A couple weeks ago I was alerted to Kurt H. Kjær et al., "Environmental DNA Reveals Reykjavík’s Human and Ecological History". I didn't know what to make of this account at the time. Icelanders today focus on Ingolfr Arnarson, the jarl who came in the AD 870s and made a self-sufficient nation of the place. But Kjær's crew is saying it had been settled for a few generations prior already.
I was pretty sure some Irish monks had found "Thule" and settled hermitages there. But even a hermit expects guests, or else - in Christianity anyway - he has failed The Great Commission. Iceland, if known (I think it was known) was hardly worth the visit, especially after the Roman Optimum of the Antonines. So visitable "Thule" out northwest, after the Romans tightened their metaphysical belts, might mean the Føroyar. Or even closer home, like the Hebrides. Also, hermits don't breed.
Geoff is alerting us, among his geographic focus, of a nonhermit named [Hrafna-]Flóki. Flóki was there in the 840s. In fact, he'd even named the place. His settlement was going great guns in the summer but he'd failed to prepare for a winter without grass, so: there went the livestock. As Geoff points out, hay is for horses... in winter. After barely getting through all that, Flóki went home to Scandinavia and reported this place was an ice land not worth the bother.
Kjær, it seems, is rounding that out: that Flóki's people nonetheless stayed when their worthless coward of a leader went back. So when Ingolfr came, he found some folk awaiting him. In this case he didn't make himself their king because... he couldn't. But at least he didn't press the issue and, since they figured out they weren't getting looted, the people were doubtless glad to have trade restarted and to meet new people.
He set up the Thing, the "parliament" as Normans term it, simply to formalise the self-government already there, because hey, international relations require something to make deals wit'.
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