Ivar Bárdsson on the Western Settlement
In 1341 Bishop Hákon of Bergen sent a priest, Ivar Bárdsson, to Greenland. He was for a number of years steward of the bishop’s residence at Gardar, and is said also to have visited the Western Settlement. We do not know for certain how long he was in Greenland, but in 1364 he again appears in Norway [cf. G. Storm, 1887, p. 74]. There exists in Danish a description of the fjords, more especially of the Eastern Settlement, which, according to its own words, must to a great extent be derived from oral communications of this Ivar (see below). These must originally have been taken down by another Norwegian, in Norwegian, and were thence translated into Danish [cf. F. Jónsson, 1899, p. 279]. There is thus a double possibility that the third-hand version we possess may contain many errors and misconceptions, of which, in fact, it bears evident marks. After speaking of the fjords in the Eastern Settlement, it says of the Western Settlement and of the journey thither:[78]
“Item from the Eastern Settlement to the Western is a dozen sea-leagues and all is uninhabited, and there in the Western Settlement stands a great church which is called Stensness Church; this church was for a time a cathedral and the see of a bishop.[79] Now the Skrælings possess the whole Western Settlement; there are indeed horses, goats, cattle and sheep, all wild, and no people either Christian or heathen.
“Item all this that is said above was told us by Iffuer bort [or Bardsen], a Greenlander, who was steward of the bishop’s residence at Gardum in Greenland for many years, that he had seen all this and he was one of those who were chosen by the ‘lagmand’ to go to the Western Settlement against the Skrælings to expel the Skrælings from the Western Settlement, and when they came there they found no man, either Christian or heathen, but some wild cattle and sheep, and ate of the wild cattle, and took as much as the ships could carry and sailed with it home [i.e., to the Eastern Settlement], and the said Iffuer was among them.
“Item there lies in the north, farther than the Western Settlement, a great mountain which is called ‘Hemelrachs felld’ [or ‘Himinraðz fjall,’ cf. vol. i. p. 302], and farther than to this mountain must no man sail, if he would preserve his life from the many whirlpools which there lie round the whole sea.”
From an Icelandic MS. of the fourteenth century
Strangely enough no author has expressed a doubt of the credibility of this description, although as usually interpreted it contains an impossibility, which must strike any one on a closer examination. It is still commonly interpreted as though Ivar Bárdsson had found the whole Western Settlement destroyed by Eskimo.[80] But if this was so, how could he have found there wild cattle, sheep, horses and goats? The whole Western Settlement must then have been destroyed the summer that he was there; for the wild cattle could not possibly have supported themselves through the winter in Greenland; evidently the author, who was unacquainted with the conditions in Greenland, did not think of this. Besides, can any one who knows the Eskimo imagine that they slaughtered the men, but not the cattle? This represented food to them, and that is what they would first have turned their attention to. It is not stated which fjord of the Western Settlement it was that Ivar visited; but in any case it is hardly to be supposed that it was all the fjords, which thus would all have been destroyed at the same time. The conclusion that Ivar found the whole Western Settlement laid waste is therefore in any case unfounded; it can at the most have been one fjord, or perhaps only one homestead (?). If there should really be some historical foundation for the description of Ivar Bárdsson’s voyage, then it may perhaps be interpreted in an altogether different way. The people of the Western Settlement, where the conditions for keeping cattle were far less favourable than farther south in the Eastern Settlement, undoubtedly became earlier absorbed among the Eskimo and went over to their mode of living. This may also be what is alluded to in the perhaps approximately contemporary statement of 1342, already quoted ([p. 101]), which says that the Greenlanders “turned to the people of America.” It is possible that it was just this same state of things that was the cause of Ivar’s being sent to expel the Skrælings from the Western Settlement. When he arrived in the summer at the fjord which he possibly visited, the people may therefore, in Eskimo fashion, have been absent on sealing expeditions somewhere out on the sea-coast and living in tents, while the cattle were turned out at pasture round the homesteads.[81] This would explain how they came to be found alive. The men of the Eastern Settlement then, with or against their better conscience, stole and carried off the property of the half-Eskimo men of the Western Settlement during their absence, and when the latter returned they found their homesteads plundered, not by Eskimo but by Greenlanders. But it is perhaps very questionable whether the whole account of this voyage is particularly historical. The statement about the whirlpools, for one thing, is mythical, pointing to an idea that this was near the end of the earth, and in the description immediately following like and unlike are mixed together in a way that is calculated to arouse doubt. We read thus:
“Item in Greenland there are silver-mines [which are not found there], white bears having red spots on the head [sic!].... Item in Greenland great tempests never come. Item snow falls much in Greenland, it is not so cold there as in Iceland and Norway, there grows on high mountains and down below fruit as large as some apples and good to eat, the best wheat that can be grows there.”[82]
As will be seen, one absurdity succeeds another. It may be objected that as it is not stated that this last paragraph is due to Ivar the Greenlander, it may have been added later; but it contains an admixture of statements that must come from Greenland—e.g., about the white bears, whales’ tusks (i.e., of walrus or narwhale), walrus hides, soapstone (steatite), of which they make pots, and large vessels; it is also stated that “there are many reindeer,” and it seems probable that it is all derived from the same untrustworthy source.