Gardar Employed So Long A Time In This Expedition, That, Not Deeming It
Safe To Navigate The Northern Ocean During
The storms of winter, he
remained on the island until the ensuing spring, when he sailed for Norway.
He there
Reported, that though the island was entirely covered with wood,
it was, in other respects, a fine country. From the favourable nature of
this report, one Flocke, the son of Vigvardar, who had acquired great
reputation among the Nordmen or Normans, as an experienced and intrepid
vikingr or pirate, resolved to visit the newly-discovered island. Flocke
likewise wintered in the northern part of the island, where he met with
immense quantities of drift ice, from which circumstance he chose to give
it the name of Iceland, which it still bears. He was by no means pleased
with the country, influenced, no doubt, by the unfavourable impression he
had imbibed by spending a long protracted winter on the dreary northern
shore, amid almost ever-during arctic ice, and surrounded by the most
unpromising sterility; and though some of his companions represented the
land as pleasing and fertile, the desire of visiting Iceland seems, for
some time, to have lain dormant among the adventurous Norwegian navigators;
probably because neither fame nor riches could be acquired, either by
traffic or depredation, in a country which was utterly destitute of
inhabitants.
At length, in 874, two friends, Ingolf and Lief, repaired to Iceland, and
were so much satisfied with its appearance, that they formed a resolution
of attempting to make a settlement in the country; induced, doubtless, by a
desire to withdraw from the continual wars and revolutions which then
harassed the north of Europe, and to escape from the thraldom which the
incipient monarchies of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, were then imposing
upon the independent chiefs or vikingr of the Normans.
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