The island's inside, the Highlands of Iceland, is a cold and uninhabitable mixture of sand, mountains, and lava fields. The Sagas of Icelanders say that a Norwegian named Naddodd (or Naddador) was the initial Norseman to arrive at Iceland, and in the ninth century, he named it Snæland or "snow land" due to the fact it was snowing. After the break-up of the union in 1523, it remained a Norwegian dependency, as a part of Denmark-Norway.