CONCLUSION 



the vast unknown solitudes in the north, found their way 

 to the White Sea, discovered the wide Polar Sea and its 

 shores, colonized the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland, and 

 were the first discoverers of the Atlantic Ocean, and of North 

 America. 



As early as in the writings of King Alfred and Adam of 

 Bremen the Norsemen's initiatory knowledge of this new northern 

 world made its way into European literature. 



No doubt the mists closed again, much of the knowledge 

 gained was forgotten, even by the Norsemen themselves, and 

 in the latter part of the Middle Ages it is mostly mythical 

 echoes of this knowledge that are to be traced in the literature 

 of Europe and that have left their mark on its maps. None the 

 less were the discoveries of the Norsemen the great dividing 

 line. For the first time explorers had set out with conscious 

 purpose from the known world, over the surrounding seas, 

 and had found lands on the other side. By their voyages they 

 taught the sailors of Europe the possibility of traversing the 

 ocean. When this first step had been taken the further develop- 

 ment came about of itself. 



It was in the Norsemen's school that the sailors of England 

 had their earliest training, especially through the traffic with 

 Iceland; and even the distant Portuguese, the great dis- 

 coverers of the age of transition, received impulses from them. 



Through all that is uncertain, and often apparently fortuitous 

 and checkered, we can discern a line, leading towards the 

 new age, that of the great discoveries, when we emerge from 

 the dusk of the Middle Ages into fuller daylight. Of the new 

 voyages we have, as a rule, accounts at first hand, less and less 

 shrouded in medisevalism and mist. From this time the real 

 history of polar exploration begins. 



Cabot had then rediscovered the mainland of North America, 

 Cortereal had reached Newfoundland, the Portuguese and the 

 English were pushing northward to Greenland and the ice. And 

 this brings in the great transformation of ideas about the north- 

 ern world. 



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