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As Iceland itself is small and isolated, the individualistic “us against them” mentality didn’t last long, and gave way to less violent forms of vendetta. [19] This is a major shift in contrast to the raiding and pillaging going on in the rest of the Viking World and sets Viking-age Iceland apart from other Norse settlements.
Byock, Jesse (1988) Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas and Power (University of California Press) ISBN 978-0520069541; Byock, Jesse (2001) Viking Age Iceland (Penguin Books) ISBN 978-0140291155; Hjalmarsson, Jon R. (1993) History of Iceland - From Settlement to the Present Day (Reykjavík: Iceland Review ) ISBN 978-9979510710
The recorded history of Iceland began with the settlement by Viking explorers and the people they enslaved from Western Europe, particularly in modern-day Norway and the British Isles, in the late ninth century. Iceland was still uninhabited long after the rest of Western Europe had been settled.
Landnámabók, a medieval Icelandic manuscript, describes in considerable detail the settlement of Iceland (Icelandic: landnám) by the Norse in the 9th and 10th centuries. According to the Landnámabók , Iceland was discovered by Naddodd, who was sailing from Norway to the Faroe Islands, but got lost and drifted to the east coast of Iceland.
Grímur's settlement is said to have been in Funningur on Eysturoy. Excavations have revealed other Viking settlements in the neighborhood and on the other islands. The Norwegian emigrant Naddoddur also arrived in the Faroe Islands during this period. According to tradition, he discovered Iceland around 850 and named it Snowland.
The settlement of Iceland and the Faroe Islands by the Norse included many Norse–Gael settlers as well as slaves and servants. They were called Vestmen (Western men), and the name is retained in Vestmanna in the Faroes and the Vestmannaeyjar off the Icelandic mainland.
Erik Thorvaldsson [a] (c. 950 – c. 1003), known as Erik the Red, was a Norse explorer, described in medieval and Icelandic saga sources as having founded the first European settlement in Greenland.
Expert sailors and navigators of their characteristic longships, Vikings established Norse settlements and governments in the British Isles, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Normandy, and the Baltic coast, as well as along the Dnieper and Volga trade routes across Eastern Europe where they were also known as Varangians.