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The History of the Vikings in Iceland
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Iceland was one of the last places on Earth to be settled by humans. Various accounts from ancient times, especially those associated with the Greek explorer Pytheas, talk of a land named Thule to the far north of Europe where the sun never set, but most researchers think these chroniclers were referring to Norway. Perhaps discovered by accident due to primitive navigational technology, the island was first settled by Irish monks in the 8th century AD looking for an isolated sanctuary to practice their religion. However, these Irish monks left the island in haste once the Vikings (Norse) began to settle and colonize the island beginning in the 9th century AD as most of the Vikings were pagan and this did not sit well with the Irish monks. Numerous Viking explorers from what is now present day Norway and Sweden helped pave the way for the scores of settler’s that would follow. Vikings such as Ari the Learned Thorgilsson, Naddoddur, Gardar Svavarsson, Floki, Ingolfur and Leifur. Throughout the 9th century AD Vikings settled most of the habitable areas of the island and cleared most of its birch trees converting a once forested island into a landscape largely consisting of pasture and farm land. Initially farms and villages were very isolated from each other and male landowners had tremendous power over their slaves and the freemen who worked for them. By the early to middle of the 10th century AD, farms and villages coalesced into loosely organized political entities culminating up to the moment in around 930 AD when the Althing (“general assembly”) was established which allowed leaders of all the regions of Iceland to gather and discuss matters of governance and in particular to write and implement laws for the entire island. • Correction: I mistakenly referred to Bede as an Irish monk. He was English • ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- • Credits: • All music from the YouTube Audio Library • All sound effects are from Freesound.org and are in the public domain except for the following: • Yap_Audio_Production • https://freesound.org/people/Yap_Audi... • ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ • Sources: • The History of Iceland, by Gudni Th. Johannesson (The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations) • The History of Iceland, by Gunnar Karlsson (University of Minnesota Press)
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