Nordic Poetry in the School: Chapter 1
Introduction
Iceland, home of the Edda and the Sagas.
Settlement of Iceland. The colonization of Iceland falls into the time of the Vikings; Strictly speaking, there is no Viking foundation here, but a pure peasant colony, which has its cause in the political conditions in Norway at that time.
Today's Norway was organized under a number of petty kings and princes until the 9th century. There were also areas in which free peasants lived who did not recognize any authority other than a self-chosen one. In the second half of the 9th century, a certain Harald, son of Halfdans the Black, emerged among the small kings. One day he swore that he would not have his head and beard shaved until he had conquered all of Norway, and he kept his word. Year after year he extended his rule and in 872 he was made sole ruler by defeating his opponents in the battle of Hafrsfjord (Bocksföhrde) near Stavanger. His hair was of course badly overgrown in the meantime and from then on people called him Harald Fairhair. It is under this name that it went down in the history of Norway and Iceland.
This battle was significant in that it gave rise to the colonization of Iceland. King Harald made the subjugated princes and peasants into fiefdoms according to the Carolingian model and thereby obliged them to pay taxes and services of many kinds, army orders, etc. But many of the self-confident peasant families, proud of their freedom, had no desire to bow their necks; they preferred to emigrate instead of handing over their free lands, their Odal estates, to the king. It was fortunate that Iceland had been discovered shortly before by Vikings, who had followed harsh winds blowing to the northwest. They found the land habitable, and there these farmers decided - despite the uninviting name - to avoid the violence of the king. In the course of two generations, several thousand farming families left the country and made a new home for themselves in distant Iceland.
The name Thule, which we are also familiar with, was first used by Greek navigator and geographer Pytheas of Marseilles (4th century BC), who reported that he had come to the outermost Thule. But this Thule does not mean our island yet, but a Cape Thulunes, which is off the port of Bergen. The erroneous transfer to Iceland took place later, probably by Irish monks; In any case, the name then encounters the meaning of Iceland in Bede the Venerable (8th century).
The conquest of the land usually proceeded as follows: the emigrants tore down their houses, took with them only the high seats, pillars of the large drinking and guest hall, in which mostly images of gods were carved. (The Germanic hall, a rectangle, had benches on both long sides; in the middle of each long side was a raised high loft, framed by pillars, in which the master of the house and the honored guest sat opposite; these high piers were also the supporting beams of the house ). So they journeyed off with their families and backers, servants and maids - the household of a large Germanic farmer easily comprised 20, 30 and more people - on their high-sided Viking boats to Iceland. The crossing took about a week in good weather and good wind. Before the coast of their new home they threw the pillars into the sea - so we have been handed down in several cases - and where the pillars washed ashore, the Vikings settled there, as if led by the Gods themselves. In the saga of Egil Skallagrimsson (Thule vol. 3) we are told that in view of the coast they surrendered the coffin with the corpse of an elder, who had died during the crossing, to the waves, and there where they washed him onto the bank they entered the country. Here they settled down in the same place that the dead man himself had shown them. The island was as good as uninhabited - the few Irish monks they met left the country soon afterwards - and so the first settlers had vast areas at their disposal. They now took possession of the ground according to traditional customs: either the landlord shot an arrow over the area he intended to take or he surrounded it with a fire. Of course, the first settlers took away the best areas; the later land-takers had to be content with less good terrain or they let the earlier settlers cede them in return for certain compensation or obligations. First the southwest of the island, the area around Reykjavik (= smoke bay, after the smoke or steam from the hot springs that the first landowners saw rising) was settled, later also the coastal lowlands along the fjords in the east and north of the island . Most of the land collectors were "pagans"; the few Christians who came from Ireland were lost again. Racially, the Celtic-Irish influence rather asserted itself. But of course the Nordic blood was decisive in every respect. We are dealing with a distinct selection of North Germanic peasantry among the Icelandic farmers and therefore with the best Nordic blood. How high the approximate total number of emigrants was, the calculations differ widely (20,000 - 60,000 people).
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