[23] _Setstakkar._ These were wooden pillars carved with images usually of Thor and Odin. In selecting a place for a settlement these were flung overboard, and wherever they were thrown up on the beach, there the settlement was to be formed. Ingolf, the first Norse settler of Iceland, lost sight of the seat-posts after they were thrown into the water, and was obliged to live for the space of three years at Ingolfshofdi. In another case a settler did not find his posts for _twelve_ years, nevertheless he changed his abode then. In Frithiof's Saga (American edition) chap. III, p. 18, we find the following allusion: "Through the whole length of the hall shone forth the table of oak wood, Brighter than steel, and polished; the pillars twain of the high seats Stood on each side thereof; two gods deep carved out of elm wood: Odin with glance of a king, and Frey with the sun on his forhead." [24] Ari Hinn Frode, or the Wise. The chief compiler of the famous _Landnama Book_, which contains a full account of all the early settlers in Iceland. It is of the same character, though vastly superior to the English _Doomsday Book_, and is probably the most complete record of the kind ever made by any nation. It contains the names of 3000 persons, and 1,400 places. It gives a correct account of the genealogies of the families, and brief notices of personal achievements. It was begun by Frode (born 1067, died 1148), and was continued by Kalstegg, Styrmer and Thordsen, and completed by Hauk Erlandson, Lagman, or Governor of Iceland, who died in the year 1334. [25] "Thus saith the holy priest Bede.... Therefore learned men think that it is Iceland which is called Thule.... But the holy priest Bede died DCCXXXV. years after the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, more than a hundred years before Iceland was inhabited by the Northmen."--_Antiquitates Americanæ_, p. 202. This extract is followed by the statement of Ari Frode, and shows that the Irish Christians retired to Iceland at a very early day. The Irish monk Dicuil also refers to this solitary island, which, about the year 795, was visited by some monks with whom he had conversed. [26] All the information which we possess relating to the discovery by Gunnbiorn is given in the body of this work, in extracts from _Landanamabok_. [27] Claudius Christophessen, the author of some Danish verses relating to the history of Greenland, supposes that Greenland was discovered in the year 770, though he gave no real reason for his belief. _M. Peyrere_ also tells us of a Papal Bull, issued in 835, by Gregory IV, which refers to the conversion of the Icelanders and Greenlanders. Yet this is beyond question fraud. Gunnbiorn was undoubtedly the first to gain a glimpse of Greenland. [28] The Northmen reckoned by _winters_. [29] See the Saga of Eric the Red.