Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1963, Page 101

anglo-saxon england and iceland
83
great export from Greenland, tusks
°f walrus and ropes made from its
hide, reached Anglo-Saxon England
where walrus ivory was used ex-
tensively in the carving of various
artifacts. Of course, walrus tusks
^night be obtained from Norway,
but after 1000 A.D. most of them
Probably came through Norway
from Iceland and Greenland. The
Icelanders early began to carve in
Walrus ivory and Bishop Páll Jóns-
son of Skálholt (1195-1211) gave the
archbishop of Trondhjem a crozier
carved from a walrus tusk by a
woman known as Margrét the “skil-
ful”.16 j may mention here as an
oddity that in 1276 King Magnús
Hákonarson of Norway sent King
Edward I of England a walrus head
compiete with teeth.1'?
If was not however trading alone
fhat attracted Icelanders to England.
Many 0f them, such as the poet
Kormákr around 975,18 took part in
Viking raids on that country but
We do not know from our sources
fhat any settled there permanently
when the Scandinavians began to
settle as well as raid England. It is,
owever, possible that during the
Period 0f Danish rule (1016-1042)
a number my have joined the stand-
lng army or Þingamannalið, but our
sources explicitly mention only one,
yjolfr Þorsteinsson, who is said to
ave gone to England and joined
f^e force some time after 1018.19
thers, however, served with the
anes there in one or another ca-
Pacity sucx^ as Björn Hítdælakappi
^ca> 1011-1013);20 a certain Gísli
f'orsteinsson (ca. 1020):21 and Steinn
fca. 1025), the son of the famous
Icelandic law-sayer (lög-sögumaður),
Skafti Þórddsson.22
It was, however, in the fields of
historical writing, literature and re-
ligion that the ties were closest be-
tween the two countries. Let us turn
to this.
The first vernacular history to be
written in Iceland was the íslend-
ingabók (Book of ihe Icelanders). It
was written in 1122 or 1123 by one
of Iceland’s earliest scholars, Ari
Þorgilsson the Learned (1068-1148),
who is sometimes called the father
of Icelandic historiography. Its open-
ing paragraph is as follows:
Iceland was first settled from
Norway in the days of Harald the
Fairhaired, son of Halfdan the
Black, at the time—according to
the opinion and calculation of Teit
my foster-father, the wisest man I
have known, son of Bishop Isleif,
and of my paternal uncle Thorkel
Gellisson who remembered far
back, and of Thurid daughter of
Snorri Godi who was both learned
in many things and trustworthy—
when Ivar, son of Ragnar Lod-
brok, caused Edmund the Saint,
king of the English, to be slain;
and that was 870 years after the
birth of Christ.23
Another work which may in part
be ascribed to Ari Þorgilsson is
Landnámabók (Book of the Setlle-
ments). It was, however, put into its
present form by the Lawman Haukr
Erlendsson during the years 1130-
1334. The opening paragraph of
Landnámabók reads as follows:
In the book of the Course of the
Ages24 which the holy priest Bede
wrote there is mention of an