It started – possibly – when God-fearing monks left Scotland, or maybe Ireland, and headed west a few centuries after Christ was born, thinking there might be heathens somewhere who needed converting. Instead they found Iceland, and it was freezing, and there were volcanoes but no heathens, because the heathens had settled somewhere sunny where you don’t need hairshirts.

We don’t know how long the monks stayed in Iceland, if at all, but it’s not hard to imagine them thinking of the cold and the dark and the lava as signs from God that they’d taken a wrong turn and needed to get the hell out of there. So they left.

Iceland 1, little monks from Scotland or Ireland 0.

In 874, so the stories go, a few hardy souls decided to have another crack at Iceland. Vikings of Norwegian, Scottish and Irish origin set up camp in a place they called Reykjavik – cove of smoke because of the geothermal steam rising from the earth – and the extraordinary country of Iceland was on its way.

Iceland 1, Vikings whose origin was Scotland and Ireland, 1.

For centuries the United Kingdom and Iceland went about their business and had little real interest in each other. Icelanders tried to stop freezing to death and established one of the world’s oldest parliaments, while the UK – well, it fought internal and external wars, established trade routes, claimed territories and built an empire.

By the early 1800s, when Britannia ruled the waves and had colonised the world, Iceland had a population nudging 70,000, until a particularly freezing few years convinced about 15,000 Icelanders to migrate to slightly less freezing places like Canada.

United Kingdom 10, freezing Icelanders 0.

It wasn’t until after World War II that Iceland and the UK paid attention to each other again, and when they did, it wasn’t pretty.

But if you’re looking for yet another reason to find Iceland, pound for pound, one of the most fabulous little nations on earth, you can’t go past its only real attempt to wage war – against the UK, and over fish.

It’s due to Iceland that we have the Cod Wars – not just one desperate David and Goliath battle between the might of the British navy versus a few thousand Icelandic laddies named Gylfi, Kolbeinn, Birkir and Kari, but THREE Cod Wars, because you just can’t get enough fights about fish.

The wonders of the internet mean it is possible to read British Cabinet documents outlining the background to the Cod Wars – basically it was the UK v the rest of the world over fishing territorial limits – including a 1948 memorandum about an “Anglo-Norwegian Fishery Dispute” that had to be resisted, according to the Brits, because countries including Iceland were waiting in the wings with their “exaggerated claims”.

It all went downhill from there.

Iceland took on the Brits over cod after centuries of being owned and occupied by other nations. Norway, Denmark, Germany and Britain each had a turn at bossing around freezing Icelanders. But after Iceland was named an independent republic in June 1944 it gained control over its resources and territorial waters.

The brand new republic and the ageing empire clashed because British catches in Iceland were more than twice the catches of all other grounds where Brits fished.

The First Cod War ran from 1958 to 1961 after Iceland forced the issue of its territorial limits and all hell broke loose. There were nasty incidents between Brits and Icelanders for three years until a United Nations conference basically found in Iceland’s favour. What can’t be disputed is that 37 British Royal Navy ships and 7000 sailors were up against six Icelandic gunboats, 100 Icelandic coast guards and a Catalina flying boat.

Iceland 1, Britain 0.

The Second Cod War from 1972-73 featured more clashes between Brit and Icelander, a volcano eruption, lots of swearing and one incident where Rule Britannia was blasted down a radio at an Icelandic trawler operator. But the outcome was the same.

Iceland 1, Britain 0.

The Third Cod War between 1975 and 1976 was short, sharp and ugly, with shots fired, 55 ramming incidents, the death of a British trawlerman “accidentally” killed by a shot from an Icelandic patrol boat and Iceland ending diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom in February 1976. But Iceland won in the end. The British fishing fleet was largely excluded from territorial waters around Iceland.

Iceland 1, Britain 0.

On the southern coast of Iceland is the beautiful town of Vik. It has black sand beaches, a population of less than 500, and a stunning statue by Iceland sculptor Steinunn Thorarinsdotti to mark the Cod Wars.

The sculpture was erected in 2006. Its twin statue was erected in the British fishing town of Hull which bore the brunt of the Cod Wars and the subsequent decimation of the British fishing fleet.

Britain was humiliated in 2011 when the statue in Hull was stolen and sold for scrap. Thorarinsdotti made a replacement statue.

A tiny plaque at the statue at Vik says the sculpture was commissioned to mark “the long standing links between our two countries”.

“Both figures face out to sea to emphasise that the waters dividing our islands are also the trade routes that unite,” it says.

Then Iceland played England at the European Cup on Monday, and the unthinkable – the impossible - actually happened.

Iceland 2, England 1.