IN NORTHERN MISTS 



(from whom the same annals have borrowed so much else) ; 

 but we cannot be so sure of this. After having related the vol- 

 canic eruption and disasters in Iceland in 1340 (also recorded 

 by Gisle Oddsson), Lyschander continues: 



" Norway and Sweden and Greenland also 

 They were hereafter well able to perceive 

 That such things boded ill to them. 

 These kingdoms they came into the hands of the Dane, 

 And Greenland went astray on the strand, 

 Not long after these times." 



Whatever may be meant by this strained, obscure expres- 

 sion about Greenland (is " strand " a misprint for " stand " 

 — "went astray in its condition" ?), it might at any rate be 

 interpreted to mean that its inhabitants had been converted 

 (gone astray) to a heathen religion (the people of America) ; 

 "not long after these times" (i.e., after 1340) may thus 

 have been made in 1342. But the mention of a definite 

 date — which, it may be remarked, would suit very well for 

 the time when the Greenlanders passed into Eskimo in larger 

 numbers, at any rate in the Western Settlement (cf. Ivar Bards- 

 son's description, see below, p. 108) — may possibly indicate that 

 some ancient authority or other is really the foundation for the 

 statement, and perhaps also for the lines quoted from Lyschan- 

 der. Finn Magnussen [Gronl. hist. Mind., iii. p. 459] thinks 

 that Gisle Oddsson may have derived much information from 

 the archives and library of Skalholdt cathedral, which was burnt 

 in 1630. 



Whether genuine or not, this statement may correctly 

 describe the fate of the Greenland settlements. Deserted by 

 the mother country, and left to their own resources, the 

 Greenlanders were forced to adopt the Eskimo mode of 

 life, and become absorbed in them. This took place first in 

 the more northerly and more thinly populated Western 

 Settlement, and later in the Eastern Settlement as well. The 

 Eskimo with their kayaks and their sealing appliances were 

 the superiors of the Greenlanders in sealing (as appears from 

 102 



