[1] Forster, Voy. and Disc. 79.

[2] Vit. S. Anscharii, ap. Langeb. Script. Dan. I. 451. Ad.
Brem. Hist. Eccles. Lib. I. cap. 17.




CHAP. III.

_Early Discovery of Winland by the Icelanders, about A.D. 1001_.[1]


The passion which the Nordmen or Normans had always manifested for maritime
expeditions, still prevailed among them in the cold and inhospitable
regions of Iceland and Greenland. An Icelander, named Herjolf, was
accustomed to make a trading voyage every year to different countries, in
which latterly he was accompanied by his son, Biorn. About the year 1001,
their ships were separated by a storm, and Biorn learned on his arrival in
Norway that his father had sailed for Greenland, to which place he resolved
to follow his father; but another storm drove him a great way to the
south-west of his intended course, and he fell in with an extensive flat
country covered all over with thick woods; and just as he set out on his
return, he discovered an island on the coast. He made no stay at either of
these places; but the wind being now fallen, he made all the haste he could
to return by a north-east course to Greenland, where he reported the
discovery which he had made.

Lief, the son of Eric-raude, who inherited from his father an inordinate