Image copyright Mbl.is/Hallur Mar Hallsson Image caption The sword was handed over to heritage officials on Monday

A group of Icelandic goose hunters got more than they bargained for during a recent outing - they didn't catch a single bird, but stumbled upon a Viking sword thought to be more than 1,000 years old. The five men were in Skaftarhreppur in southern Iceland when they found the sword, which they think may have washed up during a recent flood, the Visir news website reports. "It was just lying there, waiting to be picked up - it was obvious and just lying there on the ground," one of them, Runar Stanley Sighvatsson, tells Iceland Monitor. One of the men, Arni Bjorn Valdimarsson, shared a photo of it on his Facebook page and swiftly received a call from Iceland's Cultural Heritage Agency, which took possession of the artefact on Monday morning. Image copyright Arni Bjorn Valdimarsson Image caption The sword is largely intact

The agency's director, Kristin Huld Sigurdardottir, says only 20 swords of this age have been discovered in Iceland before, making it a significant find. The point is broken off and a small part missing, but apart from that it is relatively well preserved, although of course corroded.' The team excavated a farmstead called Hrísbrú in Iceland’s Mosfell Valley, including a chieftain’s longhouse nearly 100 feet long with a ‘feast-worthy’ great hall, a church and a cemetery of 26 graves.
Hunters discover a 1000-year-old sword in Iceland.