In Northern Mists Volume I Part 18

On the east coast of Greenland, which is closed by drift-ice for the greater part of the year, the Nors.e.m.e.n had no permanent settlement, and it was only exceptionally that they were able to land there, or they were sometimes wrecked in the drift-ice off the coast and had to take refuge ash.o.r.e. Several places are, however, mentioned along the southern part of the east coast, where people from the Eastern Settlement probably went hunting in the summer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The plain by Igaliko (Garar) with ruins. In the background the peaks of Igdlerfigsalik, and in front of them Iganek (after N. P.

Jorgensen)]

[Sidenote: Population]

[Sidenote: Bishops]

The population of the two settlements in Greenland can scarcely have been large at any time; perhaps at its highest a couple of thousand altogether.

If we take it that there were 280 homesteads, and on an average seven persons in each, which is a high estimate, then the total will not be more than 1960. But the long distances caused the building, after the introduction of Christianity, of a comparatively large number of churches, namely, twelve in the Eastern Settlement (where the ruins of only five have been found) and four in the Western Settlement, besides which a monastery and a nunnery are mentioned in the Eastern Settlement. About 1110 Greenland became an independent bishopric, although it is said in the "King's Mirror" that

"if it lay nearer to other lands it would be reckoned for a third part of a bishopric. But now the people there have nevertheless a bishop of their own; for there is no other way, since the distance between them and other people is so great."

The chief's house Garar in Einarsfjord (Igaliko) became the episcopal residence. There is a fairly complete record of the bishops of Greenland down to the end of the fourteenth century. During the succeeding century and even until 1530 a number of bishops of Greenland are also mentioned, who were appointed, but never went to Greenland.

[Sidenote: Norse literature in Greenland]

Even if the conditions of life in the Greenland settlements were not luxurious, they were nevertheless not so hard as to prevent the development of an independent art of poetry. Sophus Bugge points out in "Norrn Fornkvaedi" [Christiania, 1867, p. 433] that the "Atlamal en grnlenzku" of the Edda is, as its t.i.tle shows, from Greenland, and was most probably composed there. Finnur Jonsson [1894, i. pp. 66, 68 ff.; 1897, pp. 40 ff.] would even refer four or five other Edda-lays to Greenland, namely: "Oddrunargratr," "Gorunarhvot," "Sigurarkvia en skamma," "Helgakvia Hundingsbana," perhaps also "Helrei Brynhildar." As regards the two last-named, the a.s.sumption is certainly too doubtful, but in the case of the other three it is possible. The "Norrsetu-drapa," to be mentioned later (p. 298), was composed in Greenland; and the so-called "Hafgeringa-drapa" may be derived thence; in the Landnamabok, where one or two fragments of it are reproduced, it is said to have been composed by a "Christian man (monk ?) from the Southern isles" (Hebrides), on the way thither. The fragments of lays on Furustrandir and Wineland, which are given in the Saga of Eric the Red, may possibly also be from Greenland.

The fact that the "Snorra-Edda" gives a particular kind of metre, called "Gronlenzkr hattr,"[250] agrees with the view that Greenland had an independent art of poetry.

The Greenland lays like the Atlamal are perhaps not equal to the best Norse skald-poetry; but there runs through them a weird, gloomy note that bears witness of the wild nature and the surroundings in which they were composed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: View from the mountain Iganek, looking south over Igalikofjord (Einarsfjord) and on the right Tunugdliarfik (Eiriksfjord) with the isthmus at Igaliko (Garar) between them (after N. P. Jorgensen, see D. Bruun, 1896)]

[Sidenote: Ruins]

[Sidenote: Food]

Within the fjords of both the ancient Greenland settlements many ruins of former habitations have been found (see maps, pp. 265, 266, 271); most of these are found in the Eastern Settlement or Julianehaab District [cf.

especially D. Bruun, 1896; also G. Holm, 1883]. In a single homestead as many as a score of scattered houses have been found; among them was a dwelling-house, and around it byres and stables for cattle, horses, sheep and goats, with adjoining hay-barns, or else open hay-fences (round stone walls within which the hay was stacked and covered with turf), besides larders, drying-houses, pens for sheep, fenced fields, etc. There were also fenced outlying hayfields with barns and with summer byres for sheep and goats, for they had even mountain pastures and hayfields. Near the sh.o.r.e are found sheds, possibly for gear for boats, sealing and fis.h.i.+ng, but, on the other hand, there are no actual boathouses. Ruins of several churches (five in the Eastern Settlement) have also been found. The dwelling-houses were built of stone and turf, like the Icelandic farmhouses; in exceptional cases clay was also used, while the outhouses were mostly built with dry stone walls. For the timber work of the roofs drift-wood must have been usually employed. The winter byres were of course made weatherproof. The size of the byres shows that the numbers of their stock were not inconsiderable, mostly sheep and goats; only where the level lands near the fjords offered specially good pasture was there any great number of horned cattle. Everywhere in the neighbourhood of the ruins stone traps are found which show that the Greenlanders occupied themselves in trapping foxes; a few large traps have been thought to have been intended for wolves (?), which are now no longer to be found in southern Greenland. Near the main buildings are found great refuse heaps ("kitchen middens"), which give us much information as to the life they led and what they lived on. Great quant.i.ties of bones taken from five different sites in the Eastern Settlement (among them the probable sites of Brattalid and Gardar) have been examined by the Danish zoologist, Herluf Winge [cf. D. Bruun, 1896, pp. 434 ff.]. The great predominance of bones of domestic animals, especially oxen and goats, and of seals, especially the Greenland seal or saddle-back (Phoca grnlandica), and the bladder-nose or crested seal (Cystophora cristata), show that cattle-rearing and seal-hunting were the Greenlanders' chief means of subsistence; and the latter especially must have provided the greater part of their flesh food, since as a rule the bones of seals are the most numerous. Curiously enough, few fish-bones have been found. As we know with certainty that the Greenlanders were much occupied in fis.h.i.+ng, this absence now is accounted for by fish-bones and other offal of fish being used for fodder for cattle in winter. Various reindeer bones show that this animal was also found in ancient times in the Eastern Settlement, where it is now extinct. Besides these, bones of a single polar bear and of a few walrus have been found, which show that these animals were caught, though in small numbers; a few bones of whale have also been found. There are, strangely enough, comparatively few bones of birds. The bones of horses that have been found belong to a small race and the cattle were of small size and horned.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Remains of a sheep-pen at Kakortok. On the right the ruined church (after Th. Groth)]

[Sidenote: Life and conditions]

In the otherwise very legendary tale, in the Saga of the Foster Brothers (beginning of the thirteenth century), of Thormod Kolbrunarskald's voyage to Greenland and sojourn there, to avenge the death of his friend Thorgeir, we get here and there sidelights on the daily life of the country, which agree well with the information afforded by the remains. We hear that they often went to sea after seals, that they had harpoons for seals ("selskutill"), that they cooked the flesh of seals, etc. From the "King's Mirror" (circa 1250) we get a good glimpse of the conditions of life in Greenland in those days:

"But in Greenland, as you probably know, everything that comes from other lands is dear there; for the country lies so distant from other lands that men seldom visit it. And everything they require to a.s.sist the country, they must buy from elsewhere, both iron (and tar) and likewise everything for building houses. But these things are brought thence in exchange for goods: buckskin and ox-hides, and sealskin and walrus-rope and walrus-ivory." "But since you asked whether there was any raising of crops or not, I believe that country is little a.s.sisted thereby. Nevertheless there are men--and they are those who are known as the n.o.blest and richest--who make essay to sow; but nevertheless the great mult.i.tude in that country does not know what bread is, and never even saw bread."...

"Few are the people in that land, for little of it is thawed so much as to be habitable.... But when you ask what they live on in that country, since they have no corn, then [you must know] that men live on more things than bread alone. Thus it is said that there is good pasture and great and good homesteads in Greenland; for people there have much cattle and sheep, and there is much making of b.u.t.ter and cheese. The people live much on this, and also on flesh and all kinds of game, the flesh of reindeer, whale, seal and bear; on this they maintain themselves in that country."

We see clearly enough from this how the Greenlanders of the old settlements on the one hand were dependent on imports from Europe, and on the other subsisted largely by hunting and fis.h.i.+ng. It appears also from a papal bull of 1282 that the Greenland t.i.thes were paid in ox-hides, seal-skins and walrus-ivory.

It has been a.s.serted that Greenland at that time possessed a more favourable climate, with less ice both on land and sea than at present; but, amongst other things, the excellent description in the "King's Mirror," to be mentioned directly, shows clearly enough that such was not the case. Many will therefore ask what it was that could attract the Icelanders thither. But to one who knows both countries it will not be so surprising; in many ways South Greenland appeals more to a Norwegian than Iceland. It lies in about the same lat.i.tude as Bergen and Christiania, and the beautiful fjords with a number of islands outside, where there are good channels for sailing and harbours everywhere, make it altogether like the coast of Norway, and different from the more exposed coasts of Iceland. Inside the fjords the summer is quite as warm and inviting as in Iceland; it is true that there is drift-ice outside in early summer, but that brings good seal-hunting. There was, besides this, walrus-hunting and whaling, reindeer-hunting, fis.h.i.+ng in the sea and in the rivers, fowling, etc. When we add good pasturage on the sh.o.r.es of the fjords, it will be understood that it was comparatively easy to support life.

The gra.s.s still grows luxuriantly around the ruins on the Greenland fjords, and might even to-day support the herds of many a homestead.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VIII

VOYAGES TO THE UNINHABITED PARTS OF GREENLAND IN THE MIDDLE AGES

THE EAST COAST OF GREENLAND

[Sidenote: Drift-ice]

The sagas give us scanty information about the east coast of Greenland--commonly called, in Iceland, the uninhabited regions ("ubygder") of Greenland. The drift-ice renders this coast inaccessible by sea for the greater part of the year, and it was only very rarely that any one landed there, and then in most cases through an accident. As a rule sailors tried as far as possible to keep clear of the East Greenland ice, and did not come insh.o.r.e until they were well past Hvarf, as appears from the ancient sailing-directions for this voyage. The "King's Mirror" (circa 1250) also shows us clearly enough that the old Nors.e.m.e.n had a shrewd understanding of the ice conditions off these uninhabited regions. It says:

"Now in that same sea [i.e., the Greenland sea] there are yet many more marvels, even though they cannot be accounted for witchcraft ('skrimslum'). So soon as the greater part of the sea has been traversed, there is found such a ma.s.s of ice as I know not the like of anywhere else in the world. This ice [i.e., the ice-floes] is some of it as flat as if it had frozen on the sea itself, four or five cubits thick, and lies so far from land [i.e., from the east coast of Greenland] that men may have four or five days' journey across the ice [to land]. But this ice lies off the land rather to the north-east ('landnorr') or north than to the south, south-west, or west; and therefore any one wis.h.i.+ng to make the land should sail round it [i.e., round Cape Farewell] in a south-westerly and westerly direction, until he is past the danger of [encountering] all this ice, and then sail thence to land. But it has constantly happened that men have tried to make the land too soon, and so have been involved in these ice-floes; and some have perished in them; but others again have got out, and we have seen some of these and heard their tales and reports. But one course was adopted by all who have found themselves involved in this ice-drift ['isavok' or 'isavalkit'], that is, they have taken their small boats and drawn them up on to the ice with them, and have thus made for land, but their s.h.i.+p and all their other goods have been left behind and lost; and some of them have pa.s.sed four or five days on the ice before they reached land, and some even longer. These ice-floes are strange in their nature; sometimes they lie as still as might be expected, separated by creeks or large fjords; but sometimes they move with as great rapidity as a s.h.i.+p with a fair wind, and when once they are under way they travel against the wind as often as with it. There are indeed some ma.s.ses of ice in that sea of another shape, which the Greenlanders call 'falljokla.' Their appearance is that of a high mountain rising out of the sea, and they do not unite themselves to other ma.s.ses of ice, but keep apart."

This striking description of the ice in the polar current shows that sailors were sometimes wrecked in it, and reached land on the east coast of Greenland.

The story of Snaebjorn Holmsteinsson and his companions, who may have reached East Greenland (?), has been given above (p. 264).

[Sidenote: Thorgils Orrabeinsfostre]

An early voyage,[251] which is said to have been made along this coast, is described in the "Floamanna-saga." The Icelandic chief, Thorgils Orrabeinsfostre, is said to have left Iceland about the year 1001, with his wife, children, friends and thralls--some thirty persons in all--and his cattle, to join his friend, Eric the Red, who had invited him to Greenland. During the autumn they were wrecked on the east coast; and it was not till four years later, during which time they lived by whaling, sealing and fis.h.i.+ng, and after adventures of many kinds, that Thorgils arrived at the Eastern Settlement. The saga is of late date, perhaps about 1400; it is full of marvels and not very credible. But the description of the country, with glaciers coming down to the sea, and ice lying off the sh.o.r.e for the greater part of the year, cannot have been invented without some knowledge of the east coast of Greenland; for the inhabited west coast is entirely different. The narrative of Thorgils' expedition may therefore have a historical kernel [cf. Nansen, 1890, p. 253; Engl. ed. i.

275]; and moreover it gives a graphic description of the difficulties and dangers that s.h.i.+pwrecked voyagers have to overcome in arctic waters; but at the same time it is gratuitously full of superst.i.tions and dreams and the like, besides other improbabilities: such as the incident of the travellers suffering such extremities of thirst that they were ready to drink sea-water (with urine) to preserve their lives,[252] while rowing along a coast with ice and snow on every hand, where there cannot have been any lack of drinking water. Thorgils, or the man to whom in the first place the narrative may be due, may have been wrecked in the autumn on the east coast of Greenland, near Angmagsalik, or a little to the south of it, and may then have had a hard struggle before he reached Cape Farewell along the sh.o.r.e, inside the ice; but that it should have taken four years is improbable; I have myself in the same way rowed in a boat the greater part of the same distance along this coast in twelve days. It is hardly possible that the voyagers should have lost their s.h.i.+p much to the north of Angmagsalik, as the ice lies off the coast there usually the whole year round; nor is it credible that they should have arrived far north near Scoresby Sound, north of 70 N. lat., where the approach is easier; for they had no business to be there, if they were making for the Eastern Settlement.

In the Icelandic Annals there are frequent mentions of voyagers to Greenland being s.h.i.+pwrecked, and most of these cases doubtless occurred off East Greenland. In the sagas there are many narratives of such wrecks, or of people who have come to grief on this coast.

[Sidenote: "Lik-Lodin"]

In Bjorn Jonsson's version of the somewhat extravagant saga of Lik-Lodin we read:[253]

"Formerly most s.h.i.+ps were always wrecked in this ice from the Northern bays, as is related at length in the Tosta attr; for 'Lika-Loinn'

had his nickname from this, that in summer he often ransacked the northern uninhabited regions and brought to church the corpses of men that he found in caves, whither they had come from the ice or from s.h.i.+pwreck; and by them there often lay carved runes about all the circ.u.mstances of their misfortunes and sufferings."

The Northern bays here must mean "Hafsbotn," or the Polar Sea to the north of Norway and Iceland; the ice will then be that which thence drifts southward along the east coast of Greenland. According to another ancient MS. of the Tosta-attr,[254] Lik-Lodin had his name (which means "Corpse-Lodin") "because he had brought the bodies of Finn Fegin and his crew from Finn's booths, east of the glaciers in Greenland." This also shows that the east coast is referred to; it is said to have happened a few years before Harold Hardrda's fall in 1066.

[Sidenote: Einar Sokkason]

In the Flateyjarbok's narrative of Einar Sokkason, who sailed from Greenland to Norway in 1123 to bring a bishop to the country, it is said[255] that he was accompanied on his return from Norway by a certain Arnbjorn Austman (i.e., man from the east, from Norway) and several Norwegians on another s.h.i.+p, who wished to settle in Greenland; but they were lost on the voyage. Some years later, about 1129, they were found dead on the east coast of Greenland, near the Hvitserk glacier, by a Greenlander, Sigurd Njalsson. "He often went seal-hunting in the autumn to the uninhabited regions [i.e., on the east coast]; he was a great seaman; they were fifteen altogether. In the summer they came to the Hvitserk glacier." They found there some human fire-places, and farther on, inside a fjord, they found a great s.h.i.+p, lying on and by the mouth of a stream, and a hut and a tent, and there were corpses lying in the tent, and some more lay on the ground outside. It was Arnbjorn and his men, who had stayed there.

[Sidenote: Ingimund the priest]

In Gudmund Arason's Saga and in the Icelandic Annals [Storm, 1888, pp.

22, 120, 121, 180, 181, 324, 477] it is related that in 1189 the s.h.i.+p "Stangarfoli," with the priest Ingimund Thorgeirsson and others on board--on the way from Bergen to Iceland--was driven westwards to the uninhabited regions of Greenland, and every man perished,

"but it was known by the finding of their s.h.i.+p and seven men in a cave in the uninhabited regions fourteen winters[256] later; there were Ingimund the priest, he was whole and uncorrupted, and so were his clothes; but six skeletons lay there by his side, and wax,[257] and runes telling how they lost their lives. And men thought this a great sign of how G.o.d approved of Ingimund the priest's conduct that he should have lain out so long with whole body and unhurt." [Cf. "Gronl.

hist. Mind.," ii. p. 754; Biskupa Sogur, 1858, i. p. 435].