Northern Antiquities/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
Sequel of the maritime expeditions of the ancient Danes and Norwegians. The discovery of Iceland and Greenland, and of an unknown country, called Vinland.
IT was not by this expedition alone, important as it might be, that the Norwegians were distinguished under the reign of Harold Harfagre. The ambition of that prince gave birth to a conquest of a more peaceable kind, which though little known to the rest of the world, had yet very interesting consequences in the history of the North. For, not satisfied with having happily subdued the little tyrants who had for a long time weakened and distrest Norway, he was disposed to exercise such absolute authority over his subjects, as, far from submitting to, they had not even a name for it. The greatest part of the Norwegian nobility perceiving that it was in vain to oppose their strength to his, Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/344 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/345 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/346 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/347 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/348 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/349 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/350 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/351 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/352 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/353 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/354 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/355 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/356 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/357 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/358 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/359 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/360 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/361 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/362 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/363 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/364 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/365 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/366 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/367 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/368 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/369 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/370 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/371 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/372 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/373 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/374 the same Cape and the nearest coast of Labrador is still much less. As it cannot be above two hundred French leagues, the voyage could not take up above feven or eight days, even allowing for the delays that must have happened to the ancients through their want of that skill in navigation which the moderns have since acquired. This could therefore appear no such frightful distance to adventurers who had newly discovered Greenland, which is separated from Iceland at leaft as far. This reasoning is still farther enforced, when we reflect that the distance of Iceland itself, from the nearest part of Norway, is double to that above-mentioned.
In effect, the hiftory of the North abounds with relations of maritime expeditions of far greater extent than was necessary for the difcovery of America. The fituation of Greenland, relative to this new country, not being fufficiently known, is the only circumftance that can prejudice one against it; but when we have maftered the greater objection, why should we make any difficulty of the less? We should ceafe to be furprized at thofe fame men croffing a fpace of two hundred leagues, which was the distance between them and America, whose courage and curiosity had frequently prompted them to traverse the Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/376 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/377 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/378 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/379 on, narrowing towards the north, till the opposite American continent can be easily discerned from Greenland, and that the extremity of this bay ends in a river, over which, wandering savages, inured to cold, might easily pass from one land to the other, even if they had had no canoes.
The result of all this seems to be, that there can be no doubt, but that the Norwegian Greenlanders discovered the American continent; that the place where they settled was either the country of Labrador, or Newfoundland, and that their colony subsisted there a good while. But then this is all we can say about it with any certainty. To endeavour to ascertain the exact site, extent and fortune of the establishment, would be a fruitless labour. Time and chance may possibly one day inform us of these circumstances. I shall not therefore amuse the reader with uncertain conjectures; neither shall I trouble him with such reflections as he is able to make much better than myself.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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