The Faroe Islands are an archipelago roughly halfway between Iceland to the west and Norway to the east. Scotland lies some 320 kilometres to the south. Today, the islands belong to Denmark.
It’s possible the first inhabitants here were Irish monks seeking seclusion away from secular society by sailing off into the misty sea. The Norse were the first recorded inhabitants, arriving on the islands at some point in the latter part of the eighth century when they developed the sail. Sources from later in the Middle Ages name Grimr Kamban as the first Norseman to emigrate to the Faroe Islands though they disagree about when this occurred. Later, it may well have been settlers from here who helped in the early raids against coastal monasteries in Britain and Ireland, and later still in the discovery and settlement of Iceland. Many of them might also have come from the Hiberno-Norse colonies such as the Orkney and Shetland, the Outer Hebrides, and perhaps the longphorts and towns of Ireland. The Fareyinga saga also mentions that Norwegians disgruntled with the rule of Harald Fairhair also left for the islands in the early tenth century. Note that this saga has been lost to time, though snippets remain in other Icelandic manuscripts from which we can learn about the Faroe Islands’ early inhabitants.
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