Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/155

 CHAP. V. OF THE DISCOVERY OF GREENLAND AND AMERICA BY THE NORTHMEN.

The discovery of Greenland by the Icelanders about the year 981, and the establishment of considerable colonies on one or on both sides of that vast peninsula which terminates at Cape Farewell,—in which Christianity and Christian establishments, parishes, churches, and even monasteries, were flourishing, or at least existing to such an extent that from 1124 to 1389 there was a regular succession of bishops, of whom seventeen are named, for their superintendence, —are facts which no longer admit of any reasonable doubt. The documentary evidence of the saga,—which gave not merely vague accounts of such a discovery and settlement, but statistical details, with the names and the distances from each other of farms or townships, of which there were, according to accounts of the 14th century, ninety in what was called Yestribygd or the western settlement, with four churches, and 190 in the Eystribygd or eastern settlement, with one cathedral, eleven other churches, two towns, and three or four monasteries,—bears all the internal evidence of truth, in the consistency and simplicity of the statements. The saga accounts also are supported by the incidental notice of Greenland by contemporary writers. Adam of Bremen mentions that the people of Greenland, among other northern people, sent to his diocesan, Adalbert archbishop of Bremen, who died in 1075, for clergymen, who accordingly were sent to them. The first bishop of Greenland