At that time, Iceland was a forest growing between the mountain and the coast. Christian men lived on the island then, whom the Nordic people called ”papen”; however, they later left because they did not want to live among pagans. They left behind Irish books, bells, and staffs, leading to the conclusion that they were Irish.

This excerpt is from the first page of the Íslendingabók (Book of the Icelanders), the earliest preserved source on the early history of Iceland. Written from oral accounts between 1122 and 1133 by Ari Thorgilsson the Wise, an Icelandic chronicler who was the first to write on the subject in the Norse language, it begins by recounting how Ingólfur Arnarson, accompanied by his family, arrived in Reykjavík from Norway after a clan dispute. He had heard of a new island sighted in the Atlantic Ocean by Gardar Svavarsson, Hrafna-Flóki and others. Upon arrival, he threw two öndvegissúlur (throne posts) into the sea and vowed to settle in the part of the coast where the tide would carry them, duly guided by the gods.

Thorgilsson was also the compiler—though he may also have participated in the writing—of the Landnámabók (Book of Settlements), a medieval Icelandic manuscript that recounts the discovery of Iceland by the Norse and the establishment of their first settlements on the island between the 9th and 10th centuries A.D. As in the previous work, it reports that there were already some Christians living there at the time, who later left upon the arrival of pagans, and who are believed to have been of Irish origin. The presence of what is thought to have been a community of hermit monks once seemed more legend than history, but in recent times, archaeological discoveries may confirm their actual existence.

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Ingólfur Arnarson and his family founding the first settlement in Iceland, a work attributed to Johan Peter Raadsig. The men placing the posts could have been Irish slaves. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

An example is the ruins of a cabin in Hafnir, on the Reykjanes peninsula (near Keflavík airport), which, according to radiocarbon analysis, was abandoned between the years 770 and 880 A.D., dates earlier than the first historically recorded Scandinavian settlement, dated to 874 A.D. Who lived there if the island was supposed to be uninhabited?

Archaeologists believe it could have been people from northern Europe, whether Scandinavia or the British Isles. Probably, they initially came to exploit Iceland’s natural resources (fish, seals, eggs, birds, whales, walrus tusks), and over time, it evolved from a mere outpost, inhabited only part of the year, to a permanent one.

Excavations and studies are ongoing, so there are still no certainties. Moreover, the proven existence of that site alone does not confirm the truth of its occupants necessarily being monks who had come from Ireland or Scotland. In fact, the more skeptical highlight this lack of specificity and the absence of more remains, continuing to express doubt by citing the serious technical limitations of Irish navigation in early medieval times. To dismiss what they consider mere legend, they deem certain island toponyms (Papós, Papbýli…) and a few other documentary sources, which we will now discuss, to be insufficient.

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Map of Viking expansion. Credit: Max Naylor / Rowanwindwhistler / Wikimedia Commons

We have already seen the cases of the Íslendingabók and the Landnámabók. The problem is that Thorgilsson was a priest and may have been tempted to fantasize about a Christian presence in his land prior to that of the Vikings, although scholars consider his works quite realistic, avoiding supernatural references or Christian bias.

This is why historians regard the Íslendingabók as the most reliable preserved source on the early history of Iceland, just as the Landnámabók is considered fundamental to the island’s history and genealogy, listing nearly three and a half thousand individuals and fourteen hundred settlements.

However, as we said, those books are neither isolated nor unique cases. There are others that also mention those Christian missionaries, calling them papar, a term derived from the Latin papa, which in Goídelc (that is, Old Irish) can mean “father” or “pope.” One such source is Dicuil (or Dicuilus), an Irish monk who lived between the 8th and 9th centuries and who, in his geographical compilation De mensura Orbis terrae, places holy men on pilgrimages to the northern lands. It should be noted that there is no way to know whether he was referring to Iceland or to other islands north of the British Isles, generically known as Hiberno-Norse, all of which also recorded the presence of papar.

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Church located on Papey island, off the east coast of Iceland, where tradition places the settlement of Irish monks. Credit: Arian Zwegers / Wikimedia Commons

In the Faroes, there are numerous place names with that root. On the island of Streymoy, for example, we find Paparøkur and Papurshílsur, while the name Vestmanna (an island municipality) is a contraction of Vestmannahøvn, which means “harbor of the Westerners” (that is, the Gaels from Ireland and/or Scotland, whose language appears in funerary inscriptions in the cemetery on the island of Skúvoy).

Grímur Kamban, the first Scandinavian to set foot on the archipelago, is said to have expelled the papar, who may have been there since the year 625, although another theory holds that he himself may have been one of the first Norwegians Christianized by them; in fact, his name suggests a Gaelic origin, and he may have come from Viking-occupied Ireland.

Regarding the Orkneys and Shetlands, which follow one another along Scotland’s northern coast, the Historia Norwegiæ (a Latin manuscript attributed to an anonymous monk from the early sixteenth century but based on one written three hundred years earlier, as inferred from reports of a volcanic eruption in 1211 and Norwegian rule) states:

Originally, these islands were inhabited by pents and papas (…) The papas were called that because of the garments they wore as priests, and for this reason, all priests are known as papen in German. However, the appearance and script of the books they left behind attest that they were from Africa and adhered to the Jewish faith.

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Cave cross in the Fjóshellir cave, in Aegissida. Credit: Raphael1Raphael / Wikimedia Commons

Two things are surprising about that text. First, the reference to the pents, who are presumed to be the Picts. Second, the claim that the papas were Africans practicing Judaism, when the Íslendingabók states that they were Christian monks and, according to recent studies, of Irish Celtic origin. Moreover, in those archipelagos, there are also place names derived from papar, such as the districts of Paplay or Papplay. Two of the islands are called Papay, now Papa Westray and Papa Stronsay (in Old Norse they were Papey: Papey Meiri and Papey Minni, respectively), with a reference to a third called Papeay Tertia; it is not known which island this was, though some identify it with the Holm of Papa, a strip of land barely twenty-one hectares in size.

The fact is that this name appears again and again. An islet of two square kilometers off the eastern coast of Iceland, traditionally said to have housed the papar (now uninhabited), is called Papey, just like three islands in Shetland (on one of them, Papa Stour, about twenty people live; the rest are empty islets known simply as Papa). The same occurs in the Hebrides, where four islands originally called Papey were renamed Pabbay (three in the Outer Hebrides and one in the Inner). In Scottish Gaelic it would be Pabaigh, though there is some confusion because Old Norse disappeared very early, and it is unclear whether it coexisted with Gaelic from Scotland or if the latter also vanished.

There is still a fifth archipelago to be discussed, the Vestman. Formed by fifteen tiny islands (the largest, Heimaey, measures just over thirteen square kilometers, while the others, except for Surtsey, which is one and a half, are measured in mere hundreds or tens of square meters), it is located very close to Iceland’s southern coast and, apart from being home to some 4,200 inhabitants, also features some very interesting corners relevant to our topic: just like those in Aegissida, near Hella (in southern Iceland), there is a series of artificial caves, used by locals as stables or sheds, with cruciform rock inscriptions that are said—though with no solid evidence—to have been made by the papar.

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on June 13, 2025: Los misteriosos Papar mencionados en las crónicas que vivían en cuevas de Islandia antes de la llegada de los vikingos

SOURCES

Joseph Anderson (ed.), The Orkneyinga Saga/Landnámabók

William R. Short, Icelanders in the Viking Age. The people of the Sagas

Barbara E. Crawford, The Papar in the North Atlantic: Environment and History

Axel Kristinsson, Is there any tangible proof that there were Irish monks in Iceland before the time of the Viking settlements?

Wikipedia, Papar

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