The early details of the history of the Faroe Islands are unclear. It is possible that Brendan, an Irish monk, sailed past the islands during his North Atlantic voyage in the 6th century. He saw an 'Island of Sheep' and a 'Paradise of Birds,' which some say could be the Faroes with its dense bird population and sheep. This does suggest however that other sailors had got there before him, to bring the sheep. Norsemen settled the Faroe Islands in the 9th century or 10th century. The islands were officially converted to Christianity around the year 1000, and became a part of the Kingdom of Norway in 1035. Norwegian rule on the islands continued until 1380, when the islands became part of the dual Denmark–Norway kingdom, under king Olaf II of Denmark.
This article is about the demographic features of the population of the Faroe Islands, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
Scandinavia is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties.
The Norsemen were a North Germanic ethnolinguistic group of the Early Middle Ages, during which they spoke the Old Norse language. The language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages and is the predecessor of the modern Germanic languages of Scandinavia. During the late eighth century, Scandinavians embarked on a large-scale expansion in all directions, giving rise to the Viking Age. In English-language scholarship since the 19th century, Norse seafaring traders, settlers and warriors have commonly been referred to as Vikings. Historians of Anglo-Saxon England distinguish between Norse Vikings (Norsemen) from Norway who mainly invaded and occupied the islands north and north-west of Britain, Ireland and western Britain, and Danish Vikings, who principally invaded and occupied eastern Britain.
This is a timeline of Faroese history comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in Iceland and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see history of the Faroe Islands.
Garðarr Svavarsson was a Swede who briefly resided in Iceland, according to the Sagas. He is said to be the second Scandinavian to reach the island of Iceland after Naddod. He and his family appear in the Icelandic Sagas with the principal source from Haukr Erlendsson's edition of Landnámabók.
Funningur is a village on the Faroe Islands. It is located on the northwest coast of Eysturoy. It was the only village in the municipality called Funnings kommuna, which on 1 January 2009 became part of Runavíkar kommuna.
Grímr Kamban was, according to the Færeyinga saga, the first Norse settler in the Faroe Islands. The modern Faroese form of the name is Grímur, but it was Grímr in Old Norse and is often anglicised as Grim.
Naddodd was a Norse Viking who is credited with the discovery of Iceland.
The Færeyinga Saga, the saga of the Faroe Islands, is the story of how the Faroe Islanders were converted to Christianity and became a part of Norway.
The Papar were, according to early Icelandic sagas, Irish monks who took eremitic residence in parts of what is now Iceland before that island's habitation by the Norsemen of Scandinavia, as evidenced by the sagas and recent archaeological findings.
Old Norse literature refers to the vernacular literature of the Scandinavian peoples up to c. 1350. It chiefly consists of Icelandic writings.
The Norse–Gaels also known as Hiberno-Scandinavian were a people of mixed Gaelic and Norse ancestry and culture. They emerged in the Viking Age, when Vikings who settled in Ireland and in Scotland adopted Gaelic culture and intermarried with Gaels. The Norse–Gaels dominated much of the Irish Sea and Scottish Sea regions from the 9th to 12th centuries. They founded the Kingdom of the Isles which included the coveted Isle of Man, the Hebrides, the Kingdom of Dublin, the Lordship of Galloway, and a Norse-Gaelic family briefly ruled the Kingdom of York. The most powerful Norse–Gaelic dynasty were the Uí Ímair or House of Ivar.
Tróndur í Gøtu was a Viking era chieftain from the Faroe Islands.
The Faroe Islands, or simply the Faroes or Faeroes, are a North Atlantic archipelago and island country located 320 kilometres (200 mi) north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway between Norway and Iceland. Like Greenland, it is a constituent country of the Kingdom of Denmark. The islands have a total area of about 1,400 square kilometres (540 sq mi) with a population of 53,792 as of March 2022.
Ann Naddodsdóttir was possibly a daughter of Naddoddr, the Viking attributed with the discovery of Iceland.
Norse settlement in the Faroe Islands can be traced back to sometime between the 9th and 10th centuries, with the first Norsemen on the islands arguably around the late 8th century. Accounts from Irish priests such as Dicuil claim monks were there hundreds of years beforehand.
The Faroese independence movement, or the Faroese national movement, is a political movement which seeks the establishment of the Faroe Islands as a sovereign state outside Denmark. Reasons for complete autonomy include the linguistic and cultural divide between Denmark and the Faroe Islands as well as their lack of proximity to one another; the Faroe Islands are about 990 km from Danish shores.
The term Norwegian Realm and Old Kingdom of Norway refer to the Kingdom of Norway's peak of power at the 13th century after a long period of civil war before 1240. The kingdom was a loosely unified nation including the territory of modern-day Norway, modern-day Swedish territory of Jämtland, Herjedalen, Ranrike (Bohuslän) and Idre and Särna, as well as Norway's overseas possessions which had been settled by Norwegian seafarers for centuries before being annexed or incorporated into the kingdom as 'tax territories'. To the North, Norway also bordered extensive tax territories on the mainland. Norway, whose expansionism starts from the very foundation of the Kingdom in 872, reached the peak of its power in the years between 1240 and 1319.
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