The First Vikings in Iceland

From icy seas to fire-lit longhouses, Dan heads to Iceland to trace the birth of one of the world’s most unique medieval cultures — at the very edge of the known world. He joins experts across the country to discover how those early Vikings survived brutal winters in total isolation, save for their tight-knit communities and (surprisingly) warm turf houses. He explores the remarkable medieval chronicle Book of Settlement (Landnámabók) and the dramatic stories preserved in the Sagas of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur) that tell us who the first settlers were, where they came from, and how they carved out a new society on a raw volcanic island. Produced by Anne-Marie Luff and edited by Dougal Patmore You can see Dan's adventures in Iceland in his brand new documentary on History Hit. Sign up to watch the mini-series Icelandic Vikings here: https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. If you'd like to explore Iceland yourself, head to https://www.visiticeland.com/ You can email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Snow?

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• 1:02Speaker 01

  This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless gold flake caviar topping, it's not whipping out your wallet to pay, it's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019, that's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. Because Apple Card holders earn 2% daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store, at the gas station, at restaurants. And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market. Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favourite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound means I just got 2% daily cash back on my latest purchase. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval.

• 1:45Speaker 01

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• 1:51Speaker 02

  In Our Time is a world-class seminar every week. Why was Jeremy a lonely snail? What were lines doing in York in the Third Century? I'm Misha Glennie and every week I'm joined by expert guests to explore the ideas that shape our world.

• 2:06Speaker 03

  It's one of the first times really that you consistently see someone painting teeth. I know that sounds bonkers. If I was going to define mathematics, I would say it's the study of structure.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  In Our Time, listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Tea or coffee? Love a cup of tea.

• 2:32Dan Snow?

  In the year 874, a Viking chieftain named Ingolfar Arnerson stood on the prow of his ship, his eyes fixed on a new land. He had sailed for days across icy seas, and behind him, Norway was troubled. Chieftains were feuding, kings were demanding allegiance and taxes. Before him, though, stretched volcanic cliffs and glaciers, green valleys untouched by human hands. This was Iceland, the edge of the known world, the hope of a new beginning.

• 3:08Dan Snow?

  Over a thousand years later, I am now standing on that rocky shore that Ingolfar Arnerson would have seen from his ship. I've got the black volcanic cliffs under my feet, and I'm staring out at these big rollers coming in and buffeting this shore. I'm also leaning into those same freezing winds blowing across the North Atlantic Sea. You're listening to Dan Snow's History at, and in this very special episode, I'm taking you on an epic voyage to Iceland, to tell you the story of how the Vikings became the first settlers on this remote, previously undiscovered island. I'm going to explore what they found when they got here, when they came ashore, how they survived those first subarctic winters,

• 3:52Dan Snow?

  and what challenges they overcome to create a thriving home here. Volcanic eruptions scarred the landscape, ice and snow gripped the valleys. For these settlers, survival would test skill and resilience and their imaginations. This story is as dramatic as the landscape I am staring at now, created from fire and ice. Let's head inland.

• 4:24Dan Snow?

  The Vikings were tough seafarers from Norway, Sweden and Denmark. And they're remembered for their long ships and their raids and their relentless spirit. The word Viking could possibly come from the Old Norse vikingr, meaning pirate or sea raider. From the late 8th century, they sailed into the unknown, driven by a hunger for land and wealth and glory. Pushed from their homes, perhaps by scarce farmland, harsh winters and overpopulation, they went to seek their fortunes abroad.

• 5:08Dan Snow?

  The story goes that as he was approaching the island, Ingolf Arnarsson, he took his high-seat pillars, and that's a pair of ornately carved sacred wooden posts that they would stand on the island side of the chieftain's throne. He took these high-seat pillars and he cast them overboard into the sea and he said that wherever the Norse gods directed those pillars, that is where he and his Vikings would land. And the place where those pillars apparently landed was where I am now, Reykjavik, which was also conveniently one of the best natural harbors in Iceland. Perhaps the Norse gods knew that. It translates as Smoky Bay. It's now the capital of Iceland and it gets its name from the steam that rises from those iconic hot springs.

• 5:53Dan Snow?

  And how do we know this story? Well, the legend was written down in the Book of Settlements, which is a monumental work of literature. It's now housed in the Arni Magnusson Institute at the University of Iceland. It's a sanctuary for Iceland's ancient manuscripts. And I'm just walking up to it now and I'll take a look at it for myself, shown around by Professor Gisly Sigurdsson.

• 6:19Dan Snow?

  Oh, it's nice in the long. Hi there.

• 6:21Speaker 04

  Hi.

• 6:22Dan Snow?

  Hi Dan.

• 6:22Speaker 04

  Welcome. Gisli, nice to meet you.

• 6:29Dan Snow?

  Right, the founding documents of Iceland.

• 6:31Speaker 04

  Book of Settlements.

• 6:33Dan Snow?

  That's exciting.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  It should give us a medal in the Olympics of cultural achievements. If there ever was one.

• 6:39Dan Snow?

  It should be. So it's got a modern leather bind and then inside this 17th century vellum. Okay, so we're seeing here it comes into the very early 1700s, it comes into collection, but this is written in the 1600s.

• 6:52Speaker 04

  In the 1600s.

• 6:53Dan Snow?

  So it's a copy of a copy of the book written in the late 1200s.

• 6:57Speaker 04

  Before 1284, when the compiler, whom we know and know a lot about, died.

• 7:03Dan Snow?

  Okay, so let's see what it says. What's it tell us about early Iceland?

• 7:08Speaker 04

  So it starts off by trying to set it all in a timeframe, the Anodominum timeframe, with reference to your very own the venerable bead.

• 7:17Dan Snow?

  That's our bead.

• 7:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:19Dan Snow?

  The father of English history.

• 7:20Speaker 04

  In line one.

• 7:21Dan Snow?

  Wow.

• 7:22Speaker 04

  And because he has a reference in his writings to tulle, hermit sailing. Yeah, and then there are these hermits that were here and that the Icelanders called papa, and they were Christians and they left when the Norse came and left behind their books, biker, Irish bells and bagels. And they were called westmen. So that is all this information about the Irish hermits first, but then Iceland is settled properly from Norway in the time of Adrian's Pope.

• 8:00Dan Snow?

  Oh yeah, the Pope in Rome, Roma.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, and then when King Harald was the king of Norway and then he goes on.

• 8:09Speaker 04

  Through the sporadic visits by named individuals here that were coming through the eight hundreds.

• 8:19Dan Snow?

  So these individuals here, they're arriving but they're not settling?

• 8:22Speaker 04

  No, no, they're coming, they, they, the island is known, is discovered, some go to check it out, call it Snailand first.

• 8:32Dan Snow?

  That's Snowland?

• 8:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:33Dan Snow?

  Oh, they should have kept that name.

• 8:34Speaker 04

  And then this, Talo Garðar from Sweden, and after he has been here, it's called Garðasholmer, so Garðas Island. And then this character Flogi comes along, sails through Shetland, where his daughter drowns in a lake, still remember there. And then comes to Iceland, enjoys the wonderful summers, fishing and what he deems to be a paradise and forgets to prepare for the winter.

• 9:04Dan Snow?

  Oh.

• 9:05Speaker 04

  And leaves the year after, very disappointed.

• 9:09Dan Snow?

  As a tough winter, I can imagine.

• 9:11Speaker 04

  And so tough that he gives the name Iceland to the island.

• 9:16Dan Snow?

  He calls it Iceland?

• 9:17Speaker 04

  And that sticks.

• 9:19Dan Snow?

  So Ingolfor, why was he the one who decided to come and stay and bring cattle and settlers?

• 9:24Speaker 04

  He, like so many others of the people who decided to come here first, were having some difficulties in Norway, they were not happy with the current ruler Harald Harfari, or they had some local issues that they were fleeing away from. So he leaves Norway, not just to explore some new territory, but intent on settling with his foster brother. There's a bit of sort of mythological origin aura about the story of the two going together to the new land. But it's also realistic in the sense that they come up to the southeast coast and then they explore the entire land where they want to settle in this land.

• 10:07Speaker 04

  And the entire south coast is very tricky from their perspective because landing a ship there is very, very, very difficult. Whereas the first natural excellent harbor that he gets to is Reykjavik, and that's where they decide to stay. There are islands off the shore where they have plenty of birds and eggs to feed on. There's a salmon river running nearby and lakes, and so it's...

• 10:37Speaker 04

  Excellent for his type of life.

• 10:39Dan Snow?

  And so there's men and women. This is a colonial project.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  Yes, so he comes with his wife and family and they become then the leading family in the first decades of the country. The first thing is held here nearby Reykjavik. We have located the site just east of.

• 10:59Dan Snow?

  Oh, interesting. The thing, this Norse tradition of coming together to meet, to discuss.

• 11:03Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 11:04Dan Snow?

  And they were enslaved people along with them as well?

• 11:06Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah, that's the sad part of this, that the slave market in Dublin probably flourished because of the settlement of Iceland, which required cheap workforce to just break the land for farming. And then we also have in the archaeology and also the legal records that people were building walls around their farms, high walls that would hold the cattle. And and these were built out of turf and every farm had to have one wall around its immediate vicinity and then another one further out. And this seems to have been done in the 10th century on an organized scale.

• 11:50Dan Snow?

  All sorts of people.

• 11:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, mostly they seem to have been in the memory, at least from Scotland and Ireland.

• 11:57Dan Snow?

  Amazing, yeah. And were they bringing everything needed? Were they very self-sufficient? Could they make most stuff here or were there key imports?

• 12:03Speaker 04

  You can make local iron, but iron was imported and grain was imported as well. Grain and honey, that seems to be ingredients for their meat.

• 12:17Dan Snow?

  Yeah, of course.

• 12:18Speaker 04

  So that seems to have been the main import, iron and grain, but and all kinds of things that wealthy people. Can buy on the market, they would have bought here also spices, wine from southerly regions of Europe and luxury goods were also available to the very rich.

• 12:41Dan Snow?

  And the Book of Settlements, it's the origin story.

• 12:43Speaker 04

  It's the origin story, who came first, where they came from, who are their descendants and thus whom does the land belong to. At the time when he is running his legal businesses, then you have this document, well, so and so came here first, how are you related to them, okay? And so this clearly belongs to you.

• 13:04Dan Snow?

  I've seen history written for all sorts of different purposes, political, entertainment, religion, but this has a very particular, this has a legal and commercial reason for its existence.

• 13:15Speaker 04

  It does and indeed still today. Now we are clarifying where the boundaries are between private ownership and state ownership of land. And then this document is still in use in courts. Now, this piece of land was claimed originally, so okay, it can be private. This piece of land was never claimed according to this document here, so the state can claim it.

• 13:37Dan Snow?

  This is a serious business.

• 13:39Speaker 04

  It's not just so comics for fun.

• 13:43Dan Snow?

  What is your sense of how much we can trust these stories?

• 13:47Speaker 04

  We don't necessarily have to assume that it's all a lie,

• 13:52Speaker 04

  which is of course the first reaction of an historian. But the document written in the late 1200s, trying to tell us stories about the late 800s, well, I'm not taking any of that.

• 14:02Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 14:03Speaker 04

  That's the starting point.

• 14:04Dan Snow?

  Skeptical, be skeptical.

• 14:05Speaker 04

  But then we start like with the chronology, the time the settlement correctly to the 870s, that can be confirmed with archaeology.

• 14:17Speaker 04

  They get it right that people are coming from Norway and the British Isles.

• 14:21Dan Snow?

  We know from the DNA.

• 14:22Speaker 04

  Yes, we know from the DNA. We know also, even though they are not as preoccupied with the women as with the males, we know if we make a sort of even number of the information that we get here, that they also have an awareness that there are more women from the British Isles than there are males. So they get that right. They also get it right that paganism is the dominant religion, the first century or so in Iceland, which is then converted to Christianity. They get that right. So there are many things that they get right in these outer structures of society that we can confirm with archaeology.

• 15:07Speaker 04

  Also get it right that people from Iceland went to Greenland in the 9080s and settled there. They have that chronology correct. So those anonymous things that we can confirm with archaeology, they all fit in the frame that they have. Of course, archaeology will never tell us the names of the individuals, who killed whom, who was in love with whom, and so on, which is the stuff of history. Why this place name came about? Because someone lost a com here or had his breakfast here or broke his leg there, and so on. We will never be able to confirm these details. But the overall feeling is that when these things are written,

• 15:52Speaker 04

  people feel that they are remembering them. So this is the best that your grandparents can tell you about the past. And also, it's important information because it is about the land claim. It's who came here first, claimed this land. This is the boundary, which is legally important in the present. And the reason I own this land is that it's my hereditary right to the land. So it's like a confirmation of your right in the world to be.

• 16:27Dan Snow?

  And therefore, even in the 3rd century, it was probably robustly challenged. It went through a process of rigorous...

• 16:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. And also, we know from studies of oral traditions that traditions bend. They tend to adjust to the present at all times. So if things did not change that much, then we can more or less be certain that the memories didn't change all that much either. But if the power structures changed, if people moved, if someone challenged someone else and got their land, then probably within a generation or two, the story was about that person's family having been there first. So of course, there is this fluidity in the tradition.

• 17:10Speaker 04

  But this is a structured society with memory structures built in, special people taking care of memory of the past, lawmen, poets, professional poets. So the past is not just anything that you can meddle with at will.

• 17:30Dan Snow?

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• 18:13Dan Snow?

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• 18:51Dan Snow?

  This episode is brought to you by TikTok. I never thought about the history of coffee. You make it, you drink it, nothing more to it. Then I've had a TikTok video about how people in the 1700s would pour their coffee into saucers to let it cool before drinking it. I love that sort of discovery. A detail, but suddenly you're imagining how people lived and drank and socialized. Now I wonder what all baffled historians about us. Mugs. It's a ceramic vessel, but crucially, it has a handle. Well, that's the joy of TikTok, folks. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Learn more at tiktok.com/discovermore.

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• 20:05Speaker 01

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• 20:47Speaker 01

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• 21:04Dan Snow?

  So centuries after Ingolfr Arnarsson made Iceland his home, the stories of how he arrived and who was with him found new life in writing. The Book of Settlements is a goldmine committing to text all the settlers' names. But you know, names aren't enough for us on this podcast. I want to know more about the actual people behind those names, how they lived and survived in this harsh, difficult landscape on the edge of the Arctic Circle. So to really get into it, to find out more, I've come about two hours north of Reykjavik to a real Viking Age farm called Eriksen. I'm here at the end of September, but I'll tell you what, it feels like winter is coming.

• 21:48Dan Snow?

  It's absolutely freezing as we go to the top of this valley. There are these huge hills on either side. There's some lush-looking agricultural land in the middle. The hazel have been baled up for the year. The sheep are still grazing. There's a river running down the middle of the valley. And at the moment, the sun is flashing off that river. It's golden light right the way through this valley. Absolutely beautiful. And I've arrived at this remarkable feature, which is a Viking Age longhouse. It's so exciting. It's the centre of this farm, the centre of the community where the family, and I think some of the workers, would have lived and would have taken shelter from these savage winters. I'm going to go and check it out.

• 22:31Dan Snow?

  I'm walking up to the longhouse now. It's turf, I can see that. So there's a rather beautiful, passionate herringbone shape of turf that's been laid on the outside. There's a stone foundation, so big blocks of cut stone, about a foot high. On top of that, this turf. And then on top of the turf, you've got the roof. And there's lots and lots of wild grass going out the roof. And that's all waving in the wind, looks beautiful. There are no windows. It just looks like a solid mass of turf and stone and grass, designed to keep out the Icelandic winters. There's only one entrance. It's a wooden carved door, and I'm going to pop inside. Get out of this wind, oh it's chilly, oh my god, so nice.

• 23:14Dan Snow?

  Immediately, it's almost about twenty degrees warmer as you head in. And this is where the family lived, this is where the community, everything revolved around what went on in here. And this isn't just any old longhouse, this is a very special one indeed, this is why the Icelandic government was so keen to excavate this area and then reconstruct this house, because this was, quite briefly, but it was the home of Erik the Red, who was a particularly fierce Viking, and that, as you can imagine, means you're very fierce. He was known for his fiery temper, he killed people, possibly deliberately, possibly accidentally, but anyway, people were killed, and he was exiled from Iceland for this murder. Instead of going back to Norway, where he was from originally, he sailed west extraordinarily,

• 23:58Dan Snow?

  bravely, sailed west into the unknown, and he discovered Greenland. But what's so special about this house up to now is this is where he lived with his wife, and he had his famous son, Leif Eriksson, who had also gone to be an extraordinary explorer, who had sailed west. So this is where Erik lived, and Leif was probably born and raised for a bit. And in here is a member of the team, he's going to tell me all about that way of life, and the particularly famous Vikings who came from here. So talk me through what we can see here, as we came in, there's a sort of a workshop area there?

• 24:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, so this is the front room, where you would be keeping your outdoor tools, outdoor clothing, but not really perhaps very much work, because it's quite dark, there's no windows here, so that's the thing, you would be working outside really, yeah.

• 24:51Dan Snow?

  And then there's some, a partition there, you get through to this main living, Erik?

• 24:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, and you need the doors between to close off the cold. And yes, this is the main chamber where people would be cooking, eating, sleeping, et cetera.

• 25:06Dan Snow?

  And it is warm in here, I mean, do you keep it heated overnight in modern ways? Or has this been kept in from the previous day's fire?

• 25:12Speaker 06

  So yeah, I mean, the temperature doesn't fall during the night, even though we take down the fire. In the olden days, you would have fire going all night long. But it's not really necessary in the autumn.

• 25:27Dan Snow?

  And in winter, the temperature outside gets down to?

• 25:31Speaker 06

  Minus ten, but it doesn't really count. I mean, the degrees don't count, it's the wind.

• 25:36Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 25:37Speaker 06

  So it's really, really cold. Even if it's just minus three, it could be really, really freezing.

• 25:42Dan Snow?

  But inside here, you've always, it's always snug?

• 25:45Speaker 06

  Yeah, it is. And especially if you have the fifteen inhabitants that you would have in a house like this, yeah.

• 25:51Dan Snow?

  So everyone would have been packed in?

• 25:52Speaker 06

  Absolutely, yeah. Two to three people per bed. And yes, um, quite stuffy. Well, I mean.

• 26:00Dan Snow?

  You might have been glad for the warmth, though.

• 26:02Speaker 06

  Yeah, absolutely, yeah. But, you know, you you can actually fit about twenty people here, but you would expect about fifteen or something like that, yeah.

• 26:10Dan Snow?

  That all, one extended family?

• 26:12Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 26:12Dan Snow?

  You'd have got to know them very well.

• 26:14Speaker 06

  Absolutely. Everything that you hate about them as well.

• 26:18Dan Snow?

  And the la- so who's living? We've got beds along here, haven't we?

• 26:22Speaker 06

  Yeah. We have beds along all the chamber.

• 26:25Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 26:25Speaker 06

  These three here are the luxurious ones, where you have a little bit of privacy.

• 26:31Dan Snow?

  Hmm, not that much privacy.

• 26:33Speaker 06

  No, no, not at all. And I think really our level of privacy is, they would probably just be lonely, you know, compared to their kind of living. But you would be having two to three people sleeping in each bed, but people would also be sleeping on this side. So everybody from one year old to ninety-nine.

• 26:55Dan Snow?

  And they would have helped to warm it up as well?

• 26:57Speaker 06

  Absolutely, yes.

• 26:58Dan Snow?

  And you've got these lovely thick wooden posts here, so they're holding up the roof?

• 27:02Speaker 06

  Yes, they are. Uh, there is a frame that is holding up the roof. And then this panelling in the ceiling, that's really just to make it nice. But then there is an insulation layer also of branches, birch branches. And those would be domestic, or, you know, they are not from somewhere else. They have been cut down here in the valley.

• 27:26Dan Snow?

  And so the turf needs replacing every ten, fifteen years? I imagine those branches do, but these wooden posts, these could be generations old.

• 27:33Speaker 06

  Absolutely, yes. And if you move away, you take the wood with you. That's absolutely how it is. And for example, when the ruins of this house was examined, we did not find a scrap wood. Or actually, just one piece, and it was probably the bottom of the skyrbaros. There was some protein, milk protein on it, still.

• 27:58Dan Snow?

  And we should say this is based on archaeological finds, this house?

• 28:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, absolutely, yeah. In nineteen ninety-six, there was a dig here, done by the National Museum of Iceland. And it really, it showed us really the foundations. It didn't show us any wood. For example, there was a little bit of turf, but you can see the outline of the house. You can see how it was structured. It really needed both archaeological data, but also quite a lot of knowledge about just woodworking. Because you have to put a house like this together, not using almost any iron. Everything is pegged together with wooden pegs.

• 28:40Dan Snow?

  And presumably you've learned a huge amount from the upkeep? How often you have to replace the turf and the roof?

• 28:46Speaker 06

  Absolutely, yes, yeah. And we are actually assuming that the roof might have not been as steep as it is. Because it dries completely in a dry summer. So we are learning as we go.

• 29:01Dan Snow?

  So what's through that door at the far end is another partitioned room?

• 29:04Speaker 06

  So that's the pantry.

• 29:05Dan Snow?

  Ah, okay.

• 29:06Speaker 06

  That's where you would be keeping all your provisions for the winter. It should be locked, actually, and then distribute evenly throughout the winter, but...

• 29:15Dan Snow?

  That was an important job, so...

• 29:17Speaker 06

  Absolutely, really powerful person who had the key.

• 29:21Speaker 06

  Absolutely.

• 29:22Dan Snow?

  So we're here in September. This would have been quite a time of year because you're, this is last minute time, is it? You're laying things up for them.

• 29:29Speaker 06

  Absolutely, yes. You would be gathering the sheep. It would be the time when you slaughter animals, when you um make sausages, you know. You would have a full barrel of skeer. And then you would have another full of whey for preserving the meat, et cetera. So.

• 29:48Dan Snow?

  It must have been stressful, but also satisfying, knowing everything's there and and you're going to get through the winter.

• 29:54Speaker 06

  Absolutely, yes.

• 29:56Dan Snow?

  There's some weapons around, but there's also some weaving equipment.

• 29:59Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. So stone weight loom. That's really uh where you make all of the fabrics, whatever they are, from sails to clothing. And wool was absolutely essential, just as important as turf for keeping you warm. Layers and layers of wool. And it was also our biggest export industry. Made only by women. And that made them really powerful because they were the knowledgeable people. They were the providers, really.

• 30:31Dan Snow?

  And you can imagine a lot of that going on during the winter, I suppose.

• 30:34Speaker 06

  Yes, as long as it's not something that you need to very much light for, you know, that's really. There was a term called weave light. If it's weave light, you can work. If it's darker than that, you will just really have to tell stories and.

• 30:49Dan Snow?

  That's a, that's a subunit of measurement for that.

• 30:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. Stories is what has kept us um alive for a millennium here, really. Because even though the architecture of this house is a thousand years old. The, you know, living in one chamber is something we did until the nineteenth century. So it's really a way of life that we have just left now.

• 31:13Dan Snow?

  How should we imagine people's roles in this house? You've got the adults, well, someone's got the keys to the pantry. That's an important job.

• 31:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's the, the lady of the house would be.

• 31:22Dan Snow?

  Yeah, obviously, yeah. Don't trust anyone else with that.

• 31:25Speaker 06

  Then you would have the master of the house. He might be absent, you know, going, going wacking somewhere.

• 31:32Dan Snow?

  Okay, so yeah, interesting. So in the summer, might there be a sense that he, some of the men might be away? Trading?

• 31:38Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 31:39Dan Snow?

  Fishing, raiding?

• 31:40Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 31:40Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 31:41Speaker 06

  Well, raiding abroad. We, we didn't raid very much, yeah, of course. But you just don't pop out of the country, you go for a year.

• 31:50Dan Snow?

  Right, okay.

• 31:51Speaker 06

  So the ladies of the house were quite powerful. They, they were ruling everything while their husbands were away.

• 31:58Dan Snow?

  And they're probably ruling everything while their husbands are here as well.

• 32:00Speaker 06

  Possibly also, yeah.

• 32:01Dan Snow?

  And so, but there's farming?

• 32:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, there's farming, and here probably sheep farming.

• 32:07Dan Snow?

  And the kids can really help with their sheep farming?

• 32:09Speaker 06

  Absolutely, yeah, all chores really. I mean chopping wood, et cetera. This is actually visible when you look at bones from this period. You see a lot of labour from early age and not divided between, you know, slaves or workers or the master of the house. Everybody had a really, really hard labour.

• 32:31Dan Snow?

  It was tough?

• 32:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, it was.

• 32:33Dan Snow?

  There would have been slaves here as well?

• 32:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, there would have been. So you would be having slaves, you would have khat, which is really just a free person, khat and khatling. And then you would have the earls or the rulers.

• 32:50Dan Snow?

  Aristocrats.

• 32:51Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 32:52Dan Snow?

  And would they have lived fairly intimately like this, do you think? Would there have been separate quarters for workers?

• 32:58Speaker 06

  It seems, at least in a small household like this, you would have everybody together.

• 33:02Dan Snow?

  Wow.

• 33:03Speaker 06

  Slaves, it's a quite different term from the later slavery of African people, for example. Because you could actually become free. And quite a lot of the slaves were, I mean, people who would even have been aristocrats before.

• 33:19Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 33:20Speaker 06

  So it's really different. And they were valuable, of course, so you would really like to keep them warm and fed.

• 33:26Dan Snow?

  You've got a fire in the hearth, but you're in semi-darkness for months.

• 33:29Speaker 06

  Yes, that's true. Yeah, and I can imagine that people had cabin fever every once in a while. But what kept us alive is not really the fire or the wool or the food, but the storytelling, I would say.

• 33:46Dan Snow?

  This is Dan Snow's History here, more after this.

• 33:54Speaker 05

  At Lowe's this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans and their spouses get automatic MyLowe's Rewards Silver Status benefits. Plus, 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honor and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms and conditions apply. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless gold flake caviar topping. It's not whipping out your wallet to pay. It's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019. That's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. Because Apple Card holders earn 2% daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store, at the gas station, at restaurants. And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market. Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favorite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound? Means I just got 2% daily cash back on my latest purchase. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Apple Card, issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 35:20Dan Snow?

  Hey folks, you have to excuse me doing a bit sort of romantic here, but it really, Iceland does feel like the real life Asgard. I'm walking across this landscape. It feels like you're in the footsteps of the Old Norse gods, certainly in the footsteps of the Vikings. It is just so dramatic. I'm now in a sort of river valley. This beautiful river is streaming past me. The sun is flashing off it, little ripples caused by the wind, big lake up ahead of me. And in the distance, well, I'm surrounded by this bowl of volcanic hills, bare, black, craggy slopes, jagged peaks. Imagine the platonic ideal form of a perfect pyramidal mountain. That's what I'm seeing all around me now. And then in the distance, I'm also seeing smoke, white smoke,

• 36:04Dan Snow?

  at various places, pouring into the sky. And those are fissures. That's where the geothermally heated water is just rising to the surface and sending plumes of steam up into the sky. It's like nowhere else in the world. And Iceland's beautiful wherever you go frankly, but this is a very special corner of it, because I've driven out of Reykjavik about an hour north of it and I'm in Thingvælir National Park. This is a place that the original settlers chose to be the beating heart really of this new territory that they'd settled and they didn't know about it, but they've chosen very wisely, because this is actually a geologically highly significant place. I am standing in the mid-Atlantic rift. I am between two tectonic plates, I'm looking at two tectonic plates.

• 36:49Dan Snow?

  And as a result, this is a place of enormous seismic activity, there's an earthquake actually in Iceland every single day. And if I look to my right, I've got this sheer wall of volcanic cliff. That is the edge of the North American Plate. I could reach and touch it now. And if I look over there to the east, I can see the edge of the Eurasian Plate. So this is where the two great plates, this is where the two great chunks of the Earth's crust meet. And it is here, in just incredibly appropriately, given these people had no idea about seismology in the Earth's crust, that the Viking settlers chose to be their meeting place. This is the site of the Athling.

• 37:31Dan Snow?

  This is where the chiefs of those first Viking settlements came together to discuss their issues, to try and resolve conflict, to talk rather than fight. A behaviour that we perhaps don't associate with the Vikings, but we need to look beyond those myths and realise that they practised a very interesting form of politics of conflict resolution. And it wasn't just the chiefs that came here, they were the most important to be fair, but it was every free male Icelandic settler could come here and participate in some way in the political process. As a result, this is not easy for a Brit to say folks, but as a result, the Athling really is one of, if not the oldest, national parliament in the world. It's just great, they met every single summer here, they came here for two weeks, at the

• 38:14Dan Snow?

  very height of summer, during midsummer, so I'm sure there was a bit of a festival vibe as well, I'm sure it's fun. And they created new laws, they settled disputes, I think they did some business, I'm sure lots of marriages were arranged and even a couple of elopements took place. And so this place, where tectonic plates created friction and heat and smoke and fire, was also a place of calm.

• 38:40Dan Snow?

  Of collaboration, of cooperation. We know about the athling from the Book of Settlements, but also from the sagas. They were collected and written down in 13th to 14th centuries. And they were the stories of the chiefs and their families and their stories of battles and hardships, but also magic and gods and star-crossed lovers, all the good stuff. And they were passed down from generation to generation orally until they were written down. Storytelling spans all sorts of cultures right across human history, right across the world, but there's something very special about that Icelandic oral tradition. And here they are known as the Icelandic sagas.

• 39:26Dan Snow?

  So this is one of the famous sagas?

• 39:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, this is Nyarlir saga. The main character, a lawman of peace, who tries to settle the feuds around him all the time.

• 39:36Dan Snow?

  So he's a politician, he's a lawyer in a violent world?

• 39:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, he never takes up arms, but that also is a symbol of his peacefulness, because his best friend is the violent, fighting warrior, physical character with much less brains than Nyarlir's.

• 39:53Dan Snow?

  So he's Gnar here, he's the warrior, friend of Nyarlir?

• 39:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, he is the physical guy who travels abroad and achieves wealth and glory from his physical strength, whereas Nyarlir is the wise man who wants to solve everything with the law and plotting and sees how people will react and acts accordingly, but in the end, he cannot prevent fate from having its way.

• 40:21Dan Snow?

  There's a part of both of those in all of us.

• 40:23Speaker 04

  I suppose, that's the beauty of the saga, that it still reflects the modern psyche.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  In its own way which attracts us to it as a modern work of art would do.

• 40:36Dan Snow?

  What is the lesson of this saga? Are we supposed to sympathize with it now? Are we supposed to say, Neil, if everyone was more like him, everyone would be happier in Iceland?

• 40:43Speaker 04

  The overall message of this saga is the coming of Christianity that brings peace to this violent world. So it's the Ragnarok of the pagan period that burns up in a house fire at Neil's farm. And it's only after that, after a series of revenges, that peace can come with the help of Christianity.

• 41:05Dan Snow?

  Because we have to embrace this new...

• 41:07Speaker 04

  This new faith. They go on a pilgrimage to Rome and they come back and they can forgive. And eventually they marry representatives of the two opposing groups. And Christianity and love bring peace eventually to this very violent pagan world that Neil sort of depicts.

• 41:27Dan Snow?

  Law feels important in Iceland, that people came together to try and make laws, to try and ameliorate the violence that was around them.

• 41:34Speaker 04

  It's preoccupied with law and legal settings. Alþingi, the legal assembly, is formed in 930, only shortly after the settlement.

• 41:45Dan Snow?

  So that's almost a parliament?

• 41:47Speaker 04

  It is, what we call a parliament in modern terms. It has elected law speakers who is responsible for knowing what is the right law. But then, quite often, the sagas describe that the ideal solution is perhaps not always working. So there's violence underneath the ideal world that is always aimed at, in this world, as in ours.

• 42:09Dan Snow?

  What were these sagas for at the time?

• 42:12Speaker 04

  At the time they were written, chief tensions were getting the idea that literature brings you prestige in the culture. To be able to entertain your guests with a written text, read out, is something that noble men do. So it's capturing tradition in written form, which is a very problematic process. And it's not self-evident, how do you do that? So endless scholarly ink has been spent on that question. How was the oral tradition transformed into writing? But it clearly must have had some social function to have it written rather than oral.

• 42:53Speaker 04

  And then it catches on, like any trend can do among the rich. You can tell them if it's private jets, then they will all go for private jets. If it's skiing resort, they will go for skiing resort. If it's books, they'll go for books. If it's tower, the rich in Italy, they had to build towers to make a name for themselves. In Iceland, they had to have a saga written about their own region.

• 43:16Dan Snow?

  What do the sagas mean to you as a proud Icelandic?

• 43:21Speaker 04

  Oh, it's the sagas, in my view, so important and so great and so enjoyable because they draw up a complete worldview of the Middle Ages, pre-Christian worldview even, partly even though it's clearly influenced by Christianity, with the pagan deities in the sky and with all the lands they explored and visited during the Viking Age, into Russia, British Isles, Greenland, North America. Have stories taking place in this entire area set in a period of three, four, five hundred years. So a huge time span, entire cosmos, attached to the landscape that we have in front of our eyes,

• 44:06Speaker 04

  using still the place names as we have the origin stories for in the texts. So it's just in order to live here, you walk into the world of the sagas.

• 44:18Dan Snow?

  Listening to you, what's so striking about these sagas is how familiar many of these characters and names are now to a global audience. These sagas have taken a life far beyond the confines of this island.

• 44:28Speaker 04

  I think it lies in the characters, that the characters in these texts, they are not like your stereotypical medieval character, but rather portrayed individuals that are much more like humans of flesh and blood in modern novels. So we get some of a sense of the real persons, living persons, behind the literary works, which makes them so fascinating and still captivating.

• 44:58Dan Snow?

  For some, settling on Iceland was not the end, but the beginning. From these shores, Erik the Red sailed westward to Greenland. His son, Leif Eriksson, pushed further still. He reached the coast of North America around the year 1000. The frontier spirit of Iceland made it the springboard for discovery. For me, this has just been the most incredible experience: to sit inside a Viking longhouse, to see the names of those first settlers over a thousand years ago written down, to read those stories of incredible resilience and endurance against an inhospitable landscape preserved in the sagas which have become the backbone of Icelandic culture.

• 45:39Dan Snow?

  The Viking settlement to Iceland was not just about carving farms out of the wilderness. It was about law without kings, memories becoming legends, journeys without borders. From Reykjavik's hot springs, the smoking volcanoes, to the Rift Valley, the story of Iceland is the story of how people turned unclaimed land into a society that still endures today. Until next time, sail well.

• 46:40Speaker 05

  At Lowe's, this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans, and their spouses get automatic Milo's Rewards Silver Status benefits. Plus, 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honour and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms, and conditions apply. Loyalty programs subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless Goldflay caviar topping. It's not whipping out your wallet to pay. It's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019. That's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. Because Apple Card holders earn 2% daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store, at the gas station, at restaurants. And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market. Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favorite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound means I just got 2% daily cash back on my latest purchase. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Apple Card, issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 48:00Dan Snow?

  Have you been enjoying my podcast and now want even more history? Sign up to History and watch the world's best history documentaries on subjects like how William conquered England, what it was like to live in the Georgian era, and you can even hear the voice of Richard III. We've got hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, and there's always something more to discover. Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.