Chapter VII: The Voyages of the Norsemen: Discovery of Iceland and Greenland (1)

SHIPBUILDING

The discovery of the Faroes and Iceland by the Celts and the Irish monks, and their settlement there, give evidence of a high degree of intrepidity; since their fragile boats were not adapted to long voyages in the open sea, to say nothing of carrying cargoes and keeping up any regular communication. Nor did they, in fact, make any further progress; and neither the Irish nor the Celts of the British Isles as a whole ever became a seafaring people. It was the Scandinavians, and especially the Norwegians, who were the pioneers at sea; who developed an improved style of shipbuilding, and who, with their comparatively good and seaworthy craft, were soon to traverse all the northern waters and open up a prospect into a new world, whereby the geographical ideas of the times should undergo a complete transformation. It has been asserted that the Phœnicians in their day ventured out into the open ocean far from land; but this lacks proof and is improbable. The Norwegians are the first people in history who definitely abandoned the coast-sailing universally practised before their time, and who took navigation away from the coasts and out on to the ocean. From them other people have since learnt.

First they crossed the North Sea and sailed constantly to Shetland, the Orkneys, North Britain and Ireland; then to the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland, and at last they steered straight across the Atlantic itself, and thereby discovered North America. We do not know how early the passage of the North Sea originated; but probably, as we have seen, it was before the time of Pytheas and much earlier than usually supposed. J. E. Sars [1877, i. (2nd ed.), p. 191] concluded on other grounds that it was at a very remote period, and long before the Viking age.

[Sidenote: The First Viking Expeditions]

[Sidenote: Earliest navigation of the Scandinavians]

The beginning of the more important Viking expeditions is usually referred to the end of the eighth century, or, indeed, to a particular year, 793. But we may conclude from historical sources[217] that as early as the sixth century Viking voyages certainly took place over the North Sea from Denmark to the land of the Franks, and doubtless also to southern Britain,[218] and perhaps by the beginning of the seventh century the Norwegians had established themselves in Shetland and even plundered the Hebrides and the north-west of Ireland (in 612).[219] We know further from historical sources that as early as the third century and until the close of the fifth century the roving Eruli sailed from Scandinavia, sometimes in company with Saxon pirates, over the seas of Western Europe, ravaging the coasts of Gaul and Spain, and indeed penetrating in 455 into the Mediterranean as far as Lucca in Italy.[220] From these historical facts we are able to conclude that long before that time there had been intercommunication by sea between the countries of Northern Europe. Scandinavia, and especially Norway, was in those days very sparsely inhabited, and all development of culture that was not due to direct influence from without must have taken place with extreme slowness at such an early period of history, even where intercourse was more active than in the North. As we are not acquainted with any other European people who at that time possessed anything like the necessary skill in navigation to have been the instructors of the Scandinavians, we are forced to suppose that it was after centuries of gradual training and development in seamanship that the latter attained the superiority at sea which they held at the beginning of the Viking age, when they took large fleets over the North Sea and the Arctic Ocean as though these were their home waters. When we further consider how, since that time, the type of ships, rigging and sails has persisted almost without a change for eleven hundred years, to the ten-oared and eight-oared boats of our own day--which until a few years ago were the almost universal form of boat in the whole of northern Norway--it will appear improbable that the type of ship and the corresponding skill in seamanship required a much shorter time for their development.[221]

[Sidenote: The Ships of the rock-carvings]

The first literary mention of the Scandinavians' boats occurs in Tacitus, who speaks of the fleets and rowing-boats without sails of the Suiones (see above, p. 110). But long before that time we find ships commonly represented on the rock-carvings which are especially frequent in Bohuslen and in the districts east of Christiania Fjord. If these were naturalistic representations they would give us valuable information about the form and size of the ships of those remote times. But the distinct and characteristic features which are common to all these pictures of ships, from Bohuslen to as far north as Beitstaden, show them to be conventional figures, and we cannot therefore draw any certain conclusions from them with regard to the appearance of the ships.

Dr. Andr. M. Hansen [1908], with his usual imaginativeness, has
pointed out the resemblance between the rock-carvings and the
vase-paintings of the Dipylon period in Attica, and thinks there is a
direct connection between them. It appears highly probable that the
style of the rock-carvings is not a wholly native northern art, but is
due more or less to influence from the countries of the Mediterranean
or the East, in the same way as we have seen that the burial customs
(dolmens, chambered barrows, etc.) came from these. Dr. Hansen has,
however, exaggerated the resemblance between the Dipylon art and the
rock-carvings; many of the resemblances are clearly due to the fact
that the same subjects are represented (e.g., spear-throwing,
fighting with raised weapons, rowers, horsemen, chariots, etc.); it
may also be mentioned that such signs as the wheel or the solar symbol
(the eye) are common to wide regions of culture. On the other hand,
there are differences in other important features; thus, the mode of
representing human beings is not the same, as asserted by Hansen; the
characteristic "Egyptian" style of the men depicted in the Dipylon
art, with broad, rectangular shoulders and narrow waists, is just what
one does not find in the rock-carvings, where on the contrary men are
depicted in the more naturalistic style which one recognises among
many other peoples in a savage state of culture. Hansen also lays
stress upon resemblances to figures from Italy. But what most
interests us here is the number of representations of ships in the
rock-carvings, which for the most part show a remarkable uniformity as
regards their essential features, while they differ from all pictures
of ships, not only in the art of the Dipylon and of the Mediterranean
generally, but also in that of Egypt and Assyria-Babylonia. The boats
or ships depicted in the rock-carvings are so strange-looking that
doubts have been expressed whether they are boats or ships at all, or
whether it is not something else that is intended, sledges, for
instance. There is no indication of the oars, which are so
characteristic of all delineations of ships in Greece, Italy, Egypt
and Assyria; nor is there any certain indication of sails or rudders,
which are also characteristic of southern art. Moreover, the lowest
line, which should answer to the keel, is often separated at both ends
from the upper line, which should be the top strake. On the other hand
the numerous figures in the "boats" can with difficulty be regarded as
anything but men, and most probably rowers, sometimes as many as fifty
in number, besides the unmistakable figures of men standing, some of
them armed; and it must be added that if these pictures represented
nothing but sledges, it is inconceivable that there should never be
any indication of draught animals. But one remarkable point about
these numerous carvings is the typical form both of the prow and of
the stern-post. With comparatively few exceptions the prow has two
turned-up beaks, which are difficult to understand. It has been
attempted to explain one of these as an imitation of the rams of Greek
and Phœnician warships; but in that case it ought to be directed
forward and not bent up. The shape of the stern-post is also curious:
for what one must regard as the keel of the ship has in all these
representations a blunt after end, curiously like a sledge-runner;
while the upper line of the ship, which should correspond to the top
strake, is bent upward and frequently somewhat forward, in a more or
less even curve, sometimes ending in a two- or three-leaved ornament,
somewhat like the stern-post of Egyptian ships (see p. 23). This mode
of delineation became so uniformly fixed that besides occurring in
almost all the rock-carvings it appears again in an even more
carefully executed form in the knives of the later Bronze Age. Such a
type of ship, with a keel ending bluntly aft, is not known in ancient
times in Europe, either in the Mediterranean or in the North.[222]
Egyptian, Assyro-Phœnician, Greek and Roman representations of ships
(see pp. 7, 23, 35, 48, 241, 242), all show a keel which bends up to
form a continuously curved stern-post; and both the Nydam boat from
Sleswick (p. 110) and the Norwegian Viking ships that have been
discovered agree in having a similar turned-up stern-post, which forms
a continuous curve from the keel itself (pp. 246, 247); it is the same
with delineations of the later Iron Age (p. 243). Even Tacitus
expressly says that the ships of the Suiones were alike fore and aft.
The only similar stern-posts to be found are possibly the abruptly
ending ones of the ship and boats on the grave-stone from Novilara in
Italy; but here the prows are quite unlike those of the rock-carvings.

As therefore this representation of the ship's stern-post does not
correspond to any known type of ancient boat or ship, as it is also
difficult to understand how the people of the rock-carvings came to
represent a boat with two upturned prows, and as further there is a
striking similarity between the lowest line of the keel and a
sledge-runner, one might be tempted to believe that by an association
of ideas these delineations have become a combination of ship and
sledge. These rock-carvings may originally have been connected with
burials, and the ship, which was to bear the dead, may have been
imagined as gliding on the water, on ice, or through the air, to the
realms of the departed, and thus unconsciously the keel may have been
given the form of a runner. It may be mentioned as a parallel that in
the "kennings" of the far later poetry of the Skalds a ship is called,
for instance, the "ski" of the sea, or, vice versa, a ski or sledge
may be called the ship of the snow. The sledge was moreover the
earliest form of contrivance for transport. In this connection there
may also be a certain interest in the fact that in Egypt the mummies
of royal personages were borne to the grave in funereal boats upon
sledges. That the rock-carvings were originally associated with
burials may also be indicated by the fact that the carved stones of
the Iron Age, which in a way took the place of the rock-carvings,
frequently represent the dead in boats on their way to the underworld
or the world beyond the grave (see illustration, p. 243). That ships
played a prominent part in connection with the dead appears also from
the remarkable burial-places formed by stones set up in the form of a
ship, the so-called ship-settings, in Sweden and the Baltic provinces,
as well as in Denmark and North Germany. These belong to the early
Iron Age. The usual burial in a ship covered by a mound, in the later
Iron Age, is well known. We seem thus to be able to trace a certain
continuity in these customs. A certain continuity even in the
representation of ships may also be indicated by the striking
resemblance that exists between the two- or three-leaved, lily-like
prow ornament on the rock-carvings, on the knives of the later Bronze
Age, on the grave-stone of Novilara, and on such late representations
as some of the ships of the Bayeux tapestry. The upturned prows of the
ships of the rock-carvings also frequently end in spirals like the
stern-post on the stone at Stenkyrka in Gotland (p. 243), and both
prows and stern on other stones of the later Iron Age from Gotland.

All are agreed in referring the rock-carvings to the Bronze Age; but while O. Montelius, for example, puts certain of them as early as between 1450 and 1250 B.C., A. M. Hansen has sought to bring them down to as late as 500 B.C. In any case they belong to a period that is long anterior to the beginning of history in the North. From whence and by what route this art came it is difficult to say. Along the same line of coasts by which the megalithic graves, dolmens and chambered barrows made their way from the Mediterranean to the North (see p. 22) rock-carvings are also to be found scattered through North Africa, Italy (the Alps), Southern France, Spain, Portugal, Brittany, England, Ireland and Scotland. It may be reasonable to suppose that this practice of engraving figures on stone came first from Egypt at the close of the Stone Age; but the rock-carvings of the west coast of Europe and of the British Isles are distinct in their whole character from those of Scandinavia, and do not contain representations of ships[223] and men, which are such prominent features of the latter; but common to both are the characteristic cup-markings, besides the wheel, or solar signs (with a cross), foot-soles, and also spirals. There may thus be a connection, but we must suppose that the rock-carvings underwent an independent development in Scandinavia (like the Bronze Age culture as a whole)--if it could not be explained by an eastern communication with the south through Russia, which however is not probable--and as the representation of ships came to be so common, we must conclude it to be here connected with a people of strong seafaring tendencies. Since the ships depicted on the rock-carvings cannot, so far as we know at present, have been direct imitations of delineations of ships derived from abroad--even though they may be connected with forms of religion and burial customs that were more or less imported--we are, as yet at least, bound to believe that the people who made the rock-carvings had boats or ships which furnished the models for their conventional representations. And when we see that these people went to work to engrave on the rocks pictures of ships which are fifteen feet in length, and have as many as fifty rowers,[224] we are bound to believe that in any case they were able to imagine ships of this size. It is also remarkable that rock-carvings are most numerous precisely in those districts, Viken and Bohuslen, where we may expect that the seamanship of the Scandinavians first attained a higher degree of perfection if it was first imported from the south-east. With this would also agree Professor Montelius's theory: that at a very much earlier time, about the close of the Stone Age, direct communication already existed between the west coast of Sweden and Britain, which he concludes from remarkable points of correspondence in stone cists with a hole at the end, and other features.

[Sidenote: The earliest boats of Northern Europe]

It is difficult to say how the Scandinavians at the outset arrived at their boats and ships, such as we know them from the boats found at Nydam in Sleswick and the Viking ships discovered in Norwegian burial-mounds. They are of the same type that in Norway, in the districts of Sunnmör and Nordland, has persisted to our time, and they show a mastery both in their lines and in their workmanship that must have required a long period for its development. From the accounts of many contemporaries, as well as from archæological finds, we know that even so late as the first and second centuries A.D. large canoes, made of dug-out tree trunks, were in common use on the north coast of Germany between the Elbe and the Rhine, and there can be no doubt that this was the original form of boat in the north and west of Central Europe. In England similar canoes made of the dug-out trunks of oaks have been found with a length of as much as forty-eight feet; they have also been found in Scotland, in Bremen and in Sleswick-Holstein (in many cases over thirty-eight feet long), with holes for oars. It is related of the Saxons north of the Elbe, who at an early period made piratical raids on coasts to the south of them, that they sailed in small boats made of wicker-work, with an oaken keel and covered with hides. Besides these they clearly had dug-out canoes; but in the third century A.D. it is recorded that they built ships on the Roman model. The only people north of the Mediterranean of whom we know with certainty that they had their own well-developed methods of shipbuilding are, as already mentioned (p. 39), the Veneti at the mouth of the Loire, whose powerful and seaworthy ships of oak are described by Cæsar. That the Scandinavians should have derived their methods from them cannot be regarded as probable, unless it can be proved that the intervening peoples possessed something more than primitive canoes and coracles. We must therefore believe, either that the Scandinavians developed their methods of shipbuilding quite independently, or that they had communication with the Mediterranean by some other route than the sea. Now in many important features there is such a great resemblance between the Norwegian Viking ships and pictorial representations of Greek ships, and of even earlier Egyptian and Assyrian ships, that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that some connection must have existed. For instance, the resemblance between the strikingly lofty prows and stern-posts, sometimes bent back, with characteristic ornamentation, and animal heads, which are already to be found in Egyptian and Assyrian representations, cannot be explained offhand as coincidences occurring in types independently developed. They are decorations, and cannot have contributed to the seaworthiness of the boats or had any practical purpose, unless the animal heads were intended to frighten enemies (?). It is true that lofty and remarkable prows are to be found in boats from such a widely separated region of culture as Polynesia; but in the first place it is not impossible that here too there may be a distant connection with the Orient, and in the second, the Mediterranean and Scandinavian forms of ship are so characteristic, compared with those of other parts of the world, that we necessarily place them apart as belonging to a distinct sphere of culture. Another characteristic of these boats and ships is the oars with rowlocks (open or closed), instead of paddles. The rudder of the Viking ship (see illustrations, pp. 246, 247, 248, 250) is also in appearance and mode of use so remarkably like the Egyptian rudder of as early as circa 1600 B.C. (see illustrations, pp. 7, 23), and the Greek (p. 48),[225] that it is not easy to believe that this, together with all the other resemblances, were independent discoveries of the North. The square sail and mast of the Scandinavian boat also closely resemble those of Egyptian, Phœnician, Greek and Italian ships as depicted.

It may be supposed that the communication which originally produced these resemblances did not take place by the sea-route, round the coasts of western Europe, but overland between the Black Sea and the Baltic. It is thus possible that the Scandinavian type of boat first began to be developed in the closed waters of the Baltic. It is here too that the boats of the Scandinavians (Suiones) are first mentioned in literature by Tacitus, and it is here that the earliest known boats of Scandinavian type have been found; these are the three remarkable boats of about the third century A.D. which were discovered at Nydam, near Flensburg. The best preserved of them (p. 110) is of oak, about seventy-eight feet long, with fourteen oars on each side, and it carried a crew of about forty men. The boats terminated in exactly the same way fore and aft, agreeing with what Tacitus says of the boats of the Suiones; and they could be rowed in both directions. They had rowlocks with oar-grummets like those in use on the west coast and in the northern part of Norway. There is no indication of the boats having had masts and sails, which also agrees with Tacitus. There can be no doubt that we have here the typical Scandinavian form of boat, with such fine lines and such excellent workmanship that it can only be due to an ancient culture the development of which had extended over many centuries.

From the Baltic this form of boat may have spread to Norway, where it gradually attained its greatest perfection; and it is worth remarking that in that very district where the Baltic type of boat derived from the south-east reached a coast with superior harbours, richer fisheries, and better opportunities for longer sea voyages, namely, in Bohuslen and Viken, we find also the greater number of rock-carvings with representations of ships. It is moreover a question whether the very name of "Vikings" is not connected with this district, and did not originally mean men from Viken, Vikværings; as they were specially prominent, the name finally became a common designation for all Scandinavians, as had formerly been the case with the names Eruli, Saxons, Danes.[226] In the course of their voyages towards the south-west the Scandinavians may also have met very early with ships from the Mediterranean, which, for instance, were engaged in the tin trade with the south of England, or may even have reached the amber coast, and thus fresh influence from the Mediterranean may have been added. When we see how in the fifth century roving Eruli reached as far as Italy in their ships, this will not appear impossible; and if there is any contrivance that we should expect to show a certain community of character over a wide area, it is surely the ship or boat.

Tacitus says that the fleets of the Suiones consisted of row-boats without sails. It is difficult to contest the accuracy of so definite a statement, especially as it is supported by the Nydam find, and by the circumstance that the Anglo-Saxons appear to have crossed the sea to Britain in nothing but row-boats; but Tacitus is speaking of warships in particular, and it is impossible that sails should not have been known and used in Scandinavia, and especially in Norway, at that time. There are possibly indications of sails even in the rock-carvings (see the first example in illustration, p. 236), and in the ornaments on the knives of the Bronze Age (see illustration, p. 238). In the case of a people whose lot it was to live to so great an extent on and by the sea, it is scarcely to be supposed that any very long time should elapse before they thought of making use of the wind, even if they did not originally derive the invention of sails from the Mediterranean.

Just as the Phœnicians and the Greeks had swift-sailing longships for war and piracy, and other, broader sailing-ships for trade (see p. 48), so also did the Scandinavians gradually develop two kinds of craft: the swift longships, and the broader and heavier trading-vessels, called "bosses" and "knars."

[Sidenote: Shipbuilding in Norway]

But even if northern shipbuilding exhibits a connection with that of the Mediterranean, and thus was no more spontaneous in its growth than any other form of culture in the world, the type of ship produced by the Scandinavians was nevertheless undoubtedly superior to all that had preceded it, just as they themselves were incontestably the most skilful seamen of their time. The perfection and refinement of form, with fine lines, which we find in the three preserved boats from Nydam, and in the three ships of the beginning of the Viking age, or about the year 800, give evidence in each case of centuries of culture in this province; and when we see the richness of workmanship expended on the Oseberg ship and all the utensils that were found with it, we understand that it was no upstart race that produced all this, but a people that may well have sailed the North Sea even a thousand years earlier, in the time of Pytheas.

The immigration to Norway of many tribes may itself have taken place by sea. Thus the Horder and Ryger are certainly the same tribes as the "Harudes" (the "Charudes" of the emperor Augustus and of Ptolemy), dwelling in Jutland and on the Rhine (cf. Cæsar), and the "Rugii" west of the Vistula on the south coast of the Baltic (from whom possibly Rügen takes its name).[227] They came by the sea route to western Norway straight from Jutland and North Germany, and there must thus have been communication between these countries at that time; but how early we do not know; it may have been at the beginning of our era, and it may have been earlier.[228] But the fact that whole tribes were able to make so long a migration by sea indicates in any case a high development of navigation, and again it is on the Baltic that we first find it.

The shipbuilding and seamanship of the Norwegians mark a new epoch in the history both of navigation and discovery, and with their voyages the knowledge of northern lands and waters was at once completely changed. As previously pointed out (p. 170), we notice this change of period already in Ottar's communications to King Alfred, but their explorations of land and sea begin more particularly with the colonisation of Iceland, which in its turn became the starting-point for expeditions farther west.

We find accounts of these voyages of discovery in the old writings and sagas, a large part of which was put into writing in Iceland. A sombre undercurrent runs through these narratives of voyages in unknown seas; even though they may be partly legendary, they nevertheless bear witness in their terseness to the silent struggle of hardy men with ice, storms, cold and want, in the light summer and long, dark winter of the North.

[Sidenote: The Norwegians' appliances for navigation]

They had neither compass, nor astronomical instruments, nor any of the appliances of our time for finding their position at sea; they could only sail by the sun, moon and stars, and it seems incomprehensible how for days and weeks, when these were invisible, they were able to find their course through fog and bad weather; but they found it, and the open craft of the Norwegian Vikings, with their square sails, fared north and west over the whole ocean, from Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen to Greenland, Baffin's Bay, Newfoundland and North America, and over these lands and seas the Norsemen extended their dominion. It was not till five hundred years later that the ships of other nations were to make their way to the same regions.

The lodestone, or compass, did not reach the Norwegians till the thirteenth century.[229] As to what means they had before that time for finding their course at sea, Norse-Icelandic literature contains extremely scanty statements. We see that to them, as to the Phœnicians before them, the pole-star was the lodestar, and that they sometimes used birds--ravens--to find out the direction of land; but we also hear that when they met with fog or cloudy weather they drifted without knowing where they were, and sometimes went in the opposite direction to that they expected, as in Thorstein Ericson's attempt to make Wineland from Greenland, where they arrived off Iceland instead of off America. Even when after a long period of dull weather they saw the sun again, it could not help them to determine their direction at all accurately, unless they knew the approximate time of day; but their sense of time was certainly far keener than ours, which has been blunted by the use of clocks. Several accounts show that on land the Scandinavians knew how to observe the sun accurately, in what quarter and at what time it set, how long the day or the night lasted at the summer or winter solstice, etc. From this they formed an idea of their northern latitude. Amongst other works a treatise of the close of the thirteenth century or later included in the fourth part of the collection "Rymbegla" [1780, pp. 472 ff.] shows that they may even have understood how to take primitive measurements of the sun's altitude at noon with a kind of quadrant. But they can scarcely have been able to take observations of this kind on board ship during their long voyages in early times, and they still less understood how to compute the latitude from such measurements except perhaps at the equinoxes and solstices. It is true that from the narrative, to be mentioned later, of a voyage in the north of Baffin's Bay, about 1267, it appears that at sea also they attempted to get an idea of the sun's altitude by observing where the shadow of the gunwale, on the side nearest the sun, fell on a man lying athwartships when the sun was in the south. With all its imperfection this shows that at least they observed the sun's altitude.[230] In order to form some idea of their western or eastern longitude they cannot have had any other means than reckoning; and so long as the sun and stars were visible, and they knew in what direction they were sailing, they undoubtedly had great skill in reckoning this. In thick weather they could still manage so long as the wind held unaltered; but they could not know when it changed; they were then obliged to judge from such signs as birds, of what country they were, and in what direction they flew; we hear occasionally that they had birds from Ireland, or from Iceland, and so on. The difference in the fauna of birds might give them information. In their sailing directions it is also stated that they observed the whale; thus in the Landnámabók (Hauksbók) we read that when sailing from Norway to Greenland one should keep far enough to the south of Iceland to have birds and whales from thence. This is more difficult to understand, as the whale is not confined to the land, and the same whales are found in various parts of the northern seas. But drift-ice or ice-bergs, if they met them, might serve to show their direction, as might occasionally driftwood or floating seaweed. The colour of the sea may certainly have been of importance to such keen observers, even though we hear nothing of it; it cannot have escaped them, for instance, that the water of the Gulf Stream was of a purer blue than the rather greenish-brown water of the coastal current near Norway and in the North Sea, or in the East Iceland Polar Current; the difference between the water of the East Greenland Polar Current and in the Atlantic is also striking. It may likewise be supposed that men who were dependent to such a degree on observing every sign may have remarked the distribution in the ocean of so striking a creature as the great red jelly-fish. If so, it may often have given them valuable information of their approximate position. They used the lead, as appears, amongst other authorities, from the "Historia Norwegiæ," where we read that Ingolf and Hjorleif found Iceland "by probing the waves with the lead."

But that it was not always easy to find their course is shown, amongst other instances, by the account of Eric the Red's settlement in Greenland, when twenty-five ships left Iceland, but only fourteen are said to have arrived. Here, as elsewhere, it was the more capable commanders who came through.

THE NORWEGIAN SETTLEMENT IN ICELAND

[Sidenote: Oldest authorities]

The island of Iceland is mentioned, as we have seen, for the first time in literature by Dicuil, in 825, who calls it Thyle and speaks of its discovery by the Irish. As he says nothing about "Nortmannic" pirates having arrived there, whereas he mentions their having expelled the Irish monks from the Faroes, we may conclude that the Norsemen had not yet reached Iceland at that time. The first certain mention of the name Iceland is in the German poem "Meregarto" (see p. 181),[231] and in Adam of Bremen, where we find the first description of the island derived from a Scandinavian source (see p. 193).

Narratives of its discovery by the Norsemen and of their first settlement there are to be found in Norse-Icelandic literature; but they were written down 250 or 300 years after the events. These narratives of the first discoverers mentioned by name and their deeds, which were handed down by tradition for so long a time, can therefore scarcely be regarded as more than legendary; nevertheless they may give us a picture in broad outlines of how voyages of discovery were accomplished in those times.

As the Norwegians visited the Scottish islands and Ireland many centuries before they discovered Iceland, it is highly probable that they had information from the Irish of this great island to the north-west; if so, it was natural that they should afterwards search for it, although according to most Norse-Icelandic accounts it is said to have been found accidentally by mariners driven out of their course.

[Sidenote: Are Frode on the settlement of Iceland]

According to the sagas a Norwegian Viking, Grim Kamban, had established himself in the Faroes (about 800 A.D.) and had expelled thence the Irish priests; but possibly there was a Celtic population, at any rate in the southern islands (cf. p. 164). After that time there was comparatively active communication between the islands and Norway, and it was on the way to the Faroes or to the Scottish islands that certain voyagers were said to have been driven northward by a storm to the great unknown island. The earliest and, without comparison, the most trustworthy authority, Are Frode,[232] gives in his "Íslendingabók" (of about 1120-1130) no information of any such discovery, and this fact does not tend to strengthen one's belief in it. Are tells us briefly and plainly:

"Iceland was first settled from Norway in the days of Harold Fairhair,
the son of Halfdan the Black; it was at that time--according to Teit,
Bishop Isleif's son, my foster-brother, the wisest man I have known,
and Thorkel Gellisson, my uncle, whose memory was long, and Thorid,
Snorre Gode's daughter, who was both exceeding wise and truthful--when
Ivar, Ragnar Lodbrok's son, caused St. Edmund, the king of the Angles
[i.e., the English king], to be slain. And that was 870 winters after
the birth of Christ, as it is written in his saga. Ingolf hight the
Norseman of whom it is truthfully related that he first fared thence
[from Norway] to Iceland, when Harold Fairhair was sixteen winters
old, and for the second time a few winters later; he settled south in
Reykjarvik; the place is called Ingolfshövde; Minthakseyre, where he
first came to land, but Ingolfsfell, west of Ölfosså, of which he
afterwards possessed himself. At that time Iceland was clothed with
forest [i.e., birch forest] from the mountains to the strand. There
were Christian men here, whom the Norsemen called 'Papar' ..." and who
were Irish, as already mentioned, pp. 165 f. "And then there was great
resort of men hither from Norway, until King Harold forbade it, since
he thought that the land [i.e., Norway] would be deserted," etc.

We may certainly assume that this description of Are's is at least as trustworthy as the later statements on the same subject; but as Are probably also wrote a larger Íslendingabók, which is now lost, there is a possibility that he there related the discovery of Iceland in greater detail, and that the later authors have drawn from it.

[Sidenote: Tjodrik Monk on the discovery of Iceland]

The next written account of the discovery of Iceland is found in the "Historia de Antiquitate regum Norwagiensium"[233] of the Norwegian monk Tjodrik (written about 1180), where we read:

"In Harold's ninth year--some think in his tenth--certain merchants
sailed to the islands which we call 'Phariæ' ['Færeyjar' == the
Faroes]; there they were attacked by tempest and wearied long and
sore, until at last they were driven by the sea to a far distant land,
which some think to have been the island of Thule; but I cannot either
confirm or deny this, as I do not know the true state of the matter.
They landed and wandered far and wide; but although they climbed
mountains, they nowhere found trace of human habitation. When they
returned to Norway they told of the country they had found and by
their praises incited many to seek it. Among them especially a chief
named Ingolf, from the district that is called Hordaland; he made
ready a ship, associated with himself his brother-in-law Hjorleif and
many others, and sought and found the country we speak of, and began
to settle it together with his companions, about the tenth year of
Harold's reign. This was the beginning of the settlement of that
country which we now call Iceland--unless we take into account that
certain persons, very few in number, from Ireland (that is, little
Britain) are believed to have been there in older times, to judge from
certain books and other articles that were found after them.
Nevertheless two others preceded Ingolf in this matter; the first was
named Garðar, after whom the land was at first called Garðarsholmr,
the second was named Floki. But what I have related may suffice
concerning this matter."

[Sidenote: "Historia Norwegiæ"]

It is probable that Tjodrik Monk was acquainted with Are Frode's Íslendingabók, or at least had sources connected with it. In the "Historia Norwegiæ" by an unknown Norwegian author (written according to G. Storm about 1180-1190, but probably later, in the thirteenth century)[234] we read of the discovery of Iceland [Storm, 1880, p. 92]:

"Next, to the west, comes the great island which by the Italians is
called Ultima Tile; but now it is inhabited by a considerable
multitude, while formerly it was waste land, and unknown to men, until
the time of Harold Fairhair. Then certain Norsemen, namely Ingolf and
Hjorleif, fled thither from their native land, being guilty of
homicide, with their wives and children, and resorted to this island,
which was first discovered by Gardar and afterwards by another (?),
and found it at last, by probing the waves with the lead."

[Sidenote: The Landnáma on the discovery of Iceland]

In Sturla's Landnámabók, called the Sturlubók, of about 1250, we find almost the same story of the first discovery as in Tjodrik Monk. It runs:

"Thus it is related that men were to go from Norway to the
Faroes--some mention Naddodd the Viking among them--but were driven
westward in the ocean and there found a great land. They went up a
high mountain in the East-fjords and looked around them, whether they
could see smoke or any sign that the land was inhabited, and they saw
nothing. They returned in the autumn to the Faroes. And as they sailed
from the land, much snow fell upon the mountains, and therefore they
called the land Snowland. They praised the land much. It is now called
Reydarfjeld in the East-fjords, where they landed, so said the priest
Sæmund the Learned. There was a man named Gardar Svavarsson, of
Swedish kin, and he went forth to seek Snowland, by the advice of his
mother, who had second sight. He reached land east of East Horn, where
there was then a harbour. Gardar sailed around the country and proved
that it was an island. He wintered in the north at Husavik in
Skialfanda and there built a house. In the spring, when he was ready
for sea, a man in a boat, whose name was Nattfari, was driven away
from him, and a thrall and a bondwoman. He afterwards dwelt at the
place called Natfaravik. Gardar then went to Norway and praised the
land much. He was the father of Uni, the father of Hroar Tungugodi.
After that the land was called Gardarsholm, and there was then forest
between the mountains and the strand."

In Hauk's Landnámabók (of the beginning of the fourteenth century)
Gardar's voyage is mentioned as the first, and Naddodd's as the
second, and it is said of Gardar that he was "son of Svavar the Swede;
he owned lands in Sealand, but was born in Sweden. He went to the
Southern isles [Hebrides] to fetch her father's inheritance for his
wife. But as he was sailing through Pettlands firth [Pentland, between
Orkney and Shetland] a storm drove him back, and he drifted westward
in the ocean, etc." The Sturlubók was doubtless written some fifty
years before Hauk's Landnámabók, and was the authority for the latter
and for the lost Landnámabók of Styrmir enn froði[235] (ob. 1245); but
as the copy that has come down to us of the Sturlubók is later (about
1400), many have thought that on this point the Hauksbók is more to be
relied upon, and have therefore held that according to the oldest
Icelandic tradition the Swedish-born Dane Gardar was the first
Scandinavian discoverer of Iceland. Support for this view has also
been found in the fact that in another passage of the Sturlubók we
read: "Uni, son of Gardar who first found Iceland." It has therefore
been held that it was not till after 1300 that a transposition was
made in the order of Gardar's and Naddodd's voyages at the beginning
of the book [cf. F. Jônsson, 1900, p. xxx.]. But this assertion may be
doubtful; it seems rather as though the Icelandic tradition itself was
uncertain on this point. We have seen above that the Norwegian work
"Historia Norwegiæ" mentions Gardar as the first; while the yet
earlier Tjodrik Monk [1177-1180] has a tale of a first accidental
voyage to Iceland, which is the same, in parts word for word, as the
stories of both the Sturlubók and the Hauksbók of Naddodd's voyage,
only that Tjodrik mentions no name in connection with it. He certainly
says later that Gardar and Floki went there before Ingolf; but this
must mean that all three came after the first-mentioned nameless
voyage. If we compare with this the vague expression of the Sturlubók
that "some mention Naddodd the Viking" in connection with that first
accidental voyage, the logical conclusion must be that there was an
old tradition that some one, whose identity is uncertain, had been
long ago driven by weather to this Snowland, in the same way as there
was a tradition in Iceland that Gunnbjörn had been driven long ago to
Gunnbjörnskerries, before Greenland was discovered by Eric the Red.
Some have then connected this first storm-driven mariner with a
Norwegian Viking-name, Naddodd. Thus are legends formed. But the first
man to circumnavigate the country and to become more closely
acquainted with it was, according to the tradition, Gardar, whose name
was more certainly known; for which reason he was also readily named
as the first discoverer of the country (just as Eric the Red and not
Gunnbjörn was named as the discoverer of Greenland). Hauk Erlendsson
then, in agreement with this, amended the Landnámabók by placing
Gardar's voyage first, while at the same time he made the mention of
Naddodd more precise, which was necessary, since his was to be a later
and therefore equally well-known voyage. He also gives Naddodd's kin,
which is not alluded to in the Sturlubók. This hypothesis is
strengthened by the latter's vague expression, above referred to,
about Naddodd, and by the fact that only Gardar's and Floki's names
are mentioned by Tjodrik Monk, and only Gardar and another (Floki ?)
in the "Historia Norwegiæ." If Naddodd's voyage had come after
Gardar's, and consequently was equally well known, it would be strange
that it should not be mentioned together with his and with the third
voyage that succeeded them. But the whole question is of little
importance, since, as we have said, these narratives must be regarded
as mere legends.

The third voyage, according to both the Hauksbók and Sturlubók, was made by a great Viking named Floki Vilgerdarson. He fitted out in Rogaland to seek Gardarsholm (or Snowland). He took with him three ravens which

"were to show him the way, since seafaring men had no 'leidarstein'
[lodestone, magnetic needle] at that time in the North...." "He came
first to Hjaltland [Shetland] and lay in Floka-bay. There Geirhild,
his daughter, was drowned in Geirhilds-lake." "Floki then sailed to
the Faroes, and there gave his [other] daughter in marriage. From her
is come Trond in Gata. Thence he sailed out to sea with the three
ravens.... And when he let loose the first it flew back astern [i.e.,
towards the Faroes]. The second flew up into the air and back to the
ship. The third flew forward over the prow, where they found the land.
They came to it on the east at Horn. They then sailed along the south
of the land. But when they were sailing to the west of Reykjanes and
the fjord opened up, so that they saw Snæfellsnes, Faxi [a man on
board] said, 'This must be a great land that we have found; here are
great waterfalls.' This is since called Faxa-os. Floki and his men
sailed west over Breidafjord, and took land there which is called
Vatsfjord, by Bardastrond. The fjord was quite full of fish, and on
account of the fishing they did not get in hay, and all their cattle
died during the winter. The spring was a cold one. Then Floki went
northward on the mountain and saw a fjord full of sea-ice. Therefore
they called the country Iceland.... In the summer they sailed to
Norway. Floki spoke very unfavourably of the country. But Herjolf said
both good and evil of the country. But Thorolf said that butter
dripped from every blade of grass in the country they had found;
therefore he was called Thorolf Smör [Butter]."

These three voyages of discovery are supposed to have taken place about 860-870. A few years after that time began the permanent settlement of the country by Norwegians; according to the chronicles this was initiated by Ingolf Arnarson with his establishment at Reykjarvik (about the year 874), which is mentioned as early as Are Frode (see above, p. 253), and this establishment may be more historical. Harold Fairhair's conquest of the whole of Norway, of which he made one kingdom, and his hard-handed procedure may have been partly responsible for the emigration of Norwegians to the poorer island of Iceland; many of the chiefs preferred to live a harder life there than to remain at home under Harold's dominion. A larger part of the settlers, and among them many of the best, had first emigrated from Norway to the Scottish isles and to Ireland, but on account of troubles moved once more to Iceland.[236] As has been suggested already (p. 167), there was probably, besides the Irish priests, some Celtic population before the Norwegians arrived, which gave Celtic names to various places in the country. The omission of any mention of these Celts, with the exception of the "Papar," in the Landnáma is no more surprising than the strange silence about the primitive people of Greenland, whom we now know with certainty to have been in the country when the Icelanders came thither.

THE DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OF GREENLAND BY THE NORWEGIANS

[Sidenote: Oldest authority on Greenland]

The earliest mention of Greenland known in literature is that found in Adam of Bremen (see above, p. 194). It was written about a hundred years after the probable settlement of the country, and shows that at least the name had reached Denmark at that time. In another passage of his work Adam says that "emissaries from Iceland, Greenland and the Orkneys" came to Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen "with requests that he would send preachers to them."

[Sidenote: Are Frode, circa 1120]

The oldest Icelandic account of the discovery of Greenland, and of the people settling there, is found in Are Frode's Íslendingabók (c. 1130). He had it from his uncle, Thorkel Gellisson, who had been in Greenland and had conversed with a man who himself had accompanied Eric the Red thither. Thorkel lived in the second half of the eleventh century, and "remembered far back." Are's statements have thus a good authority, and they may be regarded as fairly trustworthy, at all events in their main outlines; for the events were no more remote than a couple of generations, and accounts of them may still have been extant in Iceland. Unfortunately the records that have come down to us, from the hand of Are himself, are very brief. He says:

"The land which is called Greenland was discovered and settled from
Iceland. Eirik Raude [Eric the Red] was the name of a man from
Breidafjord, who sailed thither from hence and there took land at the
place which is since called Eiriksfjord. He gave the land a name and
called it Greenland, and said that having a good name would entice men
to go thither. They found there dwelling-sites of men, both in the
east and the west of the country, and fragments of boats
('keiplabrot') and stone implements, so that one may judge from this
that the same sort of people had been there as inhabited Wineland,
whom the Greenlanders[237] call Skrælings.[238] Now this, when he
betook himself to settling the country, was fourteen or fifteen
winters before Christianity came here to Iceland,[239] according to
what Thorkel Gellisson was told in Greenland by one who himself
accompanied Eric the Red thither."

It is strange that we only hear of traces left by the primitive people of Greenland, the Skrælings or Eskimo. This looks as though Eric the Red did not come across the people themselves, though this seems improbable. We shall return to this later, in a special chapter on them.

It is probable that in other works, which are now lost, Are Frode wrote in greater detail of the discovery of Greenland and its first settlement by the Icelanders, and that later authors, whose works are known to us, have drawn upon him; for where they speak of other events that are mentioned in Are's Íslendingabók, the same expressions are often used, almost word for word. The oldest of the later accounts known to us, which give a more complete narrative of the discovery of Greenland, were written between 1200 and 1305. The Landnámabók may be specially mentioned; upon this is based the Saga of Eric the Red (also called Thorfinn Karlsevne's Saga), written, according to the opinion of G. Storm, between the years 1270 and 1300, while Finnur Jónsson [1901] assigns it to the first half of the thirteenth century. By collating these various accounts we can form a picture of what took place; even though we must suppose that traditions which have been handed down orally for so long must in course of time have been considerably transformed--especially where they cannot have been based on well-known geographical conditions--and that they have received many a feature from other traditions, or from pure legend.

[Sidenote: Gunnbjörn Ulfsson]

Many accounts, both in Hauk's Landnámabók and in the Sturlubók, and in other sagas, mention that Greenland was first discovered by the Norwegian Gunnbjörn, son of Ulf Kråka, shortly after the settlement of Iceland. On a voyage to Iceland, presumably about the year 900, he was carried out of his course to the west, and saw there a great country, and found certain islands or skerries, which were afterwards called "Gunnbjörnskerries." These must have been off Greenland, most probably near Cape Farewell; but if it was late in the summer, in August or September, when there is little ice along the east coast, he may even have come close to the land farther north, and there found islands, at Angmagsalik, for instance. It is, however, of no great importance where it was; for when he saw that it was not Iceland that he had made, but a less hospitable country which did not look inviting for winter quarters, he probably sailed again at once, in order to reach his destination before the ice and the late season stopped him, without spending time in exploring the country. Whether Gunnbjörn established himself in Iceland we do not know; but it is recorded that his brother, Grimkell, took land at Snæfellsnes and was among the first settlers, and his sons, Gunnstein and Halldor, took land in the north-west on Isafjord.