no : The Atlantic 



ment and of laws. With this in mind they sent one o£ their scholars 

 to Norway to carry out a three-year study o£ its laws and legal sys- 

 tem. The purpose back o£ this step, and the spirit of the study, are 

 important. The object was not to make a slavish imitation of the 

 Norwegian system but to find out which of the Norwegian laws 

 should be rejected and which could be adapted to the purposes of the 

 new country. They also adopted a parliamentary form of government 

 which was the beginning of an independent democratic system. The 

 Parliament was called the Althing, or meeting of the leaders and rep- 

 resentatives from all sections of the country. Its first meeting was in 

 930 at a spot called Thingvelir, in a natural volcanic amphitheater in 

 the hills looking out over a coastal plain. This was a democratic as- 

 sembly in the sense that all parts of the country and all interests were 

 represented there but the leaders who met there were the titular 

 heads of families rather than elected representatives. Naturally, there 

 was not, at this time, universal suffrage, and in many ways the social 

 organization of Iceland continued to bear the marks of its feudal 

 origins. It was, however, the start of a democratic system, and in 1930 

 a great international meeting took place on the plains of Thingvelir 

 to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of the oldest uninterrupted 

 parliamentary system in the world. 



Long before the Althing met, the Icelanders were aware that 

 other lands might lie to the west of them. As early as the year 900, 

 Gunnbjorn Ulfsson, on a trip around Iceland, reported several small 

 islands and said also that he had sighted a large island with moun- 

 tains, which is supposed to constitute the first reference to Greenland. 

 Whether Gunnbjorn actually sighted Greenland or not is of no great 

 importance for, in any event, the sailors of Iceland were bound to 

 have an interest in the lands and seas that might lie to the west of 

 them. They might even have seen Greenland, for it is reported that, 

 from the highest mountain in northwest Iceland, it is possible, under 

 favorable weather conditions, to see some of the mountains in Green- 

 land. It only needed some special circumstance or incentive to start 

 the Icelanders off to the west. 



The circumstance was that in 982 an aggressive and vigorous man 

 named Eric got into trouble. He was nicknamed "Eric the Red" and 

 seems to have had a hasty temper and to have had the misfortune of 

 killing his opponent in some personal feud. This was quite in the 

 family tradition, for Eric's father before him had killed a man in 

 Norway and this accounted for his being in Iceland. Eric's penalty 

 was that he was to be exiled from Iceland for a three-year period. 



