Discovery of Green Imtd and America 85 



Hai-ald Harfagr had made himself sole King of Norway, 

 and had driven out all the petty kings and chiefs who 

 would not accommodate themselves to the new state of 

 things. The kin^s who submitted Harald made earls 

 in Norway ; those who rebelled he drove away as out- 

 laws. For some time these foes of the reigning dynasty 

 in Norway maintained themselves in the western islands, 

 in the Orkneys and Shetlauds, in Scotland, in the 

 Hebrides and Man ; but eventually Harald sent a fleet 

 to harry and subdue these places also, and his enemies 

 had to escape to some still more distant land ; so they 

 found their way to Iceland. 



Even this was not the end of the Scandinavian dis- 

 coveries. Stirred up, we may believe, by rumours 

 which had been handed down by the kin of the Celtic 

 wanderers of the previous century, some of the Ice- 

 landers began to think of voyages still farther west. 

 One of them named Ulf sighted land in this direction. 

 Later on a powerful Icelander, Earl Erik the Eed, who 

 was banished from his native country, bethought him 

 of fitting out an expedition to explore this new territory 

 which Ulf had sighted. The result was that Erik came 

 to Greenland, and made a settlement at the place which 

 is now called Igaliko (an Eskimo settlement), and 

 which was then called Brattalid; and from tins dis- 

 covery he won great fame. This took place about a.d. 

 986. 



The son of one of Erik's fellow-voyagers who had 

 been away in Norway at the time that his father sailed, 

 on coming back to Iceland heard of the expedition, and 

 set sail to follow his father ; but he was caught in a fog 

 and voyaged out of his course. The land he first sighted 



