coast of this icy island, the most westerly land hitherto discovered by the fearless seamen of Scandinavia.[39] [Illustration: SIGURDI STEPHANII TERRARUM HYPERBOREARUM DELINEATIO, ANNO 1570. Delineation of the Hyperborean Regions, by Sigurd Stephanus in the year 1570. (Size of the original, 6¾ inches square.)] But Iceland did not long remain the most remote part of the western world known to the people of Europe. Gunnbjörn, a Norwegian, driven westward in his ship beyond Iceland, in a storm, in 876, descried land looming up along the western horizon. In the latter part of the tenth century, Eric the Red, whom the public assembly of Iceland had declared an outlaw, determined to go in search of the land seen by Gunnbjörn. He sailed from Iceland about the year 981, and came in sight of the coast of Greenland, at a place called Midjökul.[40] He then steered southward to see whether the country were habitable. He passed the first winter near the middle of the site of the eastern settlement (_eystri bygd_).[41] In the following summer he reached the western uninhabited region (_vestri ubygd_),[42] and gave names to many places. As soon as the ice disappeared, at the close of the second winter, and the sea was again navigable, he returned to Iceland, and called the country which he had explored Graenland (Greenland), “because” he said, “people will be influenced to immigrate to it, if the land bears an attractive name.” Among those whom Eric induced to return with him as colonists to Greenland was a Norwegian, named Herjulf. Thirty-five ships (_skipa_) filled with emigrants set sail from Iceland for the newly explored country, but only fourteen of the vessels reached the places where the colonists were to dwell. Eric the Red settled at Brattahlid, and Herjulf erected his house on a cape called Herjulfsnes (Herjulf’s nose, or promontory).[43] “This was fifteen winters before Christianity was established by law in Iceland.”[44]