In The Following Year He Explored The Continent; And
Returning To Iceland In The Third Year, He Represented His New
Discovery in
the fairest light, bestowing lavish praises on the rich meadows, fine
woods, and plentiful fisheries of the country,
Which he called Greenland,
that he might induce a considerable number of people to join with him in
colonizing this new country. Accordingly, there set out for this place
twenty-five vessels, carrying people of both sexes, household furniture,
implements of all kinds, and cattle for breeding, of which only fourteen
vessels arrived in safety. These first colonists were soon followed by many
more, both from Iceland and Norway; and in a few years their number is said
to have increased so much, as to occupy both the eastern and western coasts
of Greenland.
This is the ordinary and best authenticated account of the discovery and
settlement of Old Greenland, which rests on the credit of the great
northern historian, Snorro Sturleson, judge of Iceland, who wrote in the
year 1215. Yet others assert that Greenland had been known long before, and
ground their assertion on letters-patent from the Emperor Lewis the Pious
in 834, and a bull of Gregory IV. in 835, in which permission is given to
Archbishop Ansgar to convert the Sueones, Danes, Sclavonians; and it is
added, the Norwaehers, Farriers, Greenlanders, Halsingalanders, Icelanders,
and Scridevinds. Even allowing both charter and bull to be genuine, it is
probable that the copy which has come down to our time is interpolated, and
that for Gronlandon and Islandon, we ought to read Quenlandon and
Hitlandon, meaning the Finlanders and Hitlanders:
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