about the life a devout monk should lead.

  Monks did set off across the open sea without much idea of where they were heading, other than a desire to find ‘a desert in the ocean’ (sought out by a certain Baitán), or Cormac ui Liatháin, who repeatedly set out in his currach on a voyage that took him from Ireland up to Orkney; Cormac also penetrated far into the ocean, without finding land, but turned back when he was confronted by a great shoal of red jellyfish.30 Another intrepid monk, St Columba, sailed ‘through all the islands of the ocean’, according to his Irish biographer, and once again communities of monks came into being on the spurs of rock and offshore islands that he visited, including the windswept Aran Islands off the coast of Galway and Skye off western Scotland. These achievements are certainly more credible than those attributed to St Brendan; and the voyages were the work not just of the famous monks celebrated in the saints’ tales but of their crews (presumably monks) as well, for, paradoxically, the foundation of solitary hermitages on remote islands had to be teamwork. On the other hand, through its popularity the tale of St Brendan stimulated speculation about what lay out in the Atlantic Ocean, and ideas about Islands of the Blessed, which were fed by classical as well as by Christian writings, continued to fascinate medieval navigators throughout the Middle Ages; the isles supposedly visited by St Brendan were freely confused with the Canary Islands, for instance.31 Rather than those sunny islands, which were already inhabited by Berbers, the Irish monks found distinctly cooler places in the north Atlantic: first the Faroes, and then Iceland.

  Settlement by monks was obviously incapable of generating permanent colonies, unless there was a constant stream of new arrivals (rather as the monastic houses on Mount Athos are sustained to this day). Unfortunately for the monks, the new arrivals, who did bring women with them, were pagan Scandinavians. The paganism of the first Norse settlers in the Faroes is reflected in the name of the capital, Torshavn, ‘Thor’s harbour’. However, the islands had accepted Christianity by the early eleventh century, possibly at the insistence of the same Olaf Tryggvason who had engineered the Christianization of the Orkney Islands. They eventually fell under the ecclesiastical control of the archbishop of Niðaros (modern Trondheim), which was the northernmost archdiocese in the world. This encroachment reflected the growing power of the Norwegian monarchy in the north Atlantic during the late twelfth century, but until then the Faroe islanders managed their own affairs at the annual parliament, or Þing, which was dominated by the wealthiest local families. These islands did not possess the strategic advantages that had made possession of the Orkneys a matter of close interest to the Norwegian court. Even when shipping from
Norway to Iceland became very regular, the direct route bypassed the Faroes, although once a route from Norway to Greenland had become established ships did stop there. All this may lead to the conclusion that the Faroes were not of major significance; but their interest lies in the creation of a brand new society on what was to all intents empty land (the sheep apart), a social experiment that was to be repeated on a much larger scale in Iceland.32

  III

  Iceland has been described as the ‘highest point’ of Norse civilization, not just because there were virtually no previous inhabitants to disturb, but because of its cultural achievements, represented by the remarkable saga literature, recited in dark winters when Icelanders took the opportunity to recall and to embroider their past history, and that of their ancestors in Scandinavia. The sagas are one of the great literary achievements of the Middle Ages, and all the more extraordinary for having been produced almost at the limits of the world then known to Latin Christendom.33 Iceland was probably discovered from the Faroes. The stories that survive about the discovery of Iceland tell one more, no doubt, about the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when they were recorded, than they do about the ninth century – more about an island under increasing threat of a takeover by the Norwegian crown than about an earlier community of independent farmers and sailors. Thus there is an emphasis in many of the texts on the tyranny of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, but perhaps the Icelandic authors had contemporary Norwegian kings in mind instead.34

  In one reasonably plausible version, preserved in an Icelandic history of the ‘land-taking’, or Landnám, a settler in the Faroes named Naddoð was swept off course early in the ninth century and came upon a land in the far north; noticing snow on the mountains, he named it Snæland, ‘Snowland’. Another story tells of a sea-roving Swede named Garðar Svávarsson who lived on the Danish island of Sjælland (Zealand), although his wife came from the Hebrides; he had heard about ‘Snowland’, and his mother, a sorceress, urged him to go and look for it. He sailed all round Iceland, proving that it was an island, and then he spent what must have been a tough winter there in a roughly built house. Later, his son travelled to Iceland, hoping that the Norwegian king would make him its earl, rather as earls had been appointed in Orkney, but this idea did not meet with the approval of the other settlers, who had arrived with him and who were careful to keep Norwegian power at arm’s length.

  Both Naddoð and Garðar thought very highly of the land they had discovered. This was not true of a ‘great Viking’, Flóki Vilgerðarson, whose visit to Iceland ended in disaster when his men failed to make hay and all his sheep died from lack of fodder; meanwhile he and his companions had been happily living off fish and had failed to think about their animals. ‘When asked about the place, he gave it a bad name.’ That name, Iceland, is the one that stuck. Finally, according to Icelandic writers, a certain Ingolf Arnarson was inspired by news of Flóki’s discovery to look for Iceland, and when he had scouted out the south coast he returned to Norway, and then went back with his foster-brother, a Viking raider named Hjǫrleif, some time around 870; Ingolf took care to sacrifice to the gods before setting out, and once he was close to shore he threw into the sea the high-seat pillars that had been set up in his house back home. These were pillars that were placed either side of the ceremonial seat of the head of a Norse household, and they would probably have been carved with images of Thor and other gods. He watched to see where they would land, for this would reveal where the gods were sending him (they ended up at the spot that is now the capital of Iceland, Reykjavík, ‘Smoke Inlet’, named no doubt after the steam rising from its hot springs). His brother had not bothered to sacrifice and was set upon by his slaves. They were furious because he had yoked them to his plough, for lack of enough oxen – he had only brought one along with him. They seized the women and goods in Hjǫrleif’s ship; but when his own slaves found Hjǫrleif’s battered body, Ingolf was horrified at what had happened, chased after the slaves, and killed all of them.35 It is impossible to prove that events unfolded in quite this way, but the image of a ship arriving loaded with some farm animals, supplies, slaves and women (whether free or enslaved) is credible.

  The land they had discovered lies athwart the tectonic North American and European plates, though this does not mean that half of Iceland is geologically part of America, since the island was spewed out of the sea (as were the Faroes) by volcanic eruptions that continue to this day. Unlike other volcanic areas, it is not particularly fertile, owing to its location just below the Arctic Circle; but much more pasture land existed when the Norse settlers arrived than can be found nowadays, and the effects of overgrazing were soon felt – sheep grazed lands that had little time to recover from the harsh island winters. Farmers harvested grass and made it into hay; some barley was produced, but the islanders had to import grain, or else had to feed themselves from their sheep and from the rich local wildlife: seabirds and their eggs; seals; whales too – ‘Þorgils worked hard at acquiring provisions, and every year he went out to the Strands, an area on the northern tip of Iceland. There he collected wild foods and found whales as well as other driftage.’ One summer he found a beached whale, but a pair of dishonest traders, landless men, arrived in their cargo ship and tried to take control of the parts of the whale that Þorgils and his companions had not already cut up. A fight broke out and Þorgils was killed.36 Whales were valued for their blubber as well as their meat, while walrus had the additional advantage of ivory.37

  The first settlers left Norway not in Viking longboats but in tubby knǫrrs, sailing vessels that were capable of carrying thirty tons of goods, sheep and whatever else the colonists required to build a life from scratch. For they were leaving their old home for good. Some of the settlers came on ships they already owned, so these people were not impoverished refugees; rather, it seems, they were escaping the tough regime of Harald Fairhair.38 Maybe 20,000 people, and certainly more than 10,000 people, migrated to the island between about 870 and about 930, principally from Norway, although the colonists also included Swedes, Danes and people of mixed Norse and Celtic origin. DNA testing has revolutionized our understanding of the ancestry of the Icelanders, particularly now that it is possible to trace both matrilineal and patrilineal ancestry (through analysis of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomes respectively). About two thirds of modern male Icelanders appear to be of Norse descent, and one third of Celtic descent; but when one looks at the matrilineal line the proportions are reversed. This confirms how very substantial the Celtic element was, represented by female slaves whose children by free parents were accepted into Icelandic society, as well as by the Celtic wives of Vikings from the Scottish isles and Ireland. A similar picture can be drawn in both the Faroes and the Western Isles of Scotland (but not in Orkney and Shetland, where matrilineal and patrilineal lines are to an equal extent of Norse origin, suggesting that entire families migrated from Norway, not just warrior males).39 The name of the hero of one of the finest of the Icelandic sagas, Njáll, is of Irish origin (Niall, Neil). The Icelandic records of settlement from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries also mention Irish settlers, Iskr, such as a certain Ketill; and most of the slaves who arrived against their will were probably Celtic too.40 It is generally accepted that by the end of the eleventh century there were about 40,000 people living in Iceland, and maybe even twice that number. They could benefit from the fact that the climate was relatively benign in this phase of the Middle Ages, but even so there were occasional famines caused by volcanic ash, a bad summer and the failure of supplies to arrive from Norway. The life of the Icelanders was not exactly precarious, but (as in much of western Europe) it was all too easy to run out of basic food supplies.41

  As in the Faroes, the first settlers found some inhabitants, people they called the papar, and these too were Celts, more Irish hermits who left their imprint on the island not in the bloodline but in place names such as Papey, a small island off southern Iceland. Some of them migrated back and for
th each year in their simple leather boats, avoiding the Icelandic winter, and probably guided by their faith more than by sophisticated navigation. Dicuil, the Irish monk whose description of the Faroes has already been cited, marvelled at the midnight sun: ‘a man could do whatever he wished as though the sun were still there, even remove lice from his shirt, and, if one stood on a mountain-top, the sun perhaps would still be visible to him.’42 Irish monks returning from Iceland may have carried with them tales of a land of fire and ice that fed the appetite of Irish listeners, and it has been suggested that the Irish monks first learned of the existence of Iceland when Arctic mirages projected an image of the coast of Iceland as far south as the Faroes, which can happen soon after dawn at that latitude.43

  The landnám, the Norse settlement of the land, was recorded with great care in later Icelandic tradition. For the land was divided up according to strict rules; and a curious tradition attributes the division of the land to the king they were trying to escape, Harald Fairhair. He is said to have persuaded the settlers that ‘no man should take possession of an area larger than he and his crew could carry fire over in a single day’, although female settlers, who were also welcome, could only claim the area they could walk around during a spring day, with a two-year cow in tow.44 The fundamental principle was that each landowner should be free to run his or her own affairs, subject to the laws that were agreed in the Alþing, the parliament that met every June from the year 930 onwards, when there was plenty of light in the sky, and that was attended by the wealthy and powerful landowners known as the gǫðar (literally, ‘gods’); they were not just political leaders but priests, charged with maintaining sacrifices and other rituals on behalf of the community over which they presided. It was not the democratic people’s assembly that many would like to imagine, but it enabled this distant island to govern itself according to laws its own inhabitants made, without any but the loosest recognition of the authority of the Norwegian king. To describe Iceland as a ‘republic’ or ‘Commonwealth’ is therefore quite acceptable.45