_History._--In the beginning of the 10th century the Norwegian Gunnbjorn, son of Ulf Kraka, is reported to have found some islands to the west of Iceland, and he may have seen, without landing upon it, the southern part of the east coast of Greenland. In 982 the Norwegian Eric the Red sailed from Iceland to find the land which Gunnbjorn had seen, and he spent three years on its south-western coasts exploring the country. On his return to Iceland in 985 he called the land Greenland in order to make people more willing to go there, and reported so favourably on its possibilities that he had no difficulty in obtaining followers. In 986 he started again from Iceland with 25 ships, but only 14 of them reached Greenland, where a colony was founded on the south-west coast, in the present Julianehaab district. Eric built his house at Brattalid, near the inner end oi the fjord Tunugdliarfik, just north of the present Julianehaab. Other settlers followed and in a few years two colonies had been formed, one called Osterbygd in the present district of Julianehaab comprising later about 190 farms, and another called Vesterbygd farther north on the west coast in the present district of Godthaab, comprising later about 90 farms. Numerous ruins in the various fjords of these two districts indicate now where these colonies were. Wooden coffins, with skeletons wrapped in coarse hairy cloth, and both pagan and Christian tombstones with runic inscriptions have been found. On a voyage from Norway to Greenland Leif Ericsson (son of Eric the Red) discovered America in the year 1000, and a few years later Torfinn Karlsefne sailed with three ships and about 150 men, from Greenland to Nova Scotia to form a colony, but returned three years later (see VINLAND). When the Norsemen came to Greenland they found various remains indicating, as the old sagas say, that there had been people of a similar kind as those they met with in Vinland, in America, whom they called _Skraeling_ (the meaning of the word is uncertain, it means possibly weak people); but the sagas do not report that they actually met the natives then. But somewhat later they have probably met with the Eskimo farther north on the west coast in the neighbourhood of Disco Bay, where the Norsemen went to catch seals, walrus, &c. The Norse colonists penetrated on these fishing expeditions at least to 73 deg. N., where a small runic stone from the 14th century has been found. On a voyage in 1267 they penetrated even still farther north into the Melville Bay.