74 DANIEL BRUUN. 
The new belief could not have been very secure in the old heathen’s 
soul, and it is said that Thorgils had many anxieties and warnings before 
his departure concerning the result of his project. Thor appeared before 
him in dreams and tried to persuade him to return to his old belief, by 
threatning him with difficulties, and the same thing took place several 
times on the journey. 
They had hardly lost sight of Iceland when a storm rose against 
them, and they drifted about the whole summer, — probably the year 
after Christianity’s introduction, therefore in the year 1001 — until 
they stranded, in the autumn, high up on Greenland’s east coast, in the 
middle of the polar ice. The ship sank, but the people saved themselves 
in a boat, the greatest part of their cattle perished at the same time. 
They had time to save some flour, but otherwise they were obliged to 
support life as best they could, on this inhospitable coast, namely by 
capturing seals and fishing, but towards winter food became scarce. 
They built a big winter hut with a board-partition, and here Thorey gave 
birth to a son. Here the afflictions are related, which the travellers had to 
suffer. After the thralls, belonging to the fellow-traveller’s household, 
had wildly celebrated Yule-tide with all sorts of heathen and supersti- 
tious games, consumption broke out amongst them, and by degrees they 
all died, so that in the beginning of spring (1002?) there were none of 
them alive. The survivors found the situation hopeless, they were terri- 
fied lest the ghosts of the thralls would appear, therefore Thorgils bid 
the bodies be collected and burnt. In the meantime the tightly packed 
ice along the coast hindered them in getting away. The summer passed 
with the collecting of food, and they got through the following winter 
(1002—03). But the ice was still hard in the spring (1003). Thorgils’ 
wife was very anxious as to how it would end, and she begged her hus- 
band to do everything in his power to get away. One day when the 
weather was fine he went up onto the glacier so as to look out to sea 
and see whether the ice had begun to loosen. He was accompanied by 
three men, he had given his thralls orders to go out fishing, whilst 
they were away, only Thorarin was to remain behind with Thorey who 
was ill. 
During the afternoon, when Thorgils was on his way back from the 
mountains a bad snow-storm set in, but he found his way home. He 
now saw that the boat was gone, and when he reached the house, it 
appeared that both people, clothes and provisions were gone. 
“There is something wrong here!” He went further into the hut 
heard a rattling sound, and found Thorey lying dead in her bed, whilst 
the child lay suckling its mother’s breast. It was soon seen that the faithless 
Thorarin and the thralls had killed her, after which they had made their 
escape in the boats with all the provisions. Thorgils was deeply grieved, 
and the thought of how he should save his child brought him to despa- 
ration. It is now told, how in his misery he cut his own nipple and let 
