DISCOVERY OF ICELAND. 107 



The shore-cliffs shining, 

 Mountains steep, 

 And broad sea-noses. 

 Then was the sea-sailing 

 Of the Earl at an end. 

 God thanked he 

 That to him the sea-journey 

 Easy had been." 



In the year 863, a Dane of Swedish origin, named Gardar, 

 adventurously pushing off into the Northern Ocean, though 

 upon an object which history has not recorded, discovered the 

 island-rock whose appropriate name is Iceland. Eleven years 

 later, a navigator named Ingolf colonized the country, the 

 colonists, many of whom belonged to the most esteemed families 

 in the North, establishing a flourishing republic. The situation 

 of these people, isolated in the midst of an Arctic ocean, and 

 their relation to thf mother-country, compelled them to exert 

 and develop their hereditary maritime proclivities. In 877, a 

 sailor named Gunnbjorn saw a mountainous coast far to the 

 west, supposed to be now concealed or rendered inaccessible by 

 the descent of Arctic ice. Erik the Red, who had been banished 

 from Norway for murder and had settled in Iceland, was in his 

 turn outlawed thence in 983 : he sailed to the west and dis- 

 covered a land which he called Greenland, because, as he said, 

 " people will be attracted hither if the land has a good name." 

 He returned to Iceland, and, in the year 985, a large number of 

 ships — according to some authorities, thirty-five — followed him 

 to the new settlement and established themselves on its south- 

 western shore. 



In 986, Bjarni Herjulfson-Bjarni the son of Herjulf, in a 

 voyage from Iceland to Greenland, was driven a long distance 

 from the accustomed track. He at last saw land to the west, 

 and took counsel with his men as to what land it could be. 

 Bjarni declared it his opinion that it was not Greenland. They 

 sailed close in shore, and noticed that there were no mountains, 

 but that the land was undulating and well wooded. They left 



