Page:The Finding of Wineland the Good.djvu/248

 Bishop Brand as 'Bishop Brand the Elder,' it is apparent that it, as well as Hauk's Book, must have been written after the second Bishop Brand's accession to his sacred office. Bishop Brand Jonsson, the second Bishop Brand, became Bishop of Hólar in the year 1263, and died in the following year [Biskupa tal, ubi sup p. 4].

(61) We read concerning the introduction of Christianity into Iceland: 'Thorvald [Kodransson] travelled widely through the southern countries; in the Saxon-land [Germany] in the south, he met with a bishop named Frederick, and was by him converted to the true faith and baptised, and remained with him for a season. Thorvald bade the bishop accompany him to Iceland, to baptise his father and mother, and others of his kinsmen, who would abide by his advice; and the bishop consented.' ['Kristni Saga' in Biskupa Sögur, ed. Vigfusson, Copenh. 1858, vol. i. p. 3.] According to Icelandic annals, Bishop Frederick arrived in Iceland, on this missionary emprise, in the year 981; from the same authority we learn that he departed from Iceland in 985.

(62) Heriulf or Heriolf, who accompanied Eric the Red to Greenland, was not, of course, the same man to whom Ingolf allotted land between Vág and Reykianess, for Ingolf set about the colonization of Iceland in 874, more than a century before Eric the Red's voyage to Greenland. The statement of Flatey Book is, therefore, somewhat misleading, and seems to indicate either carelessness or a possible confusion on the part of the scribe. Heriulf, Eric the Red's companion, was a grandson of the 'settler' Heriulf, as is clearly set forth in two passages in Landnáma. In the first of these passages the Greenland colonist is called 'Heriulf the Younger' [Landnáma, pt. ii, ch. xiv]; the second passage is as follows: 'Heriolf, who has previously been mentioned, was Ingolf's kinsman and foster-brother, for which reason Ingolf gave him land between Vog and Reykianess; his son was Bard, father of that Heriolf, who went to Greenland and came into the "Sea-rollers." [Landnáma, pt. iv, ch. xiv.] As has already been stated, there is no mention in Landnáma or other Icelandic saga, save that of the Flatey Book, of Heriulf's son, Biarni. Reykianess, the southern boundary of Heriulf's 'claim,' is at the south-western extremity of Iceland; Vág was, probably, situated a short distance to the north of this cape, on the western coast of the same peninsula.

(63) In the 'King's Mirror' [Konungs Skuggsjá], an interesting Norwegian work of the thirteenth century, wherein, in the form of a dialogue, a father is supposed to be imparting information to his son concerning the physical geography of Greenland, he says: 'Now there is another marvel in the Greenland Sea, concerning the nature of which I am not so thoroughly informed, this is that, which people call "Sea-rollers" [hafgerðingar]. This is likest all the sea-storm and all the billows, which are in that sea, gathered together in three places, from which three billows form; these three hedge in the whole sea, so that no break is to be seen, and they are higher than tall fells, are like steep peaks, and few instances are known of persons who, being upon the sea when this phenomenon befell, have escaped therefrom.' [Speculum regale, ed. Brenner, Munich, 1881, p. 47.] A Danish scholar, in a treatise upon this subject, concludes that the hafgerðingar were earth-quake waves, and that those here celebrated were such tidal-waves caused by an unusually severe earth-quake in the year 986. [Cf. Steenstrup, Hvad er Kongespeilets 'Havgjerdinger?' Copenh. 1871, esp. p. 49]. However this may be, there can be little question that Heriulf experienced a perilous