[70] The Landnama-bok. This is probably the most complete record of the kind ever made by any nation. It is of the same general character as the English Doomsday Book, but vastly superior in interest and value. It contains the names of three thousand persons and one thousand four hundred places. It gives a correct account of genealogies of the first settlers, with brief notices of their achievements. It was commenced by the celebrated Frode, the Wise, who was born 1067, and died 1148, and was continued by Kalstegg, Styrmer and Thordsen, and completed by Hauk Erlendson, Lagman, or Governor of Iceland, who died in the year 1334.
[71] Gunnbiorn appears to have been a Northman who settled in Iceland at an early day. Nothing more is known of him.
[72] Torfæus says that these rocks lie six sea miles out from Geirfuglesker, out from Reikiavek, and twelve miles south of Garde in Greenland, yet they cannot now be found. It is not too much to suppose that they have been sunk by some of those fearful convulsions which have taken place in Iceland; yet it is quite as reasonable to conclude that these rocks were located elsewhere, probably nearer the east coast, which was formerly more accessible than now. In the version of the Account of Greenland, by Ivar Bardason (see Antiquitates Americanæ, p. 301), given from a Faroese Manuscript, and curiously preserved by Purchas, His Pilgrimage, vol. iii, p. 518, we read as follows:
"Item, men shall know, that, between Island and Greenland, lyeth a Risse called Gornbornse-Skare. There were they wont to haue their passage for Gronland. But as they report there is Ice upon the same Risse, come out of the Long North Bottome, so that we cannot use the same old Passage as they thinke."
[73] Torfæus says (Greenlandia, p. 73), that "Eric the Red first lived in Greenland, but it was discovered by the man called Gunnbiorn. After him Gunnbiorn's Rocks are called."
[74] The translation is literal or nearly so, and the sense is obscure.
[75] This shows that others had been there before. They were doubtless Icelanders who were sailing to Greenland. The place of concealment appears to have been an excavation covered with stone or wood. That the people were sometimes accustomed to hide money in this way, is evident. We read in the Saga of Eric the Red, that this person at first intended to go with his son, Leif, on his voyage to discover the land seen by Heriulf, and which Leif named Vinland. On his way to the ship, Eric's horse stumbled, and he fell to the ground seriously injured, and was obliged to abandon the voyage. He accepted this as a judgment for having, as one preparation for his absence, buried his money, where his wife, Thorhild, would not be able to find it.
[76] This is believed to have been about February, which affords one of many indications that the climate of that region has become more rigorous than formerly. The fact that water did not freeze, indicates mild weather, which we might infer from the rigging of their vessels, and the preparation for sea. In regard to the term Goe, Grönland's Historiske Mindesmærker (vol. i, p. 7), says: "This name was before used in Denmark, which Etatsraad Werlauf has discovered on the inscription of a Danish Rune-Stone."
[77] The facts that they engaged in hunting, and that they built a cabin to live in, might at first lead some to suppose that the place contained a forest or more or less trees, to supply wood. Yet this does not follow, as drift wood might supply all their wants for building purposes, where they could not obtain or use stone. Regarding drift wood, Crantz says, in speaking of Greenland: "For as He has denied this frigid, rocky region the growth of trees, He has bid the storms of the ocean to convey to its shores a great deal of wood, which accordingly comes floating thither, part without ice, but the most part along with it, and lodges itself between the islands. Were it not for this, we Europeans should have no wood to burn there.... Among this wood are great trees torn up by the roots, which by driving up and down for many years, and dashing and rubbing on the ice, are quite bare of branches. A small part of this drift wood are willows, alder and birch trees, which come out of the bays in the south; also large trunks of aspen trees, ... but the greatest part is pine and fir. We find also, a good deal of a sort of wood, finely veined, and with few branches; this, I fancy, is larchwood.... There is also a solid, reddish wood of a more agreeable fragrancy than the common fir, with visible cross veins, which I take to be the same species as the beautiful silver firs, or zirbel, that have the smell of cedar, and grow on the high Grison hills, and the Switzers wainscot their rooms with them."—History of Greenland, vol. i, p. 37.
[78] If any confirmation were needed of the truth of this narrative, or of the killing of Snæbiorn and Thorod, we might look for it in the equally well known fact, that after the return of the voyagers to Iceland, the death of these two men was fearfully revenged by their friends.