The Farfarers: Before the Norse

by Farley Mowat

  Because a knorr was not large enough to serve for any length of time as a floating base, Vikings intending to work a foreign coast needed a bolt-hole ashore where ship and crew could take refuge in time of need. This was standard practice and a veteran such as Naddod would surely have adhered to it.

  He may have landed on the bold headland of Reydarfjell and, after cautious reconnaissance revealed no settlements nearby, established his raiding base on one of the three small, eminently defensible (but pastorally uninviting) islands of Andey, Skrudur, or Seley, not far off the mouth of the fiord.

  We are not told what Naddod and his braves did during the rest of the summer, but we can be certain they did not spend their time sightseeing. I envisage the knorr making surreptitious sorties culminating in swift raids on Alban steadings lying deep inside the fiord valleys. And equally swift withdrawals before the local people could rally for counter-attack.

  Having seized a few slaves, cattle, and whatever other loot was available, Naddod’s men would hasten back to their lair and wait for the turmoil following upon the raid to subside.

  With a sufficiency of stolen beef and mutton to fill their stomachs, and a stock of Alban captives with whom to sport, the waiting could have been pleasant enough, by Viking standards.

  Landnámabók simply records that “they went afterwards, in the autumn, to the Faeroe Islands, and as they sailed away [from Tilli] much snow fell and so they called that country Snaeland. They praised it very much.”

  Their praise of Snowland was clearly not for its climate; presumably it was for the rewards to be reaped there by enterprising Vikings.

  Although Tilli’s residents have left us no account of their reaction to Naddod’s visit, it would necessarily have cast a pall of foreboding over them.

  We can be certain that protective measures would have been taken. People in outlying steadings might have withdrawn to more defensible places. Perhaps watch and signal stations were built on prominent heights and headlands, hunting weapons modified for use against human beings, and weapons of warfare forged. The Albans in Tilli would not have been inclined to yield easily to this new assault by the marauders who had driven them out of their ancient homelands.

  GARDAR

  The next Norseman of record to reach Tilli was a Viking named Gardar Svavarson. He set out from the Hebrides “under the direction of his mother, who was a seer.” I think we can safely assume that either he or his mother had sniffed wealth in the west wind in consequence of the voyage of Naddod or some other Viking.

  Gardar, who clearly knew where he was going and how to get there, made the standard landfall near Horn, where “there was a haven.” There is no suggestion that he attempted to enter this port. We are told that he “sailed around the land and so came to know it was an island.”

  Although Landnámabók again fails to disclose what the Viking and his men were really up to, this was clearly no pleasure cruise, voyage of exploration, or simple hunting expedition. It seems obvious that these men were pirates seeking loot.

  Gardar may have had a more difficult time than Naddod, for the inhabitants of Tilli would by now have been on guard. My guess is that Gardar’s vessel stirred such turmoil in her wake that her people had to keep on the move. They sailed along the south coast, then up the west coast to the inhospitable and probably then unoccupied northwestern fiords, rounded Dranga Peninsula, and headed east along the northern coast, which is deeply indented by enormous fiord-like bays.

  Although the mountainous headlands separating these bays are swept bleak and barren by the lash of the north wind, the fiords’ inner recesses are so well sheltered by the same mountain massifs as to nurture some of the best pastoral land in Iceland. It is hardly to be doubted that Alban crofters would have found their way to these northern “oases.” In fact, a lake lying in the fertile valley of Reykjadalar, only about twelve miles south of Skjálfandi Bay, still bears the name Vestmannsvatna—Westmen’s Lake—as evidence of a one-time Westman presence there.

  Yet, so Landnámabók assures us, Gardar eschewed all such places in favour of a bleak, natural fortress called Húsavík on the outer shore of Skjálfandi Bay. A nineteenth-century traveller’s description of Húsavík, then a hard-scrabble little fishing village, gives a vivid impression of what the place was like.

  The settlement lies at the height of more than 100 feet above the level of the sea, on the brow of perpendicular precipices. The harbour is reckoned one of the most dangerous in Iceland on account of rocks in the entrance and exposure to north and northwest winds.

  Why would Gardar have chosen to winter at such a place when scores of well-protected, commodious, and comfortable havens beckoned from the inner reaches of the several great northern fiords? I believe the answer is simple enough: he did not dare seek shelter in the better havens because these were already occupied by people who would have taken his hide had he fallen into their hands.

  Gardar wintered, perforce, at Húsavík not because he admired the wild and spectacular scenery there but, it seems, because the fortress ridge behind its dangerously exposed harbour offered protection against other human beings whom he had good reason to fear. What else but an acute concern for their lives could have persuaded Gardar’s Vikings to voluntarily winter in such a place?

  At winter’s end, Gardar departed from Húsavík, perhaps raiding along Tilli’s northeastern and eastern coasts before sailing to Norway, where “he highly praised the land” and presumably disposed of a profitable cargo.

  Landnámabók adds:

  In the spring when he [Gardar] was ready to sail away [from Skjálfandi], a man named Nattfari drifted off in a boat in which also was a thrall and a bondwoman.

  Who was Nattfari? The name is not Norse, nor is it Celtic. He may well have been an Alban slave. What seems to have happened is that three slaves (another recension of Landnámabók specifically refers to Nattfari’s companions as “a man slave and woman slave”) made their escape in the ship’s longboat. Lacking another boat with which to pursue them, Gardar was forced to let them go. Nattfari’s name is still preserved in a cove on the southwestern shore of the bay, called Nattfaravik—Nattfari’s Harbour.

  FLOKI

  Assuredly, word of Gardar’s exploits travelled swiftly in Viking circles. One of his contemporaries soon seems to have concluded that the land in the west might be a better place to live than the narrow, overcrowded Norwegian fiord country.

  Flóki, son of Vilgerd, was the name of a renowned Viking. He went to seek Gardar’s Island.... He went first to Shetland and lay there in Flóki’s Bight, where his daughter Geirhild drowned in Geirhild’s Water. Accompanying Flóki was a yeoman [a freeman] named Thoralf and another called Herjolf. A man named Faxi, from the Hebrides, was also in the ship.

  From Shetland Flóki sailed to the Faeroes and from there put out to sea. He took three ravens with him. When he freed the first one it flew away aft, over the stern. The second flew up into the air then returned to the ship again. But the third flew straight away over the bow, in which direction they found land.

  They hove in from the east at Horn, then coasted the land by the south. As they sailed west around Reykjanes, the bay [of Faxaflói] opened out to them so they could see Snaefellsjökull, and Faxi remarked, “This must be a great land we have found for here are mighty rivers.”

  Flóki and his men sailed across Breidafjördur and landed in what is now called Vatnsfjördur on Bardastrandur.

  This bay so abounded with fish, and they caught so many, that they gave no heed to gathering hay, with the result that all their livestock perished during the winter.

  The following spring was rather cold; then Flóki went up to the top of a high mountain and discovered to the north, beyond the mountain, a fiord full of drift ice; therefore they called the land Iceland and so it has been ever since.

  Flóki and his men wanted to go away from there that summer but by the time they were ready only a short time remained before the beginning of winter. The ruins of the
ir houses are still to be seen east of Branslaek, together with the shed that covered their ship, and their firestead.

  They could not beat around Reykjanes, and the ship’s boat broke away with Herjolf aboard it. He made land at the place now called Herjolf’s Haven. Flóki spent that winter at Borgarfjördur, and there they found Herjolf again.

  They sailed to Norway the summer after and, when men asked them about the land, Flóki spoke ill of it, but Herjolf reported both the good and the bad, and Thoralf said that butter dripped from every blade of grass, for which reason he was called Thoralf Butter.

  Flóki seems to have been a belated Norwegian emigrant to the west. By circa 865, when he brought his family and retainers to the Northern Isles, the best land would have been engrossed by earlier arrivals. Nevertheless, he seems to have tried to hallow ground, as the Norse saying went. Either because of the hostility of earlier settlers (he was, after all, a “renowned” Viking) or because his daughter drowned here, Flóki soured on the place and determined to venture yet farther westward.

  The Landnámabók account of the three ravens suggests Flóki did not know how to find his way to Tilli, but this pretty little tale is probably no more than a saga man’s embellishment. Flóki sailed to Horn along a by now well-known course and, having arrived there, steered south around the coast. Rounding Reykjanes, Tilli’s southwestern cape, he then sailed all the way north to the bleak and formidable Dranga Peninsula. Having now coasted past the best and most hospitable of Tilli’s lands, he chose to plant himself in Vatnsfjördur, a gash in the mountains of a region as inhospitable as almost any on the Icelandic coast.

  To my knowledge no historian has ever explained why Flóki should have made such a peculiar choice. I believe he settled where he did because the better parts of Tilli were already occupied by people ready and able to fend off intruders.

  The land Flóki hallowed was (and remains) marginal to pastoralists. We are told the would-be settlers became so entranced by the excellent fishing they neglected to gather enough hay to carry the cattle through the coming winter. In truth, the region was so botanically impoverished that enough hay probably was not to be found; so the cattle either starved to death or were eaten. This could hardly have been the place that sparked Thoralf ’s admiring comment that the grass in Iceland dripped butter!

  When the return of spring brought no notable improvement, Flóki wisely ruled against trying to survive a second winter at Vatnsfjördur.

  Landnámabók’s account of what followed is somewhat vague. Flóki may have given up the idea of homesteading but, having no mind to return to Norway empty-handed, have hoped to recoup his losses by raiding Alban settlements in the south.

  He was prevented from rounding Reykjanes, probably by a heavy gale, and lost his ship’s boat. The vessel was blown back into Faxaflói, where Flóki wintered. I suspect he holed up on one of the small islands off the mouth of Borgarfjördur, where he would have had a better chance of defending himself against the hostility of the mainland inhabitants.

  Flóki’s venture seems to have been a failure on all counts. The following spring he sailed home to Norway, where he “spoke ill” of the new land in the west.

  No Norseman seems to have tried to emulate Flóki’s abortive settlement attempt for some time thereafter. But raiders continued to plague Tilli’s coasts.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  LAND TAKING

  One September day near the middle of the ninth century, Farfarer took what would be her final departure from Swan Fiord. Her forehold was piled so high with building timber that the steersman could scarcely see over the bows. The afterhold was packed with animals—cows, ponies, sheep, even a pen of lean little pigs. The ship’s small working crew watched, hard-eyed, as the ship drew away from the snug harbour that had been the clan home for several generations.

  Farfarer was outward bound on her fourth voyage of this eventful summer. On the first she had ferried most of the clan’s able-bodied men to Crona, there to begin constructing new homes at Sandhaven in one of the southwestern fiords. Women, children, old folk, dogs, stock, and farm and household gear had followed on succeeding trips.

  As the vessel came abeam of Horn on this last voyage, her skipper altered course to enter Easthaven’s lagoon. It was his task to let the people of the port know that, henceforth, the Swan Fiord clan was to be looked for in new lands to the west.

  The people of Easthaven had news of their own to impart. Only a week earlier two of the dreaded knorrin had appeared off the harbour mouth. Although they had not attempted to enter, spear-waving Northmen had shouted oaths and lurid descriptions of what they would do to any Westman they laid hands on. At dawn a day later the marauders had attacked some crofts a short way west. They had been beaten off, but at a cost of six good men of the defending force killed or wounded.

  “The devils are starting to buzz around Tilli like carrion flies!” a villager warned Farfarer’s skipper. “It could turn out here the way it did in the home islands in our grandfathers’ time.”

  “Ah, your guts is changing to water,” a young fellow derided him. “We can outsail those bastards and outfight ’em. Last summer the lads on Heimaey caught a boatload coming ashore in the night. Aye, and fed ’em to the crabs! We’ll do as much!”

  Farfarer’s skipper was uncomfortable. Although his clan was moving to Crona mainly to be nearer the western grounds, some Easthaven folk suspected valuta clans of abandoning Tilli out of concern for their own skins. There was enough truth in the suspicion to discomfit the skipper. Having done what he had come ashore to do, he slipped away to his waiting vessel. Although it was already late in the day, Farfarer was soon standing out to sea on a course that would keep her in sight of Tilli’s mountains and glaciers, but well away from a coast where killers hunted human prey.

  Valuta clans were the first Albans to leave Tilli for new homes in the west. It was true that they did so partly because of the increasing vulnerability of their home crofts, which were of necessity deprived of most men of fighting age for months or even years at a time, but an equally cogent reason was that merchantmen from Britain were growing reluctant to visit Tilli for fear of Viking pirates. Not a few had already begun bypassing the island altogether to do business with valuta men in the safety of Crona’s fiords.

  For those with eyes to see, the handwriting was already on the wall.

  IF VALUTA CLANS WERE MOVING WESTWARD, SO WERE the Northmen. During the last part of the ninth century, more and more Vikings sailed west to try their luck on Tilli’s coasts.

  What follows is the story of two of their number, taken from Landnámabók. I have shortened the introductory portion of it.

  Two friends, Bjornolf and Hroald, fled from the Telemark district of Norway after having slaughtered some men. They settled in Fjalir [in southern Norway]. Bjornolf ’s son fathered Ingólf and Helga. Hroald’s son fathered Leif. Ingólf and Leif were raised as foster brothers. When they were of an age, they went on a Viking voyage with Earl Atli’s three sons, Hastein, Herstein, and Holmstein.

  These young men all got along so well that they agreed to make another expedition together the next summer.

  That winter the foster brothers held a feast for the Earl’s sons, during which Holmstein announced he would marry Ingólf ’s sister, Helga, and no other. Nobody paid much attention except Leif, who wanted Helga for himself. So a rivalry began between Leif and Holmstein.

  When spring came, the foster brothers again prepared to go a-Viking with Earl Atli’s sons but when they arrived at the rendezvous were attacked by Holmstein and his brothers. The battle was a draw until Holmstein was killed and Herstein and Hastein were forced to flee. Leif and Ingólf then sailed away on a Viking voyage of their own.

  The following winter Herstein launched another attack against Leif and Ingólf but they, having been warned, were ready. A great battle ensued in which Herstein was killed.

  Both sides now mustered their kinsfolk. Peace was finally arranged on condition that
the foster brothers hand over their lands to the Atlis in recompense for the killings.

  Now the foster brothers fitted out a large vessel and set out on a voyage to the land Floki of the Ravens had visited. They came to the eastern part of that country, which they found more rewarding to the southward than to the northward. They spent a winter there, then returned to Norway.

  Next year Ingólf undertook a second voyage to Iceland, but Leif chose to go a-Viking to Ireland. There he found a big underground house and went into it. It was very dark, but he saw light gleaming from a sword and killed the man holding the sword, and took it, together with much treasure, and was thereafter called Hjorleif—Leif of the Sword. He harried Ireland far and wide and took much booty. He also captured ten slaves, including Dufthak, Geirrod, Skjaldbjorn, Halldor, and Drafdrit.

  Then Hjorleif returned home to Helga, whom he had married. The winter after that, Ingólf made a great sacrifice and consulted oracles to learn his destiny. Hjorleif refused to have any part in this for he put no faith in sacrificing to the gods. The oracle predicted that Ingólf would make his home in Iceland.

  Thereafter the foster brothers prepared their vessels for an Icelandic voyage. Hjorleif took along his Irish booty and Ingólf took the wealth they owned in common. When all was ready they put to sea. The two ships stayed together until Iceland was sighted, then they separated. Ingólf cast his high-seat posts overboard, vowing he would settle at whatever place they drifted ashore.1

  Ingólf landed at the place now called Ingólfshöfdi, but Hjorleif sailed on westward along the coast.

  Hjorleif and his people spent the winter near Minnthak Beach. In the spring he was of a mind to plant some grain and, although he had an ox, he nevertheless made the slaves drag the plough. While they were doing this, Dufthak conspired with his fellow slaves to kill the ox, to say a bear had done it, and then, when Hjorleif and the other freemen had dispersed into the woods seeking the bear, to set upon them separately and kill them one by one.