Introduction

The missionary saint is well represented in Icelandic literature, even if the saintliness of some of these figures proves to be somewhat questionable. Less well documented, perhaps, is the medieval interest in the desert saint, who also has a literary presence in the sagas. According to Íslendingabók and Landnámabók, Irish monks came to Iceland before the arrival of the Norsemen, seeking heremum in oceano (‘a desert in the ocean’): for them, Iceland was equivalent to the monastic desert in which the early Fathers of the Church chose to live out the biblical call to exile from one's homeland for the love of God. Among the early settlers in Iceland, two are described as becoming einsetumenn (‘hermits’) in their old age: Jõrundr inn kristni (‘the Christian’) at Garðar and Ásólfr Konálsson at Hólmr. Like many Irish saints, Ásólfr provides for himself and his followers through miraculous catches of fish, and eventually settles in a kofi (‘hermit's cell’), which later becomes the site of a church dedicated to Kolumkilla (‘Columba’). An understanding of Irish peregrinatio must lie behind this story, even if the writer is not entirely in sympathy with it. One of the earliest converts to Christianity, Máni inn kristni (‘the Christian’), also opts for the eremitic life: we are told that ‘hann hefir byggt svá sem einsetumaðr, því at svá sem hann var fjarlægr flestum mõnnum þann tíma í hugskotinu, svá vildi hann ok at líkamligri samvistu firrask alþýðu þys’ (‘he lived as a hermit, so that just as he was far from most people at that time in his mind, so also he desired to distance himself in physical interaction from the noise of the multitude’). The story of Máni is attributed to Gunnlaugr Leifsson from the monastery of Þingeyrar in the north of Iceland, and the eremitic life was well established in the northern diocese: sagas of Bishop Guðmundr mention two anchorites at Þingeyrar, Bjõrn and Úlfrún, and Jóns saga helga tells the story of the anchoress Hildr at Hólar.