Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 697 



by the town council of having carried on unlawful trade in Greenland, namely 

 without the permission of the king and of having bought crown-land over there. 

 The case ended however in their acquittal as they could swear that they had 

 resorted to Greenland in great distress and danger of life after having been 

 wrecked in the sea-ice and not for trading purposes^). 



About the last fate of Vestribygö (?) we have only some late and isolated 

 information, about the reading of which there may be different opinions. It 

 is contained in a latin manuscript, being a translation of a writing set down 

 in the Icelandic language in the year 1637 by bishop Gisle Oddson of Skalholt. 

 "In 1342 the inhabitants of Greenland of their own accord gave up the true 

 faith and Christian religion and after having laid aside all good customs and 

 true virtues turned towards the people of America; some are namely of opinion 

 that Greenland lies quite close to the western borders of the world. This was 

 the reason why the Christian people began to give up the navigation of Green- 

 land^)." If this information is true about Vestribygö, it agrees fairly well with 

 Ivarr Baröarson's experiences from his exploring expedition to this place one 

 or a few years later. He found, namely, the settlement deserted of human beings 

 and only some loose cattle and sheep were roaming about. His information 

 is so scanty, however, that one gets the impression that his investigation has 

 been very superficial (pp. 703 — 704). The Eskimo's own report about their first 

 meeting with the Norsemen in the bottom of Godthaabsfjord almost leaves a 

 more reliable impression (pp. 701 — 702). If at last they have killed a number or 

 even all of the Norsemen in this settlement, it is only natural that for a long 

 time they have kept away from these places in fear of the vengeance of the 

 living or dead. From the above-cited report we might suspect that the end 

 has been different, wherein death and slaughter have played no part, yet the 

 terms thereof are so doubtful and uncertain that we can draw no conclusions 

 of any importance to history. — 



In my opinion Eystribygö was attacked by Eskimo coming from the south 

 and these in the course of time went northwards filhng up the empty space be- 

 tween the two settlements right up to Vestribygö, the present Godthaabsfjord. 

 These were Greenlanders of the г -dialect, the same tribe that on the other side 

 reached round the southern point of the land and up on the east coast to Ammas- 

 salik (cf. p. 701)3). 



This hypothesis is not opposed to the Icelandic traditions; on the contrary, 

 it agrees with Floamannasaga's unconfirmable but very credible statement, 

 that Eskimo hved on the east coast of Greenland about the year 1000*) and with 



1) I.e. Ill, p. 135—142, 



^) The writing is called: "Annalium in Islandia farrago, hinc inde descripta" and 

 contains an extract or summar}^ of various and trustworthj' sources made in 

 1637 at the bishop's seat at Skalholt (Iceland). The first part of the paragraph 

 runs as follows: Anno 1342 Groenlandiæ incolae a vera fide et religione Christiana 

 sponte sua defecerunt, et repudiatis omnibus honestis moribus et veris virtutibus 

 ad Americæ populos se converterunt ; existimant enim quidam Groenlandiam adeo 

 vicinam esse occidentalibus orbis regionibus etc.". Grønl. histor. Mindesm., Ill, 

 pp. 459 — 464. — ''ad Americae populos se converterunt" maj^ mean "they went 

 (immigrated) to the peoples of America" but may also (and which is more likely), 

 be interpreted here as "were converted to paganism". The following sentence 

 "some are namelj^ of opinion etc." is probably the explanation of the transcriber, 

 influenced by the added knowledge of later times. 



«) Cf. also Schultz-Lorentzen (1904) pp. 302—306. Thalbitzer (1904) pp. 196—197, 202. 



4) Bjørnbo (1912) pp. 9— 10; Solberg (1907) p. 56. The first evidently has more 

 faith in the saga reported than the latter. In my opinion several of the myste 



