CHAPTER XIX.

GREENLAND UNDER NORWEGIAN SWAY.

Ir had been for some time already the policy of the Norwegian kings to win the Icelanders by favors, privileges, and honors; while, the better to attain their aim, they were sowing more division among them. The colonists had, moreover, slowly been accustomed to submit to Norwegian rule, by obeying, so far as they did obey, their metropolitan of Drontheim and their bishops, many of whom were Norwegian citizens. The contemporary Icelandic historian, Sturla Thordson, testifies that the submission of Iceland to Norway commenced as early as the year 1251 and 1254, the most patriotic and law-abiding class of people being the first to feel the need of foreign protection. Hacon had now second time despatched embassadors to Iceland to formally propose easy and honorable conditions of reunion with the mother country, and he finally saw his wishes fulfilled in the years 1261 and 1262, when he received the submission of all the Icelandic districts, with the exception only of the eastern quarter, which eventually surrendered also to Norway in 1264, after Hacon had fallen in his expedition against Scotland. Thus ended an American proud and independent State which had been flourishing at one time, but had now come to the very brink of anarchy, destroyed in its social life by the few powerful men who had ruined its morals and popular welfare. Iceland, as a nation, died not on a glorious battle-field, but on a sick-bed; its people, three hundred and ninety years after their ancestors had ex

iled themselves to preserve the boon of independence and liberty, now voluntarily submitted to the supreme authority of a successor of the once odious tyrant. They tried, it is true, to save some of their national institutions and privileges, and drove the shameful bargain at fair conditions, if these had been kept; but despotism from above soon took the place of that from below, and ere long Iceland became like a neglected field whose owner is anxious only to collect its scanty spontaneous produce.1

Greenland, which had rivalled its sister-republic in private and social errors, amply shared in Iceland's doom; it also lost its liberty and former glories, its power and riches, and finally its people's very existence and life.

3

The king of Norway, Hacon, from the beginning of his reign observed in Greenland the same mild and crafty policy which he followed in Iceland. It is easily understood that he urgently requested Olaf, the new bishop of Gardar, to make use of his influence in order to bring about the submission of the island to the crown of Norway." Whether Olaf promised to do so is certainly doubtful, and it is not likely that he succeeded in such endeavors, if he made any; for no progress seems to have been made in this important concern until the king despatched three special envoys to Greenland in the year 1257,—namely, Oddo of Sioltis, Paul Magnusson, and Leif, surnamed Knarrarleif from the ship in which they sailed. For four successive years these men employed all their energies and skill to persuade the Greenlanders, and, finally, in

1 Th. Sveinbjörnson, Introduction to Hin forna Lögbók Islendinga, pp. iv, v; Gaffarel, Histoire, t. i. p. 301; Hughes, Storia della Geografia, p. 31; Aa. passim.

'Torfæus, Hist. Rerum Norveg., t. iv. lib. iv. cap. xxxv. p. 251; Gravier, p. 177.

3

Gaffarel, Histoire, vol. i. p. 334.

1261, they returned to Norway with the great tidings that the colonists had consented to pay tribute to the Norwegian king, and had, moreover, agreed to remit to him all the fines imposed for the commission of murder, whether by Norwegians or Greenlanders, in any part of the island, even though it should be directly under the Pole. All this is strikingly recorded by the contemporary Sturla Thordson.1

Thus were in the same year the two largest islands of the New World reduced to the humiliating condition of mere provinces of a small European country. Hacon sent out other deputies to confirm the compact with Iceland and Greenland, which, from the days of King Magnus, have continued to belong to the Scandinavian "Mensa regis" or royal treasury of Norway and Denmark.2

This quiet political revolution was not without important consequences upon religious affairs in the two former republics, and their bishops found it useful and proper to consult together on the course to be taken under the novel circumstances.

The following year, therefore, in 1262, Olaf of Gardar sailed to Iceland, landing at Herdisarvik,3 and the next summer he assisted at the island's general assembly or Althing, together with Sigurd, bishop of Skalholt, and Brand, bishop of Holar. We know that, at the accession of King Magnus, Hacon's son, the bishop of Gardar sailed to Norway in the year 1264; but it is doubtful whether he set out from Iceland, or had re

1

Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., cap. xxx. p. 247; Langebek, t. iii. p. 104; Moosmüller, S. 63.

3 Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., cap. xxx. p. 246; Hist. Rerum Norveg., t. iv. lib. iv. cap. xlv. p. 290; Rafn, in Mémoires des Antiq., 1845-49, p. 127; Gravier, p. 37; Wetzer und Welte, art. Grönland.

Torfæus, Hist. Rerum Norveg., lib. vi. cap. xii. p. 367.

4 Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., Addenda, p. 268; Hist. Rerum Norveg., t. iv. lib. vi. cap. xii. p. 368.

turned to Greenland first.1 Both business and recreation detained him several years in Europe.

During his absence some of his priests, who likely were in the habit of following their countrymen on their hunting and fishing excursions to the Nordhrsetur of Greipar and Kroksfjordarheidi, conducted in the year 1266 an exploring expedition to more arctic regions. The account is preserved in a letter written by Halldor, a Greenland priest, and sent to another, named Arnald, who was born and had labored on the island, but had now become a chaplain of King Magnus Lagabaeter. The letter was carried to its destination in the year 1271 by the captain of the vessel which had brought back to Greenland its bishop, Olaf, as we shall notice soon.2

The letter tells that, in the same year in which Arnald had departed, the Greenlanders had sailed farther north than they had been used to do, but had found no traces of the Skraelings, except in the wilderness of Kroksfjord; whence the opinion that the aborigines lived at no great distance farther north. The priests had, therefore, afterwards organized an expedition to search the more northern regions.

Halldor relates that the adventurers sailed out of Kroksfjord in an open boat, and thence in a northerly direction to where the high mountains were replaced by low hills. But then the weather grew thick and dark, and they were forced to let their craft drive before the wind. When the weather cleared off they saw a great number of islands and a multitude of whales, seals, and bears. They made their way into the inner

1 Langebek, t. iii. p. 106; Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., cap. xxx. p. 247; Hist. Rerum Norveg., t. iv. lib. vi. cap. xii. p. 368.

2 Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., cap. v. p. 27; Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 269; Mémoire, p. 32; Beamish, Discovery, p. 126; Moosmüller, S. 196.

TY

portion of a gulf, and all was level around them save a mountain towards the South covered with ice; and here they noticed more vestiges of the Skraelings, but they did not land for fear of the bears. After this, aided by the northern current, they rowed back to the South for three days, discovering other islands at the foot of a mountain called Sniofell, which had been known before, and finding still traces of the natives. Another day's voyage brought them back to Kroksfjord again. On St. James's day, July 25, they had severe weather, being obliged to row much and very hard. It froze during the night, but both night and day the sun was above the horizon, so low, however, that when it crossed the meridian at noon the shadow of the gunwale towards the sun would cover the face of one who lay stretched out on the middle rower's bench of a sixoared boat with his feet to the South. At midnight the sun was as high as it ever rose in the Northwest at their home of Gardar. Such is the report of Halldor, who was perhaps present on the occasion.1

These daring mariners not only outdid the exploits sung by the scald Helge, who stated that the Gardarites sailed north as far as Greipar, "to the tail of Greenland's bridge" or to Greenland's remotest parts, by the island of Disco; not only did they sail, as others before them, up to Lancaster Sound and Barrow's Strait; but it is somewhat mortifying to national pride, says Beamish, to find that these simple navigators of the thirteenth century in their humble barks rivalled the most distinguished arctic explorers of the present day, such as William Parry and John and James Clark