to Brattahlid, in Greenland, a merchant-ship from Norway, with
provisions for the Christian settlements on the coast. The master's
name was Snorri Gamlason, and it happened that as he sailed into
Eric's Fiord and warped alongside the quay, word was brought to him that
the Bishop of Garda had arrived that day in Brattahlid, to hold a
confirmation. Whereupon this Snorri went ashore at once, and, getting
audience of the Bishop, gave him a little book, with an account of how
he had come by it.

The book was written in Danish, and Snorri could not understand a word
of it, being indeed unable to read or to write; but he told this
tale:--

His ship, about three weeks before, had run into a calm, which lasted
for three days and two nights, and with a northerly drift she fell away,
little by little, towards a range of icebergs which stretched across and
ahead of them in a solid chain. But about noon of the third day the
colour of the sky warned him of a worse peril, and soon there came up
from the westward a bank of fog, with snow in it, and a wind that
increased until they began to hear the ice grinding and breaking up--
as it seemed--all around them. Snorri steered at first for the
southward, where had been open water; but by and by found that even here
were drifting bergs. He therefore put his helm down and felt his way
through the weather by short boards, and so, with the most of his men
stationed forward to keep a look-out, fenced, as it were, with the
danger, steering and tacking, until by God's grace the fog lifted, and
the wind blew gently once more.

And now in the clear sunshine he saw that the storm had been more
violent than any had supposed; since the wall of ice, which before had