No, Iceland was not settled by freedom-loving Norwegians
They left for other reasons.
Iceland was settled towards the end of the 9th century. The first arrivals may have landed at Stokksnes in the southeast. But who were they, and why did they come?(Photo: Fokke Baarssen / Shutterstock / NTB)
This is the Norwegian version of Iceland's history:
In the 9th century, King Harald Fairhair was a tyrant. Freedom-loving Norwegians fled to Iceland. There, they settled and created a form of democracy without a king.
However, if you read the English or Icelandic Wikipedia pages about Iceland’s history, Harald Fairhair is not mentioned, nor is there mention of people fleeing a tyrant in search of freedom.
History Professor Hans Jacob Orning at the University of Oslo rejects the story of freedom-loving, fleeing Norwegians. It likely has little grounding in history, he writes on norgehistorie.no.
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Myth from Egil's Saga
The myth comes from the saga of Egil Skallagrimsson:
'King Harald, who gradually brought the regions north of the Sognefjord under his control, closely monitored chieftains and powerful farmers. Whenever he suspected someone might try to reclaim their former power, he forced that person to either enter his service or leave the country. Those who refused faced even harsher consequences: some lost their lives, others were maimed on their hands and feet.' (Modern Norwegian version by forskning.no)
The saga also states that many people left Norway, some heading to Iceland.
Egil's Saga was written by an unknown author more than 300 years after the supposed flight took place.
Orning believes the account reveals more about the political situation in 13th-century Iceland than about conditions in Norway during the 9th and 10th centuries.
Inappropriate without a king
"The narrative of fleeing from a tyrannical king served a specific purpose. At the time it was written, Iceland was under pressure to become part of the Norwegian kingdom," says Orning.
An envoy from the pope came to Norway and declared that it was inappropriate for a country not to have a king.
"That made it all the more important for saga writers to create a version of history that justified Iceland's system of governance," says Orning. "The Icelandic self-image – that the island was one of the world's first democracies, made up of free and equal citizens – stood in contrast to the hierarchical structure in Norway. But this was a political construction, not a historical description."
Hans Jacob Orning is a history professor at the University of Oslo.(Photo: Nina Kristiansen)
Icelandic schoolchildren
Even Icelandic children no longer believe that Iceland was settled by Norwegian refugees, says Sverrir Jakobsson, professor of medieval history at the University of Iceland.
For a long time, however, this was the dominant view, and it used to appear in school textbooks.
"A small revolution took place in Iceland in the 1950s when we stopped believing the sagas and the people described in them," Jakobsson tells Science Norway.
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Instead, he believes the sagas are valuable sources about Iceland in the 13th century, when they were written, and especially about how historians at the time viewed the past.
If the sagas are to be taken at face value, you still need to choose between different versions. In the Icelandic Landnámabók (Book of Settlements) from the late 12th century, Harald is described as a friend and protector of the settlers. But it also says he was an oppressor and the reason people fled.
Were hungry Norwegians the ones who left?
Another explanation was that people left Norway because the country was suffering hardship and scarcity.
"That's an outdated hypothesis based on the idea that Norway was overpopulated, but nobody believes that anymore," says Hans Jacob Orning.
Because who could actually afford to travel?
"It was mainly chieftains who could afford to organise such large expeditions, which required large ships and supplies for many people," says Orning.
This is also mentioned in the Book of Settlements, although it is not considered a reliable source. It mentions 430 prominent men arriving with large households.
Iceland was also a logical destination for further Viking settlement.
The sea was the fastest route
Orning points out that in the Viking Age, the sea connected people and served as the easiest and fastest route of travel.
"It took one week to travel by land from Bergen to Trondheim, while sailing from western Norway to Shetland took only a day. The communities around the North Sea were closely connected," says Orning.
Norwegians had already settled in the Orkneys, Shetland, and the Faroe Islands.
Vikings continued onwards to Ireland to raid, trade, and form alliances. They founded towns and attempted to establish settlements there as well. But according to Orning, the island was already too densely populated. Further south in Europe, resistance increased and fortifications were built against Viking attacks.
Iceland, on the other hand, was largely uninhabited, apart from a small number of Irish monks. Norwegians had visited the island earlier for shorter or longer periods.
"Iceland was well suited for sheep farming, and there were many hunting opportunities," says Orning.
Intense walrus hunting
There are no walruses in Iceland today.
Danish and Icelandic researchers have investigated when they disappeared. They examined written sources for place names connected to walruses, dated skeletons, and compared them with walruses from other regions.
The researchers concluded that Iceland's walruses disappeared a few hundred years after the Norwegians settled on the island.
The Danish-Icelandic study represents one of the earliest known cases of a marine species disappearing from an area after human settlement and intensive hunting, according to the researchers.(Photo: Shutterstock / NTB)
Walrus tusks were a valuable trade good during the Viking Age, according to historian Bjørn Bandlien at the University of South-Eastern Norway.
Further south in Europe, the tusks were used to create church art, game pieces, jewellery, and knife handles. Vikings also used walrus hides to produce ropes for ships, turned the fat into oil, and ate the meat.
Trade, alliances, and slavery
The settlers who came to Iceland came mainly from western Norway, but many had already travelled through the British Isles and Ireland, bringing back women and goods. DNA analyses show that the Icelandic population contains a significant Irish genetic contribution.
"There was an extensive and complex network of trade, alliances, and slavery. Those are the dynamics we find interesting – more so than whether Harald Fairhair actually existed and ruled Norway as a tyrannical king," says Orning.
In fact, historians are not even certain that a King Harald Fairhair who ruled all of Norway ever existed at all.
Hans Jacob Orning believes there was likely a powerful chieftain in western Norway around the year 900 who managed to unite the coastal areas and who may well have been known as Harald Fairhair.
Rather than unifying all of Norway into a single kingdom, this leader may simply have consolidated the competing chiefdoms of western Norway, which had spent centuries shifting between rivalry and alliance.
"We cannot be certain, but it seems quite plausible that this kind of supremacy did exist," says Orning.
He also believes that Danish influence over Norway during this period has been underestimated.
In Norwegian history books, it's often stated that Norway was ruled by Denmark for 400 years, the so-called 400-year night.
"In reality, it's closer to 1,000 years. Danish kings controlled much of what happened in Norway, which in practice meant the southern coastal regions, Viken, and western Norway," he says.
People need an origin story
"We historians have long acknowledged how weak t the evidence behind many saga narratives actually is. Yet the academic interpretation has struggled to replace the traditional one," says Orning.
He believes this is because countries and people need an origin story.
Sverrir Jacobsson is a professor of medieval history at the University of Iceland.(Photo: University of Iceland)
"People want a founder and an origin. Take Rome, for example. The founders, Romulus and Remus, are not considered historical figures, yet they are still present everywhere," says Orning.
Sverrir Jacobsson also encounters the desire for the sagas to be true.
"On a broader level, Icelanders want to believe in the Book of Settlements, because it gives them names and places. People want that connection, even if these are stories themselves were shaped in the 13th century. Otherwise, there is very little left," says Jacobsson.
He is often asked about the settlers mentioned in the Book of Settlements.
"People ask whether I can tell them more about a specific settler. I always say no, and remind them that even the information in the text itself is uncertain," says Jacobsson.
Hans Jacob Orning acknowledges that it's difficult to break away from the narratives preserved in the sagas.
"These old stories have been told again and again for centuries. They have become part of what children grow up learning and continue to live on through festivals and popular literature. That's why it's valuable when researchers are invited to present the scholarly perspective, so that there can be some balance," says Orning.
