138 THE KING'S MIRROR 



may be that the tales are told as the first ones related 

 them, or the stories may have grown larger or shrunk 

 somewhat. Consequently, we have to speak cautiously 

 about this matter, for of late we have met but very few 

 who have escaped this peril and are able to give us tid- 

 ings about it. 



In that same ocean there are many other marvels, 

 though they cannot be reckoned among the prodigies. 

 As soon as one has passed over the deepest part of the 

 ocean, he will encounter such masses of ice in the sea, 

 that I know no equal of it anywhere else in all the earth. 

 Sometimes these ice fields are as flat as if they were 

 frozen on the sea itself. They are about four or five ells 

 thick and extend so far out from the land that it may 

 mean a journey of four days or more to travel across 

 them. There is more ice to the northeast and north of 

 the land than to the south, southwest, and west; con- 

 sequently, whoever wishes to make the land should sail 

 around it to the southwest and west, till he has come 

 past all those places where ice may be looked for, and 

 approach the land on that side.* It has frequently hap- 

 pened that men have sought to make the land too soon 

 and, as a result, have been caught in the ice floes. Some 

 of those who have been caught have perished; but others 

 have got out again, and we have met some of these and 

 have heard their accounts and tales. But all those who 



* The settled portion of Greenland is in the southern part on the west coast. 

 The author wishes to say that a ship sailing from Norway to Greenland must 

 round Cape Farewell and proceed some distance up the west coast before try- 

 ing to make land. For a discussion of the conditions of settlement in Green- 

 land and the navigation of the waters about Greenland, see Hovgaard, The 

 Voyages of the Norsemen to America, c. ii; Nansen, In Northern Mists, cc. vii, 

 viii. 



