The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2): with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish ConquestFiske, John
History
The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2): with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest
Fiske, John
America -- Discovery and exploration; Latin America -- History
[Footnote 180: The map is reduced from Rafn's _Antiquitates
Americanae_, tab. xv. The ruins dotted here and there upon it
have been known ever since the last rediscovery of Greenland in
1721, but until after 1831 they were generally supposed to be
the ruins of the West Bygd. After the fifteenth century, when
the old colony had perished, and its existence had become a
mere literary tradition, there grew up a notion that the names
East Bygd and West Bygd indicated that the two settlements must
have been respectively eastward and westward of Cape Farewell;
and after 1721 much time was wasted in looking for vestiges of
human habitations on the barren and ice-bound eastern coast. At
length, in 1828-31, the exploring expedition sent out by the
Danish government, under the very able and intelligent Captain
Graah, demonstrated that both settlements were west of Cape
Farewell, and that the ruins here indicated upon the map are
the ruins of the East Bygd. It now became apparent that a
certain description of Greenland by Ivar Bardsen--written in
Greenland in the fourteenth century, and generally accessible
to European scholars since the end of the sixteenth, but not
held in much esteem before Captain Graah's expedition--was
quite accurate and extremely valuable. From Bardsen's
description, about which we shall have more to say hereafter,
we can point out upon the map the ancient sites with much
confidence. Of those mentioned in the present work, the
bishop's church, or "cathedral" (a view of which is given
below, p. 222), was at Kakortok. The village of Gardar, which
gave its name to the bishopric, was at Kaksiarsuk, at the
northeastern extremity of Igaliko fiord. Opposite Kaksiarsuk,
on the western fork of the fiord, the reader will observe a
ruined church; that marks the site of Brattahlid. The fiord of
Igaliko was called by the Northmen Einarsfiord; and that of
Tunnudliorbik was their Ericsfiord. The monastery of St. Olaus,
visited by Nicolo Zeno (see below, p. 240), is supposed by Mr.
Major to have been situated near the Iisblink at the bottom of
Tessermiut fiord, between the east shore of the fiord and the
small lake indicated on the map.]
[Illustration: The East Bygd, or Eastern Settlement of the Northmen in
Greenland.]
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