i6o A. D. 890. 



But Keti], when he got himfelf eftabUfhed m his government, and had 

 conciliated the afFeilions of the chiefs by intermarriages with his fstf 

 mily, fet up for an independent fovereign ; and from him the kings 

 and lords of the Ifles are defcended. Thus were the Norwegians addl- 

 ed to the nations inhabiting the Britifh iflands. 



The arts ai:id manufadlures flouriflied in fome degree in thofe remote 

 iflands ; and the drapery of the Sudureyans was even famous in the 

 northern parts of Europe *. They very foon became fo populous, that 

 they fent out colonies to the Foeroes, to Iceland, and even to France. 

 This laft colony joined a band led by the famous Hrolf or Rollo, the 

 firft duke of Normandy, a fon of the firft earl of Orkney, and the an- 

 ceftor of the Norman kings of England. 



The ufurpation or conquefts of Harold alfo gave birth to other fet- 

 tlements in the northern extremity of the world, which was hitherto in 

 a great raeafure unoccupied f. Of thefe the moil diflinguifhed was Ice- 

 land, which had been accidentally difcovered in the year 861, revifited 

 in 864, 865, and 874, and began to be fettled in 878. It now received) 

 a conliderable colony, which fpread over all the extent of the illand : 

 and this, unlefs we may perhaps except fome of thofe of the antient 

 Greeks, is the only colony in the world, prior to the recent European 

 fettlements in America, of which we have an accurate and regular hif- 

 tory from its commencement. About the beginning of the tenth cen- 

 tury the Icelanders eftabliflied a colony in Greenland, which increafed 

 and profpered for near four hundred years, after which the intercourfe 

 between Greenland and the refl of the world was interrupted by the 

 increafing rigoiu: of the wmter in that inholpitable climate, by which 

 in all probability the colony periflied. We fhall alfo have occafion to 

 notice the Icelanders as the firft European difcoverers of America about 

 the year 1000. 



Navigators accuftomed to depend on the almoft-infallible ffifta nee 

 of the compafs and quadrant, and of arithmetical and aftronomical 

 tables ready conftruded by men of eminence in the various depart- 



* A northern poet defcriblng the magnificent particularizes the names of feverul provinces of 



Jrefs of a hero of the fcventh century fays, it was Scandinavia, wblcli were now for the iirll time 



fpun by the Sudurey is. See Johnrtonc's Note cleared and inhabited by people retiring from the 



on S'. XV of his Lodlrotar-quiJa. Tlie faft may country conquered by Hai'oUl.— Thele unqucf- 



be true, though it is certainly antedated. tionable tcllimonics (how, th;it the notion of the 



f We learn from Procopius, [^Be!l. Golh'ie. L. antient redundant population of the great nortlicrn 



li, c, 15] that about the middle of the fixth ccn- peninfula, called by the general name of Scandina- 



tury a confiderable body of the Heruli migrated via, has no foundation in truth, but, like many 



northward, parted the country of the Danes, and other generally-received opinions, has pafTed with- 



ftttled in Scandinavia, called by him Thule, the out examination upon the credit of being frequent. 



i')habitant8 allowipg them to occupy a part of ly repeated. Its foundation is a foolidi expreliion 



rheir lands. See above p. 234, note • .— of Jornandcs, who calls Scandia (or Scandinavia) 



Ohther, in his narrative prefcrved by King Alfred, officina ^cnlium, the warehoufe, or worklhop, of na- 



alTures us, that the northern part of Norway was tions. 

 unmhabiied in his time. And Snorro Sturlcfon 3 



