Iceland Research Paper

Iceland Origins
Iceland was visited in 795 by Irish hermits, with relics of their settlements discovered by Scandinavian colonists in the ninth century. The earliest known documentation of discovering Iceland was DICUIL. DICUIL was an Irish monk, who was also a grammarian and geographer, His work, the De mensura orbis terrae, which translates to Concerning the Measurement of the World is about the Irish Hermits visiting Iceland and other geological information (Dicuil, 2011). The following group of people to visit or locate Iceland were the Vikings around the year of 860. The first Viking was Gardar the Swede, who came from modern day Denmark. Gardars’ vessel was set off course and he stumbled across Iceland’s southeast coast. The coast, geologically, is
Over the first winter, the livestock have starved to death which threatened the settlement. When trying to leave Iceland after the death of the livestock, pack ice from fjord halted Floki on returning home. Once the pack ice broke up enough, to be able to leave Iceland, it was late in the year, but was to hazardous to return to modern day Norway. After Floki was unable to return he spent one more winter in Iceland. Floki renamed Snæland to its modern day name, Iceland (Haywood, 2017). The next Vikings to go to Iceland went in the late 860’s to locate an area for settlements. Ingolf and Hjorleif are brothers from modern day Norway and went on a reconnaissance trip to the eastern fjords. Hjorleif began to settle once they landed in Iceland, however, his brother Ingolf did not make the same decision. Ingolf went seeking the assistance of the gods and tossed carved pillars overboard. He then vowed to settle wherever they washed ashore. He spent the next three years locating where the pillars landed. He named the location of where the pillar floated to shore Reykjavik, the “bay of smoke” (Haywood, 2017). The Vikings discovered approximately forty percent of Iceland, which was covered with birch