As a perhaps final word on this, it should be noted that author Janet
Frame's book-title "To the Is-land" pronounces the 's', and does not
refer to an island. In it she (from memory) talks of the defining of
time and place as being like drawing chalk-lines on water.
The addition of 's' to the word island is modern (late 17th century).
The word is correctly spelt 'iland' in the 1611 AV Bible.And all earlier
versions.Yet the AV includes 's' in 'isle' (Rev.i.9).
This is because the two words are quite unrelated, like 'slug' and
'sluggish'. 'I(s)land' is from the Anglo-Saxon 'ealand', i.e. sea-land
or land girt round with the sea.(c.f.German 'eiland'). The confusion
probably arose through false etymology; 'isle' being a descendant of
'insula' and ,'isola', it was wrongly supposed that 'island' was also
(with Saxon 'land' added). So the spelling was altered by misguided
pedants, but they were powerless to change the pronunciation. This
debars any connection with 'Iceland'. Wrongly assumed derivations are a
frequent cause of altered spellings.
John Barton