16 



on both sides of the Atlantic, even after the connection between 

 the two worlds for a time had been broken ofV. 



In about the year 1133, the Icelandic priest named Ar i 

 |)orgilsson enn frööi wnite the first little book about Ice- 

 land, which is still in existence and which contains among other 

 things the earliest account of the discovery and settlement (jf 

 Greenland*). We know that Ari"s authority for this account of 

 Greenland was his uncle |)orkell Gellisson, whose information in 

 turn goes back to one of the participants in the first expedition 

 t<i Greenland. This expedition took place in 985. With respect 

 to this matter, we read in Islendingabok, chapter 6: 



''The land which is called Greenland was discovered and 

 settled front Iceland. Eirikr the Red iras the name of a man 

 from Breidifjord, tvho traveled thither and took possession of 

 land in that locality which is since then called Eiriksfjord. 

 He gave the land a name and called it Greenland, and said 

 that it would give i^eople a desire to go there if the land had 

 a good name. They found there, both in the eastern and western 

 parts of the land, traces of human habitations and fragments 

 of (skin- ?) boats and stone implements, which indicates that the 

 same kind of people has wandered there as settled Vineland, 

 a people ivhom the Greenlanders call Sendings. He began to 

 settle the land 14 or 15 winters before Christianity was intro- 

 duced here in Iceland, according to what was related to por- 

 kell Gellisson in Greenland by a man tvho had followed Eirik 

 the Red thither." 



That the Scrcelings in Greenland are identical with the 

 ancestors of the present Greenlandic Eskimo inhabitants may 



F. Jonsson: "Den oldnorske og oldislandske literatuis historie", Copen- 

 hagen I89S, vol.11, p. 354 (Г. — Alis Isleiidingabilk, ed. F. Jonsson, 

 Copenhagen 1887. 



