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Written sources consider the age of settlement in Iceland to have begun with settlement by Ingólfr Arnarson around 874, for he was the first to sail to Iceland with the purpose of settling the land. Archaeological evidence shows that extensive human settlement of the island indeed began at this time, and "that the whole country was occupied ...
History of Iceland: From the Settlement to the Present Day. Reykjavik: Forlagið Publishing. ISBN 978-9979-53-513-3. Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon. Wasteland with Words. A Social History of Iceland (London: Reaktion Books, 2010) Miller, William Ian; "University of Michigan Law School Faculty & Staff". Cgi2.www.law.umich.edu. 24 October 1996.
Iceland's best-known classical works of literature are the Icelanders' sagas, prose epics set in Iceland's age of settlement. The most famous of these include Njáls saga , about an epic blood feud, and Grænlendinga saga and Eiríks saga , describing the discovery and settlement of Greenland and Vinland (modern Newfoundland ).
The Icelandic Commonwealth, [a] also known as the Icelandic Free State, was the political unit existing in Iceland between the establishment of the Althing (Icelandic: Alþingi) in 930 and the pledge of fealty to the Norwegian king with the Old Covenant in 1262.
A page from a vellum manuscript of Landnáma in the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies in Reykjavík, Iceland. Landnámabók (Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈlantˌnauːmaˌpouːk], "Book of Settlements"), often shortened to Landnáma, is a medieval Icelandic written work which describes in considerable detail the settlement (landnám) of Iceland by the Norse in the 9th and 10th ...
The majority of the functions that are carried out by local governments actually happen at the municipal level. However, most settlements in Iceland are broken down further into the "locality" level, which are mainly used for information collection and statistical analysis purposes only—essentially, a census division.
According to the Landnámbók, his two sons, Þorvaldur and Þórður, became prominent figures in the Icelandic Commonwealth. Upon their father's death, they organized the most ostentatious funeral in his honor with 1,440 guests, an event that was not equaled until decades later by the funeral rites for Hoskuld Dala-Kollsson . [ 3 ]
Ingólfr was said to have settled a large part of southwestern Iceland, although after his settlement nothing more was known of him. His son, Þorsteinn Ingólfsson, was a major chieftain and was said to have founded the Kjalarnesþing , the first thing, or parliament, in Iceland. It was a forerunner of the Althingi.