Eldureyland (The Kalmar Union)

Eldureyland is a small island of Álengiamark located about 20km to the east of Langaeyjar and 20km south of the Sudervik mainland, and forms part of the Ytrýlónd region of Sudervik Fylk. It has an area of about 25km^2. The population is 2,807 and the main town is Dýrlingrólavshöfn.

It is a one of the oldest constituent parts of Álengiamark. Vinlanders found the island, inhabited by members of the Nehantick tribe in around 1043. The Nehantick, farming maize and squash, fishing for shellfish and hunting deer in the forest interior, called it Manisses. The Vinlanders, seeing the tribe's fires from a distance, called it Eldurey (Fire Island). Two Vinlandic brothers, Þórður and Snorri Hákonsson, set up farms on the island in 1110 after an elder brother inherited the family farm in Northern Vinlandeyjar. Initially relations were harmonious with the natives, though sadly disease would all but wipe them out. In due course intermarriage between what was left of the tribe and the newcomers meant the Nehantick language would die out too, and is now only present in place names. The more easterly Norse settlements on Ílaekjurland and Gráakonenna had to be abandoned during the depredations of the Wampanoags in the 1119, but the farms on Eldureyland continued, making them the oldest continuous Norse settlements in Álengiamark.

Eldureyland formed one of the counties which sent a representative to the first Álengsk Althing in 1129 and Þórður Hákonsson's daughter Freydis was chosen as Queen Elisiv's handmaiden a few years later when Álengiamark became independent of Vinland. The stave church of St. Ólav dates from 1240 and the small town of Dýrlingrólavshöfn formed around it. Royal patronage allowed it to remain out of the hands of the Earls, whilst the other Sudervik islands tried, and failed, to maintain their independence from Sudervik. The island eventually became part of the Royal Domain after the Black Death killed 80% of the island's population in the 1370s.

The island had a brief flirtation with Lutheranism in the 1530s but the public burning of the heretical priest Adam Dagursson and all Lutheran texts (with essentially the entire island's population's present) ensured a swift return to Catholicism. During Herridr I's centralisation of Álengiamark the island was claimed by both Sudervik and Langaeyjar; it eventually joined Sudervik after promises of investment by the new Fylkething in Nahigavik. Several new lighthouses were built on the shipwreck prone island, especially after several disasters such as the wrecking of the Prinses Marianne and Yáhsháwôk in the 1780s.

The island went into decline during the 'Leifian Crisis' years and again became almost depopulated as two-thirds of its inhabitants sought work on the mainland, a lack of a deep water harbour made it unsuitable to industrial fishing or whaling which sustained the other Sudervik islands. Though the population is slowly growing again now it retains an air of neglect, locals complain that Nahigavik only remembers Eldureyland exists when a lighthouse needs replacing. The island's Thing has banned motor vehicles, and is trying to position the island as a quiet, unspoilt holiday destination.

Seccession from Sudervik

Proposed flag of 'Ytrýlónd'

'Ytrýlónd' is a geographical region usually said to encompass Eldureyland, Ílaekjurland, Gráakonenna, the Fiskuhalvóyar peninsula and all the smaller islands in between them.

Collectively the Ytrýlónd forms the most prominent secession movement from Sudervik Fylke. The general feeling amongst the politicians here is that the Fylkething is much too preoccupied with the cities of western Sudervik and have neglected the eastern fringes for too long. The creation of a new Fylke would, so the argument goes, allow policies more sympathetic to the needs of the region to come to the fore. It compliments other succession movements in St. Hafdiss and Nýhöfn.