Saaremaa

Saaremaa (/ˈsɑːrəmɑː/; Estonian: [ˈsɑˑreˌmɑː]) is the largest and most populous island in Estonia. Measuring 2,673 km² (1,032 sq mi), its population is 31,435 (as of January 2020). The main island of the West Estonian archipelago (Moonsund archipelago), it is located in the Baltic Sea, south of Hiiumaa island and northwest of the Gulf of Riga. The administrative centre of the island, and of the Saare maakond (county), is the town of Kuressaare.

From the 13th century until the first half of the 20th century, the island of Saaremaa was known in most of the world by variants of its other historical name Ösel.

Saaremaa was called Eysýsla in the Icelandic sagas and other early medieval Scandinavian sources (Old Norse: [ˈœyˌsyːslɑ], meaning 'the island district'), and named in contrast with Aðalsýsla ('the great district') or the Estonian mainland. The island is called Saaremaa in modern Estonian and Saarenmaa in Finnish—literally, 'land of the isle' or 'land of the island', that is, the same as the ancient Scandinavian name for the island.

The old Scandinavian name is also the origin of the island's name in Danish (Øsel), German and Swedish (Ösel), Gutnish (Oysl), and Latin (Osilia). In Latvian, the island is called Sāmsala, which possibly means 'the island of Saami'. Saaremaa may have been the historic Ultima Thule.

According to archaeological finds, the territory of Saaremaa has been inhabited from at least 5000 BCE. Nordic Iron Age ship burials, dated to 700–750 CE, have been found in Sõrve Peninsula. Sagas talk about numerous skirmishes between the islanders and Vikings. Saaremaa was the wealthiest county of ancient Estonia^{[citation needed]} and the home of notorious pirates, sometimes called the Eastern Vikings. The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia describes a fleet of sixteen ships and 500 Osilians ravaging the area that is now southern Sweden, then belonging to Denmark.

Probably around 1000, Gunnar Hámundarson from Iceland took part in a Viking raid at Eysýsla (Saaremaa). There he obtained his famous atgeir, by taking it from a man named Hallgrímur. Njáls saga tells the following:

Thence they held on south to Denmark and thence east to Smálönd and had victory wherever they went. They did not come back in autumn. The next summer they held on to Rafala (Tallinn) and fell in there with sea-rovers, and fought at once, and won the fight. After that they steered east to Eysýsla (Saaremaa) and lay there somewhile under a ness. There they saw a man coming down from the ness above them; Gunnar went on shore to meet the man, and they had a talk. Gunnar asked him his name, and he said it was Tófi. Gunnar asked again what he wanted. "Thee I want to see," says the man. "Two warships lie on the other side under the ness, and I will tell thee who command them: two brothers are the captains—one's name is Hallgrímur, and the other's Kolskeggur. I know them to be mighty men of war; and I know too that they have such good weapons that the like are not to be had. Hallgrímur has an atgeir which he had made by seething-spells; and this is what the spells say, that no weapon shall give him his death-blow save that atgeir. That thing follows it too that it is known at once when a man is to be slain with that atgeir, for something sings in it so loudly that it may be heard a long way off—such a strong nature has that atgeir in it.

The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia describes a fleet of sixteen ships and five hundred pirates from Saaremaa ravaging the area that is now southern Sweden, then belonging to Denmark. The XIVth book of Gesta Danorum, Saxo Grammaticus describes a subsequent battle on Öland in 1170 in which the Danish king Valdemar I mobilized his entire fleet to curb the incursions of pirates from "Couronia" (Courland) and Saaremaa.