[Footnote 176: Laing's excellent English translation of it was published in London in 1844. The preliminary dissertation, in five chapters, is of great value. A new edition, revised by Prof. Rasmus Anderson, was published in London in 1889. Another charming book is Sir George Dasent's _Story of Burnt Njal_, Edinburgh, 1861, 2 vols., translated from the _Njals Saga_. Both the saga itself and the translator's learned introduction give an admirable description of life in Iceland at the end of the tenth century, the time when the voyages to America were made. It is a very instructive chapter in history. The Icelanders of the present day retain the Old Norse language, while on the Continent it has been modified into Swedish and Norwegian-Danish. They are a well-educated people, and, in proportion to their numbers, publish many books.] [Sidenote: Discovery of Greenland, 876.] [Sidenote: Eric's Colony in Greenland, 986.] Now from various Icelandic chronicles[177] we learn that in 876, only two years after the island commonwealth was founded, one of the settlers named Gunnbjoern was driven by foul weather to some point on the coast of Greenland, where he and his crew contrived to pass the winter, their ship being locked in ice; when the spring set them free, they returned to Iceland. In the year 983 Eric the Red, a settler upon Oexney (Ox-island) near the mouth of Breidafiord, was outlawed for killing a man in a brawl. Eric then determined to search for the western land which Gunnbjoern had discovered. He set out with a few followers, and in the next three years these bold sailors explored the coasts of Greenland pretty thoroughly for a considerable distance on each side of Cape Farewell. At length they found a suitable place for a home, at the head of Igaliko fiord, not far from the site of the modern Julianeshaab.[178] It was fit work for Vikings to penetrate so deep a fiord and find out such a spot, hidden as it is by miles upon miles of craggy and ice-covered headlands. They proved their sagacity by pitching upon one of the pleasantest spots on the gaunt Greenland coast; and there upon a smooth grassy plain may still be seen the ruins of seventeen houses built of rough blocks of sandstone, their chinks caulked up with clay and gravel. In contrast with most of its bleak surroundings the place might well be called Greenland, and so Eric named it, for, said he, it is well to have a pleasant name if we would induce people to come hither. The name thus given by Eric to this chosen spot has been extended in modern usage to the whole of the vast continental region north of Davis strait, for the greater part of which it is a flagrant misnomer.[179] In 986 Eric ventured back to Iceland, and was so successful in enlisting settlers for Greenland that on his return voyage he started with five and twenty ships.