Færeyinga saga

The Færeyinga Saga (), the Norse saga of Faroemen, is the story of how the Faroes were converted to Christianity and became a part of the Kingdom of Norway.

Summary

It was written in Iceland shortly after 1200. The author is unknown and the original manuscript is lost to history, but passages of the original manuscript have been copied in other sagas, especially in three manuscripts: Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, Flateyjarbók, and a manuscript registered as AM 62 fol.

The different sagas differ somewhat on the first settlement of the Faroes. Historians have understood from the beginning of Færeyinga Saga in Flateyjarbók that Grímur Kamban settled in the Faroes when Harald Hårfagre was king of Norway. This does not correspond with the writings of Dicuil.

However, the version from Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar does correspond with the writings of Dicuil. The opening text is as follows:

There was a man named Grímr Kamban; He first settled in Faroe. But in the days of Harold Fairhair many men fled before the king’s overbearing.

The first man to settle in Faroe is, according to this text, Grímr Kamban, a man with a Norse first name and a Gaelic last name. This suggests that he might have come from Norse-Gael settlements to the south in Scotland or Ireland and probably wasn't Norwegian.

The text says that many men fled from Norway when Harald Hårfagre was king there, but it also says that the isles were settled before that (possibly for hundreds of years, although most historians do not think so).

The Norwegians who fled from Harald Hårfagre must have known about the isles before leaving Norway. If Grímr Kamban settled some time before, this could explain the Norwegians knowing about the Faroes.

According to Dicuil, Irish monks (papar) lived in Faroe before Vikings came from Norway.

Sources

• Færeyínga saga eller Færøboernes historie i den islandske grundtekst med færøisk og dansk oversættelse Carl Christian Rafn, ed., Danish tr. Johan Hen(d)rik Schrøter, Faroese tr. (Copenhagen: J.H. Schultz 1832)

Related reading

• Debes, Hans Jacob. Føroya søga 1. Norðurlond og Føroyar. (pp. 89–100. Føroya skúlabókagrunnur) 1990.
• Havsteen-Mikkelsen, Sven Føroyinga søga (Bjarni Niclasen, týddi; Jørgen Haugan, skrivaði eftirmæli. (Tórshavn: Føroya skúlabókagrunnur) 1995

External links

• Full text in Icelandic and English translation at the Icelandic Saga Database
• heimskringla.no - Færeyinga saga (Icelandic)