6 DISCOVERIES OF 1001. 



and Icelandic judge Snorro; but Toifseus and 

 some others contend that this country, as well as 

 Iceland, was known before the times above men- 

 tioned; and the grounds for this opinion rest chiefly 

 on the privilege granted to the cliurch of Ham- 

 buro'h in 834 bv Louis the Debonnair, and a bull of 

 Pope Gregory IV., wherein permission is granted 

 to the Archbishop Ansgarius to convert the 

 Sueones, Danes, Sclavonians, Icelanders and 

 Gr^eenlajiders ; but it is now supposed that the 

 last two names have been interpolated by the 

 church of Hamburgh, with a view to secure to 

 itself certain rights over these countries ; and that, 

 the better to carry on this pious fraud, it had falsi- 

 fied the documents. Whether this be really the 

 case or not, the church, it would appear, succeeded 

 in its object, the Norwegian colonies having con- 

 tinued to pay to the bishops and the holy see, in 

 the way of tythe and Peter-pence, two thousand 

 six hundred pounds, in weight, of the walrus or 

 sea-horse teeth. 



The Norweo-ians and the Normans flocked in 

 great numbers to Iceland, and a regular trade was 

 established between the colonists and the mother 

 countrv. About the vear 1001, as one of the 

 colonists, of the name of Herjolf, with his son 

 Biorn, were proceeding on a trading voyage, their 

 ships were separated by a storm, and Biorn was 

 driven to Norway, where he soon afterwards 

 learnt that his father Herjolf was gone to Green- 

 land. On this information he set sail to the west- 



