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Island Realms's District of
Faeroe Islands
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The early history of the Faeroe Islands has a mix of Norse-Gaelic influences with many settlers coming from the Nordic settlements of the Orkney's, Shetlands and around the Irish Sea area. The 18 Islands themselves are placed roughly equidistant between Iceland, Norway and Scotland, bordering on the Norwegian Sea and North Atlantic Ocean with the only uninhabited island being Lítla Dímun which you can see in the image above.
The original name means "sheep Islands" and is pronounced Færeyjar in old Norse or Færøerne in Danish. Between 512-530 AD the Irish Saint Brenden, was said to have visited the islands a number of times and gave names to two of the islands - Sheep Island and Paradise Island of Birds. It was also in the 6th century that Irish monks settled there and introduced with them oats and sheep. In the 7th century around 650 AD, the vikings arrived and settled there replacing the Irish settlers and introduced the Norse language. Over time, it has evolved into the modern Faroese language that is spoken today, with most of today's population of ethnic Faroese, being of both Norse and Irish/Scottish descent. Originally, the Irish monk settlers were few but when the vikings came the population increased considerably but it never exceeded 5000 till the 18th century. During the year of AD 1349 around half of the island's population had died off from the Black Death plague which had spread from Europe to Scandanavia in AD 1348. The Black Death is estimated to have killed some 20-30 million people between one-third and two-thirds of Europe's population. In 1327 the Faeroe island's population was around 4000 but by AD 1350 after the black death swept through there were only 2000 inhabitants left. It is mentioned in the Færeyinga Saga, that Sigmundur Brestisson (961-1005 AD) brought Christianity to the islands in AD 999. However, that may be debatable as archaeological studies from a site in Leirvík suggest that Celtic Christianity may have possibly arrived much earlier. Færeyinga Saga also tells us that fleeing emigrants who left Norway to escape the tyranny of Harald I, settled down in the islands about the end of the ninth century. |
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