Madam, – When the book pages of an Irish newspaper introduce a murder novel set in the Westman Islands off the south coast of Iceland (Loose Leaves, July 17th), it might be interesting to note that the first known inhabitants of these islands were Irish “murderers”.
They were slaves who had fled there from Iceland after killing their Norwegian master, Hjorleifr Hrodmarsson, the brother-in-law of Ingolfr Arnarson, the first Norse settler in the country. When they were tracked down, the escaped slaves were executed, but they are remembered in the islands’ name. In Old Norse, the people of Ireland were called Vestmenn, so the Icelandic name for the archipelago, Vestmannaeyjar, means the Islands of the Gaels or, perhaps, the Islands of the Escaped Murderers. – Yours, etc.