Why is Iceland called Iceland and Greenland called Greenland?
Iceland is reported to have been first settled by Vikings in the ninth century. According to Landnámabók, ‘The Book of Settlements’, an early historical work in Old Norse, the viking Flóki Vilgerðarson named it ‘Ice Land’ because his first winter there had been harsh and there was drift ice in one of the fjords. Greenland supposedly received its name in the late tenth century from a man called Eirik the Red who, having returned to Iceland after a three-year expedition to the island, thought people would be more likely to go to there ‘if the land had an attractive name’.
