| ||||||
| Capital (and largest city) |
Brattahlíð | |||||
| Population | 30,125 | |||||
Comprised of the island of Greenland the Greenland Fylk is Vinland's least populated fylk. Greenland is the largest island in the world however meaningful habitation is only found on the south-western coast. Scholars are divided as to whether it is also the largest fylk as much of its, and Norrland's, land is covered in ice-cap. The population is around 30,000 and the capital is Brattahlíð.
First colonised by Norse led by Eirik the Red in the 10th century it would in due course 'give birth' as the 16th century historian Olaus Pjetersson said, to the Vinland colony. Indeed for at least a century it was regarded as the senior colony and any Greenlander upping sticks for Vinland was given short shrift if they should return. However the richer lands of Vinland soon gave it pre-eminence and as the climate in the North Atlantic worsened the viability of Greenland as a self-sustaining entity disappeared.
Though it repeatedly declined such moves, in 1353 it eventually succumbed to the inevitable and became a Vinlandic subject. Thorsteinn Bjornsson, the chief of the Greenlandic Thing was granted the title of Earl of Greenland (as direct descendant of Eirik the Red) and the Bishop of Garðar and his ever-shrinking flock became a suffragan see of Vinland. The population continued to decline however and by 1600 only 700 'Norse' were recorded in the west-facing fjords. This was actually a quite mixed population as many Inuit had intermarried with the Norse farmers. Vinland's ownership of Greenland has never been directly threatened though it influenced its intervention in the short Icelandic War (1510).
Meanwhile many Vinlanders remembered their ancestors migration from Greenland and during the reigns of Eyfinna I and Greta II it became a badge of honour and prestige to spend money on the 'old' fylk. Ruined buildings were rebuilt, churches restored and deeds for farms were reissued. This in fact caused a minor flurry of law suits as families fought over who exactly owned the rights to abandoned ancestral (and usually utterly worthless) farmlands. Even if their improvements were merely cosmetic it provided trade links and employment for the islanders and the population began to stabilise.
In modern times the population is mostly engaged in fishing and whaling. Mining corporations scour the coastline for viable strikes and precious minerals have been found in several areas. Meanwhile the ever generous descendants have paid for the construction of large greenhouses which hope to supply fruits and vegetables to the often scurvy and rickets suffering population.
Officially Greenland has three languages; Vinlandic, Greenlandic, which is almost indistinguishable from Icelandic and still uses the old ð and þ letters, and Kalaallisuut which is used by the Inuit peoples.
The entire fylk is represented by a single county, Greenland, at the Althing.
| |||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
