56 THE VINLAND VOYAGES 



would be one of dread and danger on account of 

 unfriendly natives. This was the real reason why 

 the scheme of colonization was abandoned. 



Climate and conditions in Greenland were better 

 then than now. There was unlimited land as in Ice- 

 land, although this had been settled for a much longer 

 period. There had been much emigration from the 

 mother country, Norway, during the centuries imme- 

 diately preceding J therefore there was no scarcity of 

 land there either. This situation applied also to Den- 

 mark and Sweden, to say nothing of the countries 

 farther south, where there were great climatic advan- 

 tages. For these reasons one can understand why 

 there were no attempts to explore and settle America, 

 although the news of the discovery of Vinland spread, 

 as can be seen from Adam of Bremen's "Descrip- 

 tion of the Northerly Lands." He had spent some 

 time at the court of Svein Ulfsson, king of Denmark, 

 around 1070. The king told him about Vinland and 

 mentioned the grapevines and the self-sown wheat- 

 fields. The Danes believed the story, as did their 

 king J but there are no indications that it was consid- 

 ered of importance or given credence in other coun- 

 tries. No doubt the king and his court based their 

 accounts on what some reliable Icelanders had told 

 them, men in whom they had full confidence, prob- 

 ably some elderly Icelanders, who in their youth had 



