On the Norwegian Settlements on the Eastern Coast of Greenland, 
or Osterbygd, and their Situation, By Sir Charles Lewis 
Giesecke. 
Read January 26, 1824. 
ALTHOUGH the North of our globe is certainly not a region 
likely to be chosen voluntarily and without compulsion for a habi- 
tation, yet history informs us, that these countries were inhabited 
even at an early period. It might, however, happen, that want of 
subsistence, dissensions with countrymen, or a spirit of chivalry 
and piracy, would compel families and whole tribes to leave their 
native country and to remove farther to the north. This was par- 
ticularly the case with some northern nations, formerly comprised 
under the name of Normans, who harassed all countries by their 
depredations. In this way, in the year 982, on occasion of the 
banishment of an offender, a new country was discovered. Thor- 
waldsen, a Norwegian Jarl or Earl, was obliged to fly on account 
ofa murder he had committed, and accordingly went to Iceland, 
where he settled a considerable part of the Island with a new co- 
lony.. Hisson, Eric Raude, or Eric the Red having been perse- 
cuted by Egolf Taur on account of murder, his revengeful spirit at 
last prompted him to kill Egolf likewise. This and other misde- 
meanors he had been guilty of compelled him to quit Iceland. 
He knew that a man of the name of Gunbidérn had discovered the 
rocky islands, called by him Gunbiorns Skjar, on the western side 
of Iceland; but likewise still more to the westward a country of 
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