Prominent among the later school of northern historians, all touching the Icelandic annals more or less, have been Peter Andreas Munch in his _Det Norske Folks Historie_ (Christiania, 1852-63);[585] N. M. Petersen in his _Danmarks Historie i Hedenold_ (Copenhagen, 1854-55); K. Keyser in his _Norges Historie_ (Christiania, 1866-67); J. E. Sars in his _Udsigt over den Norske Historie_ (Christiania, 1873-77); but all are surpassed by Konrad Maurer’s _Island von seiner ersten Entdeckung bis zum Untergange des Freistaates_,—A.D. 800-1262 (Munich, 1874), published as commemorating the thousandth anniversary of the settlement of Iceland, and it has the repute of being the best book on early Icelandic history.[586] The change from Paganism to Christianity necessarily enters into all the histories covering the tenth and eleventh centuries; but it has special treatment in C. Merivale’s _Conversion of the Northern Nations_ (Boyle lectures,—London, 1866).[587] There is a considerable body of the later literature upon Iceland, retrospective in character, and affording the results of study more or less patient as to the life in the early Norse days in Iceland.[588] G.W. Dasent’s introduction to his _Story of Burnt Njal_ (Edinburgh, 1861)[589] and his _Norsemen in Iceland_ (Oxford Essays, 1858) give what Max Müller (_Chips from a German Workshop_, ii. 191) calls “a vigorous and lively sketch of primitive northern life;” and are well supplemented by Sabine Baring-Gould’s _Iceland, its scenes and sagas_ (London, 1863 and later), and Richard F. Burton’s _Ultima Thule, with an historical introduction_ (London, 1875).[590] =D.= GREENLAND AND ITS RUINS.—The sagas still serve us for the colonization of Greenland, and of particular use is that of Eric the Red.[591] The earliest to use these sources in the historic spirit was Torfæus in his _Historia Gronlandiæ Antiquæ_ (1715).[592] The natural successor of Torfæus and the book upon which later writers mostly depend is David Crantz’s _Historie von Grönland, enthaltend die Beschreibung des Landes und der Einwohner, insbesonders die Geschichten der dortigen Mission. Nebst Fortsetzung_ (Barby, 1765-70, 3 vols.). An English translation appeared in London in 1767, and again, though in an abridged form with some changes, in 1820.[593] [Illustration: RUINS OF THE CHURCH AT KATORTOK. After a cut in Nordenskjöld’s _Den Andra Dicksonska Expeditionen till Grönland_, p. 369, following one in _Efter Meddelelser om Grönland_.] Crantz says of his own historic aims, referring to Torfæus and to the accounts given by the Eskimos of the east coast, that he has tried to investigate “where the savage inhabitants came from, and how the ancient Norwegian inhabitants came to be so totally extirpated,” while at the same time he looks upon the history of the Moravian missions as his chiefest theme. * * * * *