A Description of Greenland

by Hans Egede

The Danish Chronicle, to which Peyrere appeals, states, that the Kings of Denmark, having been converted to Christianity during the empire of Louis le Debonaire, Greenland had become an object of general attention at this period.

The Danish Chronicle relates, that the first settlers in Greenland were succeeded by a numerous posterity, who penetrated farther into the country, and discovered, among the rocky heights and icy mountains, some fertile spots, which were more auspicious to pasturage and cultivation. They followed the division of Greenland which Eric had established, and called the two settlements in the East and the West, Osterbygdt and Westerbygdt.

In the Eastern district the Greenlanders erected a town, to which they gave the name of Garde, where, according to Peyrere, who refers to the Chronicle, the Norwegians established a sort of emporium for the deposit and sale of their merchandize. The town of Garde became also the residence of their bishops; and the church of St. Nicholas, the patron of sailors, which was built in the same town, became the cathedral church of the Greenlanders.

As the temporal jurisdiction in Greenland was subject to the kings of Norway, so the spiritual power of the bishops was subordinate to that of the archbishops of Drontheim; and the bishops of Greenland are said frequently to have passed over to Norway, in order to consult their ecclesiastical superior.

The Danish Chronicle, which was one of the early documents upon which Peyrere founded his narrative, relates, that an insurrection broke out in Greenland, in 1256, when the inhabitants refused any longer to submit to the tributary exactions of Magnus, King of Norway. On this occasion, Eric, King of Denmark, at the request of Magnus, who had married his niece, equipped a naval armament in order to quell the rebels, and restore the authority of his nephew. The Greenland insurgents no sooner beheld the flag of the Danish fleet approaching their coast than they were struck with a panic, and sued for peace.

This peace was ratified in the year 1261. Angrim Jonas, who records the above-mentioned transaction, gives the names of the three principal inhabitants of Greenland, who signed the treaty in Norway. “Declarantes,” says Angrim, as quoted by Peyrere, “suis factum auspiciis ut Groenlandi perpetuum tributum Norveguo denuo jurassent.” Under their auspices the Greenlanders had been again brought to swear to pay a perpetual tribute to the Norwegian.

In composing his account of ancient Greenland, Peyrere derived his principal information from an Icelandic and a Danish Chronicle. The first was the production of Snorro Sturleson, who was a native of Iceland, and chief justiciary of that island in 1215. We are also indebted to him for the compilation of the Edda.

In the Icelandic Chronicle above-mentioned, which appears to be a tissue of different narratives, one of the chapters is entitled, a Description of Greenland, which Peyrere has copied into his account as literally as the difference of languages would admit. There is a similar description in Torfæus (p. 42, &c.), with particular but unimportant variations. Both the accounts are founded on the authority of Ivar Bert or Ivar Bevius, who had, for several years, been steward or maitre d’hotel to the Bishop of Garde, and was one of the persons who had been selected by the governor to expel the Skrellings from the Western province of Greenland or Westerbygdt, which they had invaded and depopulated.

Perhaps it will be best to insert this description of Eastern Greenland, which was the most flourishing settlement of the Norwegians in this country, as it is found in the narrative of Peyrere, and in the history of Torfæus. If the skill, the philanthropy, and the enterprize of some English navigators should ever obtain an access to this long lost settlement, and the passage should again become as safe and practicable as it was in ancient times, it will be an interesting research to compare the present state of this district with the early accounts.

The most Eastern town in Greenland, says Ivar Bert, as exhibited in the French version of Peyrere, is called Skagefiord[6], where is an uninhabitable rock, and farther out in the sea is a shoal, which prevents ships from entering the bay, except at high water, and it is at this time, or during a violent storm, that numbers of whales and of other fish enter the bay and are caught in abundance.