For millions of years the Faroe Islands stood alone in the heart of the North Atlantic. The first settlers may have been Irish monks, probably in the middle of the seventh century, seeking a tranquil refuge in these remote islands. What is better known and well documented, is the Norwegian colonization, beginning about a hundred years later and developing throughout the Viking Age, making the Faroes a central part of the Viking settlements along the coasts of the North Atlantic and the Irish Sea.
The Viking settlers established their own parliament with local things in different parts of the islands and the main thing on Tinganes in Tórshavn. Christianity was proclaimed here about the turning of the last millennium. Shortly after the islands came under control of the Norwegian kings, one of whom being the famous King Sverre, who was brought up at the Faroese bishop’s seat at Kirkjubøur.
Later the Norwegian crown came under the Danish monarchy, and with the Reformation, the independent Faroese bishopric was abolished and its properties taken over by the Crown.
During the Middle Ages, the Faroe Islands were greatly influenced by the North Sea countries, especially through the Hanseatic merchants in Bergen. With the Reformation the Danish king increased his control of the trade and established a trade monopoly, operated by different merchants and companies, but from 1709 taken over by the king himself through the Royal Trade Monopoly.
The islands were now governed directly from Copenhagen. Danish officials arrived to oversee the trade and protect it from competing merchants and the bands of pirates who for centuries had plagued the islands. Fort Skansin, overlooking Tórshavn harbour, is the remnant of the historic fortification, but if you today scan the horizon from there, you will probably only spot peaceful fishing boats, or perhaps the graceful curves of an international cruise liner.
In 1856, the Royal Danish Monopoly ended and soon enterprising Faroese businessmen were exploring new connections with the outside world. In 1872, an old English sailing smack, named the Fox, was purchased for deep sea fishing far from the Faroese shore. The Faroe Islanders quickly earned the reputation of being among the best sailors and fishermen in the world. The fishing industry grew until it became the main source of income for the islands.
As the beginning of the twenty-first century is approaching, the Faroes are vigorously engaged in exploring the potential for oil production in the seas around the islands.
Yet vestiges of the ancient history are evident wherever you go in the Faroes and blend with the modern. You can stroll about on Tinganes, now the home of the national government, established according to the Home Rule constitution adopted in 1948. And there, in his office in one of the former Royal Trade Monopoly storehouses, the Lagman, the local Prime Minister, may lift his eyes up from his computer and look out of the window to measure the passage of a thousand years carved into the stones at the tip of the peninsula.
Take a deep breath! Fill your lungs! Let them open all their folds and leaves and cavities, and from all directions the clean air of the sea comes flowing towards you, into you and through you. Suddenly the dusty continents of the earth are far away; right now it’s only the winds and the seas and you. The loneliness of the ocean, the silence everywhere, interrupted only by the voices of birds in motion, weaving changing patterns that recreate the forms of the landscape - its heights, its depths. The sound of water running over rocks, and the distant murmur of the sea deep down at the foot of the cliffs. All those millions of tons of water of an ocean which now lazily and comfortably rubs against these rocks in the middle of nowhere as if it wanted to scratch its back or shoulders after the long journey between the poles of the globe. Peaceful and pleasant on a good summer´s day, but you know that the ocean has an unpredictable power and that it may at any moment change its mind and rise in a frantic rage. What are these rocks anyway? Aren´t they just a speck of dust in its eye which ought not to be there at all?
Sooner or later the ocean may well have its way and wash it all away. But till then the Faroe Islands will definitely be here and be a unique reality in this world, whether you experience them by boat along the coasts, one moment blinded by the reflections of the sun in the water and the next moment surrounded by the deep darkness of the sea caves. Or on foot in the mountains with the drifting shadows that leap into the fertile valleys and climb the green slopes, and with the light that can hardly move from one mountain top to the next without trying out a new variation and a quite different mood.
Just as the atmosphere changes from one village to the next and from one house to the next. A whole society with its own history, its own language and its own culture. Far away from the wide world, yet at the centre of a world where even the smallest things may seem very big because they contain genuine feelings, genuine curiosity and genuine friendliness.
Take a deep breath! Open up your senses and fill your mind! You will be surprised that such a place still exists. Of reasonable size and proportions, easy to explore and get to know, and yet so infinitely varied and changing.
The Faroe Islands are built up of layers of volcanic basalt and, as a rule, are tilted with the eastern shores sloping into the sea and the western coasts rising up in soaring cliffs. This layer effect is most pronounced along the more peaceful and protected fjords and sounds. Along the shores of these fjords and sounds lie the towns and villages of the Faroes, which sparkle in multi-coloured splendour against the deep-green swath of cultivated pastureland surrounding them. Above them rise the mountains with their green sloping fells bounded by dark stony crags. This interplay between the green fells and rocky protrusions give the mountains their layered look.
The craggy protrusions visible in the mountains are the vestiges of enormous layers of basalt laid down by gigantic volcanoes in the tertiary period some 60 million years ago. Each basalt layer represents one or more volcanic events. In between the basalt layers are bands of red tuff, which is the compressed ash spewed out by the volcanoes between eruptions. Tuff is softer than basalt and erodes more quickly. The basalt layers gradually erode and fall down on to the layer below to eventually crumble onto the earthen slopes where the grasses and heather flourish.
The western and northern coasts face the unrelenting onslaught of the sea. Especially in winter the storms break loose and the ocean swells up to crash against the rocky shoulder of the Faroes. The sea rushes in, roaring and rumbling, and lashes its full power against the cliffs. The clamour reverberates from top to bottom as if the tumult came from the very core of the earth; the sea explodes into foamy surf and slips back muttering crude, rumbling epithets and promising revenge. Land and sea wage an endless battle which continues throughout the dark, lonely nights of winter, year after year, century after century.
Eventually the soft light of summer returns and all is at peace. The sea stretches out in stillness, friendly and inviting. The long summer days teem with seabirds flocking to the soaring cliffs. The collision of cold arctic currents with the warm Gulf Stream near the Faroe Islands has created an especially nutrient-rich environment for the many birds that breed here. Ornithologists have identified around 300 bird species in the Faroe Islands, whereof 40 are regular breeding birds and another 40 are but infrequent guests. Colonies of puffins inhabit the many ledges and green swaths at the top of the cliffs. Their breeding grounds are quite conspicuous because of the deep, blue-green colour of the grass, which is a by-product of years of their active fertilisation.
Now and again a seal sticks its dark and shiny head up out of the water to see what is happening just as the individual hiker, having forsaken the delights of the sea, rises above the clouds lingering about the mountain tops. On occasion, the weather may not look so promising to the novice hill walker; the clouds sweep in low and wisps of tattered cloud play about the mountain slopes. The experienced local guide is confident, however, and quickly selects the correct path and course. Soon both guide and hill walker emerge from the woollen kingdom of the clouds there to behold the spectacular vistas of land and sea that stretch out before them into infinity. Surveying such a vista, one can conjure up a vision of a once vast and mighty continent, alas now sunk below the sea millions of years ago.
A few generations ago nature was a formidable adversary. Even the smallest journey from one village to another demanded much time and effort. If one desired to travel to another island, a whole crew was needed to row in small open boats often through wind and rain and over frightful surging seas; if one travelled over land one went by foot. Now one sits in a car or a bus and drives onboard a ferry and the distance is measured only in kilometres not time. What in days of old took many strenuous days, now only takes but a few hours.
In spite of these modern changes, the same original undisturbed and peaceful nature remains. Just a short distance from the new asphalt roads, the bold wayfarer is soon alone in the mountain heath, in a lonesome valley, or clambering over rocky heights. There an ethereal silence reigns, full of nature’s own sounds – the sounds of trembling water over stone or tuff of grass, the sound of the sea, the golden plover, the curlew, and the snipe. Perchance the coarse call of the gull may descend into the tranquillity of the moment and penetrate the deep reflections of the more intrepid wanderers, as he either explores the secrets of the moor or she rests briefly upon a white, lichen-covered rock before setting out upon the next segment of their trek.
Those that travel with their computer or mobile telephone by their side or swiftly journey from village to village looking only at the mileage or their watch, may begin to think to their amazement that this country is much too small to encompass so grand a display of nature. But for those that emerge from their modern technological shells, they will discover that the natural wonders of the Faroes cannot be reckoned by size or distance, but only by their eternal essence.
The grass roofs are probably the first things you notice, and these have been a feature of the were first settled. In the Viking Age farmhouse with its curved stone walls, the roof was supported by two rows of posts in a large common room with a longfire in the centre. Along the outer walls benches or seats were placed and a Faroese home today is still called a sethús (seat house) after these seats. And there is a good reason that the ancient name has survived, for on the Faroes the original longhouse lasted longer than any other place in Scandinavia. The house, with its protecting stone walls and the large grass roof, gradually developed into the traditional Faroese dwelling with the stall at one end, in the middlethe smoke room with the working and sleeping areas, earth floor and the open fireplace with the louver in the roof as smoke outlet and light intake. At the other end of the house was the glass room, the farmer’s fine parlour with windows and jamb stove. Inside the smoke room and glass room there were vertical planks set in a groove between the posts and sills. This is the same construction that was used in the historic Norwegian stave churches, but in tree rich Norway the stave constructed houses were gradually replaced by the shorter loghouses with horizontal logs. The stave constructions, which required less wood continued in the Faroes until the beginning of the twentieth century. Gradually the stonewalls were replaced by wood, except perhaps in the ends of the houses oriented against the fiercest wind direction. From this originated the classic Faroese house a low and small longhouse, tarred brown or black with white painted mullioned windows, blending into the terrain under a large grass roof. The churches were built in the same way. They were modest buildings, not much bigger than the other dwellings, but with a distinct difference: the little white bell tower, placed parallel or diagonally over the ridge of the roof. The inside of these churches are like chests made of untreated timber. All the designs are visible and simple, but every detail has its own special carving or image and the chancel wall, the half open wall between the nave and the choir, received the finest treatment. Times changed and with the development of sea fi shing new kinds of houses appeared. The longhouse was sup er seded by a more refined house on a high basement, and with dormers in the attic, but still tarred and with turfs of grass over a layer of beech bark. Then came fervent individualism, corrugated iron was placed as protection on the outside of wooden boards and together with the corrugated iron came paint in many colours. This colourful individualism has become respected through the years and even the authorities have supported it in later years, most directly in some experimental construction with individually built ter raced houses in the northern part of Tórshavn. The painted roofs dominate, but you can still see new buildings with green grass. The most im portant of these is the Nordic House, where, as in the older dwellings, the roof lies over the house like a protecting wing and enhances the lines of the landscape. The grass still has something of a symbolic meaning and maybe it is a type of nostalgia when it is used on private houses. On the other hand it is a living material, which insulates and protects and requires very little aintenance. It also follows the beautiful seasons of the year and paints itself: brown in the autumn, white in the winter, burgeoning light green in the spring and lush green in the summer.
Before the Reformation the Wake of St. Olav was an important religious festival in Norway and the Norwegian tributary countries, of which the Faroes were one. The Norwegian king Olav the Holy fell on the 29th of July,1030 in the battle at Stiklestad, and every year on that day Norway’s patron saint was commemorated.
It is now a thousand years since the chief Sigmund Brestisson introduced Christianity in a proclamation on the rocky headland at the end of Tinganes in Tórshavn. The Icelandic saga, Færeyingasaga, describes the struggle between the Christian chief Sigmund and the heathen chief Tróndur í Gøtu. Tróndur is in power, but, with the help of King Olav Trygvason in Norway, Sigmund defeats his enemy for a time, until he is attacked at his farm on Skúvoy. Sigmund has to jump into the sea and swim the long way to Suðuroy, where he is found exhausted on the beach and killed by the farmer Tórgrímur the Wicked.
But Christianity triumphed, and Olav the Holy also became the patron saint of the Faroes. In most places he has been forgotten and now only figures in books about Norwegian and Nordic history; but in the Faroes he was so revered that to this day his wake is celebrated in the capital of the islands - the Olai Festival. For hundreds of years and despite the fall of Catholicism, this day has been celebrated as a kind of national festival, when work stopped and people flocked to Tórshavn from all over the islands.
Over the years the festival has grown and in order to accommodate all the activities on the programme it now starts on the eve of Saint Olav’s Day. On the afternoon of the 28th the festival is officially opened with a procession through the town headed by men on horseback with the Faroese flag at the forefront. They make their way to the lawn in front of the parliament building. After this comes the eagerly awaited boat race where the final result of the summer’s competitions will be decided and the champions of the year celebrated.
Sporting events, meetings, concerts follow in a tightly packed programme, so full that few can take part in everything. On the other hand, the item which gives the greatest pleasure is not mentioned in the programme. It is to walk up and down the main street and follow along with the stream of people dressed in their best, often national dress, or to struggle against the stream and greet friends and acquaintances and people you have not seen for years, but who have now come home on holiday, or on a visit, to take part in the festivities.
On the 29th, Saint Olav’s Day itself, there is a ceremonial procession from the parliament building in the centre of the town to the church service in the Cathedral. The members of parliament, the government, the clergy and all the leading civil servants take part. After the church service they go back to the parliament building, where a choir sings outside. They then enter the parliament building and the prime minister delivers his opening speech. A new political and parliamentary year commences.
Friendships are made or renewed, the whole town is alive, and there is dancing both outdoors and indoors. And at midnight on the 29th it is over. Then everyone gathers for the community singing in the centre of the town, the streets are full of people, no matter what the weather, and everyone joins in the singing. It is a manifestation of fellowship, the like of which is not seen many places in the world, and all the while the coloured lamps twinkle in the darkness, which has returned and tells that the festival is over and summer is waning.
But before this there have been many other memorable experiences. In the time of the long light evenings, from the end of May to the end of July, many festivals are arranged throughout the islands. The first is in Klaksvík with the norðoyastevna. The town is in festive attire and decked with bunting and banners. After a long period of preparation the festivities get under way with processions, music, speeches, meetings and church services, exhibitions, and, not of least importance, sports and sporting competitions. And when the starting shot for the year’s first rowing competition in the elegant Faroese boats is heard, everyone knows, both the local people and the many visitors, that summer has really come. Other festivals follow, such as eystanstevna for Skálafjørður, jóansøka in Suðuroy, varmakeldustevna in Fuglafjørður and vestanstevna for Vágar and Vestmanna.
Life was often hard in the Faroes, with heavy work in the fields and at sea, and there were constant dangers from fog, storms and lashing seas. This bred a deep sense of religion, which is still characteristic of daily life in the Faroes and which creates a bond far back in time, right back to when Christianity came to the islands. The summer festivals are the light side of this deep seriousness. The worship of God is a part of them, but it is primarily the festivals and the joy of living that dominate. And the joy of summer’s overwhelming light in the world.
We were so pleasantly surprised with Torshavn when our cruise made a port call there back in 2001! It is a beautiful and charming location! We took an excursion up into the mountains and the views were spectacular!
Thanks for the information-it brought back great memories!
Cruise Line Fans: Cruise Reviews and Chat From Real Cruisers
-
Centrum Deck
-
Cruise Places
-
Other
-
Faroe Islands
#
For millions of years the Faroe Islands stood alone in the heart of the North Atlantic. The first settlers may have been Irish monks, probably in the middle of the seventh century, seeking a tranquil refuge in these remote islands. What is better known and well documented, is the Norwegian colonization, beginning about a hundred years later and developing throughout the Viking Age, making the Faroes a central part of the Viking settlements along the coasts of the North Atlantic and the Irish Sea.
During the Middle Ages, the Faroe Islands were greatly influenced by the North Sea countries, especially through the Hanseatic merchants in Bergen. With the Reformation the Danish king increased his control of the trade and established a trade monopoly, operated by different merchants and companies, but from 1709 taken over by the king himself through the Royal Trade Monopoly.
In 1856, the Royal Danish Monopoly ended and soon enterprising Faroese businessmen were exploring new connections with the outside world. In 1872, an old English sailing smack, named the Fox, was purchased for deep sea fishing far from the Faroese shore. The Faroe Islanders quickly earned the reputation of being among the best sailors and fishermen in the world. The fishing industry grew until it became the main source of income for the islands. 
Yet vestiges of the ancient history are evident wherever you go in the Faroes and blend with the modern. You can stroll about on Tinganes, now the home of the national government, established according to the Home Rule constitution adopted in 1948. And there, in his office in one of the former Royal Trade Monopoly storehouses, the Lagman, the local Prime Minister, may lift his eyes up from his computer and look out of the window to measure the passage of a thousand years carved into the stones at the tip of the peninsula.
Take a deep breath! Fill your lungs! Let them open all their folds and leaves and cavities, and from all directions the clean air of the sea comes flowing towards you, into you and through you. Suddenly the dusty continents of the earth are far away; right now it’s only the winds and the seas and you. The loneliness of the ocean, the silence everywhere, interrupted only by the voices of birds in motion, weaving changing patterns that recreate the forms of the landscape - its heights, its depths. The sound of water running over rocks, and the distant murmur of the sea deep down at the foot of the cliffs. All those millions of tons of water of an ocean which now lazily and comfortably rubs against these rocks in the middle of nowhere as if it wanted to scratch its back or shoulders after the long journey between the poles of the globe. Peaceful and pleasant on a good summer´s day, but you know that the ocean has an unpredictable power and that it may at any moment change its mind and rise in a frantic rage. What are these rocks anyway? Aren´t they just a speck of dust in its eye which ought not to be there at all?
Sooner or later the ocean may well have its way and wash it all away. But till then the Faroe Islands will definitely be here and be a unique reality in this world, whether you experience them by boat along the coasts, one moment blinded by the reflections of the sun in the water and the next moment surrounded by the deep darkness of the sea caves. Or on foot in the mountains with the drifting shadows that leap into the fertile valleys and climb the green slopes, and with the light that can hardly move from one mountain top to the next without trying out a new variation and a quite different mood.
The Faroe Islands are built up of layers of volcanic basalt and, as a rule, are tilted with the eastern shores sloping into the sea and the western coasts rising up in soaring cliffs. This layer effect is most pronounced along the more peaceful and protected fjords and sounds. Along the shores of these fjords and sounds lie the towns and villages of the Faroes, which sparkle in multi-coloured splendour against the deep-green swath of cultivated pastureland surrounding them. Above them rise the mountains with their green sloping fells bounded by dark stony crags. This interplay between the green fells and rocky protrusions give the mountains their layered look.
The western and northern coasts face the unrelenting onslaught of the sea. Especially in winter the storms break loose and the ocean swells up to crash against the rocky shoulder of the Faroes. The sea rushes in, roaring and rumbling, and lashes its full power against the cliffs. The clamour reverberates from top to bottom as if the tumult came from the very core of the earth; the sea explodes into foamy surf and slips back muttering crude, rumbling epithets and promising revenge. Land and sea wage an endless battle which continues throughout the dark, lonely nights of winter, year after year, century after century.
Now and again a seal sticks its dark and shiny head up out of the water to see what is happening just as the individual hiker, having forsaken the delights of the sea, rises above the clouds lingering about the mountain tops. On occasion, the weather may not look so promising to the novice hill walker; the clouds sweep in low and wisps of tattered cloud play about the mountain slopes. The experienced local guide is confident, however, and quickly selects the correct path and course. Soon both guide and hill walker emerge from the woollen kingdom of the clouds there to behold the spectacular vistas of land and sea that stretch out before them into infinity. Surveying such a vista, one can conjure up a vision of a once vast and mighty continent, alas now sunk below the sea millions of years ago.
In spite of these modern changes, the same original undisturbed and peaceful nature remains. Just a short distance from the new asphalt roads, the bold wayfarer is soon alone in the mountain heath, in a lonesome valley, or clambering over rocky heights. There an ethereal silence reigns, full of nature’s own sounds – the sounds of trembling water over stone or tuff of grass, the sound of the sea, the golden plover, the curlew, and the snipe. Perchance the coarse call of the gull may descend into the tranquillity of the moment and penetrate the deep reflections of the more intrepid wanderers, as he either explores the secrets of the moor or she rests briefly upon a white, lichen-covered rock before setting out upon the next segment of their trek.
The grass roofs are probably the first things you notice, and these have been a feature of the were first settled. In the Viking Age farmhouse with its curved stone walls, the roof was supported by two rows of posts in a large common room with a longfire in the centre. Along the outer walls benches or seats were placed and a Faroese home today is still called a sethús (seat house) after these seats. And there is a good reason that the ancient name has survived, for on the Faroes the original longhouse lasted longer than any other place in Scandinavia. The house, with its protecting stone walls and the large grass roof, gradually developed into the traditional Faroese dwelling with the stall at one end, in the middlethe smoke room with the working and sleeping areas, earth floor and the open fireplace with the louver in the roof as smoke outlet and light intake. At the other end of the house was the glass room, the farmer’s fine parlour with windows and jamb stove. Inside the smoke room and glass room there were vertical planks set in a groove between the posts and sills. 
This is the same construction that was used in the historic Norwegian stave churches, but in tree rich Norway the stave constructed houses were gradually replaced by the shorter loghouses with horizontal logs. The stave constructions, which required less wood continued in the Faroes until the beginning of the twentieth century. Gradually the stonewalls were replaced by wood, except perhaps in the ends of the houses oriented against the fiercest wind direction. From this originated the classic Faroese house a low and small longhouse, tarred brown or black with white painted mullioned windows, blending into the terrain under a large grass roof. The churches were built in the same way. They were modest buildings, not much bigger than the other dwellings, but with a distinct difference: the little white bell tower, placed parallel or diagonally over the ridge of the roof. The inside of these churches are like chests made of untreated timber. All the designs are visible and simple, but every detail has its own special carving or image and the chancel wall, the half open wall between the nave and the choir, received the finest treatment. Times changed and with the development of sea fi shing new kinds of houses appeared. The longhouse was sup er seded by a more refined house on a high basement, and with dormers in the attic, but still tarred and with turfs of grass over a layer of beech bark. Then came fervent individualism, corrugated iron was placed as protection on the outside of wooden boards and together with the corrugated iron came paint in many colours. This colourful individualism has become respected through the years and even the authorities have supported it in later years, most directly in some experimental construction with individually built ter raced houses in the northern part of Tórshavn. 
The painted roofs dominate, but you can still see new buildings with green grass. The most im portant of these is the Nordic House, where, as in the older dwellings, the roof lies over the house like a protecting wing and enhances the lines of the landscape. The grass still has something of a symbolic meaning and maybe it is a type of nostalgia when it is used on private houses. On the other hand it is a living material, which insulates and protects and requires very little aintenance. It also follows the beautiful seasons of the year and paints itself: brown in the autumn, white in the winter, burgeoning light green in the spring and lush green in the summer.
Before the Reformation the Wake of St. Olav was an important religious festival in Norway and the Norwegian tributary countries, of which the Faroes were one. The Norwegian king Olav the Holy fell on the 29th of July,1030 in the battle at Stiklestad, and every year on that day Norway’s patron saint was commemorated.
But Christianity triumphed, and Olav the Holy also became the patron saint of the Faroes. In most places he has been forgotten and now only figures in books about Norwegian and Nordic history; but in the Faroes he was so revered that to this day his wake is celebrated in the capital of the islands - the Olai Festival. For hundreds of years and despite the fall of Catholicism, this day has been celebrated as a kind of national festival, when work stopped and people flocked to Tórshavn from all over the islands.
Sporting events, meetings, concerts follow in a tightly packed programme, so full that few can take part in everything. On the other hand, the item which gives the greatest pleasure is not mentioned in the programme. It is to walk up and down the main street and follow along with the stream of people dressed in their best, often national dress, or to struggle against the stream and greet friends and acquaintances and people you have not seen for years, but who have now come home on holiday, or on a visit, to take part in the festivities.
But before this there have been many other memorable experiences. In the time of the long light evenings, from the end of May to the end of July, many festivals are arranged throughout the islands. The first is in Klaksvík with the norðoyastevna. The town is in festive attire and decked with bunting and banners. After a long period of preparation the festivities get under way with processions, music, speeches, meetings and church services, exhibitions, and, not of least importance, sports and sporting competitions. And when the starting shot for the year’s first rowing competition in the elegant Faroese boats is heard, everyone knows, both the local people and the many visitors, that summer has really come. Other festivals follow, such as eystanstevna for Skálafjørður, jóansøka in Suðuroy, varmakeldustevna in Fuglafjørður and vestanstevna for Vágar and Vestmanna.
Linear Mode
