A Description of Greenland

by Hans Egede

First Settlement of Greenland, with some Thoughts on the Extinction of the Norwegian Colonies; and whether on the East Side no Remainders may be found of the old Norwegians: also, whether the same Tract of Land cannot be recovered.

IT is undoubted that the ancients, not so much driven by any necessity or compulsion as led by a natural and inbred curiosity, embarked upon many strange ventures; as for instance, to discover and settle colonies in so many formerly quite unknown and uninhabited countries, to whose discovery what particular accidents have most contributed we learn by the several histories and descriptions thereof. For the Almighty and good God, who has not in vain created the vast globe of the Earth, has also not intended, that any part or province of it should lie buried in eternal oblivion, useless to mankind. And that Greenland by such means has been discovered and inhabited by our old Norwegians and Icelanders, we are fully informed by the annals of Iceland; where we read, that the brave and valiant Erick Raude (or red) who was the first discoverer of this country, after he, in company with several other Icelanders, in the year of our Lord 982, by mere casualty fell in with the land, and had taken a survey of its present state, he returned to Iceland the next year, 983, spoke much in commendation of the land, calling it the Greenland, by which he persuaded many of his countrymen to follow him thither, in order to find out places fit for dwelling, and to settle there[22]. They no sooner were arrived and settled here, but they found God was come along with them; I mean the saving knowledge of his most holy Word. For the said Erick Raude’s son, called Leif, after he had been instructed in the Gospel truths by King Olaf (who was the first Christian king of Norway), brought along with him from Norway to Greenland a priest, who taught and christened all the inhabitants of the country. Thus this country has first been settled by Norway and Iceland colonies, which, in after-times, have increased and been provided with many churches and convents, bishops and teachers; which lasted as long as the correspondence and navigation continued between them and Norway, until the year 1406, when the last bishop was sent over to Greenland. Yet the Norwegians were not the original natives of the land; for, not long after their arrival, they met with the old inhabitants, a savage people dwelling on the Western shore, originally descended from the Americans, as may with great probability be gathered from the agreement of their persons, customs, and habits with those who dwell to the North of Hudson’s Bay; as likewise while those, that inhabited the Northern parts (now known by the name of Davis’s Straits), advanced nearer and nearer to the South, and often made war upon the Norwegians. Concerning the cause of the ruin and total destruction of that so well established Norwegian colony there is nothing found upon record; the reason of which I think to be, that after all correspondence and navigation ceased between Greenland and Norway, partly by the change and translation of the government in Queen Margaret’s reign, and partly by the next following continual wars between the Danes and Swedes, which caused the navigation to those parts to be laid aside, and chiefly by the great difficulty and innumerable dangers of such navigation; which several causes cut off all intelligence, that might be had of that country’s state, as may be seen in Pontanus and Claudius Lyscander.

The ancient historians divide Greenland into two parts or districts, called West Bygd, and East Bygd. As to the West district, which is said to have contained four parishes, and one hundred villages, all we find in the ancient histories amounts to this, viz. that in the fourteenth century it was sorely infested by a wild nation called Schrellings, and laid so waste, that when the inhabitants of the Eastern district came to the assistance of the Christians, and to expel the barbarous nation of the Schrellings, who were fallen upon the Christians, they found to their great astonishment the province quite emptied of its inhabitants, and nothing remaining but some cattle and flocks of sheep, straying wild and unguarded round about the fields and meadows; whereof they killed a good number, which they brought home with them in their ships. By which it appears, that the Norway Christians in the Western district were destroyed, and Christianity rooted out by the savage Heathens. The modern inhabitants of West Greenland, being, no doubt, the offspring of the before mentioned wild and barbarous Schrellings, have no certain account to give us of this matter; though they will tell you, that the old decayed dwelling places and villages, whose ruins are yet seen, were inhabited formerly by a nation quite different from theirs; and they also affirm, what the ancient histories tell us, that their ancestors made war with them, and destroyed them[23].

Now, as to the Eastern district, its present state is entirely unknown to us, as there is no approaching it with any shipping, upon account of the vast quantity of ice, driven from Spitzbergen and other Northern coasts upon this shore, which, adhering to the shore, barricades the land, and renders it wholly inaccessible. We may nevertheless gather from the above-mentioned expedition of the East Greenlanders against the Schrellingers, that after the destruction and total overthrow of the Western district and its colonies, the Eastern were yet standing and flourishing. But in what year this happened no notice is taken by the old historians. Nevertheless, from many tokens and remainders of probable evidence it may be inferred, that the old colony of the Eastern district is not yet quite extinct. To the confirmation of which, Thormoder, in his History of Greenland, alledges the following passage:—

Bishop Amand, of Shalholt in Iceland (who, anno 1522, had been consecrated, but, anno 1540, again resigned), once returning from Norway to Iceland, was by a storm driven Westward upon the coast of Greenland, which he coasted for some time Northwards, and made land towards the evening, finding themselves off Herjolsness. They came so near to the shore, that they could descry the inhabitants driving their flocks in the pasture grounds: but as the wind soon after proved fair they made all the sail they could, steering for Iceland, which they reached the day following, and entered the Bay of St. Patrick, which lies on the West coast of the island, in the morning early, when they were milking their cows.

Birn of Skarsaa (as we learn by the aforesaid Thormoder Torfager) gives the following relation:—

“In our time,” says he, “one named John Greenlander, who for a considerable time had been employed in the service of the Hamburgh merchants, in a voyage from thence to Iceland, met with contrary winds and stormy weather, in which he narrowly escaped being cast away, and lost with ship and crew upon the dreadful rocks of Greenland, by getting in at last to a fine bay, which contained many islands, where he happily came to an anchor under a desert island; and it was not long before he spied several other islands not far off, that were inhabited; which, for fear of the inhabitants, he for a while did not dare to approach; till at last he took courage, and sending his boat on shore, went to the next house, which seemed but very small and mean. Here he found all the accoutrements necessary to fit out a fishing boat; he saw also a fishing booth, or small hut, made up of stones, to dry fish in, as is customary in Iceland. There lay a dead body of a man extended upon the ground with his face downwards; a cap sewed together on his head; the rest of his clothing was made partly of coarse cloth, and partly of seal skin; an old rusty knife was found at his side, which the captain took, in order to show it to his friends at his return home to Iceland, to serve for a token of what he had seen. It is farther said, that this commander was three times by stress of weather driven upon the coasts of Greenland, by which he obtained the surname of Greenlander.”

This relation can be of no more than a hundred years standing, as Theodore Torlack affirms: because the above mentioned annals, in which we read it, were composed by Biorno of Skarsaa within these thirty years.

The same author furthermore informs us, that in Iceland there has often been found, scattered here and there on the sea shore, old broken pieces of deal boards, parts of the ribs of boats, which on the side were tacked together, and pasted with a sort of pitch or glue made of the blubber of seals. Now it is admitted, that this kind of glue is nowhere made use of but in Greenland; and a boat of this make was in the year 1625 found thrown up, upon a point of land near Reiche Strand, the structure of which was very artificial, joined together with wooden nails, not unlike that in which Asmund Kastenrazius, in the year 1189, in company with twelve men, crossed over from Greenland to Iceland; which boat was likewise tacked together with wooden nails, and the sinews of animals. The same historian, in his book De Novitiis Groenlandorum Indiciis, tell us, that some years ago, they found an oar upon the Eastern shore of Iceland, whereon these words were carved in Runick characters: Oft var ek dascedar ek dro dik, which signifies, “Often was I tired, when I carried thee.” Besides this, I find a relation in a German writer, whose name is Dithmarus Blefkenius, concerning a certain monk, born in Greenland, who, as companion to the bishop of the place, in the year 1546 made a voyage into Norway, where he lived until the year 1564, and where, the author says, he got acquainted and personally conversed with him. This monk told him many strange and surprising things of a Dominican convent in Greenland, called St. Thomas’s Convent; to which his parents sent him in his youth to become a monk of that order. But the truth of this relation is very much questioned, being, together with several others of Blefkenius’s relations, refuted and gainsaid by Arngrim, in his Treatise, entitled Anatome Blefkeniana. Blefkenius’s relation is nevertheless confirmed by several other authors. Erasmus Franciscus, in his book called East and West India State Garden, in a place where he treats of Greenland tells us, that a captain of a Danish ship, by name Jacob Hall, being ordered by the King his master to undertake a voyage to Greenland, he touched first at Iceland, where he from the King’s lieutenant got intelligence of Greenland, which before was unknown to him. And that he might the more fully be informed of every thing relating to this matter, a certain monk was sent for to instruct him herein, who was said to be a native of Greenland; of whom the said Jacob Hall, in his short description, gives the following account, according to our above-mentioned author, Erasmus Fransciscus.

“There has formerly been a convent in Iceland, called Helgafield, or Holy Mountain, in which, though it was decayed, lived a certain friar, native of Greenland, with a broad and tawny face. This friar was sent for by the King’s lieutenant, in the presence of Jacob Hall, who wanted to be informed of the state of Greenland. The friar accordingly told him, that being very young, he was entered into this convent by his parents; and that he afterwards was commanded by the same bishop, of whom he had received the holy orders, to go along with him from thence to Norway, where he submitted himself to the bishop of Drontheim, to whose authority and jurisdiction all the priests of Iceland were subject; and being returned to his native home, he again retired and shut himself up in his former convent. This is said to have happened in the year 1546. He said moreover, that in the convent of St. Thomas, where he also had passed some time, there was a well of burning hot water, which, through pipes, was conveyed into all the rooms and cells of the convent to warm them.”