ABSTRACT
Iceland, when Ingolf Arnarson arrived in the van of the Norse colonists, was not entirely uninhabited, for there were a few Irishmen living there, chiefly in the south-east of the country, hermits whom the vikings called papar that is priests, because of the white gowns that they wore. The lantana period of Icelandic history, the time of the settlement, the taking up of the land, by the early colonists, occupies a space of some sixty years following upon the coming of Ingolf Arnarson. Familiar to the readers of the sagas are many of the names of the first Icelandic settlers. The institution of the Althing in a.d. 930 is, as is natural; the principal event in early Icelandic history, but another notable landmark is the adoption by the Althing in the year a.d. 1000 of Christianity as the religion of the commonwealth.
