Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/166

 meaning of the letters M. D. following the name, and which probably refer to the person's family, as Magnus's Daughter, or some similar distinctive use, form the only obscurity. In 1831 the missionary De Fries found near Igigeitum, in latitude 60°, a tombstone used as a door-lintel to a Greenland house, with an inscription in Roman characters—a Her Hvilir Hro Kolgrims;" which is, a Here rests Hroar or Hroaldr Kolgrimson." But the most interesting of these inscriptions is one discovered in 1824, in the island Kingigtorsook in Baffin's Bay, in latitude 72° 55' north, longitude 56° 5' west of Greenwich; as it shows how bold these Northmen have been in their seamanship, and how far they had penetrated into regions supposed to have been unvisited by man before the voyages of our modern navigators. It now appears that Captain Parry and Captain Lyon had only sailed over seas which had been explored by these Northmen in the 12th century. The inscription found in this high latitude was sent to three of the greatest antiquaries and Runic scholars in Europe—Finn Magnusen, Professor Rask, and Dr. Bryniulfson in Iceland; and, without communication with each other, they arrived at the same interpretation, viz. u Erling Sighvatson and Biorne Thordarson and Eindrid Oddson, on Saturday before Ascension Week, raised these marks and cleared ground. 1135." The meaning is, that in token of having taken possession of the land, they had raised marks or mounds of which Kragh and Stephenson observed some vestiges on the spot where the inscription was found, and had cleared a space of ground around, being a symbol of appropriation of the land. The interesting part of this inscription has not been sufficiently noticed and examined. In the Romish church the days of the Ascension Week are of peculiar solemnity. The priests, accompanied by the people, walk in long processions with lighted torches around