View from the mountain Igdlerfigsalik (see map, [p. 271]) over Tunugdliarfik (Eiriksfjord and Brattalid), farther to the left Sermilik (Isafjord and the Mid-fjords)
into which a glacier falls; in the right centre Korok-fjord, with a glacier falling into it. The whole background is covered by the inland ice;
behind it on the right the Nunataks near the east coast. (After D. Bruun, 1896)
Eric the Red’s first voyage to Greenland is one of the most remarkable in the history of arctic expeditions, both in itself, on account of the masterly ability it shows, and for the vast consequences it was to have. With the scanty means of equipment and provisioning available at that time in the open Viking ships,[249] it was no child’s play to set out for an unknown arctic land beyond the ice, and to stay there three years. Perhaps, of course, he did it from necessity; but he not only came through it alive—he employed the three years in exploring the country, from Hvarf right up to north of Davis Strait, and from the outermost belt of skerries to the head of the long fjords. This was more than 500 years before the Portuguese came to the country, and exactly 600 before John Davis thought himself the discoverer of this coast.
But not only does Eric seem to have been pre-eminent, first as a fighter and then as a discoverer; as the leader of the colony founded by him in Greenland he must also have had great capabilities; he got people to emigrate thither, and looked after them well; and he was regarded as a matter of course as the leading man and chief of the new free state, whom every one visited first on arrival. His successors, who resided at the chief’s seat of Brattalid, were the first family of the country.
Part of the interior of Eiriksfjord, at Brattalid and beyond.
The mountain Igdlerfigsalik in the background (after D. Bruun, 1896)
Immigration to Greenland must according to the saga have gone on rapidly; for in the year 1000 there were already so many inhabitants that Olaf Tryggvason thought it worth while to make efforts to Christianise them, and sent a priest there with Eric’s son Leif. Eric’s wife, Tjodhild, at once received the faith; but the old man himself did not like the new doctrine, and found it difficult to give up his own. Tjodhild built a church at some distance from the houses; “there she made her prayers, and those men who accepted Christianity, but they were the most. She would not live with Eric, after she had taken the faith; but to him this was very displeasing.” In Snorre’s Heimskringla we read that men called Leif “the Lucky [see [Chap. ix.]]; but Eric, his father, thought that one thing balanced the other, that Leif had saved the shipwrecked crew and that he had brought the hypocrite [‘skæmannin’] to Greenland, that is, the priest.”
The Norsemen established themselves in two districts of Greenland. One of these was the “Eastern Settlement” [Österbygden], so called because it lay farthest to the south-east on the west coast, between the southern point, Hvarf, and about 61° N. lat. It corresponds to the modern Julianehaab District. It was the most thickly populated, and it was here that Eiriksfjord and Brattalid lay. In the whole “Settlement” there are said to have been 190 homesteads [“Grönl. hist. Mind.,” iii. p. 228]. Ruins of these have been found in at least 150 places [cf. D. Bruun, 1896; G. Holm, 1883].
The central part of the Eastern Settlement.
Black points mark ancient ruins, crosses mark churches
The Western Settlement