The Völsunga Saga on Iceland

The Story Of The Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) > With Excerpts From The Poetic Edda > Introduction

• attestation: Iceland preserved the old Norse tongue and literary traditions that were lost elsewhere in Europe

  "Iceland held to the old tongue that was once the universal speech of northern folk, and held also the great stores of tale and poem that are slowly becoming once more the common heritage of their descendants."

• attestation: The discontented fled Harold's rule to Iceland, the Faroes, the Orkneys, and Ireland

  "the discontented, "and they were a great multitude," fled oversea to the outlands, Iceland, the Faroes, the Orkneys, and Ireland."

• attestation: Iceland's earliest inhabitants were Irish Culdees who came there for solitary prayer

  "its only dwellers had been Irish Culdees, who sought that lonely land to pray in peace."

• attestation: Iceland's settlement stream lasted over sixty years from the first arrival

  "for over sixty years from the first comer there was a stream of hardy men pouring in, with their families and their belongings"

• attestation: Icelandic settlers used hallowed high-seat pillars thrown overboard to determine where to settle

  "The hallowed pillars of the high seat, which were carried away from his old abode, were thrown overboard, with certain rites, and were let drive with wind and wave until they came ashore."

• attestation: New settlements in Iceland were consecrated by encircling the claimed land with fire

  "Then the land was hallowed by being encircled with fire, parcelled among the band, and marked out with boundary-signs"

• attestation: By 1100, Iceland had about 4500 franklins and a population of roughly 50,000, three-fourths with Celtic blood

  "In 1100 there were 4500 franklins, making a population of about 50,000, fully three-fourths of whom had a strong infusion of Celtic blood in them."

• attestation: Icelandic life was primarily pastoral, with sheep and cattle as chief resources

  "The mode of life was, and is, rather pastoral than aught else."

• attestation: The Icelandic political unit was the homestead with its franklin-owner, organized through things (hundred-moots) and godords (chieftainships)

  "In politics the homestead, with its franklin-owner, was the unit; the "thing", or hundred-moot, the primal organisation, and the "godord", or chieftainship, its tie."

• attestation: Icelandic society had only two classes: free and unfree, with no feudal lords

  "Society was divided only into two classes of men, the free and unfree, though political power was in the hands of the franklins alone"

• attestation: Christianity was introduced to Iceland by the end of the tenth century

  "by end of the same century christianity was introduced into Iceland"

• attestation: In the thirteenth century, civil war and disputes over clerical jurisdiction led to Iceland's submission to Norway

  "In the thirteenth century disputes over the power and jurisdiction of the clergy led, with other matters, to civil war, ending in submission to Norway"

• attestation: Iceland passed under Danish rule in 1380

  "In 1380 the island passed under the rule of Denmark, and so continues."

• attestation: Any franklin could change his godord allegiance freely, and judgment by peers was fully practiced

  "He was not a feudal lord, for any franklin could change his "godord" as he liked, and the right of "judgment by peers" was in full use."

• attestation: The Reformation came to Iceland in the sixteenth century but did little good

  "In the sixteenth century there is little to record but the Reformation, which did little good, if any"

• attestation: Iceland received partial home-rule in 1874 after a political struggle

  "the "home-rule" struggle, which met with partial success in 1874, and is still being carried on."

• attestation: A great school of poetry arose among the Norsemen of the Western Isles and was brought to Iceland during the land-taking period

  "During the first generations of the "land-taking" a great school of poetry which had arisen among the Norsemen of the Western Isles was brought by them to Iceland."

• attestation: The Icelandic sagas rank as the highest prose achievement of medieval Europe

  "Iceland has always borne a high name for learning and literature"

• attestation: After Christianity quieted life in Iceland, saga prose emerged as a new literary form

  "After christianity had entered Iceland, and that, with other causes, had quieted men's lives, although the poetry which stood to the folk in lieu of music did not die away, it lost the exclusive hold it had upon men's minds."

The Story Of The Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) > CHAPTER VIII. The Death of King Siggeir and of Signy. > Endnotes:

• attestation: Skin-changers (werewolves) were widely believed in across Norse and European cultures, from Herodotus to medieval theology

  ""Skin-changers" were universally believed in once, in Iceland no less than elsewhere"