The First Vikings in Iceland

Summary

Dan Snow's History Hit

Episode: The First Vikings in Iceland

Date: February 16, 2026

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Overview

In this immersive episode, historian Dan Snow travels to Iceland to chronicle the dramatic founding story of the island’s first Viking settlers. Venturing from Reykjavik to a reconstructed Viking farmstead and the site of the Althing, Dan delves into the legends, the practical challenges of survival, and the legal and cultural legacy that shaped Iceland. Featuring expert insights from Professor Gisli Sigurdsson and visits to crucial historic sites, the episode traces the journey of Ingolfr Arneson and his fellow Norse, exploring their motivations, ingenuity, and the resilience required to build a thriving society on the edge of the world.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Arrival of the Vikings in Iceland

(01:48 - 05:39)

• Dan sets the scene in 874 CE with Ingolfr Arneson's landing:
  "In the year 874... Ingolfr Arneson stood on the prow of his ship... This was Iceland, the edge of the known world, the hope of a new beginning." (01:48, Dan Snow)
• Background on why Vikings left Norway: political turmoil, scarce farmland, and a hunger for freedom and new opportunities.
• Ingolfr's symbolic casting of the high seat pillars into the sea, with the intention to land wherever the Norse gods brought them—leading to Reykjavik.

2. The Book of Settlements: Iceland’s Founding Document

(05:39 - 16:51)

• Dan visits the Arni Magnusson Institute to see the actual Book of Settlements, a vital text chronicling the first settlers, their origins, and land claims.
• Professor Gisli Sigurdsson explains the document's origins and its dual function as history and land registry:

  “It’s the origin story, who came first, where they came from... and thus, whom does the land belong to?” (11:59, Professor Gisli Sigurdsson)

• The Book of Settlements draws from oral tradition but is rooted in legal and practical issues of property and belonging, still referenced in Icelandic courts today.
• Early contacts: Before Norse settlement, Irish hermits ("Papar") left evidence of Christian presence.
• Early explorations: Named explorers visit and name the island “Snowland” and later “Iceland”, after harsh winters thwart early attempts to settle.

3. Societal Foundations: Family, Slavery, and Survival

(09:56 – 16:51)

• The first settlers were families—a genuine “colonial project”—not just men.
• The ugly side: Settlement spurred a slave trade, particularly from Ireland and Scotland, as cheap labor was crucial for survival in the new land.

  “The slave market in Dublin probably flourished because of the settlement of Iceland.” (10:23, Professor Gisli Sigurdsson)

• Import dependencies: Iron and grain had to be imported; wealthy settlers indulged in luxuries such as wine and spices.
• The Book of Settlements as an enduring legal document to determine land ownership.
• Discussion on historical reliability: While details may be fuzzy, the broad strokes of the settlement era align with archaeology and DNA evidence.

4. Life on a Viking Farm: Reconstruction at Erikstarr

(19:12 – 32:10)

• Dan visits the reconstructed Viking longhouse at Erikstarr, once home to Erik the Red and birthplace of Leif Eriksson.
• Vivid description of the landscape, the architecture (turf and stone construction), and the communal, snug living arrangements:

  "You can fit about 20 people here... one extended family. You got to know them very well—everything that you hate about them as well, that you love." (24:24–24:39, Dan Snow & Farm Guide)

• Discussion with a farm guide about daily life:
  • Hearth and warmth critical for survival; beds shared, privacy minimal.
  • Provisions stored rigorously for winter; the lady of the house wielded significant domestic power.
  • Later summers focused on preparation and preservation of food.
  • Wool and cloth production (by women) vital for warmth and as an export.
  • Social life: Stories were essential, both for entertainment and cultural continuity.

    "What kept us alive is not really the fire or the wool or the food, but the storytelling." (31:54, Farm Guide)

• Children, women, slaves, and the master all shared in the grueling work—hard labor evident in physical remains.

5. The Althing: World’s First Parliament

(32:48 – 39:14)

• Dan stands in Thingvellir National Park, site of the Althing, Iceland’s legendary parliament established 930 CE:

  "This is the site of the Althing... a place of calm, of collaboration, of cooperation.” (35:11, Dan Snow)

• Geologically unique setting: Located on the Mid-Atlantic rift, symbolizing the meeting of worlds—both literally and metaphorically.
• The Althing as a legal and social innovation—open to all free men, not just chieftains.

6. The Sagas, Memory, and Meaning

(37:35 – 43:05)

• The Icelandic sagas (oral histories written down in the 13th and 14th centuries) form the backbone of Icelandic cultural memory.
• Professor Gisli Sigurdsson discusses Njál’s Saga, a tale of peacemaking lawmen and warriors:

  "The overall message... is the coming of Christianity that brings peace to this violent world." (38:50, Professor Gisli Sigurdsson)

• Law, storytelling, and the quest for order pervade the sagas; the Althing is a recurring symbol.

  "It is what we call a parliament in modern terms. It has elected law speaker... responsible for knowing what is the right law." (39:54, Professor Gisli Sigurdsson)

• The cultural endurance and emotional realism of the sagas is stressed:

  “So we get somehow a sense of the real persons, living persons behind the literary works, which makes them so fascinating and still captivating.” (42:36, Professor Gisli Sigurdsson)

7. Iceland as Springboard for Discovery

(43:05 – 43:35)

• From Iceland, further westward discoveries were launched: Erik the Red’s Greenland settlement and Leif Eriksson’s historic landing in North America.
• Dan’s closing thoughts:

  “The Viking settlement of Iceland was not just about carving farms out of the wilderness. It was about law without kings, memories becoming legends, journeys without borders... the story of Iceland is the story of how people turned unclaimed land into a society that still endures today.” (43:27, Dan Snow)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Book of Settlements

  “Could give us a medal in the Olympics of cultural achievements, if there ever was one.”
  (05:50, Professor Gisli Sigurdsson)

• On hardship and early failure

  “Flokje... enjoys the wonderful summers, fishing and what he deems to be a paradise, and forgets to prepare for the winter and leaves the year after.”
  (07:51, Professor Gisli Sigurdsson)

• On law as a living tradition

  “Even today we are clarifying where the boundaries are...this document is still in use in court.”
  (12:31, Professor Gisli Sigurdsson)

• On Women’s Power

  “That’s the lady of the house. Don’t trust anyone else with that [the key to the pantry]."
  (29:45, Farm Guide)

• On Saga Characters

  “The characters in these texts, they are not like stereotypical medieval character, but rather... living persons behind the literary works.”
  (42:36, Professor Gisli Sigurdsson)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• 01:48 – 05:39: Setting the scene and arrival of the Vikings.
• 05:39 – 16:51: The Book of Settlements and the foundation of Icelandic society.
• 19:12 – 32:10: Viking daily life at Erikstarr farmstead.
• 32:48 – 39:14: Thingvellir and the founding of the Althing.
• 37:35 – 43:05: The sagas, cultural memory, and societal values.

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Tone and Language

Throughout, the episode maintains a tone of epic wonder and storytelling, blending awe for the Icelandic landscape with scholarly curiosity and a hint of wry British humor. The interplay between Dan’s immersive fieldwork and Professor Sigurdsson’s relaxed, learned commentary offers both authority and accessible insight into Iceland’s foundational legends and hard realities.

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Summary

This episode offers a sweeping, atmospheric journey through Iceland’s Viking origins. Dan Snow, guided by experts and the stunning landscape itself, peels back layers of myth and fact—from the drama of the first landings to the legacy of laws, sagas, and the indomitable Icelandic spirit. For listeners, it’s both narrative adventure and cultural deep dive—leaving you with a vivid sense of how this land of “fire and ice” shaped one of history’s most resilient societies.

Transcript

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[Dan Snow]

In the year 874, a Viking chieftain named Ingolfur Arneson stood on the prow of his ship, his eyes fixed on a new land. He had sailed for days across icy seas, and behind him, Norway was troubled. Chieftains were feuding. Kings were demanding allegiance and taxes. Before him, though, stretched volcanic cliffs and glaciers, green valleys untouched by human hands. This was Iceland, the edge of the known world, the hope of a new beginning. Over a thousand years later, I am now standing on that rocky shore that Ingolfer Arneson would have seen from his ship. I've got the black volcanic cliffs under my feet and I'm staring out at these big rollers coming in and buffeting this shore. I'm also leaning into those same freezing winds blowing across the North Atlantic sea. You're listening to Dan Snows history. In this very special episode, I'm taking you on an epic voyage to Iceland to tell you the story of how the Vikings became the first settlers on this remote, previously undiscovered island and explore what they found when they got here, when they came ashore, how they survived those first subarctic winters and what challenges they overcome to create a thriving home here. Volcanic eruptions scarred the landscape. Ice and snow gripped the valleys. For these settlers, survival would test skill and resilience and their imaginations. This story is as dramatic as the landscape I am staring at. Now created from fire and ice. Let's head inland. The Vikings were tough seafarers from Norway, Sweden and Denmark. And they're remembered for their long ships and their raids and their relentless spirit. The word Viking could possibly come from the old Norse Vikingr, meaning pirate or sea raider. From the late 8th century, they sailed into the unknown, driven by a hunger for land and wealth and glory. Pushed from their homes, perhaps by scarce farmland, harsh winters and overpopulation, they went to seek their fortunes abroad. The story goes that as he was approaching the island, Ingolfr Arnessen, he took his high seat pillars, and that's a pair of ornately carved sacred wooden posts that they would stand on either side of the chieftain's throne. He took these high seat pillars and he cast them overboard into the sea. And he said that wherever the Norse gods directed those pillars, that is where he and his Vikings would land. And the place where those pillars apparently landed was where I am now, Reykjavik, which was also conveniently one of the best natural harbors in Iceland. Perhaps the Norse gods knew that. It translates as Smoky Bay. It's now the capital of Iceland and it gets its name from the steam that rises from those iconic hot springs. And how do we know this story? Well, the legend was written down in the Book of Settlements, which is a monumental work of literature. It's now housed in the Arnie Magnusson Institute at the University of Iceland. It's a sanctuary for Iceland's ancient manuscripts. And I'm just walking up to it now and I take a look at it for myself. Shown around by Professor Gisli Sigurd. Going to the building now. Oh, it's nice and warm. Hi there. How are you? Dan.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Welcome, Gisli.

[Dan Snow]

Nice to meet you.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Professor. Here.

[Dan Snow]

Here we have rather founding documents of Iceland.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Book of Settlements.

[Dan Snow]

That's exciting.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Could give us a metal in the Olympics of cultural achievements, if there ever was one.

[Dan Snow]

Should be. So it's got a modern leather bind. And then inside this 17th century vellum. Okay, so we're seeing here it comes into the very early 1700s. It comes into the collection. But this is written in the 1600s.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

In the 1600s.

[Dan Snow]

So it's a copy of a copy of the book written in the late.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

1200S, before 1284, when the compilers, whom we know and know a lot about, died.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, so let's see what it says. What's it tell us about early Iceland?

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

So it starts off by trying to set it all in a time frame, the Anno Domini time frame, with reference to your very own, the Venerable Bede.

[Dan Snow]

That's our Bede.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

The father of English history in line one. Wow.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

And because he has a reference in his writings to Thule hermit sailing. Yeah. And then these hermits that were here and that the Icelanders called Papar, and they were Christians and they left when the Norse came and left behind Sir Buch Piper, Irish bells and bagels, and they were called Westmen. So that is all this information about the Irish hermits first. But then Iceland is settled properly from Norway in the time of Adrian's Pope.

[Dan Snow]

Oh, yeah, the Pope in Rome, Roma.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

And then when King Haraldr was King of Norway. And then he goes on to the sporadic visits by named individuals here that were coming through the 800s.

[Dan Snow]

So these individuals here, they're arriving but they're not settling?

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

No, no, they're coming. The island is known as Discovered. Some go to check it out, call it Snailand first.

[Dan Snow]

Is that Snowland?

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

Oh, I should have kept that name.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

And then this fellow Garda from Sweden, and after he has been here, it's called Gardas Holmer, so Gardas Island. And then this character Flokje comes along, sails through Shetland, where his daughter drowns in a lake, still remember there. And then comes to Iceland, enjoys the wonderful summers, fishing and what he deems to be a paradise, and forgets to prepare for the winter and leaves the year after.

[Dan Snow]

Very disappointing as a tough winter, I can imagine.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

And so tough that he gives the name Iceland to the island.

[Dan Snow]

He calls it Iceland and that sticks. Sir Ingolfer, why was he the one who decided to come and stay and bring cattle and settlers?

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

He, like so many others of the people who decide to come here first, were having some difficulties in Norway. They were not happy with the current ruler, Harald Haarfaire, or they had some local issues that they were fleeing away from. So he leaves Norway not just to explore some new territory, but intent on settling with his foster brother. There's a bit of mythological Origin about the story of the two going to gather to the new land. But it's also realistic in the sense that they come up to the southeast coast and then they explore the entire land where they want to settle in this land and the entire south coast is very tricky from their perspective, because landing a ship there is very natural harbor, whereas the first natural excellent harbor that it gets to is Reykjavik. And that's where they decide to stay. There are islands off the shore where they have plenty of birds and eggs to feed on. There's a salmon river running nearby and lakes. So it's excellent for his type of life.

[Dan Snow]

And so there's men and women. This is a colonial project.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Yes. So he comes with his wife and family and they become then the leading family. And the first decades of the country, the first thing is held here, nearby Reykjavik. We have located the site just east of.

[Dan Snow]

How interesting the thing, this Norse tradition of coming together to meet, to discuss. And there were enslaved people along with them as well.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Yes, that's the sad part of this, that the slave market in Dublin probably flourished because of the settlement of Iceland, which required cheap workforce to just break the land for farming. And then we also have in the archaeology and also the legal records that people were building walls around their farms, high walls that would hold the cattle. And these were built out of turf. And every farm had to have one wall around its immediate vicinity and then another one further out. And this seems to have been done in the 10th century on an organized scale.

[Dan Snow]

All sorts of people.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Mostly they seem to have been in the memory at least from Scotland and Ireland.

[Dan Snow]

Amazing. And were they bringing everything needed? Were they very self sufficient? Could they make most stuff here or were there key imports?

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

You can make local iron, but iron was imported and grain was imported as well. Grain and honey. That seems to ingredients for their meat.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah, of course.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

So that seems to have been the main import. Iron and grain and all kinds of things that wealthy people can buy on the market, they would have bought here. Also spices, wine from southerly regions of Europe and luxury goods were also available to the very rich.

[Dan Snow]

And the Book of Settlements is the origin story.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

It's the origin story who came first, where they came from, who are their descendants, and thus whom does the land belong to? At the time when he is running his legal businesses? Then you have this document. Well, so and so came here first. How are you related to them? Okay. And so this clearly belongs to you.

[Dan Snow]

I've seen history written for all sorts of different purposes. Political, entertainment, religion. But this has a Very particular. This has a legal and commercial reason for its existence.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

It does. And indeed still today, now we are clarifying where the boundaries are between private ownership and state ownership of land. And then this document is still in use in court.

[BetterHelp/Mint Mobile Ad Voice]

Wow.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Now, this piece of land was claimed originally, so, okay, it can be private. This piece of land was never claimed, according to this document here. So the state can claim it.

[Dan Snow]

This is a serious business.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

It's not just comics for fun.

[Dan Snow]

What's your sense of how much we can trust these stories?

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

We don't necessarily have to assume that it's all a lie, which is, of course, the first reaction of an historian. But a document written in the late 1200s trying to tell us stories about the late 800s. Well, I'm not taking any of that. Okay, that's. That's the starting point.

[Dan Snow]

Be skeptical.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

But then we start, like with the chronology, the time, the settlement, correctly to the 870s. That can be confirmed with archaeology. They get it right that people are coming from Norway and the British Isles.

[Dan Snow]

We know from the DNA.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Yes, we know from the DNA. We know also, even though they are not as preoccupied with the women as with the males, we know if we make an even number of the information that we get here, that they also have an awareness that there are more women from the British Isles than there are males. So they get that right. They also get it right that paganism is the dominant religion the first century or so in Iceland, which is then converted to Christianity. They get that right. So there are many things that they get right in these outer structure of society that we can confirm with archaeology. Also get it right that people from Iceland went to Greenland in the 980s and settled there. They have that chronology correct. So those anonymous things that we can confirm with archaeology, they all fit in the frame that they have. Of course, archaeology will never tell us the names of the individuals who killed whom, who was in love with whom, and so on, which is the stuff of history. Why this place name came about because someone lost a com here or had his breakfast here, or broke his leg there, and so on. We will never be able to confirm these details, but the overall feeling is that when these things are written, people feel that they are remembering them. So this is the best that your grandparents can tell you about the past. And also it's important information because it is about the land claim. So who came here first claimed this land? This is the boundary which is legally important in the present. And the reason I own this land is that it's my hereditary right to the land. So it's like a confirmation of your right in the world to be and.

[Dan Snow]

Therefore even in the third century, it was probably robustly challenged. It went through a process of rigorous.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Yeah, and also we know from studies of oral traditions that tradition spent they tend to adjust to the present at all times. So if things did not change that much, then we can more or less be certain that the memories didn't change all that much either. But if the power structures changed, if people moved, if someone challenged someone else and got their land, then probably within a generation or two, the story was about that person's family having been there first. So of course there is this fluidity in the tradition. But this is a structured society with memory structures built in, special people taking care of memory of the past, lawmen, poets, professional poets. So the past is not just anything that you can meddle with at Will.

[Dan Snow]

You listen to Dan Snow's history? Don't go anywhere. There's more to come.

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[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

What do you have to lose?

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[Dan Snow]

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[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

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[Dan Snow]

Are you looking for the perfect podcast to hunker down with during the longer, colder, darker nights?

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Well, look no further than the award winning After Dark Myths, misdeeds and the.

[Dan Snow]

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[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

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[Dan Snow]

And guess what? We're also now on YouTube. After Dark, a podcast from history hit. So centuries after Ingolfr Arneson made Icelander's Home, the stories of how he arrived and who was with him found new life in writing. The Book of Settlements is a gold mine, committing to text all the settlers names. But, you know, names aren't enough for us on this podcast. I want to know more about the actual people behind those names, how they lived and survived in this harsh, difficult landscape on the edge of the Arctic Circle. So to really get into it, to find out more, I've come about two hours north of Reykjavik to a real Viking age farm called Erickstarr. I'm here at the end of September, but I'll tell you what, it feels like winter is coming. It's absolutely freezing as we go to the top of this valley. There are these huge hills on either side. There's some lush looking agricultural land in the middle. The hay's all been baled up for the year. The sheep are still grazing. There's a river running down the middle of the valley and at the moment the sun is flashing off that river, it's golden light right the way through this valley. Absolutely beautiful. And I've arrived at this remarkable feature which is a Viking age longhouse. It's so exciting. It's the center of this farm, the center of the community where the family and I think some of the workers would have lived and would have taken shelter from these savage winters. Let me go and check it out. I'm walking up to the longhouse now. It's turf, I can see that. So there's rather beautiful passion like herringbone shape of turf that's been laid on the outside. There's a stone foundation, so big blocks of cut stone about a foot high on top of that, this turf. And then on top of the turf you've got the roof and there's lots and lots of wild grass growing out of the roof and that's all waving in the wind. Looks beautiful. There are no windows. It just looks like a solid mass of turf and stone and grass designed to keep out the Icelandic winters. There's only one entrance. It's a wooden carved door. And I'm going to pop inside, get out of this wind. Oh, it's chilly. Oh, my God. So nice. Immediately it's almost about 20 degrees warmer as you head in. And this is where the family lived. This is where the community, everything revolved around what went on in here. And this isn't just any old longhouse. This is a very special one indeed. This is why the Icelandic government was so keen to excavate this area and then reconstruct this house, because this was quite briefly, but it was the home of Erik the Red, who was a particularly fierce Viking and as you can imagine, means you're very fierce. He was known for his fiery temper. He killed people, possibly deliberately, possibly accidentally. But anyway, people were killed and he was exiled from Iceland for this murder. Instead of going back to Norway, where he was from originally, he said sailed west extraordinarily, bravely sailed west into the unknown and he discovered Greenland. But what's so special about this house ever since now is this is where he lived with his wife and he had his famous son, Leif Eriksson, who had also gone to be an extraordinary explorer who had sail west. So this is where Erik lived and Leif was probably born and raised for a bit. And in here is a member of the team. He's going to tell me all about that way of life and the particularly famous Vikings who came from here. So talk me through what we can see as we came in. There's a sort of a workshop area there.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Yeah. So this is the front room where you would be keeping your outdoor tools, outdoor clothing, but not really perhaps very much work because it's quite dark. There's no windows here, so that's the thing you would be working outside.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Okay.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

And then there's some. A partition there. You get through to this main living area.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Yeah. And you need the doors between to close off the cold. And yes, this is the main chamber where people would be cooking, eating, sleeping, etc.

[Dan Snow]

And it is warm in here. I mean, do you keep it heated overnight in modern ways, or has this been kept in from the previous day's fire?

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

So, yeah, I mean, the temperature doesn't fall during the night, even though we take down the fire. In the olden days, you would have fire going all night long, but it's not really necessary in the autumn.

[Dan Snow]

And in winter, the temperature outside gets.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Down to minus 10, but it doesn't really count. I mean, the degrees don't count. It's the wind, so it's really, really cold. Even if it's just minus three, it could be really, really freezing.

[Dan Snow]

But inside here, it's always snug.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Yeah, it is. And especially if you have the 15 inhabitants that you would have in a house like this. Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

So everyone would have been packed in.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Absolutely, yeah. Two to three people per bed and. Yes. Quite stuffy. Well, yeah.

[Dan Snow]

I mean, you might have been glad for the warmth, though.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But, you know, you can actually fit about 20 people here, but you would expect about 15 or something like that.

[Dan Snow]

Or one extended family. Yeah, you got to know them very well.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Absolutely everything that you hate about them as well, that you love.

[Dan Snow]

So who's living? We've got beds along here.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Yeah, we have beds along all the chamber.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Okay.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

These three here are the luxurious ones where you have a little bit of privacy.

[Dan Snow]

Not that much privacy.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

No, not at all. And I think really our level of privacy is they would probably just be lonely, you know, compared to their kind of living. But you would be having two to three people sleeping in each bed, but people would also be sleeping on this side. So everybody from 1 year old to 99.

[Dan Snow]

And they would have helped to warm it up as well.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Absolutely, yes.

[Dan Snow]

And you got these lovely thick wooden posts here. So they're holding up the roof.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Yes, they are. There is a frame that is holding up the roof and then this paneling in the ceiling, that's really just to make it nice. But then there is an insulation layer also of branches, birch branches, and those would be domestic or, you know, they are not from somewhere else. They have been cut down here in the valley.

[Dan Snow]

And so the turf needs replacing every 10, 15 years. I imagine those branches do. But these wooden posts, these could be generations old.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Absolutely, yes. And if you move away, you take the wood with you. That's absolutely how it is. And for example, when the ruins of this house was examined, we did not find a scrap wood or actually just one piece. And it was probably the bottom of the skier barrels. There was some protein, milk protein on it still.

[Dan Snow]

And we should say this is based on archaeological finds, this house.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Absolutely, yeah. In 1996, they also dig here, done by the National Museum of Iceland. And it really. It showed us really the foundations. It didn't show us any wood, for example. There was a little bit of turf. But you can see the outline of the house. You can see how it was structured. It really needed both archaeological data, but also quite a lot of knowledge about just woodworking. Because you have to put a house like this together, not using almost any iron. Everything is pegged together with wooden pegs.

[Dan Snow]

And presumably you've learned a Huge amount from the upkeep, how often you have to replace the turf and.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Absolutely, yes. Yeah. And we are actually assuming that the roof might have not been as steep as it is because it dries completely in a dry summer. So we are learning as we go.

[Dan Snow]

So what's through that door? At the far end there's another partitioned room.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

So that's the pantry.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Ah, okay.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

That's where you would be keeping all your provisions for the winter. It should be locked actually, and then distribute evenly throughout the winter.

[Dan Snow]

But that was an important job.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Absolutely. Really powerful person who had the key. Absolutely.

[Dan Snow]

So we're here in September. This would have been quite a time of year because this is last minute time. Is it? You're laying things up for the.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Absolutely, yes. You would be gathering the sheep. It would be the time when you slaughter animals, when you make sausages, you know, you would have a full barrel of skir and then you would have another full of whey for preserving the meat, etc.

[Dan Snow]

So it must have been stressful. But also satisfying knowing everything's there and you're going to get through the winter.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Absolutely, yes.

[Dan Snow]

There's some weapons around, but there's also some weaving equipment.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Yeah. So stone weight loom. That's really where you make all of the fabrics, whatever they are, from sails to clothing. And wool was absolutely essential, just as important as turf for keeping you warm. Layers and layers of wool. And it was also our biggest export industry, made only by women. And that made them really powerful because they were the knowledgeable people, they were the providers really.

[Dan Snow]

And you can imagine a lot of that going on during the winter, I suppose.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Yes. As long as it's not something that you need very much light for. You know, that's really. There was a term called weave light. If it's weave light, you can work. If it's darker than that, you will just really have to tell stories.

[Dan Snow]

And that's a sort of unit of measurement for us.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Stories is what has kept us alive for a millennium here really. Because even though the architecture of this house is a thousand years old, living in one chamber is something we did until the 19th century. So it's really a way of life that we have just left. Now.

[Dan Snow]

How should we imagine people's roles in this house? You've got the adults. Well, someone's got the keys to the pantry. That's an important job.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Yeah. That's the lady of the house.

[Dan Snow]

Obviously.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Don't trust anyone else with that. And then you would have the master of the house. He might Be absent, you know, going Viking somewhere.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, so. Yeah, interesting. So in the summer, might there be a sense that he. Some of the men might be away trading, fishing. Raiding, yes.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Okay, well, raiding abroad. We didn't raid very much.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah, of course.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

But you just don't pop out of the country you go for a year.

[Dan Snow]

Right, okay.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

So the ladies of the house were quite powerful. They were ruling everything while their husbands were away.

[Dan Snow]

They're probably ruling everything while their husbands are here as well.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Possibly also.

[Dan Snow]

But there's farming.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Yeah, there's farming. And here probably sheep farming.

[Dan Snow]

And the kids can really help with their sheep farming.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Absolutely. Yeah. All chores, really. I mean, chopping wood, etc. This is actually visible when you look at bone from this period. You see a lot of labor from early age and not divided between, you know, slaves or workers or the master of the house. Everybody had really, really hard labor.

[Dan Snow]

It was tough.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Yeah, it was.

[Dan Snow]

There would have been slaves here as well.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Yeah, there would have been. So you would be having slaves. You would have kart, which is really just a free person. Kartel and kertling. And then you would have the earls or the rulers.

[Dan Snow]

Aristocrats.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

And would they have lived fairly intimately like this, do you think? Would there have been separate quarters for workers?

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

It seems, at least in a small household like this, you would have everybody together. Slaves. It's a quite different term from the later slavery of African people, for example, because you could actually become free. And quite a lot of the slaves were. I mean, people who would even have been aristocrats before.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

So it's really different. And they were valuable, of course. So you would really like to keep them warm and fed.

[Dan Snow]

You've got a fire in the hearth, but you're in semi darkness for months.

[Erikstarr Farm Guide / After Dark Podcast Host]

Yes, that's true. True. Yeah. And I can imagine that people had cabin fever every once in a while. But what kept us alive is not really the fire or the wool or the food, but the storytelling, I would say.

[Dan Snow]

This is Dan Snow's history here. More after this.

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[Dan Snow]

Ever wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator facing a roaring crowd and potential death in the coliseum? Find out on the Ancients podcast from History hit twice a week. Join me Tristan Hughes, as I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago, from the Babylonians to the Celts to the Romans. And visit the ancient sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were. That's the Ancients from History hit. Hey folks, you have to excuse me getting a bit sort of romantic here, but it really. Iceland does feel like the real life Asgard. I'm walking across this landscape. It feels like you're in the footsteps of the old Norse gods, certainly in the footsteps of the Vikings. It is just so dramatic. I'm now in a sort of river valley. This beautiful rivers streaming past me. The sun is flashing off it, little ripples caused by the wind. Big lake up ahead of me. And in the distance, well, I'm surrounded by this bowl of volcanic hills. Bare black craggy slopes, jagged peaks. Imagine the Platonic ideal form of a perfect pyramidal mountain. That's what I'm seeing all around me now. And then in the distance I'm also seeing smoke, white smoke at various places pouring into the sky. And those are fissures. That's where the geothermally heated water is just rising to the surface and sending plumes of steam up into the sky. It's like nowhere else in the world. And Iceland's beautiful wherever you go, frankly. But this is a very special corner of it because I've driven out of Reykjavik about an hour north of it and I'm in Thingvellir National Park. This is a place that the original settlers chose to be the beating heart really of this new territory that they'd settled. And they didn't know about it, but they've chosen very wisely because this is actually a geologically highly significant place. I am standing in the mid Atlantic rift. I am between two tectonic plates. I'm looking at two tectonic plates. And as a result this is a place of enormous seismic activity. There's an earthquake actually in Iceland every single day. And if I look to my right, I've got this sheer wall of volcanic cliff that is the edge of the North American plate. I could reach and touch it now. And if I look over there to the east, I can see the edge of the Eurasian plate. So this is where the two great plates. This is where the two great chunks of the Earth's crust meet. And it is here, just incredibly appropriately, given that these people had no idea about seismology in the Earth's crust, that the Viking settlers chose to be their meeting place. This is the site of the Atheling. This is where the chiefs of those first Viking settlements came together to discuss their issues, to try and resolve conflict, to talk rather than fight. Behaviour that we perhaps don't associate with the Vikings. But we need to look beyond those myths and realize that they practiced a very interesting form of politics, of conflict resolution. And it wasn't just the chiefs that came here. They were the most important, to be fair. But it was every free male Icelandic settler could come here and participate in some way in the political process. Process. As a result. This is not easy for a Brit to say, folks, but as a result, the Atheling really is one of, if not the oldest national parliament in the world. It's just great. They met every single summer here. They came here for two weeks at the very height of summer, during midsummer. So I'm sure there's a bit of a festival vibe as well. I'm sure it's fun. And they created new laws, they settled the disputes. I think they do some business. I'm sure lots of marriages were arranged and even a couple of elopements took place. And so this place where tectonic plates created friction and heat and smoke and fire, was also a place of calm, of collaboration, of cooperation. We know about the Atheling from the Book of Settlements, but also from the sagas. They were collected and written down in 13th and 14th centuries, and they were the stories of the. The chiefs and their families and their stories of battles and hardships, but also magic and gods and star cross lovers, all the good stuff. And they were passed down from generation to generation orally, until they were written down. Storytelling spans all sorts of cultures right across human history, right across the world. But there's something very special about that Icelandic oral tradition. And here they are known as the Icelandic sagas. So this is one of the famous sagas?

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Yeah, this is Ngol Saga, the main character, a lawman of peace who tries to settle the feuds around him all the time.

[Dan Snow]

So he's a politician, he's a lawyer in a violent world.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Yeah, he never takes up arms. But that also is a symbol of his peacefulness because his best friend is the violent fighting warriors. Physical character with much less brains than Nathalis.

[Dan Snow]

So here's Gunnar Here he's the warrior friend of Nar.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

Yeah. He is the physical guy who travels abroad and achieves wealth and glory from his physical strength. Whereas Njtl is the wise man who wants to solve everything with the law and plotting and sees how people will react and acts accordingly. But in the end he cannot prevent fate from having its way.

[Dan Snow]

There's a part of both of those, in all of us.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

I suppose that's the beauty of the saga, that it still reflects the modern psyche in its own way, which attracts us to it as a modern work of art would do.

[Dan Snow]

What is the lesson of this saga? Were we supposed to sympathise with Nil? Are we supposed to say Njl? If everyone was more like him, everyone would be happier in Iceland.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

The overall message of this saga is the coming of Christianity that brings peace to this violent world. So it's the Ragnarok of the pagan period that burns up in house fire at Nelch's farm. And it's only after that, after a series of events, that peace can come with the help of Christianity, because we.

[Dan Snow]

Have to embrace this new.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

This new faith. They go on a pilgrimage to Rome and they come back and they can forgive. And eventually they marry representatives of the two opposing groups. And Christianity and love bring peace eventually to this very violent pagan world that Njolser depicts.

[Dan Snow]

Law feels important in Iceland that people came together to try and make laws, to try and ameliorate the violence that was around them.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

It's preoccupied with law and legal settings. The Alfinke, the legal assembly, is formed in 930 only shortly after the settlement.

[Dan Snow]

So that's almost a parliament.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

It is what we call a parliament in modern terms. It has elected law speaker who is responsible for knowing what is the right law. But then quite often the sagas describe that the ideal solution is perhaps not always working. So there is violence underneath the ideal world that is always aimed at, in this world as in ours.

[Dan Snow]

What were these sagas for at the time?

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

At the time they were written, chieftains were getting the idea that literature brings you prestige in the culture. To be able to entertain your guests with written text read out is something that noblemen do. So it's capturing tradition in written form, which is a very problematic process. And it's not self evident. How do you do that? So endless scholarly ink has been spent on that question. How was the oral tradition transformed into writing? But it clearly must have had some social function to have it written rather than oral. And then it catches on, like any trend can do among the Rich, you can tell them if it's private jets, then they will all go for private jets. If it's skiing resort, they will go for a skiing resort. If it's books, they'll go for books. If it's towers, the rich in Italy they had to build towers to make a name for themselves in Iceland, they had to have a saga richten about their own region.

[Dan Snow]

What do the sagas mean to you as a proud Icelander?

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

The sagas in my view, so important and so great and so enjoyable because they draw up a complete worldview of the Middle Ages, pre Christian worldview, even partly, even though it's clearly influenced by Christianity, with the pagan deities in the sky and with all the lands explored and visited during the Viking age into Russia, British Isles, Greenland, North America have stories taking place in this entire area set in period of 3, 4, 500 years. So a huge time span, entire cosmos attached to the landscape that we have in front of our eyes, using still the place names as we have the origin stories for in the texts. So it's just in order to live here, you walk into the world of the sagas.

[Dan Snow]

Listening to you. What's so striking about these sagas, how familiar many of these characters and names are now to a global audience. These sagas have taken a life far beyond the confines of this island.

[Professor Gisli Sigurdsson]

I think it lies in the characters that the characters in these texts, they are not like stereotypical medieval character, but rather portrayed individuals that are much more like humans of flesh and blood in modern novels. So we get somehow a sense of the real persons, living persons behind the literary works, which makes them so fascinating and still captivating.

[Dan Snow]

For some, settling on Iceland was not the end, but the beginning. From these shores, Eric the Red sailed westward to Greenland. His son Leif Eriksson pushed further still. He reached the coast of North America around the year 1000. The frontier spirit of Iceland made it the springboard for discovery. For me, this has just been the most incredible experience. To sit inside of Viking Longhouse, to see the names of those first settlers over a thousand years ago written down to read those stories of incredible resilience and endurance against an inhospitable landscape preserved in the sagas which have become the backbone of Icelandic culture. The Viking settlement of Iceland was not just about carving farms out of the wilderness. It was about law without kings, memories becoming legends. Journeys without borders From Reykjavik's hot springs, the smoky volcanoes to the Rift Valley, the story of Iceland is the story of how people turned unclaimed land into a society that still endures today. Until next time, sail well.

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