Gleðilegt nýtt ár!!! Happy New Year. Because the new year can feel like the time for new beginnings, I know 2019 does for me, I thought it would be fun to talk about the person who founded Reykjavík. He is also recognized as the first permanent Norse settler of Iceland.  

The First Norsemen in Iceland

According to the Landnámabók, which literally means the book of settlements, Ingólfur Arnarson, his wife Hallveig Fróðadóttir, his step brother Hjörleirfur Hróðmarsson and their slaves arrived in Iceland in the later half of the 800s. He gave Reykjavík its name in 874. Ari Þórgilsson, a medieval historian, claimed that Ingólfur and his crew were the first Norsemen to settle in Iceland. However, there were Irish monks that had been living in the country before Ingólfur arrived.  These people eventually left because they did not want to live among heathens.

While it is true that many settlers that came to Iceland after Ingólfur were looking for new land to cultivate to call their own, Ingólfur’s main reason for leaving Norway was due to a blood feud. He and Hjörleifur killed the two sons of a Norse Earl. This resulted in Ingólfur having to give up his land possessions to the Earl. With no land of his own to speak of in his birth country, he set sail to the west to start over.

How Ingólfur Founded Reykjavík, Iceland

What I find most interesting about where Ingólfur decided to settle, is his method for choosing the place. While on his ship, he saw Iceland’s rugged natural landscape in the distance. Instead of saying that he would settle wherever his ship hit the shore, he decided to leave it up to the gods. As a chieftain, he sat on a high seat that had pillars with engravings on them. These carved pillars had the family name, a special emblem and representations of all of the gods. However, it is worth noting that the chieftain owed their highest allegiance to the god that was prominently represented on the pillars.

Interestingly, Ingólfur took those carved pillars from his high seat and threw them into the water. He vowed that he would build his farm wherever those pillars came ashore on the island. Where his ship hit the shore is called Ingólfshöfði and he spent his first winter there, but that is not where the pillars were found.

Ingólfur sent two of his Celtic slaves, Vífill and Karli, to search for the pillars. Incredibly, it took them 3 years to find the carved pillars. They located them in a small bay in the south western part of the country. The slaves reported back to Ingólfur that they had found the pillars, but were not impressed with the land where the pillars were located.  Ingólfur seemed to not care much about their opinion of the place. The gods had made their decision and Ingólfur moved to that place. He named the area Reykjavík, which literally means steam or smoke bay, because of the large amount of steam rising up from the nearby hot springs.

Legal Owner of South Western Iceland

To give you some kind of reference of how much land Ingólfur claimed, his farm was between the Botnsá river in Hvalfjörður, or whale fjord, in the west to Ölfusá river in the east. According to Google Maps, if you wanted to travel from one river to the next, you would have to walk almost 100 kilometers or about 62 miles. As a reward for finding the pillars, Ingólfur gave Vílfill and Karli their freedom and land to set up farms. He also gave a considerable amount of land to his relatives that came to settle in Iceland.

At some point, Ingólfur was the legal owner of the South Western part of Iceland. However, he ended up giving away or selling a lot of the land to incoming settlers from Scandinavian countries.

Icelandic Settlement Drama

Of course, a settlement story wouldn’t be complete without more drama. Ingólfur´s half brother Hjörleifur was murdered by his slaves because of his terrible treatment of them. To get revenge, Ingólfur tracked down the slaves and killed them in the Westman Islands, or Vestmanneyjar in Icelandic. Funny enough, the islands got their name from this event.  West men or vestmenn was what Norse men would call Irishmen.

Unfortunately, not much else is known about Ingólfur besides what I have shared in this episode. However, his legacy did live on through written word and his son, Þorsteinn, who went on to become a noteworthy Chieftain in the viking age. Þorsteinn is most remembered for his establishment of one of the country’s first assemblies or Þing in Kjarlanes, which is part of Reykjavík. This was the predecessor to the Alþingi or Icelandic parliament.

A statue of Ingólfur Arnarsson can be found in downtown Reykjavík on a hill called Arnarhóll. If you put that into a search engine like Google, you will see its exact location.

Now that you learned about one of Iceland’s most historic figures and how Reykjavík got its name, I am going to move onto the random fact about Iceland.

Random Fact About Iceland

The Landnámabók, which I mentioned earlier in the show, is the book of settlements.  It is an ancient text from medieval times that describes, in great detail, the settlement of Iceland during the 9th and 10th centuries. It is divided into five parts and has over 100 chapters. Unfortunately, the first copy has not survived but the oldest copies of it date back to the late 13th century.

Icelandic Word of the Day

Ingólfur – noble wolf, aristocratic wolf

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I hope you enjoyed this episode about Ingólfur Arnarsson, the founder of Reykjavík. I release a new podcast episode every week. Make sure you are subscribed to the All Things Iceland podcast so you don’t miss new episodes. If the platform you are listening to this podcast on allows you to leave a review, please do so, if you haven’t already.

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