1.1 Einführung:Numquam eas insulas in libris auctorum memoratas invenimus. Die Färöer und ihre Saga
Sunt aliae insulae multae in septentrionali Brittanniae oceano, quae a septentrionalibus Brittanniae insulis duorum dierum ac noctium recta nauigatione plenis uelis assiduo feliciter uento adiri quaeunt. Aliquis presbyter religiosus mihi retulit quod in duobus aestiuis diebus et una intercedente nocte nauigans in duorum nauicula transtrorum in unam illam introiuit.
Illae insulae sunt aliae paruulae, fere cunctae simul angustis distantes fretis; in quibus in centum ferme annis heremitae ex nostra Scottia nauigantes habitauerunt. Sed, sicut a principio mundi desertae semper fuerunt ita nunc causa latronum Normannorum uacuae anchoritis plenae innumerabilibus ouibus ac diuersis generibus multis nimis marinarum auium. Numquam eas insulas in libris auctorum memoratas inuenimus.1
(There are many other islands in the ocean north of Britain which can be reached from the northern islands of Britain in a direct voyage of two days and nights with sails filled with a continuously favourable wind. A devout priest told me that in two summer days and the intervening night he sailed in a two-benched boat and entered one of them.
There is […] [a] set of small islands, nearly all separated by narrow stretches of water; in these for nearly a hundred years hermits sailing from our country, Ireland, have lived. But just as they were always deserted from the beginning of the world, so now because of the Northman pirates they are emptied of anchorites, and filled with countless sheep and many diverse kinds of sea-birds. I have never found these islands mentioned in the authorities.2)
Die unbekannten, kleinen und unbewohnten Inseln, die der irische Mönch und Geschichtsschreiber Dicuil in diesem Abschnitt seines im Jahr 825 im Karolingischen Reich entstandenenLiber de mensura orbis terrae beschreibt, werden gemeinhin aufgefasst als erste Erwähnung der Inselgruppe der Färöer.3 Die 18 Basaltinseln vulkanischen Ursprungs befinden sich auf 62° nördlicher Breite und 7° westlicher Länge im Nordatlantik zwischen den schotti
