Thread by @hugobrady

Gaelic influence hides in plain sight everywhere in #Iceland: placenames, beehive huts, folklore, encoded in the sagas and above all in Icelanders' DNA. Key to the mystery is a system of over 200 caves in the SW. @BaldurThorhalls let me visit the thrilling cavesofhella.is

Above ground @BaldurThorhalls explains the mystery of #Iceland's Celtic past - the story of an ancient migration - against the backdrop of Ægissíða's rolling green hills. Ægissíða sounds an awful lot like Aes Sídhe (Irish for the fairies or the hidden people)....

....#Iceland and #Ireland have a startlingly similar folk tradition about hidden people or supernatural beings living below ground or in tumuli. In 2015, Kristjan Ahronson published "Into the Ocean: Vikings, Irish, and Environmental Change in Iceland and the North"...

...In it, he cited archaeological, ecological, and literary evidence to argue that 100 years before the official settlement early Irish Christian communities were present in Iceland and that they had an - as yet intriguingly elusive - link to the Scandinavians who came after.

@BaldurThorhalls also points out that Ægissíða and the surrounding farms are some of most fertile in the country. Yet in the Sagas, this prime real estate receives no mention. It's as if they are being deliberately written out of the official account of the Settlement.

The Landnámabók says Irish monks ('Papar' or 'the fathers') arrived before the Norwegians, but left rather than live amongst heathens to look for a place called "Greater Ireland" or Hvítramannaland. It also notes many Irish slaves came with settlers such as Ingolf Arnarson.

...there are also prominent Irish-linked characters in the early Settlement account. However, the truth is likely even more interesting. The mystery: what form of Hiberno-Norse community existed in Iceland before, during and after the Settlement - and why? This is my hobby.

Image: Where the caves are concentrated in Iceland.

cavesofhella.is