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