First Across the Atlantic : 109 



tains stretch across the northern part of the island and here there is 

 considerable snowfall and sometimes ice in the harbor. This, how- 

 ever, has no bearing on the selection of the name. The ice the Nor- 

 wegians referred to had nothing to do with the land but only with 

 the sea. The Norwegians had never seen ice in the sea, either low 

 floating ice floes or lofty bergs. The Norwegian branch of the North 

 Atlantic Drift keeps the entire coast of Norway free of ice at all sea- 

 sons of the year. On the other hand, though the coasts of Iceland are 

 free of ice, both bergs and floes can be seen from its mountains, and 

 also observed from any ships that sail around Iceland. It was the sur- 

 prise of finding ice in the sea that led the early colonists to accept for 

 their country a name that has always been a handicap. 



The other curious circumstance is this: that though the Norwe- 

 gians and Icelanders credit themselves with the discovery and colo- 

 nization of Iceland, in the very same records they refer to the fact 

 that the Irish had been there before them. Memory of this fact is even 

 preserved in their place names. The Norwegians always referred to 

 the Irish as Westmen. A small island lying off the south shore of Ice- 

 land is still called the Vestmannaeyjar or, as we would say, the Irish 

 Island. By this time the Norsemen had occupied a considerable ter- 

 ritory in Ireland; the colonists in Iceland, of course, felt themselves 

 superior to the Irish. They occasionally took Irish girls as wives; 

 more frequently they carried them off as slaves or servants. There- 

 fore, any travels or discoveries that the Irish may have carried out in 

 Iceland merit only a casual reference in the sagas, whereas they, 

 themselves, must be reckoned as the real discoverers and colonizers. 

 Whatever the social theory, the fact seems to be that the Irish and the 

 Norse had been in contact with each other for a considerable period 

 of time, and that the Irish constituted an important strain in the pop- 

 ulation of Iceland. The attitude of the Norse toward the Irish ele- 

 ments in the population were considerably altered by the adoption of 

 Christianity and by the development in Iceland of representative gov- 

 ernment. 



In terms of distance involved in travel, and of its geographical loca- 

 tion, Iceland is closer to America than it is to Europe. The move to 

 Iceland was an important and decisive step in the first migration 

 from Europe to America. It is, therefore, natural and appropriate 

 that their geographic progress should have been accompanied by a 

 forward step in social organization and the development of political 

 institutions. The Icelanders felt themselves to be free of the mother 

 country. They determined to develop their own system of govern- 



