Hvítserkr
The name “Hvítserkr” would appear most appropriate to a glacier, and in reviewing the various contexts in which it is mentioned in the narratives, my impression is rather that in later times it was often used as a name for the inland ice itself on the east and south coasts of Greenland; and as, on the voyage to the Eastern Settlement, the inland ice was most seen on the southern part of the east coast, which was also resorted to for seal-hunting, the name Hvítserk became especially applied to the southern glacier, as in the tale of Einar Sokkason (see above, [p. 283]); but it might also be the mid-glacier. This view is supported by, for instance, the so-called Walkendorff addition to Ivar Bárdsson’s description, where the following passage occurs about the voyage from Iceland to Greenland [“Grönl. hist. Mind.,” iii. p. 491]:
“Item when one is south of Breedefjord in Iceland, then he must steer westward until he sees Hvidserch in Greenland, and then steer south-west, until the above mentioned Hvidserch is to the north of him; thus may one with God’s help freely seek Greenland, without much danger from ice, and with God’s help find Eric’s fjord.”
It is clearly enough the inland ice itself, the most prominent feature on the east coast, that is here called Hvidserch. It is first seen at Miðjǫkull, in coming westwards from Iceland; and one has the inland ice (ice-blink) on the north when about to round Cape Farewell. No single mountain can possibly fit this description; but this does not exclude the possibility of others having erroneously connected the name with such a mountain, in the same way as Danish sailors of recent times have applied it to a lofty island, “Dadloodit,” in the southernmost part of Greenland [“Grönl. hist. Mind.,” i. p. 453]. The fact that Hvítserk in Ivar Bárdsson’s description is called “a high mountain,” which is seen one day before reaching Hvarf, must be due to a similar misunderstanding. As Bláserk, although originally it may have been a mountain, was confounded with the Mid-Glacier, it is comprehensible that the name Bláserk should be gradually superseded by Hvítserk.
In one or two passages of the old narratives it is related that when one was half-way between Iceland and Greenland one could see at the same time, in clear weather, Snæfells glacier in Iceland and Bláserk (or Hvítserk)[266] in Greenland. According to my experience this is not possible, even if we call in the aid of a powerful refraction, or even mirage; but, on the other hand, one can see the reflections of the land or the ice on the sky, and when sailing (along the edge of the ice) eastwards or westwards, one can very well see the top of the Snæfells glacier and the top of Ingolf’s Fjeld on the same day.
Place-names on the east coast
The Icelandic accounts mention several places in East Greenland, such as “Kross-eyjar,” “Finnsbuðir,” “Berufjord” (“bera” == she-bear), and the fjord “Öllum-Lengri.” Frequent expeditions for seal-hunting were made to these places from the Eastern Settlement, and they must have lain near it, just north of Cape Farewell.
VOYAGES TO THE NORTHERN WEST COAST OF GREENLAND, NORÐRSETUR, AND BAFFIN’S BAY IN THE MIDDLE AGES
Runic stone from 72° 55′ N. lat.
To the north of the northernmost inhabited fjords of the Western Settlement lay the uninhabited regions. Thither the Greenlanders resorted every summer for seal-hunting; there lay what they called the “Norðrsetur” (“seta” == place of residence; the northern stations or fishing-places), and it is doubtless partly to these districts that reference is made in Eric the Red’s Saga, where it is said of Thorhall the Hunter that “he had long been with Eric hunting in summer,” and that “he had a wide acquaintance with the uninhabited regions.” We have no information as to how far north the longest expeditions of the Greenlanders extended, but we know that they reached the neighbourhood of the modern Upernivik; for, twenty-eight miles to the north-west of it—on a little island called Kingigtorsuak, in 72° 55′ N. lat.—three cairns are said to have been found early in the nineteenth century (before 1824); and in one of them a small runic stone, with the inscription: “Erling Sigvathsson, Bjarne Thordarson, and Endride Oddson on the Sunday before ‘gagndag’ [i.e., April 25] erected these cairns and cleared ...”[267] Then follow six secret runes, which it was formerly sought to interpret, erroneously, as a date, 1135. Professor L. F. Läffler has explained them as meaning ice;[268] it would then read “and cleared away ice.” Judging from the language, the inscription would be of the fourteenth century;[269] Professor Magnus Olsen (in a letter to me) thinks it might date from about 1300, or perhaps a little later. Why the cairns were built seems mysterious. It is possible that they were sea-marks for fishing-grounds; but it is not likely that the Greenlanders were in the habit of going so far north. One would be more inclined to think they were set up as a monument of a remarkable expedition, which had penetrated to regions previously unknown; but why build more than one cairn? Was there one for each man? The most remarkable thing is that the cairns are stated to have been set up in April, when the sea in that locality is covered with ice. The three men must either have wintered there in the north, which seems the more probable alternative; they may then have been starving, and the object of the cairns was to call the attention of possible future travellers to their bodies—or they may have come the same spring over the ice from the south, and in that case they most probably travelled with Eskimo dog-sledges, and were on a hunting expedition, perhaps for bears. But they cannot have travelled northwards from the Eastern or Western Settlement the same spring. In any case they may have been in company with Eskimo, whom we know to have lived on Disco Bay, and probably also farther south at that time. From them the Norsemen may have learnt to hunt on the ice, by which they were able to support themselves in the north during the winter.