The enthralling story of the discovery of Greenland and America, as the actual beginning of great Arctic enterprises, must be introduced by some account of the authorities on which it rests, for parts of it have been the subjects of much criticism and dispute.

The earliest writer who mentions the deeds of the Norsemen in Greenland was Adam of Bremen, a Canon of the cathedral of that city and master of the cathedral school, A.D. 1070. In those days Svend Estridsen, a nephew (sister’s son) of England’s King Canute, was King of Denmark, whose memory was a storehouse of facts concerning the history of the Scandinavian races. Adam of Bremen accordingly made a journey to his court and spent some time there, and the King was his authority on all he was able to write relating to Greenland. Adam’s testimony is, therefore, earlier than, and quite independent of Icelandic manuscripts, and becomes a test for the truth of the sagas and traditions. In this lies its great importance as an authority.

The detailed Icelandic narratives are two or three centuries later. The first is the Hauksbok, composed not later than 1334. Its name is derived from Hauk who was Lagman of Iceland in 1295, and in whose handwriting a portion is written. It contains the Saga of Erik the Red. The second manuscript is the Flatey book or Codex Flateyensis, so called from having belonged to one Finsson who lived on Flat Island, near the Breidifjord in Iceland. It is now in the Royal library at Copenhagen, having been brought from Iceland by Thormod Torfason (Torfœus) as a present to King Frederick III of Denmark. It was written about the year 1387 and contains the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, King of Norway, in which two narratives are interpolated, the story of Erik the Red and the story of the Greenlanders.

The two versions in the Hauk book and the Flatey book differ materially in the details, but the main facts are the same. The version of the Hauk book is the older and appears to be the more reliable, and in the days of Hauk there was still communication with the Greenland colony. Two complete vellum texts of the Hauk book survive. The work, in addition to the Saga of Erik the Red, contains the Saga of Thorfin Karlsefni. Hauk, who was a descendant of Karlsefni, one of the Greenland heroes, died in 1334.

We learn from the Hauksbok that there was a man named Thorwald, living in the district of Stavanger, in the south of Norway, with his son Erik the Red. They had killed a man, and in consequence fled to Iceland and settled at Hornstrandir in Haukadal, on the north shore of Iceland’s north-west peninsula. Here Thorwald died, and his son married a widow named Thorhild who bore him three sons, Thorstein, Leif, and Thorwald. He also had a natural daughter named Freidis.

Erik soon got into trouble again. His thralls caused a landslide on Valthiof’s farm, for which a kinsman of Valthiof, named Eyulf the Foul, killed them. Erik retaliated by slaying Eyulf, as well as his friend Hrafn “the duellist,” and being attacked by the friends of the men he had killed, was driven from Haukadal. He then went to settle on two small islands, called Oxney and Sudrey, at the mouth of Breidifjord, naming his dwelling-place Erikstad. Here he was soon again in trouble with a neighbour named Thorgest, with whom he quarrelled. Two of the sons of Thorgest with some others were killed, and the two enemies began to keep large bodies of men at their homesteads.

The people of Iceland were divided, but the adherents of Erik the Red were the weakest. When the Court met at Thorsness-thing, in spite of the efforts of his friends, Erik and his people were condemned to outlawry.

While Erik was concealed from his enemies who were seeking for him, a ship was equipped by his friends, for he had resolved to go in search of land which Gunnbjörn, son of Ulf the Crow, reported that he had seen. Erik, with his family and people, sailed out to sea from Sneefells Jokul, and the famous voyage began, in the year 983. Sailing westward, the adventurers rounded Hoitserkr, as they called Cape Farewell, and the south-west coast of Greenland was discovered, known afterwards as the East Bygd.

The wanderers found that they had reached a land with a climate like that of Iceland. The great ice current, flowing down the east coast of Greenland and diverted by the Gulf Stream, sweeps round Cape Farewell and is closely packed along this shore until late in the season. Almost the whole coast, with numerous islands and entrances to the deep fjords, may be taken in at a glance from Cape Farewell, or at least from Cape Christian to Cape Desolation. It comprises the whole of the ancient colony of the East Bygd. Great precipices face the sea, with black mountains, 3000 to 4000 ft. high, rising above them. Here and there, between them, a glimpse is caught of the glistening inland ice. Between the rocks and precipices the openings to the six deep fjords can be made out, which penetrate from 30 to 40 miles inland. The fjords, when frozen over in the winter, are colder than the sea coast, but they are warmer in summer, and there is then a rich vegetation. Groves of willows 8 feet high and of birch trees 14 feet high, rising out of thick beds of juniper, angelica, alchemilla, and several berries well known to the Norsemen, give beauty to the shores of the inner creeks. Nor is suitable pasture wanting for cattle and sheep. It might well receive the name of Greenland, as Erik saw it and named it, in the height of summer.

Erik wintered on an island called by his name, and devoted the next summer season to exploration. Thus they passed three winters, with the intervening exploring seasons. Finally he selected a place far up the Einarsfjord (Igalliko) for his homestead. It was named Brattahlid because it was under a steep hill side.

Erik resolved to found a Greenland colony; he therefore returned to Iceland and wintered under the protection of a powerful friend named Ingulf the Strong, at Holmslatr, on the south side of Hoamms-fjord. In the spring he began to organise his expedition to form a settlement in the new land. Many friends and adherents accepted the invitation, and in 985 A.D. a fleet of ships arrived in the fjords of Greenland with horses, cattle, sheep, goats, and building materials. Red Erik made his home with his wife and sons at Brattahlid. His friends occupied the shores of the other fjords, which were called by their names. Herjulf and his son Bjarni were in the fjord nearest to Cape Farewell, called Herjulf’s fjord. Ketil was in Ketil’s fjord, the next to the north, Rafn occupied the Rafn’s fjord, Helgi Thorbrandsen was in Alpte fjord, and so on with Einar, Hafgrim, Arnlang, and other bold Vikings.

Erik and his followers still held the ancient faith, and for twenty more years Odin and Thor presided over the fortunes of Greenland. But it was a time of transition; news of the “white Christ” had reached Iceland, and the masterful Kings of Norway, Olaf the Saint and Olaf Tryggvason, were introducing the new creed by force.

The first important event in the new colony was the voyage of Leif, the son of Erik, to Norway in 999. He was driven out of his course to the Hebrides, where he passed the summer and became enamoured of a girl of rare intelligence named Thorgunna. She had a son, Thorgils, by him, and eventually brought him to Greenland to take his place as the son of Leif. But Thorgunna remained at her own home when Leif left the Hebrides and sailed away to the court of the King of Norway at Nidaros (Trondhjem). He was well received by Olaf Tryggvason, who ordered him to become a Christian, and to return to Greenland and proclaim Christianity to the settlers.

Leif took leave of the King, and again put to sea. He encountered bad weather, and was tossed about for many days and driven out of his course. At length he came to a new land where there were currants and self-sown corn, and also trees called mausar12. He had reached the eastern coast of Newfoundland. Leif wintered at this land, which he called Vinland. In the spring he shaped a course for Greenland, and saved some people off a wreck in mid-ocean on his way. One of the shipwrecked men may have been Bjarni the son of Herjulf, which perhaps accounts for the confused story in the Flatey book, about Bjarni being the discoverer. Leif arrived safely in his father’s homestead and introduced Christianity13.

Old Erik was unwilling to forsake the faith of his father. But his wife did so, and built a church near the homestead, called Thorhilda’s Church, where those who embraced Christianity could come to offer their prayers. Settlers began to arrive in Greenland who were nominally Christians, though imbued with the deeply-rooted ideas of the old faiths. The change was gradual.

Among the first Christian settlers were one Thorbjörn and his beautiful daughter Gudrid. This Thorbjörn received with his wife Hallveig an estate in Iceland called Langarbrekke or “the warm spring’s slope,” on the southern side and near the outer end of the Cape called Snowfellsness. The wife died, and Thorbjörn’s motherless child was fostered and brought up by Halldis and her husband, Orm of Arnastopi or the eagle’s crag, a short distance to the north-east of Langarbrekke.

Gudrid, the foster child of Orm and Halldis, acted such a prominent part in the history of the Greenland colony and the discovery of America, that her story cannot be passed over. Though converted to Christianity Halldis had stored the child’s mind with all the lore of the Asgård mythology. For various reasons her father Thorbjörn resolved to join his friend Erik the Red in Greenland, though he was blessed with many friends in Iceland. He therefore sold his land and bought a ship, which was fitted out in Hraunhavn, or the lava haven. Thirty persons formed the crew, including Orm and Halldis, who both died during the voyage. At length, on the verge of winter, the ship reached Herjulfsfjord, the most southern of the Greenland settlements, where Thorbjörn and his daughter were hospitably received by a settler named Thorkel, and passed a winter in his house.

When the summer arrived Thorbjörn got his ship ready, and sailed away with Gudrid until they came to Brattahlid. They were received with open arms by Red Erik and his family, and Erik gave Thorbjörn land on Stokkaness, where a good farmstead was established. Gudrid was married to Thorstein, the eldest son of Erik the Red, and they went to live at a farm called Lysefjord. But Thorstein died, and was soon followed by Thorbjörn. So Gudrid became a great heiress, and Erik took her to his home at Brattahlid, and treated her as his own daughter.

It was the union of the young widow with Thorfin Karlsefni, a young Icelandic chief of noble lineage, descended from the renowned Ragnar Lodbrog, which led to the discovery of America. One summer Karlsefni fitted out his ship in Iceland, taking with him a follower named Snorri Thorbrandsson and a crew of 40 men. At the same time two men named Bjarni and Thorhall fitted out another ship. The two ships put to sea together, with the intention of sailing to Greenland. They arrived at Brattahlid in the autumn and began to do a goodly trade with Red Erik. Thorfin Karlsefni and his comrades were invited to pass the winter there, and before the winter was over he and Gudrid were united in marriage.

Then there was mooted the project that Vinland, discovered some years before by Leif, should be explored and settled. Thorfin Karlsefni and his friend Snorri fitted out their ship for the adventurous voyage and Bjarni Grimolfson and Thorhall also joined with their ship. Thorhall had long served Red Erik as his huntsman. He was a man of great strength and gigantic stature. Erik’s third son Thorwald accompanied him. There was a third ship, the one in which Thorbjörn and Gudrid had arrived in Greenland. Freidis, the natural daughter of Erik, a proud and cruel woman, embarked in it with her husband Thorward. Gudrid accompanied her husband.

This fleet of three knorrs—vessels such as the one found at Gokstad—sailed for the land we now call America. Karlsefni first steered northwards along the West Bygd to get clear of the southern ice, and then stood across the strait to the barren coast on the western side for two days. Karlsefni landed in his boat, and finding large flat stones (hellur) on the beach, called that country Helluland. Sailing southward they next came to a country where there were great woods and it was named Markland or the forest land (Labrador). Then they sailed for many days, rounding a cape where they found the keel of a ship and so named it Keel-ness. The long coast-line on the starboard side received the name of Furdustrandir or Wonder Strand. At length Karlsefni anchored in a bay where they found berries and self-sown wheat. It was the Vinland of Leif. There was a strong current, so they called an island in the bay Straumsey and the bay Straumfjord. They landed their goods, and the live-stock included cattle. Here Thorhall the hunter appears to have mutinied, and to have sailed away in one of the ships with nine men. The story says that he reached Ireland, where he and his companions were maltreated and enslaved. After the winter Karlsefni sailed southward and came to a small land-locked bay, called Hop. Here he built huts on the banks of a lake.

Karlsefni had discovered America. His first land was what is now called Baffin Land, his next the coast of Labrador, and the Vinland of Leif is the east coast of Newfoundland. The Norsemen gave the name of Skrælings to the natives they met with. They had several encounters with them, in one of which Thorwald, the son of Erik, was killed by a “one footer” (Einfœtingr).

The furthest southern point reached by Karlsefni is a question of great interest. In the Flatey book Leif is made to say that on the shortest day the sun was above the horizon from Eyktarstad to Dagmalastad. We thus obtain rough data for ascertaining the latitude of Vinland. The Icelanders ascertained the various times of the day by selecting conspicuous marks round their houses, and noting the course of the sun with relation to them. Names were given to the positions the sun occupied at certain times of the day, and the Norsemen were thus, from long practice, very accurate in assigning the points of the compass at which the sun rose or set. The Eyktarstad is clearly defined in an ancient Icelandic book called Kristinretter. If the S.W. octant be divided into thirds, the S.W. point being in the centre, it is Eyktarstad when the sun has traversed two-thirds. This gives the amplitude of the sun, when it set on the shortest day at Vinland, W. 37 degrees 30′ S. The sun’s declination in A.D. 1005 was 23 degrees 34′ 30″ N. With these data we find the latitude of the point of observation on Vinland to have been a little south of 49 degrees S., which would be in Bona Vista Bay, on the east coast of Newfoundland14.

Karlsefni passed three winters in Vinland and here, in the year 1007, his wife Gudrid bore him a son who was named Snorri. From this American-born child was descended the Lagman Hauk, the author of the Hauk book, and many Danish families, including that of Thorwaldsen, the famous sculptor. After the third winter Karlsefni and his followers sailed away from Vinland on their return.

The ship of Bjarni was driven out to sea in a gale, and all perished except one boat’s crew which is said to have reached Dublin. When the ship began to sink it was found that the boat would only hold half the crew. So they cast lots, and it fell to the lot of Bjarni to go in the boat. When the lucky ones were all in the boat, an Icelandic youth, who was left in the ship, cried out “Dost thou intend, Bjarni, to forsake me?” “It must be even so,” answered Bjarni. “Not such was the promise thou gavest my father,” replied the youth. “So be it, it shall not rest thus,” answered Bjarni. “Do thou come hither and I will go to the ship, for I can see thou art eager for thy life.” So he went on board again and the youth got into the boat.

Karlsefni and Gudrid, with their little son, arrived safely in Greenland, and remained at Brattahlid during the following winter, with Erik and his son Leif. Then they sailed to Iceland and lived to a good old age at Reynistadr in the north, a little south of Skaga-fjord. Their son Snorri succeeded them, and, as has been already said, was the ancestor of many great people in Iceland and Denmark15.

In the fulness of time old Erik the Red died at Brattahlid, and was succeeded by his son Leif. He died in 1021 A.D. Then Thorgils, Leif’s son by Thorgunna of the Hebrides, took his place as owner of Brattahlid and chief of the Greenland settlers. Later, in the same century, we hear of Skald Helga being Lagmand of Greenland. The colony throve and was prosperous. Settlements, called the West Bygd, were formed to the northward as far as the island of Disco. Several churches were built of stone at the settlements on the deep fjords of the East Bygd. There was an Augustinian monastery of St Olaus at the head of Ketil-fjord, and churches of St Nicholas and of Hoalsey in Hoalseyfjord. Ruins of the latter are still standing at a place now called Kakortak, near Julianshaab. The walls are of large and partly-hewn stones, with four rectangular window openings and two doorways. The chief entrance was at the west end, with a large window above it. There are small niches in the interior walls. The church is 51 feet long by 25, the walls 4 feet thick, and their height 22 feet16. Opposite to Brattahlid, up Einarsfjord, was the cathedral church of Gardar, the see of a bishopric. The first bishop of Greenland, named Adalbert, was consecrated in 1055 A.D.

The 11th century was a period of activity for the Greenland colony. There was communication between Iceland and Norway and the colony, and we are told that Thorgrim Troble, the head man in Einarsfjord, went to Norway and even to England, bringing back beautiful clothes. In the next century, 1121, Bishop Erik is said to have made a voyage to Vinland, and in 1124 Bishop Arnold was consecrated by the Archbishop of Lund, and arrived at Gardar. The Greenland settlers had cattle, horses, and sheep, which were all stalled during the winter. The churches and the foundations of the houses were of stone, but timber was in great demand forhouses and outhouses. There must have been voyages to cut wood in Markland and on the Wonder Strands, to supplement the supply of drift wood17. We have few notices of these voyages, however. The ancient annals of Greenland are scanty. But we may be quite sure that, with stalwart arm and poetic brain, these Norsemen did what they had to do with all their might. Our chief concern is with the Arctic discoveries away to the north of the West Bygd. The most northern station for a long time was in Disco Bay, at a place called Greipar. The name for the most northern district was Nordsetur. The fisheries were carried on with great activity. It is certain that, later, there was a station at a place now called Kingiktorsuak in 72° 55′ N., for the following runic inscription was found there in 1834:—

Thence these gallant explorers, or others, pushed still further north through the ice floes, and formed a station which was probably in what is now called Wolstenholme Sound, a little north of Cape York. It was called Kroksfjordar Heidi or “The heights of the winding fjord.”

Thirty years after the bold adventurers Erling, Bjarni, and Eindrid had set up their stones in 72° 55′ N., an Arctic expedition started from Kroksfjord, of which an account is given by a priest in Greenland named Hallder, in a letter to his friend Arnold, who had also been in Greenland but was then, in 1266, court chaplain to Magnus Lagaboeter, King of Norway. The notice of the letter in the Hauk book is so important with reference to the Arctic discoveries of the Norsemen, that we must consider it verbatim.

“This account was written by Priest Hallder from Greenland to the Priest Arnold who was then King Magnus Lagaboeter’s chaplain. He was in the ship that brought Bishop Olaf to Greenland19, and they suffered shipwreck off Iceland, and found in the sea some planks which had been hewn with small adzes, and among them there was one in which tools still remained. This summer came people who had travelled further north than any one until that time of whom accounts had been reported. They found no signs but of Skrællings who had once resided at the Kroksfjord, and the people thought it might be the shortest way. Therefore the priests sent a ship north of the farthest inhabitable district that had yet been reached. They sailed away from Kroksfjord, and they were out of sight of land. Then there came a south wind with thick weather, and they let the ship go before the wind. The storm ceased and it again became light and they saw many islands, and different kinds of game, both seals and whales, and great numbers of bears. They came right into the bay, and the whole coast came in sight, as well as the south coast with glaciers, and south of them there were also glaciers as far as they could see. There were signs that Skrællingers had, in bygone times, lived in these places; but they could not land because of the bears. They sailed back for three days and found relics of Skrællingers. Then they came to some islands south of Snaefell. They sailed thence south to Kroksfjord, a long day’s rowing. On Jacob’s mass day20 it froze at night, but the sun shone both day and night, and was not higher at noon than in the south, so that if a man lay across a six-oared boat, stretched out under the gunwale, the shadow from the side nearest the sun fell on his face, but at midnight the sun was as high as it is at home in the settlement when it is in the N.W. They then sailed home to Gardar.”

The day of the summer solstice is implied as the time of this observation. Proceeding upon this assumption Professor Rafn21 calculated that, in the 13th century, on the 25th of July, the sun’s declination was 17° 54′ N., and the inclination of the ecliptic 23° 32′. Gardar was in 60° 55′ N. At the summer solstice, the height of the sun there, when in the N.W., was 3° 40′, equivalent to the midnight altitude of the sun on St James’s day (July 25th) in latitude 75° 46′, which is the latitude of Cape York.

The Norse explorers, starting from Kroksfjord (Wolstenholme Sound) sailed into the north water of Baffin’s Bay. They then went northwards from about 76° for three doeg, 108 miles each doeg. This brought them some distance up Smith Sound, beyond 80°. They saw many islands and glaciers and then returned southward for three doeg, coming to some islands, possibly the Cary Islands. Thence a long day’s pull brought them to Kroksfjord. Seven hundred years afterwards, a lofty cairn, built by unknown hands, was found on Washington Irving Island in Smith Sound.

It is not to be supposed that this was the only voyage of the kind that was undertaken by the Norsemen because it is the only one of which any record has reached us. These enterprises must surely have constantly succeeded one another, with a view to discovering fresh fishing grounds. They must have been more or less continuous for two centuries at least.

At its most flourishing time the Norse colony in Greenland numbered about 2000 souls in 280 homesteads. There were 12 churches in the East Bygd (the ruins of five have been found), and four in the West Bygd, and one monastery. But at the end of the 13th century the prosperity of the colony began to wane. Its existence depended upon annual intercourse with Norway, and communication began to be more and more irregular. There is a list of Bishops, but latterly few appear to have visited their See. In 1341 a bailiff of the bishopric named Ivar Bardsen was sent to Greenland to report upon the state of affairs. He found the West Bygd deserted. Ivar Bardsen made a valuable report, describing the topography of the East Bygd settlements in detail, and giving 54 place names22. In 1347 a Greenland ship arrived in Iceland with 18 men on board. She had been to Markland to cut wood, and had been driven out of her course by a storm23. In the same year King Magnus of Norway and Queen Blanche left 100 marks to Gardar Cathedral. But two years later the Black Death decimated the Norwegians, and soon afterwards all intercourse with Greenland ceased. Norway was a province of Denmark for more than four centuries.

The fate of the Greenland colony has been variously explained; by a change in the climate, by the Black Death, or by the attacks of an army of Eskimos. But the climate is exactly the same now as it was then, the Black Death broke out in Norway after intercourse ceased, and the Eskimos had always been living with the Norsemen, having been in Greenland many centuries before the Norsemen came. Moreover, the Eskimos could not assemble and attack in large numbers24.

The disappearance of the colony after a lapse of two centuries is fully accounted for by the neglect of the Norwegians to send ships. The colony could not exist without that help. Those settlers who remained gradually died off, the survivors merging in the Eskimo population.

The vestiges confirm the narratives of the Sagas. There are the stone church at Kakortak, the foundations of churches and homesteads, the bones of oxen and goats in the refuse heaps. Two grave-stones have also been found. One marked the place where the body of Hroaldr Kolgrimsson rested. It was found in 1831, two miles north of Frederiksthal. The other is a stone with a runic inscription, found nine miles from Julianshaab in 1830:—

The history of the first period of Arctic discovery was thus closed in mystery. Vigdis, daughter of Greenland, seems to speak to us across the centuries. Her people achieved a great work:—the coast of Finmarken to the White Sea discovered; then Iceland, and finally the whole west coast of Greenland from Cape Farewell to Smith Sound, Baffin Land, Labrador, and Newfoundland. We see in the qualities of these Norsemen all that is required for the completion of the great work—energy, indomitable perseverance, and dauntless courage combined with practical enthusiasm. Such qualities were needed and were not wanting to achieve the glorious work done by the Norsemen. Such qualities were needed and have not been wanting in the English race—which received a large strain of Norman blood, and produced the chief Arctic explorers of modern times—to complete what was so well begun in those far-off days of old.