Olaf sent along with him a priest named Thormod1 and some other ordained men or clerics to baptize the people there and make them know the true faith.2

The Greenland convert sailed from the haven of Drontheim in the spring of the year 1000,3 and, after having been tossed on the waves for a long time, he came in sight of land, at a place where he did not expect to find any. Curiosity made him disembark, and he found there self-sown cereals and native grapevines. There also were trees called maple, some of which large enough for building-timber. He took on board some specimens of all these natural products of the unknown country and set out for the open sea again. After some time he discovered a number of sailors clinging to the wreck of their ship, probably crushed by icebergs, and he took them home with him. By this act of charity, by the great qualities manifested on many other occasions, and by introducing the Christian religion into his country he secured to himself, for all his life, the title of Leif the Fortunate. Thus the History of Thorfinn Karlsefne, more circumstantial on this occasion than the other Icelandic records.*

Leif landed in Eiriksfjord towards the end of the summer, and was received most cordially by all the people of Brattalidha; but his father, the old sinner, gave him a cool reception. The act of rescuing men in danger of death was but an equivalent, he said, for bringing along a sorcerer; for so he called the priest."

1 Moosmüller, S. 47.

2 See Document XLVI.; Beamish, Discovery, p. 80, from the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, Kap. 231 ; alii.

3 In his Norumbega, p. 42, Horsford places the discovery of America by the son of Eric the Red in

the year 999; but more correctly in A.D. 1000, in his Landfall of Leif Erikson.

4

Ap. Rafn, Antiq. Amer., pp. 118, 194.

5 See Document XLVI.; Saga of Thorfinn, ap. Rafn, Antiq. Amer.,

Leif, nothing daunted, soon proclaimed the Christian faith to the Greenland colonists, and announced to them the messages of King Olaf Tryggvason, telling them of the excellence and great beauty of his new religion.

1

Eric the Red was slow to renounce his pagan worship and to abandon his accustomed rites in honor of a white bear; but his wife, Thorhilda, consented at once to the invitation of her son, was baptized under the new name of Thjodhilda,2 and caused a sacred edifice to be erected at some distance from the villa, just below the domain of Stokanes. This structure was called Thjodhilda's church. Here she and other converts were wont to say their prayers. A circumstance of her conversion, easily explained by the excessive zeal of a neophyte, was that, from that moment, she refused all intercourse with Eric, her husband, who felt much grieved at her stubborn resolution.*

We will soon have occasion to notice that Leif the Fortunate succeeded also in convincing his brothers, while his sister, Freydisa, accepted the faith without submitting to the duties imposed by it, as afterwards her behavior showed. Eric the Red, his father, was finally softened also by his entreaties and baptized a Christian; and all the Greenland colonists became converts, at the example of their acknowledged leader.

p. 192; Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, ap. Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 193; Codex Frisianus or Konungabók, ap. Reeves, p. 12; Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., cap. xvii. p. 127, and Historia Rerum Norveg., t. ii. lib. ix. cap. xxxvii. p. 434; Gravier, p. 48; alii.

1 Saga of Thorfinn, ap. Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 119; Flaomanna Saga, in Groenl. Histor. Mindesm.,

t. ii. pp. 224, 230, ap. Beauvois, Origines, p. 14, n. 2.

2 Warrior, no more of the mythical Thor, but of the people.

3 A Danish note on Skardza's Description of Greenland, ap. Torfæum, Gronl. Ant., cap. vii. p. 60.

Saga of Thornfinn, ap. Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 119; Reeves, p. 36; Herbermann, p. 42; cf. Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. xiv. p. 606; Beauvois, Origines, p. 14 and n.

Thus relate Torfæus and historians generally, after the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason.'

2

Björn Skardza, in his Saga of Karlsefne, asserts that Eric the Red died before Christianity was introduced; and from this expression some authors have concluded that the old man died a pagan.3 Smith mistranslates 1 the original and Beauvois misinterprets it," to arrive at this conclusion. It is evident, however, from the statements of several sagas, that Eric the red accepted the Christian religion preached by his son. The History of Olaf Tryggvason plainly says that, "at the advice and exhortation of Leif, Eric and all the inhabitants of Greenland were baptized." "

6

That Eric did not die before the first introduction of Christianity into, and the partial conversion of, Greenland is evident from the fact that Leif succeeded during the first winter after his return from Norway in converting fifty villas or "reppos," as Skardza states, in the eastern district of the island,' while his father departed this life two years later, in the winter succeeding Leif's return from Vinland. It is necessary, therefore, to understand the phrase of Thorfinn Karlsefne's saga as meaning the legal introduction of Christianity as the religion of state into Greenland, which took place shortly after Eric's demise."

8

Leif Ericsson and his little band of clergy continued their zealous apostolate with ever-increasing success, while Greenland was continually receiving new colo

1 Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., cap. xvii. p. 127, and Historia Rerum Norveg., t. ii. lib. ix. cap. xxxvii. p. 434; Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 194; Beamish, Discovery, p. 80.

2 Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., cap. xvii. p. 127; De Costa, Precolumbian Discovery, p. 111; Moosmüller, S. 48. 'Moosmüller, S. 48.

* Dialogues, p. 127.

5 Origines, p. 14.

7

Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 194. Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., cap. viii. p. 32, ap. Moosmüller, S. 47, and Herbermann, Torfason's Ancient Vinland, p. 42.

Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 39. 9 Cf. Gravier, pp. 56-58.

nists from the mother-countries, now almost entirely converted to Christianity; to such an extent that it could be said that, at the death of Thorvald Ericsson on the American continent in the year 1004, "the Christian religion had been established in Greenland;"1 and that Thorstein, another son of Eric the Red, could, on his death-bed in the year 1006, allude to Christianity as "the religion of Greenland."

There were, however, at this time some colonists, notably in the western settlement, professing still the pagan cult of Odin. Among these was Thorstein the Swarthy, who, when receiving Thorstein Ericsson and his wife Gudrida as his guests, told them, "I follow a religion different from yours, yet I consider as more excellent the one which you have." 3

The reason of this preference, and the principal motive of the conversion of the northern idolaters, seems to have been the perception of the powerlessness of their gods compared with the almighty strength of the God of the Christians. A half-converted Greenland woman had, in the year 1025, taken care, during his sickness, of Thormod Kolbrúnarskáld, the poetlaureate of King St. Olaf. She had a large chair on the back of which was carved an image of the god Thor. This was objected to her as a sign of her idolatry; but she exculpated herself in good style, and answered that if she seldom went to church to hear the priest, it was because she lived at a great distance and her family was small, "not because I am a pagan," she said, "for, when I look at this image of Thor," she added, "which I can burn up whenever I wish, how

1 Saga of Thorfinn, ap. Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 46; Herbermann,

ch. iv.

p. 32.

'Reeves, p. 26; Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 49.

Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 50; Reeves, p. 70.

much greater appears to me the One who has created the heavens, the earth, and all things visible and invisible, the One who has given life to all his creatures, and whom no man can resist."1

The great reliance of the first Scandinavian Christians on the power of the Almighty is manifested by their simple, fervent prayers on all occasions of danger and need. Thus, also, in a tempest which drove the Icelandic scald Helga to the coast of Greenland, one of the crew proposed that the men on board should fight one another to death, perhaps in the lingering opinion that none but warriors dying in a combat would enter the paradise of the Northmen; but Helga stood up and reminded them of the omnipotence of the true God. They prayed, and behold the wind subsided and the waves were calmed.

The same poet records in his rhymed chronicle a conversion in Greenland as late as the year 1018, the circumstances of which testify again to the confidence of the neophytes in the beneficent power of God, and seems to prove that the accession of the Northmen to Christianity was not accomplished without miraculous intervention of Heaven. Helga was affianced to a lady of Greenland who was a pagan still, but had resolved to prepare for holy baptism. She therefore, asked Helga to teach her the Apostles' Creed; but the man became so ill that he could not speak. His betrothed then placed between his teeth a thin leaf with the Saviour's name written upon it; and, he says, his color changed at once, his fever left him, and he was able to explain the Christian doctrine.2

1 Fostbroedhra-Saga, in Groenl. Histor. Mindesm., t. ii. p. 372, ap. Beauvois, Origines, p. 21.

2 Rimur af Skáld Helga, in

Groenl. Histor. Mindesm., t. ii. pp. 440, 488, 506, 514, ap. Beauvois, Origines, p. 21.