It contains the names of 3000 persons, and 1,400 places. It gives a correct account of the genealogies of the families, and brief notices of personal achievements. It was begun by Frode (born 1067, died 1148), and was continued by Kalstegg, Styrmer and Thordsen, and completed by Hauk Erlandson, Lagman, or Governor of Iceland, who died in the year 1334.
[25] "Thus saith the holy priest Bede.... Therefore learned men think that it is Iceland which is called Thule.... But the holy priest Bede died dccxxxv. years after the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, more than a hundred years before Iceland was inhabited by the Northmen."—Antiquitates Americanæ, p. 202. This extract is followed by the statement of Ari Frode, and shows that the Irish Christians retired to Iceland at a very early day. The Irish monk Dicuil also refers to this solitary island, which, about the year 795, was visited by some monks with whom he had conversed.
[26] All the information which we possess relating to the discovery by Gunnbiorn is given in the body of this work, in extracts from Landanamabok.
[27] Claudius Christophessen, the author of some Danish verses relating to the history of Greenland, supposes that Greenland was discovered in the year 770, though he gave no real reason for his belief. M. Peyrere also tells us of a Papal Bull, issued in 835, by Gregory IV, which refers to the conversion of the Icelanders and Greenlanders. Yet this is beyond question fraud. Gunnbiorn was undoubtedly the first to gain a glimpse of Greenland.
[28] The Northmen reckoned by winters.
[29] See the Saga of Eric the Red.
[30] The statement, found in several places, that he discovered Vinland while on his way to Greenland, is incorrect. The full account of his voyages shows that his Vinland voyage was an entirely separate thing.
[31] The author designs shortly to give some full account of the early Christianity on the Western Continent in a separate work, now well advanced towards completion. It will include both the Pre and Post-Columbian eras.
[32] Gissur the White and Hialte, went on the same errand to Iceland in the year 1000, when the new religion was formally adopted at the public Thnig.
[33] It will be seen hereafter that he went and established himself in Vinland.