Grímur Kamban

Who is Grímur Kamban?

Grímur Kamban was, according to the Færeyinga saga, the first man to set foot in the Faroe Islands. The name was written Grímr in Old Norse and is often referred to as Grim in the English literature.

The saga says, he was a Norwegian Viking escaping the tyranny of the Norse king Haraldur Hárfagri. However, this is an error in this saga, because Harald's age was in the late 9th century, while the first Norse settlers reached the Faroes after 825.

Furthermore, the name Kamban indicates a Celtic origin. Thus he could have been a man from Ireland, Western Isles or Isle of Man, where the Vikings had already settlements. Another theory says, he could have been an early Christianized Norwegian under the influence of Irish monks there.

If Gaelic, the first part of Kamban would originate in the Old Gaelic camb crooked. The word Kamban itself would there most likely be from cambán, roughly translatable as crooked one. The sports reference refers to the use of camb also in the term cambóg, which refers in origin to the type of stick used in games like hurling, hockey and golf.