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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,
