Study › Runes & Norse › Taking Land by Fire
When the Norse settled Iceland, a man claimed land by ritual: he carried fire around its bounds. The Landnámabók, the Book of Settlements, tells how.
Claiming land with fire
When the settlers came to Iceland in the 9th and 10th centuries, a man did not simply mark out land — he claimed it by ritual. According to the Book of Settlements, he carried fire around the land he wanted, lighting fires along its bounds, or claimed as much as he could encircle with fire between sunrise and sunset. What the fire had gone around, and the smoke could be seen from, was his.
How a woman claimed land
A woman claimed land differently: she could take as much as she could walk around between sunrise and sunset on a spring day, leading a well-fed two-year-old heifer.
Fire and the land spirits
Fire was more than a boundary marker. Carried around the land it was believed to drive off the wild spirits and to make the place fit for people to live, turning wilderness into a home. The same sense that land has its own spirits, who must be respected, runs through the settlement stories — down to the law that forbade ships to approach Iceland with gaping dragon heads on their prows, so as not to frighten the land spirits.
Read the landvaettir and the high-seat pillars.
Questions
What is the Landnámabók?
The Book of Settlements, which tells how Iceland was settled and by whom.
How did a woman claim land?
By walking around it between sunrise and sunset on a spring day, leading a two-year-old heifer.