It is said in the saga of Eric the Red and of the Greenlanders,[46] that when Herjulf sailed, in the spring of 985, from Iceland to Greenland, his son Bjarni was in Norway. When the latter, in the following summer returned to Iceland, and learned that his father had emigrated to the country recently explored by Eric the Red, he determined to sail to it and pass the winter with his father, as had been his custom for many years. He evidently had some misgivings respecting the success of the contemplated voyage, for he said to his companions: “Our going there will be devoid of common-sense, since not one of us has traversed the Greenland Sea.” “Nevertheless,” as the tradition runs, “as soon as they had fitted for the voyage, they intrusted themselves to the ocean, and made sail three days, until the land passed out of their sight from the water. But then the bearing winds ceased to blow, and northern breezes and a fog succeeded. Then they were drifted about for many days and nights, not knowing whither they tended. After this the light of the sun was seen, and they were able to survey the regions of the sky. Now they carried sail, and steered this day before they beheld land.” They sailed near to it, and “soon saw that the country was not mountainous, but covered with trees and diversified with little hills. They left the land on their larboard side, and let the stern turn from the shore. Then they sailed two days before they saw another land [or region].... They then approached it, and saw that it was level and covered with trees. Then, the favorable wind having ceased blowing, the sailors said that it seemed to them that it would be well to land there, but Bjarni was unwilling to do so.... He bade them make sail, which was done. They turned the prow from the land, and sailed out into the open sea, where for three days they had a favorable south-southwest wind. They saw a third land [or region], but it was high and mountainous and covered with glaciers.... They did not lower sail, but holding their course along the shore, they found it to be an island. Again they turned the stern against the land, and made sail for the high sea, having the same wind, which gradually increasing, Bjarni ordered the sails to be shortened, forbidding the use of more canvas than the ship and her outfit could conveniently bear. Thus they sailed for four days, when they saw a fourth land” [or region], which was Greenland, where Bjarni found his father.[47]