Goose hunters in Skaftárhreppur district, South Iceland, may not have caught a single goose last night. Instead, they found a rare bird, more specifically an ancient sword, RÚV reports. Right away, they notified the Cultural Heritage Agency of Iceland, whose director, Kristín Huld Sigurðardóttir, believes the sword may date back to the ninth century. The sword was to be delivered to the agency this morning.
Iceland was settled in the ninth century, leading one of the hunters, Árni Björn Valdimarsson, to claim on his Facebook page that it was owned by Ingólfur Arnarson, our first permanent settler.
The hunters realized right away they had found a relic, although they joked this could be a prop from one of the movies shot in the country.
“The sword lay in the sand, totally exposed,” Árni related. He, along with four others, was hunting for geese when they noticed the sword in the sand. The area was flooded last year, so sand was probably swept off it. “I just lay there, waiting for us to discover it.” He added, “You expect something more to be there.”
