In Northern Mists Volume I Part 19

We see that the legend of the Seven Sleepers, perhaps from Paulus Warnefridi (see above, p. 156), has been borrowed; but here it is only one of the seven who is holy and unhurt. The s.h.i.+pwreck itself may nevertheless be historical.[258] The craft was doubtless lost on the southern east coast of Greenland, near Cape Farewell, which part was commonly frequented, and where the remains were found.

[Sidenote: Einar Thorgeirsson]

It is also related in Gudmund Arason's Saga that, some time before this, another s.h.i.+p was lost in the uninhabited regions of Greenland, with the priest Ingimund's brother, Einar Thorgeirsson, on board; but the crew quarrelled over the food. Einar escaped with two others and made for the settlement (i.e., the Eastern Settlement) across the glaciers (i.e., the inland ice). There they lost their lives, when only a day's journey from the settlement, and they were found one or two winters [i.e., years ?]

later (Einar's body was then whole and unhurt). The s.h.i.+pwreck may consequently be supposed to have taken place on the southernmost part of the east coast.

[Sidenote: New Land]

In the Icelandic Annals it is mentioned (in various MSS.) that a new land was discovered west of Iceland in 1285. A MS. of annals, of about 1306 (written, that is, about twenty years after the event), says that in 1285: "fandz land vestr undan Islande" (a land was found to the west of Iceland). A later MS. (of about 1360) says of the same discovery: "Funduz Duneyiar" (the Down Islands were found). In another old MS. of annals there is an addition by a later hand: "fundu Helga synir nyia land Adalbrandr ok orvalldr" (Helge's sons Adalbrand and Thorvald found the new land). Finally we read in a late copy of an old MS. of annals: "Helga synir sigldu i Grnlandz obygir"[259] (Helge's sons sailed to the uninhabited regions of Greenland). According to this last statement, this would refer to the discovery of land on the east coast of Greenland, west of Iceland.[260] It may have been at Angmagsalik or farther south on the east coast that Helge's sons--two Icelandic priests--landed.[261] In the late summer this part is usually free from ice. From other Icelandic notices it may be concluded that they returned to Iceland the same autumn.

We see that some years later the Norwegian king Eric attempted to get together an expedition to this new land under the so-called Landa-Rolf, who was sent to Iceland for the purpose in 1289. In 1290 Rolf went about Iceland, inviting people to join the Newland expedition; but it is uncertain whether it ever came to anything, and in 1295 Landa-Rolf died.

All this points to the east coast of Greenland having been little known at that time, otherwise a landing there could not be spoken of as the discovery of a new land; and it is not easy to see why the king should send Rolf to Iceland to get up an expedition to a country which, as they must have been aware, was closed by ice for the greater part of the year.

As to the situation on this coast of islands to which the name of Down Islands might be appropriate, I shall not venture to offer an opinion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The southern glacier (Hvitserk) in 62 10' N. lat.; seen from the drift-ice in July 1888]

[Sidenote: The northern east coast]

In the introduction to Hauk's Landnamabok we read: "en dgr sigling er til vbygda a Grnalandi or Kolbeins ey i norr" (it is a day's sail to the uninhabited regions of Greenland northward from Kolbein's island).

Kolbein's island is the little Mevenklint, out at sea to the north of Grim's island and 56 nautical miles (100 kilometres) north of Iceland. The uninhabited regions here referred to are most probably East Greenland at about 69 N. lat. (Egede Land), which lies to the north-west (to the north there is no land, unless the magnetic north is meant). But it is scarcely credible that the Icelanders ever reached land on this part of the coast, which is nearly always closed by ice. It may be supposed that they often sailed along the edge of the ice when seal-hunting, as the bladder-nose is abundant there in summer; they may then have seen the land inside, and so knew of it, without having reached it. In this way the statement as to the distance may have originated, and the day's sail may mean to the edge of the ice, whence the land is visible.

According to statements in the fourth part of the "Rymbegla" [1780, p.

482], a "dgr's" sail (dgr == half a day of twenty-four hours) was equivalent to a distance of two degrees of lat.i.tude. But even if we accept this large estimate, it will not suffice for the distance between Mevenklint and the coast of Greenland to the north-west of it, which is about equal to three degrees of lat.i.tude (180 geographical miles).

It has been a.s.sumed that the Icelanders and Norwegians were acquainted with the east coast of Greenland north of 70 N. lat., and visited it for hunting seals, etc. But in order to reach it, it is nearly always necessary to sail through ice, and during the greater part of the summer one has to go as far north as Jan Mayen, or farther, to find the ice sufficiently open to allow one to reach the land. It is a somewhat tricky piece of sailing, which requires an intimate knowledge of the ice conditions; and it is not to be expected that any one should have acquired it without having frequently been among the ice with a definite purpose.

That storm-driven vessels should have been accidentally cast ash.o.r.e on this coast is unlikely; as a rule they would be stopped by the ice before they came so far. We may doubtless believe that the Norwegians and Icelanders sailed over the whole Arctic Ocean, along the edge of the ice, when hunting seals and the valuable walrus; but that on their sealing expeditions they should have made a practice of penetrating far into the ice is not credible, since their clinker-built craft were not adapted to sailing among ice; nor have we any information that would point to this.

It is nevertheless not entirely impossible that they should have reached the northern east coast, since it may be comparatively free from ice in late summer and autumn. There would be plenty of seals, and especially of walrus, and on land there were reindeer and musk ox, which latter, however, is nowhere mentioned in Norse literature.

[Sidenote: Glaciers on the east coast]

The old sea-route, the so-called "Eiriks-stefna," from Iceland to Greenland (i.e., the Greenland Settlements) went westward from Snaefellsnes until one sighted the glaciers of Greenland, when one steered south-west along the drift-ice until well past Hvarf, etc. This is the route that Eric followed, according to the oldest accounts in the Landnama, when he sailed to Greenland, and the glacier he first sighted in Greenland is there called "Mijokull" (see above, p. 267). This name (the middle glacier) shows that two other glaciers must have been known, one to the north and one to the south, as indeed is explained in a far later work, the so-called "Gripla" (date uncertain, copied in the seventeenth century by Bjorn Jonsson), where we read:[262]

"From Bjarmeland [i.e., northern Russia] uninhabited regions lie northward as far as that which is called Greenland. But there are bays (botnar ganga ar fyrir) and the land turns towards the south-west; there are glaciers and fjords, and islands lying off the glaciers; as far as [or rather, beyond] the first glacier they have not explored; to the second is a journey of half a month, to the third a week's; it is nearest the settlement; it is called Hvitserk; there the land turns to the north; but he who would not miss the settlement, let him steer to the south-west" [that is, to get round and clear of the drift-ice that lies off Cape Farewell].

[Ill.u.s.tration: The mountains from Tingmiarmiut Fjord northward in 62 35'

N. lat. Seen from the drift-ice in July 1888]

Not taking the distances into account, a sail of half a month and of a week, this is an admirable description of East Greenland from about 69 N.

lat. southwards. By "glaciers" is obviously meant parts of the inland ice, which is the most noticeable feature of this coast, and which could not easily be omitted in a description of it. When we read that there are glaciers and fjords, and that islands lie off the glaciers, then every one who is familiar with this part of Greenland must be reminded of what catches the eye at the first sight of this coast from the sea: the dark stretches of land, not covered by snow, and the islands, lying in front of the vast white sheath of the inland ice, which is indented by bays and fjords. The three glaciers mentioned cannot, in my opinion, be three separate mountain summits covered with snow or ice, as has frequently been supposed. There is such a number of high summits in this country that, although I have sailed along the greater part of it, I am unable to name three as specially prominent. If one has seen from the sea the white snow-sheet of Vatnajokel in Iceland (compare also, on a smaller scale, the Hardangerjokel and others in Norway), then perhaps it will be easier to understand what the ancient Icelanders meant by their three glaciers on the east coast of Greenland, where the ma.s.s of glacier has a still mightier and more striking effect. Now, on that part of it which they and the Greenlanders knew, or had seen from the sea--and which extends towards the south-west (as we read) from about 70 N. lat.[263]--there are precisely three tracts where the inland ice covers the whole country and reaches to the very sh.o.r.e, so that the glacier surface is visible from the sea, and forms the one conspicuous feature that must strike every one who sails along the outer edge of the ice (or drifts in the ice, as I have twice done). The northernmost tract is to the north of 67 N. lat. (see map, p. 259); there the inland ice covers the coast down to the sea itself. This was the "northern glacier," which no one was able to approach on account of the drift-ice, but which was only seen from a great distance. It was not until a few years ago that Captain Amdrup succeeded in travelling along this part of the country in boats, insh.o.r.e of the ice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The northern part of the "Mijokull" (to the left) and the country to the west of Sermilik-fjord, in 65 40' N. lat. Seen from the drift-ice in July 1888]

The second tract is the coast by Pikiutdlek and Umivik, south of Angmagsalik, between Sermilik-fjord (65 36' N. lat.) and Cape Mosting (63 40' N. lat.), where the inland ice covers the whole coast land, and only a few mountain summits, or "Nunataks," rise up, and bare, scattered islands and tongues of land lie in front. This was the "Mijokull" (middle glacier), which was the first land made in sailing west from Snaefellsnes, and which was a good and unmistakable sea-mark. In some MSS. it is called "hinn mikla Jokull" (the great glacier). There the sea is often comparatively free of ice in August and September, but we may be sure that the voyagers to Greenland did not as a rule try to land there; in the words of Ivar Bardsson's directions, they were to "take their course from Snaefellsnes and sail due west for a day and a night, but then to steer to the south-west, in order to avoid the above-mentioned ice" (cf. above, p.

262).

The third tract is the coast south of Tingmiarmiut and Mogens Heinesen's Fjord (62 20' N. lat.), where again the inland ice is predominant, and the only conspicuous feature that is first seen from the sea. This was the third or "southern glacier"; it lay nearest to Hvarf and was the sure sea-mark before rounding the southern end of the country. It appears to me that in this way we have a natural explanation of what these disputed glaciers were. Between them lay long stretches of mountainous coast.

Northward from Cape Farewell to the "southern glacier" are high mountains, so that one does not see the even expanse of the inland ice from the sea.

North of the "southern glacier" is the fjord-indented mountainous country about Tingmiarmiut, Umanak and Skjoldungen, and so northward as far as Cape Mosting; there the mighty white line of the inland ice is wholly concealed behind a wall of lofty peaks. On the north side of the "Mijokull" again is the mountain country about Angmagsalik, from Sermilik-fjord north-eastwards, with a high range of mountains, so that neither is the inland ice seen from the sea there. The most conspicuous summit of this range is Ingolf's Fjeld.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The mountains near Angmagsalik, east of Sermilik-fjord.

Seen from the drift-ice in July 1888]

[Sidenote: Blaserkr]

Thus, according to my view, the statements as to the glaciers on the east coast of Greenland are easily explained. It is a different matter when we come to the two names "Blaserkr" and "Hvitserkr," which, in later times especially, were those most frequently used. They have often been confused and interchanged, and while "Blaserkr" is found in the oldest authorities, the name "Hvitserkr" becomes more and more common in later writers. More recent authors have frequently regarded them as standing in a certain opposition to each other, one meaning a dark glacier or summit, and the other a white one, which may indeed seem natural. But it is striking that, while "Blaserkr" alone is mentioned in the oldest authorities, such as the Landnama (and the Saga of Eric the Red, in the Hauksbok), it soon disappears almost entirely from literature, and is replaced by "Hvitserkr," which is first mentioned in MSS. of the fourteenth century and later; and in the fifteenth century MS. (A.M. 557, qv.) of the Saga of Eric the Red (as in other late extracts from the same saga) we find "Hvitserkr" instead of "Blaserkr."[264] I have not found the two names used contemporaneously in any Icelandic MS.; it is either one or the other, and nowhere are both names found as designating two separate places on the coast of Greenland. It may therefore be somewhat rash to a.s.sume, as has been done hitherto, that they were two "mountains," one of them lying a certain distance to the north on the east coast of Greenland, and the other near Cape Farewell. The view that they were mountains is not a new one. In Ivar Bardsson's description Hvitserk is called "a high mountain"

near Hvarf; while Bjorn Jonsson of Skardsa says that it is a "fugl.a.b.i.arg i landnordurhafi" (i.e., a fowling cliff in the Polar Sea).

[Ill.u.s.tration: The inland ice at "Mijokull." In the centre the mountain Kiatak, 64 20' N. lat. Seen from the drift-ice in July 1888]

From the meaning of the names--the dark ("bla") sark and the white sark--we should be inclined to think that they were applied to snow-fields, or glaciers, like, for instance, such names as Snehaetta and Lodalskpa in Norway. But another possibility is that it was the _form_ of the sark that was thought of, and that the names were applied to mountain summits; in a similar way "stakk" (stack, or gown) is used for peaks in Norway (cf. Lovstakken near Bergen); and in Shetland corresponding names are known for high cliffs on the sea: Blostakk (== Blastakkr), Grostakk (== Grastakkr), Kwitastakk (== Hviti stakkr), Gronastakk and Gronistakk (== Grni stakkr, cliffs with gra.s.s-grown tops), etc. [cf. J. Jakobsen, 1901, p. 151].

[Ill.u.s.tration: The mountains about Ingolf's Fjeld, seen from a distance in June 1888]

In the Landnamabok (both Hauksbok and Sturlubok) we read: "Eirekr sigldi vndan Snaefells nese. En hann kom utan at Midiokli ar sem Blaserkr heitir." (Eric sailed from Snaefellsnes, and made the Mid-Glacier at a place called Blue-Sark.) In Eric the Red's Saga this has been altered to "hann kom utan at jokli eim er Blaserkr heitir." (He made the glacier that is called Blue-Sark.) It is obvious that the Landnama text is the more original, and thus two explanations are possible: either Blaserkr is a part of the glacier, or it is a dark mountain seen on this part of the coast. I cannot remember any place where the inland ice of this district, seen at a distance from the drift-ice, had a perceptibly darker colour; its effect is everywhere a brilliant white. On approaching an ice-glacier, as, for instance, the Colberger Heide (64 N. lat., cf. Nansen, 1890, p.

370; Engl. ed., i. 423), it may appear somewhat darker and of a bluish tinge; but this can never have been a recognisable landmark at any distance. One is therefore tempted to believe that Blaserkr was a black, bare mountain-peak. But the peaks that show up along the edge of the "Mijokull" (between Sermilik and Cape Mosting) are all comparatively low; the mountain-summit Kiatak, near Umivik [see Nansen, 1890, pp. 370, 374, 444; Engl. ed., i. 423, 429, ii. 13], answers best as regards shape, and is conspicuous enough, but it is only 2450 feet high. It is possible that Blaserkr did not lie in Mijokull itself, but was the lofty Ingolf's Fjeld (7300 feet high), which is the first mountain one sees far out at sea, on approaching East Greenland from Iceland; and it is seen to the north in sailing past Cape Dan and in towards Mijokull. It may then have been confused with the latter in later times. But this supposition is doubtful. The most natural way for the Icelanders when making for Greenland must in any case have been first to make the edge of the ice, west-north-west from Snaefellsnes, when they sighted Ingolf's Fjeld (or Blaserkr ?); then they followed the ice west or west-south-west, and came straight in to Mijokull, at about 65 N. lat., or the same lat.i.tude as Snaefellsnes. Here the edge of the ice turns southward, following the land, and the course has to be altered in order to sail past the southern glacier and round Hvarf. This agrees well with most descriptions of the voyage, and among them the most trustworthy. But the names have often been confused; Hvitserk and Blaserk especially have been interchanged;[265] and this is not surprising, since the men who wrote in Iceland in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were themselves unacquainted with these waters.

[Sidenote: Hvitserkr]

The name "Hvitserkr" would appear most appropriate to a glacier, and in reviewing the various contexts in which it is mentioned in the narratives, my impression is rather that in later times it was often used as a name for the inland ice itself on the east and south coasts of Greenland; and as, on the voyage to the Eastern Settlement, the inland ice was most seen on the southern part of the east coast, which was also resorted to for seal-hunting, the name Hvitserk became especially applied to the southern glacier, as in the tale of Einar Sokkason (see above, p. 283); but it might also be the mid-glacier. This view is supported by, for instance, the so-called Walkendorff addition to Ivar Bardsson's description, where the following pa.s.sage occurs about the voyage from Iceland to Greenland ["Gronl. hist. Mind.," iii. p. 491]:

"Item when one is south of Breedefjord in Iceland, then he must steer westward until he sees Hvidserch in Greenland, and then steer south-west, until the above mentioned Hvidserch is to the north of him; thus may one with G.o.d's help freely seek Greenland, without much danger from ice, and with G.o.d's help find Eric's fjord."

It is clearly enough the inland ice itself, the most prominent feature on the east coast, that is here called Hvidserch. It is first seen at Mijokull, in coming westwards from Iceland; and one has the inland ice (ice-blink) on the north when about to round Cape Farewell. No single mountain can possibly fit this description; but this does not exclude the possibility of others having erroneously connected the name with such a mountain, in the same way as Danish sailors of recent times have applied it to a lofty island, "Dadloodit," in the southernmost part of Greenland ["Gronl. hist. Mind.," i. p. 453]. The fact that Hvitserk in Ivar Bardsson's description is called "a high mountain," which is seen one day before reaching Hvarf, must be due to a similar misunderstanding. As Blaserk, although originally it may have been a mountain, was confounded with the Mid-Glacier, it is comprehensible that the name Blaserk should be gradually superseded by Hvitserk.

In one or two pa.s.sages of the old narratives it is related that when one was half-way between Iceland and Greenland one could see at the same time, in clear weather, Snaefells glacier in Iceland and Blaserk (or Hvitserk)[266] in Greenland. According to my experience this is not possible, even if we call in the aid of a powerful refraction, or even mirage; but, on the other hand, one can see the reflections of the land or the ice on the sky, and when sailing (along the edge of the ice) eastwards or westwards, one can very well see the top of the Snaefells glacier and the top of Ingolf's Fjeld on the same day.

[Sidenote: Place-names on the east coast]

The Icelandic accounts mention several places in East Greenland, such as "Kross-eyjar," "Finnsbuir," "Berufjord" ("bera" == she-bear), and the fjord "ollum-Lengri." Frequent expeditions for seal-hunting were made to these places from the Eastern Settlement, and they must have lain near it, just north of Cape Farewell.

VOYAGES TO THE NORTHERN WEST COAST OF GREENLAND, NORRSETUR, AND BAFFIN'S BAY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

[Sidenote: Runic stone from 72 55' N. lat.]

To the north of the northernmost inhabited fjords of the Western Settlement lay the uninhabited regions. Thither the Greenlanders resorted every summer for seal-hunting; there lay what they called the "Norrsetur"

("seta" == place of residence; the northern stations or fis.h.i.+ng-places), and it is doubtless partly to these districts that reference is made in Eric the Red's Saga, where it is said of Thorhall the Hunter that "he had long been with Eric hunting in summer," and that "he had a wide acquaintance with the uninhabited regions." We have no information as to how far north the longest expeditions of the Greenlanders extended, but we know that they reached the neighbourhood of the modern Upernivik; for, twenty-eight miles to the north-west of it--on a little island called Kingigtorsuak, in 72 55' N. lat.--three cairns are said to have been found early in the nineteenth century (before 1824); and in one of them a small runic stone, with the inscription: "Erling Sigvathsson, Bjarne Thordarson, and Endride Oddson on the Sunday before 'gagndag' [i.e., April 25] erected these cairns and cleared ..."[267] Then follow six secret runes, which it was formerly sought to interpret, erroneously, as a date, 1135. Professor L. F. Laffler has explained them as meaning ice;[268] it would then read "and cleared away ice." Judging from the language, the inscription would be of the fourteenth century;[269] Professor Magnus Olsen (in a letter to me) thinks it might date from about 1300, or perhaps a little later. Why the cairns were built seems mysterious. It is possible that they were sea-marks for fis.h.i.+ng-grounds; but it is not likely that the Greenlanders were in the habit of going so far north. One would be more inclined to think they were set up as a monument of a remarkable expedition, which had penetrated to regions previously unknown; but why build more than one cairn? Was there one for each man? The most remarkable thing is that the cairns are stated to have been set up in April, when the sea in that locality is covered with ice. The three men must either have wintered there in the north, which seems the more probable alternative; they may then have been starving, and the object of the cairns was to call the attention of possible future travellers to their bodies--or they may have come the same spring over the ice from the south, and in that case they most probably travelled with Eskimo dog-sledges, and were on a hunting expedition, perhaps for bears. But they cannot have travelled northwards from the Eastern or Western Settlement the same spring. In any case they may have been in company with Eskimo, whom we know to have lived on Dis...o...b..y, and probably also farther south at that time. From them the Nors.e.m.e.n may have learnt to hunt on the ice, by which they were able to support themselves in the north during the winter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Runic stone from Kingigtorsuak (after A. A. Bjornbo)]

The earliest mention of hunting expeditions to the northern west coast of Greenland is found in the "Historia Norwegiae" (thirteenth century), where it is said that hunters "to the north" (of the Greenlanders) come across "certain small people whom they call Skraelings" (see later, chapter x.).

[Sidenote: Norrsetur]

There are few references to the "Norrsetur" in the literature that has been preserved. A lay on the subject, "Norrsetudrapa," was known in the Middle Ages, written by an otherwise unknown skald, Sveinn. Only a few short fragments of it are known from "Skalda," Snorra-Edda [cf. "Gronl.

hist. Mind.," iii. pp. 235 ff.]. It is wild and gloomy, and speaks of the ugly sons of Fornjot [the storms] who were the first to drift [i.e., with snow], and of aegi's storm-loving daughters [the waves], who wove and drew tight the hard sea-spray, fed by the frost from the mountains.

Reference is also made to these hunting expeditions to the north in "Skald-Helga Rimur," where we read ["Gronl. hist. Mind.," ii. p. 492]:

"Gumnar foru i Greipar norr Gronlands var ar bygar sporr.