106 DANIEL BRUUN. 
That the Norsemen went on discovery further north is evident, 
amongst other things through the finding of a little rune stone in a 
cairn on the island Kingigtorssuak on the 72° 55’ 20 п. lat. It was brought 
to Denmark some time ago by the well known Captain Graah — the 
renowned traveller of the south eastern coast, — and a copy of it is 
found in the national museum in Copenhagen. The inscription is as 
follows: 
“Erling Sigvatsson and Biarni Thordsson and Enridi Oddsson erected 
this (these) cairn(s) Saturday before soccage (25th April) and — —” 
So much is certain, that this — let us call it a “visiting-card’”” — 
witnesses that the Greenlanders did not shun travelling to the remote 
parts of the ice region. 
That they went still further north is clearly shown in an account 
given by the Icelander Biörn Jonsson, and which reads as follows: 
Haldor, the priest wrote this account to Arnald, the Greenland 
priest, who had become court-priest to King Magnus Hakonsson, on 
that Knar (commercial-boat) on which bishop Olaf went to Green- 
land. That summer, in which priest Arnald left Greenland, and was 
shipwrecked on Hitarnes off Iceland (the year 1265 or 1266) some pieces 
of timber were found out at sea, which had been hewn with small axes 
or coopers’ addices, and amongst them there was a piece in which there 
were teeth wedges and bone wedges. During this summer people also 
came from Nordrseta who had travelled further north than formerly 
recorded. They found no sign of the Skrællings having lived there except 
at Kroksfiordsheidi, and people consider it to be the shortest way there, 
whereever they came from. 
Thereafter the priests sent a ship northward, so as to investigate, 
how things were, north, of the remotest part that they, as yet had 
visited; but as they sailed out of Kroksfiordsheidi they lost sight of the 
coast. A southern wind rose against them combined with darkness 
and they had to let the ship run before the wind; but when the 
storm had calmed down and it had agaın become light, they saw many 
islands and all sorts of catching, both seals, whales and numbers 
of bears. They sailed right into the sea-bay and there they lost sight of 
the whole country, the southern coast as well as the glaciers; but there 
were also glaciers to the south of them, as far as they could see. There 
they found some signs of the Skrællings having lived in these places, 
but they could not land there on account of the bears. They then 
sailed back again during three days and found some remnants of the 
Skrællings when they came to some islands south of Snæfell. Thereafter 
they sailed southwards to Kroksfiordsheidi, a long day’s rowing, on 
Jacob’s mass day; it froze there during the nights, but the sun shone 
both night and day, not being higher when in the south, than if — 
when a man lies down athwart in a six oar boat, stretehed towards 
the railing — the shadow of the board nearest the sun came across 
