Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1963, Page 102

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TÍMARIT ÞJÓÐRÆKNISFÉLAGS ÍSLENDINGA
island which is called Thule (Tili)
and books say is located six days
sailing north from Britain; he said
that there were no days there in
winter when the night is longest
and no night in summer when the
day is longest. Wise men believe
that Iceland is here referred to as
Thule because in many places in
the country the sun shines at
night when the day is longest and
there are many places where for
days the sun is not seen when the
night is longest. The priest Bede
died 735 years after the incarna-
tion of our Lord according to
written record i.e. more than 100
years before Iceland was settled
from Norway.25
These two passages from the his-
torical literature of Iceland attest
to an early acquaintance with An-
glo-Saxon scholarship and history,
albeit both are historically some-
what inaccurate. Saint Edmund al-
though his sanctity is great is a
rather obscure figure. He was king
of East Anglia 855-870 and died at
the hands of the Danes led by Hálf-
dán and ívar the sons of Ragnar
Loðbrók. The source of Ari’s infor-
mation is the Passio sancii Ead-
mundi of Abbo of Fleury (ob. 1004)
who spent some time teaching at
Ramsey in England.26 The main rea-
son, however, for the interest of Ari
in Saint Edmund is that Ari be-
lieved that Edmund was the ances-
tor of both his foster-father, Teitr,
the son of Bishop ísleifr Gizurarson,
the first bishop of Iceland (1056-
1080), and of Ari himself. It is not
known from English or continental
sources whether Edmund had any
children but Icelandic sources credit
him with a daughter whose name
was, Úlfrún or úlfbrún,27 who was
married to a King Oswald,28 some-
times erroneously identified with
Saint Oswald. Their daughter was
Vilborg who had two daughters,
Valgerdr and Helga. The latter is
the ancestress of Bishop Isleifr.29
Thus the connection of Iceland with
Anglo-Saxon England goes back to
the early days of the settlement of
Iceland.
If a digression be permitted, it
may not be without interest to men-
tion that the present Queen of Eng-
land is said to have as an ancestor
one of the original settlers of Ice-
land. Genealogists tell us that if
we trace Elizabeth’s ancestry back
thirty-four generations we come to
Auðunn Bjarnarson whom the
Landnámabók reports as having set-
tled in the north of Iceland. It also
adds that Auðunn was one of the
finest and noblest of the settlers in
the northern quarter of Iceland. One
version adds that Auðunn was the
great grandfather of the most fa-
mous outlaw Iceland ever produced,
Grettir the Strong.30
To return to Ari, it may be noticed
that he again uses the year of the
martyrdom of Saint Edmund to date
events in Icelandic history. Thus
when speaking of what happened
in 1120 in Iceland he says that this
occurred 250 years after the slaying
of Edmund, King of the Angles, and
516 years after the death of Pope
Gregory “who, as is told, brought
Christianity into England”.31
Bede’s reference to Thule is based
on clasasical writings and can hard-