It was nevertheless so cold that the party originated the unfortunate designation of Iceland, a name that has probably done more than anything else to spread through the world undoubtedly exaggerated notions as to the coldness of the island. Sometimes for weeks together Reykjavik has been warmer than London. The famous Icelandic explorer, Eric the Red, seems to have realised that a mistake had been made, and with much discretion he gave another land "a name, and called it Greenland, and said that men would be ready to go thither if the land had a good name."[10] The Icelanders are as sensitive as the Canadians about the climate of their country, and as early as the sixteenth century we find the Bishop of Holar, already mentioned (p. 29), whose observations are quoted by Hakluyt, growling thus about one whose strictures on the island did not however stop with criticisms of the climate. "There came to light about the yeare of Christ 1561, a very deformed impe, begotten by a certain Pedlar of Germany; namely, a booke of German rimes, of al that ever were read the most filthy and most slanderous against the nation of Island. Neither did it suffice the base printer once to send abroad that base brat, but he must publish it also thrise or foure times over; that he might thereby, what lay in him, more deepely disgrace our innocent nation among the Germans, and Danes, and other neighbour countries, with shamefull, and everlasting ignomine. So great was the malice of this printer, and his desire so greedy to get lucre, by a thing unlawfull. And this he did without controlment, even in that citie, which these many yeares hath trafficked with Island to the great gaine, and commodity of the citizens. His name is Ioachimus Leo, a man worthy to become lion's foode." As late as 1846 "Sylvanus" (p. 202) wrote, "Iceland, a dreary, storm-beaten isle, nearly deprived of all communication with its fatherland. It is the abode of all but ceaseless winter, in which the sun, rarely for more than a few months out of the twelve, is ever seen." It is possible to suffer very much from heat in Iceland, but there seems to be good ground for believing that the climate has changed for the severer in the course of a thousand years. Forests are frequently mentioned in the earlier sagas--the _Libellus Islandorum_ expressly says that in the first days of settlement the country "was grown with wood between fell and foreshore." But to-day there is nothing much bigger than a Japanese dwarf tree.