[281] One might then suppose that “Hunenrioth” was connected with the Norwegian word “hun” for a giant (sometimes used in our day for the Evil One). The name might then be applied to the mythical Risaland or Jotunheim, in the Polar Sea, north-east of Greenland; but it would then be difficult to explain the meaning of the latter part of the name, -rioth.
[282] Professor Moltke Moe has suggested to me this explanation of the name. One might also suppose it to mean the western land of sunset, that is, America, but it would be unlike the Scandinavians to use such a name for a country. There is a possibility that it was connected with “rǫð” (gen. “raðar,” a ridge of land) and meant the ridge or wall of heaven, i.e., reaching toward heaven. It is, perhaps, less probable that “-rioth” or “-rað” came from a word of two syllables like “roða” (a rod, later a cross, Anglo-Saxon “rod,” modern English “rood”) or the poetical word “róði” (wind, storm). In O. Rygh: “Norske Gaardnavne,” xvi. Nordlands Amt [ed. K. Rygh, 1905, p. 334], there is the name of an estate “Himmelstein” (in Busknes), which in 1567 was written “Himmelstand,” “Himmelstaa” [from 1610 on == “sten”]. K. Rygh remarks of this: “Himmel occurs occasionally in names of mountains: thus, a little farther north we have the lofty Himmeltinder on the border of Busknes and Borge. One is disposed to regard this name as similar to the Danish Himmelbjerg, meaning a very high mountain....” Professor Torp has mentioned to me the similarity of name with the giant Hymer’s ox “Himinhrjotr” in the Snorra-Edda; but it is difficult to think that a mountain should have been called after the proper name of an animal.
[283] Rafn, in “Grönl. hist. Mind.,” iii. pp. 881-885, commits the absurdity of separating these two places by the whole of Baffin’s Bay, in spite of their being mentioned together in the old accounts under the common designation of “Nordrsetur.” He puts “Greipar” in about 67° N. lat., but makes Króksfjardarheidr into Lancaster Sound, 74° N. lat., on the other side of the ice-blocked Baffin’s Bay.
[284] Cf. “Islandske Annaler,” ed. Storm, p. 120, etc.; “Grönl. hist. Mind.,” ii. pp. 754, 762. As is pointed out by Finnur Jónsson [1893, p. 539], most of the coffins found in graves in Greenland are fastened together with wooden nails. We are also told how all the iron spikes and nails were carefully taken out of a stranded Norwegian ship (about 1129).
[285] Since this chapter was written a few years ago, an excellent treatise by O. Solberg on the Greenland Eskimo in prehistoric times has appeared [1907]. The author has here reached conclusions similar to the above as regards the northward extension of the Nordrsetu voyages; but he proposes to place Kroksfjord south of Disco Bay, since he does not think the Greenlanders came across the Eskimo who lived there. I do not consider this view justified; on the contrary, it seems to me probable (as will be mentioned later) that the Greenlanders had intercourse with the Eskimo.
[286] Otto Sverdrup found on two small islands in Jones Sound several groups of three stones, evidently set up by human hands as shelters for sitting eider-ducks, similar to those with which he was acquainted in the north of Norway. Whether these stone shelters were very ancient could not be determined. Captain Isachsen [1907] thinks they may be due to the ancient Scandinavians of the Greenland settlements, and sees in them possible evidence of Jones Sound having been Kroksfjord. But too much importance must not be attached to this: no other sign of Europeans having stayed in Jones Sound was discovered, whereas there were many signs of Eskimo. Unless we are to believe that the latter set up the stones for some purpose or other, it is just as likely that they may have been placed there by chance hunters in recent times as that they were due to the ancient Norsemen.
[287] As these pieces of driftwood must have been carried by the East Greenland Polar Current, this seems to show that there were already Eskimo on the east coast of Greenland at that time. As they are spoken of as something remarkable, the pieces, with wedges of tusk and bone, cannot have been due to Norsemen, either in Greenland or Iceland. Their being shaped with “hatchets” or “adzes” (i.e., Eskimo tools) was looked upon as strange.
[288] This passage seems obscure, and there may be some error or misunderstanding on the part of the various copyists. But as it now stands, it may be best taken to mean that all known land and all the known glaciers had disappeared beneath the horizon; but that the “jökull” (i.e., snow-field or inland ice) which they saw to landward extended southward along the coast as far as they could see. The expression “to the south of them” is not, of course, to be interpreted as meaning due south of the spot where they were, but rather as southward along the coast, from the part off which they lay; this is confirmed by the addition “as far as they could see,” which can only refer to a coast along which they were looking southward.
[289] The text has three “dœgr” (and one long day’s rowing), that is, three times twelve hours; but in this case it seems most natural to suppose that days are meant, and that they put in to shore at night.
[290] The text says that these islands were to the south of “Snæfell”; but where this was we do not know. In the Saga of Eric the Red we read that in the third summer Eric (see above, [p. 267]) “went as far north as ‘Snæfell’ and into ‘Hrafns-fjord.’” Whether this was the same Snæfell is uncertain, but quite possible; while Hrafns-fjord (Ravnsfjord) is most probably to be regarded as the Hrafnsfjord that lay in the Eastern Settlement, near Hvarf.