A whole century passed from the cessation of all commerce and navigation
between Norway and Greenland, till new adventurers began to apply
themselves to the discovery of the Eastern district. The first of those
who took this affair to heart was Erick Walkendorff, archbishop of
Drontheim, who was resolved, at his own charge, to fit out ships for
this purpose, but was stopped in this pious design by King Christian the
Second, whose disgrace he had incurred. The next was King Frederick the
First, whose mind, as it is reported, was bent upon the said expedition,
but it was never put in execution. Christian the Third (as Lyscander
relates) sent several ships with the same design, but without making any
discovery. Frederick the Second succeeded his royal father, as well in
the government as in his good design about Greenland; on which errand he
sent Mogens Heinson, a renowned seaman in those days. This adventurer,
after he had gone through many difficulties and dangers of storms and
ice, got sight of the land, but could not approach it; whereupon he
returned home again, and pretended, that he might have got on shore, if
his ship had not been stopped in the midst of its course, by some
loadstone rocks hidden in the sea, so that he could not proceed though
he had a very favourable and strong gale of wind, and no ice to hinder
him: which frightened him and made him sail back again to Denmark. But
the true loadstone rocks, in my opinion, was the terrible fright he was
in of not getting safe through the dreadful ice mountains, which
threatened him, or else the strong current, which always runs along the
states promontory with such violence and rapidity, that it often stops a
ship under full sail, so that the ship can make but little or no way at
all against it. The cause by others assigned for this strange effect,
the fish Remora, which the Northlanders call Kracken, is nothing but a
fabulous story of the too credulous ancients, and labours under no less
absurdities than the former opinion, that rocks of loadstone, laying on
the bottom of the sea, can stay the course of a ship that sails on the
surface of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account