“In the summer, Erik left to settle in the country he had found, which he called Greenland, as he said people would be attracted there if it had a favorable name.” The sagas (in this case Erik the Red’s Saga of the Icelanders) tell the rest of the story in a single sentence: He sailed west in search of a new home-and found it. “An island has to have a name, and that is the one that stuck,” he adds.Ī century later, Iceland was a growing democracy and the home of Erik the Red, who was banished from the country after killing three people in a feud. These settlers called themselves Íslendingur, which Guðni says means “a man from Iceland in the court of Norway.” The new population on the island “felt they were part of the Nordic region, but they wanted to maintain a separate identity,” says Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson, a professor of history and newly elected president of Iceland. Back in Norway, Flóki disparaged Iceland, but one member of his crew named Thorólf spread rumors that the new island was so rich, butter dripped from every blade of grass. Like the iceberg that struck the Titanic, the spring ice that Flóki saw most likely drifted over from Greenland, but no matter-Flóki’s name stuck fast in the Viking world.
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Depressed and frustrated, Flóki, the sagas say, climbed a mountain only to see a fjord full of icebergs, which led to the island's new name. Flóki’s daughter drowned en route to Iceland, then all his livestock starved to death as the winter dragged on. Alas, Garðar’s Isle was not so kind to its next arrival, a Viking named Flóki Vilgerðarson. Swedish Viking Garðar Svavarosson followed Naddador, and this led to the island being called Garðarshólmur (“Garðar’s Isle”). The legends say Naddador was the first Norse explorer to reach Iceland, and he named the country Snæland or “snow land” because it was snowing. The Icelandic sagas fill in the other half of the switched-name story. Lower temperatures meant fewer crops and more sea ice, forcing the local Norse population to abandon their colonies. But by the 14 th century, maximum summer temperatures in Greenland had dropped. This means that when the Vikings first arrived, the Greenland name would make sense. 800 to 1300, southern Greenland was much warmer than it is today. Ice core and mollusk shell data suggests that from A.D. For instance, when he saw wild grapes (blackberries, probably) growing on the shore, Erik the Red’s son, Leif Eríksson, named a portion of Canada “Vinland.” Norse custom was to name a thing as they saw it. Vatnajökull is Europe’s largest glacier-a piece of ice the size of Puerto Rico. The milder climate means summers are intensely green throughout Iceland, even though 11 percent of that country is still covered with permanent ice cap. Meanwhile, thanks to the Gulf Stream, Iceland’s sea surface temperatures can be about 10✯ (6✬) warmer than Greenland. Sheep and potato farms still flourish in that same southwestern corner of Greenland, which sits at a more southerly latitude than neighboring Iceland. 982, when Erik the Red first landed in the southwest of the island.
Over 80 percent of Greenland is covered in ice, but its grass was probably greener back in the summer of A.D. But the truth is more complicated, and it has to do with both Norse custom and our shifting global climate. Schoolyard wisdom says this was intentional-Iceland’s Viking settlers thought the name would discourage oversettlement of their verdant island, while nobody cared if people tried to settle the ice-covered Greenland. Photograph by Jonas Bendiksen, National GeographicĪ glance at the globe might make you wonder why Iceland seems oddly green, while Greenland is covered in ice. Right: Craters at Lake Myvatn in Iceland are among the country's many green landscapes.