Nobody knows who first discovered the Faeroe Islands.

Initially, Faeroes might have been visited by Saint Brendan in one of his voyages towards the East that eventually brought him to Iceland. On that subject, Adamnan, abbot of Iona from 679 a.C. to 704 a.C., wrote that Saint Brendan went on an expedition with four other saints to look for Saint Colombano (563-597 a.C.) and found himself on the Isle of Himba, north of Scotland.

Although the Isle of Hinba is nowadays not identifiable, it is important to underline that the islands north of Scotland were then known.

Moreover, in the “Navigation of Saint Brendan”, it is said that the Saint landed on the Isle of Sheep and on the Isle of Birds. As it is known, “Føroyar” derives from “faaar yo”, meaning “island of sheep”, while Mykines is renown for the great number of birds living there.

Anyway, it is proven that the islands started to be inhabited by Irish monks from the 7th century.

The evidence of that lies in the declaration made by the Irish monk Dicul in his “Liber de censura orbis terrae” (825), stating that monks had been living in the Faeroes for more than one hundred years.

Moreover, the first acknowledged installation in Iceland (Ingolful Arnarson) dates back to 874 a.C., although the “Landnamabok” (The Book of Villages, 12th century) reports that two of the three travellers who left for Iceland before Arnarson, left from the Faeroes.

A further confirmation on the fact that the Faeroes were already inhabited before 800 a.C. derives from the research made by the Faeroese botanist Jòhannes Johansen. In analysing pollen from Mykines, Eysturoy and Suðuroy, Johansen discovered traces of oats dating back to a period between 600 and 700.

According to the "Fareyinga saga” (an Icelandic opus of the 13th century), the fist inhabitant of the islands was Grimur Kamban, a certain number of nephews of whose are said to have later moved to Iceland. The legend does not only name the first inhabitant of the islands, but also indicates where he lived, in Funningur (meaning “discovery”, from the Norwegian “fundin”), in the Isle of Eysturoy.

Kamban’s origin must have been Irish or from the Isle of Man, in the English Channel. We will talk again later about the Isle of Man, when speaking about Venice.