THE regions in the neighbourhood of the North Pole have lately become the objects of increased curiosity; and among these regions Greenland has attracted a more than usual interest. This country was first peopled by a colony from Iceland, which occupied both the Western and Eastern parts of the Island. The first settlers in the West appear to have been destroyed by the natives, who are denominated Skrellings; and though a communication was preserved for several centuries between the Eastern coast of Greenland and some parts of the Danish territory, yet it was interrupted about the close of the fourteenth century by accumulated masses of ice, which formed an impenetrable barrier of considerable extent around the shore; and though various attempts have been made, at different times, to explore a passage through this frozen rampart, yet there is no definite account of any attempt of this kind which has hitherto been successful. May we hope that the execution of this project, which is prompted, not only by curiosity but by philanthropy, is reserved for the present era, and that it will be finally accomplished by the nautical skill and enterprise of this country!
As we possess indubitable evidence that a considerable extent of this coast was formerly occupied by a flourishing colony, and that it contained numerous villages, with a bishop’s see, we cannot but be anxious to know what has been the fate of so many human beings, so long cut off from all intercourse with the more civilized world. Were they destroyed by an invasion of the natives, like their countrymen on the Western coast? or have they perished by the inclemency of the climate, and the sterility of the soil? or do they still subsist? If they subsist, it must greatly interest our curiosity to learn in what manner they have vanquished the difficulties with which they have had to contend, both from the climate and the soil, and the total privation of all articles of European manufacture. In the novel circumstances in which they have been placed, have the present race advanced or declined in the degree of culture which their forefathers possessed? What proficiency have they made? or what deterioration have they undergone? Have they remained nearly stationary at the point of civilized existence at which their ancestors were placed four centuries ago? or have they entirely degenerated into a savage race, and preserved no memory nor vestige of their original extraction from, and subsequent communication with, the continent of civilized Europe? These are certainly points of interesting research; and to which we cannot well be indifferent as Christians, or, indeed, as human beings.
In the mean time, though we cannot yet supply any particulars respecting the present state of the Eastern coast of Greenland, we think that the readers of this new edition of Egede will not be displeased with us for furnishing them with all the information which remains, respecting its past state, as well as with some historical details, which will render the present volume more complete than it would otherwise have been.
Greenland was first discovered by Eric, surnamed Rufus, or the Red, in the year 981 or 982[1]. This chieftain was of Norwegian extraction. His father had fled from Norway, and taken refuge in Iceland, in order to avoid the vengeance which menaced him, on account of a murder which he had perpetrated in his native land. Eric appears to have committed in Iceland a crime similar to that for which his father had fled from Norway. In endeavouring to escape the pursuit of justice, Eric accidentally discovered the coast which is the present object of our inquiry. He took his departure from Iceland at the port of Snæfellzness, which is situate in a Western promontory of that island. He arrived in the vicinity of a mountain called Midjokul[2]; or, as it is denominated by others, Miklajokul. Peyrere interprets this, “le grand glaçon,” the great mountain of ice. Subsequent navigators gave it the name of Bloeserken, or Blue Smock, and others of Huidserken, or White Smock, according to the variations in the hue of the ice in different aspects and at different periods of the year.
Eric passed the first winter after his departure from Iceland in an island which he called after his own name, Ericscun, and which Torfæus places in the midst of the cultivated Eastern district. In the following spring he entered one of the bays of Eastern Greenland, to which he gave the name of Ericsfiord; and where he formed his first settlement, which he denominated Brattahlis. In the summer of the same year he explored parts of the more Western district, and gave names to many of the places which he visited[3]. He passed the following winter in the island of Ericscun; and in the succeeding summer he passed over to the main land, and proceeded along the Northern coast till he reached an immense rock, which he called Sneefiell, or the Rock of Snow. At this point he gave the name of Ravensfiord to another bay, on account of the multitudes of that ill-omened bird with which this spot abounds. Other parts of the coast derived their appellations from the names of the different adventurers who accompanied Eric in this expedition, as, Hergulfsness, Ketillsfiord, Solvadal, Einarsfiord, &c[4].
In the following summer Eric, having conciliated the forgiveness, or purchased the forbearance, of his enemies in Iceland, returned to that country to procure an additional supply of inhabitants for his new settlement. In order to render his proposals more attractive, he named the country for which he was endeavouring to provide colonists, Greenland, as if, compared with the rugged sterility of their native Iceland, it was a region of verdure and delight. He described it as abounding in cattle, and as rich in every species of game and fish. And as such delusive representations, when assisted by the vivid eloquence of enthusiasm, or the unhesitating assurance of effrontery, seldom fail of their effect, Eric returned to his recent acquisition with numerous ships, and a large body of settlers, from Iceland.
In less than twenty years after Eric the Red had begun to colonize Greenland, his son Leiff, who had made a voyage into Norway, renounced his Pagan errors, and received the baptismal rite. His conversion was owing to the example and the admonitions of King Olave Tryggwine, or Trugguerus[5], who had himself recently embraced the same doctrine, and had been very successful in causing it to be diffused throughout his dominions.
Leiff, having passed the winter at the court of the King of Norway, returned to Greenland, in company with a priest and some other missionaries, whom the King had commissioned to instruct Eric, and the other settlers, in the faith which Leiff had embraced. On their voyage to Greenland they met some mariners, who were floating upon a wreck in the open sea. These they took on board, and conveyed to the new settlement. Eric, at first, incensed with his son for having laid open to strangers the route to the new-discovered country, turned a deaf ear to his Christian admonitions. But the earnestness of the son, seconded by the instruction of the missionaries, at last prevailed over the insensibility of the father, who submitted to the rite of baptism, when the other Greenlanders followed his example.
The Christian doctrine, which had been thus introduced, was so much approved, and so generally received, that churches were established in twelve different parts of East Greenland, and in four of the Western district. Torfæus makes the year 1000 the era of the conversion of the Greenland colonists to the Christian faith. This historian of ancient Greenland has also preserved a list of its bishops, from the year 1021 to 1406, after which period no mention is made of any subsequent episcopal appointments; and indeed the intercourse between Greenland and the native region of the first settlers appears to have been previously discontinued.
A Danish Chronicle, which M. Peyrere had consulted, refers the discovery of Greenland to a much earlier date than that which has been given upon the authority of Torfæus; and the earlier date of 770 is more likely to be true, if, as M. Peyrere mentions, there is a bull of Pope Gregory IV, in 835, relative to the propagation of the Christian faith in the North of Europe, in which Iceland and Greenland are particularly mentioned.