Bjǫrn Ketilsson (

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

: ;

Modern Icelandic Icelandic (; is, íslenska, link=no ) is a North Germanic language spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Due to being a West Scandinavian language, it is most closely re ...

: ), nicknamed the Easterner (O.N.: ; M.I.: ), was a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe *Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway *Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including the ...

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

of the 9th century.

Biography

He was the son of Ketill 'Flatnose' Bjǫrnsson and Yngvild Ketilsdottir. He was the only son of Flatnose Ketil to not be Baptised. The Eyrbyggja saga explains his nickname as follows; Bjorn had been fostered in Sweden and when the family moved to the Hebrides of Scotland Bjorn remained behind in the East. When he rejoined his family in the West he refused to embrace the Christian Faith as the others had done by then. He was given the nickname "The Easterner" to emphasize his 'non-western' attitude. He emigrated to Iceland following his father's expulsion from Norway by King

Harald Fairhair Harald Fairhair no, Harald hårfagre Modern Icelandic: ( – ) was a Norwegian king. According to traditions current in Norway and Iceland in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, he reigned from 872 to 930 and was the first King of Nor ...

(''Harald hårfagre'') Harald confiscated all of Ketil's lands in the north of Norway and outlawed Bjorn the Easterner, the only one of Ketil's five children who had remained in Norway. Thorolf Mostur-Beard hid Bjorn the Easterner from Harald in Norway until both men were able to emigrate. Thorolf went directly to Iceland about 882 and settled at Helgafell on the Snaefellsnes peninsula, where Hvammsfjord runs into Breidafjord. Bjorn went to the Hebrides first. Bjorn followed his family to the Hebrides ten years after Ingólfr Arnarson had settled in Iceland. This suggests a date c884 for Bjorn's voyage to the west. When he reached the Hebrides he found that his father Ketill had already died. Bjorn then sailed to Iceland two years later, where Thorolf granted him land on Snaefellsnes between Hraunsvík and Hraunsfjord. Eyrbyggja Saga and Laxdaela Saga concern, respectively, Bjorn's descendants. Bjorn returned to Norway and fought for the return of his fathers land but was unsuccessful. He returned to Iceland and became a settler on the peninsula of Snæfellsnes and lived on a farm at Bjarnarhöfn He was a settler on the peninsula of

Snæfellsnes The Snæfellsnes () is a peninsula situated to the west of Borgarfjörður, in western Iceland. The Snæfellsjökull volcano, regarded as one of the symbols of Iceland, can be found in the area. With its height of 1446 m, it is the highest ...

and lived in a farm at Bjarnarhöfn. Bjǫrn is a character in such works as '' Laxdæla saga'', '' Eyrbyggja saga'', and ''

Eirik the Red's Saga The ''Saga of Erik the Red'', in non, Eiríks saga rauða (), is an Icelandic saga on the Norse exploration of North America. The original saga is thought to have been written in the 13th century. It is preserved in somewhat different versions ...

''. His genealogy is described in detail in the ''

Landnámabók (, "Book of Settlements"), often shortened to , is a medieval Icelandic written work which describes in considerable detail the settlement () of Iceland by the Norse in the 9th and 10th centuries CE. is divided into five parts and over ...

''.

References

Other sources

*Magnusson, M., Pálsson, H. ''Laxdæla saga'' 1969, Penguin Classics *Landnámabók Norwegian Sámi people 9th-century Icelandic people Norwegian emigrants to Iceland {{norway-bio-stub

Biography

See also

References

Other sources