10 DANIEL BRUUN. 
about, wild with fear. A deep impression must be left on the character 
of one who spent his childhood and youth in such a place. Having to 
fight daily with nature to gain food for people and animals must steel 
one, whose work is connected with such a place, and we can hardly be 
mistaken when we assume that Eric the Red here developed those quali- 
ties which later on made him so fit for a Greenlandexpedition, where 
he met with circumstances of the same sort, as he, in his youth had 
so often defied and conquered, neither polar ice nor a colonist's life, 
even under difficult circumstances, could by no means frighten him. 
He was familiar with it all — besides, the conditions in Greenland 
were by no means worse, but in certain regards better than on Horn- 
strand. 
We do not know how old Eric was, when his father died; he was 
probably still a young man, and he now married 7 hiodhild, whose mother 
Thorbiörg had married Thorbiôrn from the Haukadal after her father 
Jorund (a son of Ulf the squint eyed) had died. Thorbiôrn had a 
sister, Jorun, who was married to one of the celebrated family from 
Laxårdal, who is mentioned in the Saga of the men of Laxårdal. In 
this manner Hric the Red was related to one of Iceland’s renowned races, 
and he knew how to keep abreast of his equals. 
It is related — that Eric knew how to conduct himself under entirely 
different circumstances from those he was used to in daily life — in 
one of the Saga, not completely historical, relating to Thorgils Ürra- 
beinsfostri, who in his youth lived in Norway under Macon, who in the 
year 970 was made an earl, under King Harold Bluetooth, over northern 
Norway, shortly afterwards to become independent, and whose tragie 
life ended in the year 995. It is related: 
“At that time there lived with Earl Macon an Icelander, Eric the Red, 
who later, was the first to found and inhabit Greenland. He was a 
young and courteous man, and a specially good friend of Thorgils”. 
As Eric here is called an “Icelander” one may suppose he must 
have left his home, at Drangar, to travel abroad. But he returned there 
— evidently only for a short while, to leave again for his wife’s native 
land in Haukadal. 
We do not know whether she disliked living in this remote Drangar, 
where existence could be trying enough; but it is very probable. 
Haukadal lies in the Dalecountry (Dala sysla) to the west of Ice- 
land about 80 miles in a straight line to the south of Drangar. To travel 
over land must have been very difficult, especially when stores and move- 
able property had to be conveyed. We can in all probability assume, 
that Eric the Red, during the summer, when the weather was finest 
and the ice gone, let his sheep, cows and horses go over land whilst 
he and his property went by sea. He sailed northwards, round the 
northwest peninsular, past North Cape and all the fiords that intersect 
the north west of Iceland, until he had reached Breidafiord (Broadbay 
