Is Iceland’s language a Norse code – or legacy of Celtic settlers?
Jan 04, 2023
3 minutes
According to folklore, a Gaelic-speaking warrior queen called Aud was among Iceland’s earliest settlers. Her story is central to an emerging theory that Scottish and Irish Celts played a far bigger role in Iceland’s history than realised.
A book by Thorvaldur Fridriksson, an Icelandic archaeologist and journalist, argues that Gaelic-speaking Celtic settlers from Ireland and western Scotland had a profound impact on the Icelandic language, landscape and early literature.
Aud had been queen of Viking Dublin in the ninth century before
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