The Founding of Iceland
by Bob Brooke
 
Continued...

The sagas of the Icelanders give the impression that the earliest generations of Icelanders had a strong sense of nationality and felt distinct from the Norwegians, but it is necessary to remember that these were written in a world two centuries removed from the Saga Age.

Yet there was recognition, even 200 years later, that Norway was the center and they themselves were the periphery; Norway, not Iceland, was the focus of attention. In the sagas and the histories, Iceland is outside while Norway is "home." The Icelanders "sail out" to Iceland but "sail home" to Norway.. In the sagas, there’s avid interest in how Norwegian royalty view the Icelanders. The kings and earls are always impressed by how splendidly handsome, intelligent, well-mannered, noble in behavior, and accomplished in sports the Icelanders are.

Continual emphasis is placed on the noble lineage of the Icelandic adventurers, many of whom are alleged to be descended from Norwegian kings. All of this should be taken with a grain of salt.

One peculiar way that the ancient Icelanders continued to see the world from a Norwegian perspective was their terminology for points of the compass. They persisted in calling "inland" northeast. This worked satisfactorily for Norway but was a fiction for most of Iceland. People from Ireland, Britain, and the islands of the North Atlantic are spoken of in the old literature as coming from "the west." Again, this made sense in Norway but not at all in Iceland.

Icelanders continue to remain closest in sentiment to Norway as the mother country and to Norwegians as a people more like them than any other. The feeling is perhaps akin to the feelings English Canadians have toward England.

To read more articles by Bob Brooke, please visit his Web site.

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