ast 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.]

This colonization of Greenland by the Northmen in the tenth century is
as well established as any event that occurred in the Middle Ages. For
four hundred years the fortunes of the Greenland colony formed a part,
albeit a very humble part, of European history. Geographically speaking,
Greenland is reckoned as a part of America, of the western
hemisphere, and not of the eastern. The Northmen who settled in
Greenland had, therefore, in this sense found their way to America.
Nevertheless one rightly feels that in the history of geographical
discovery an arrival of Europeans in Greenland is equivalent merely to
reaching the vestibule or ante-chamber of the western hemisphere. It is
an affair begun and ended outside of the great world of the red men.

But the story does not end here. Into the world of the red men the
voyagers from Iceland did assuredly come, as indeed, after once getting
a foothold upon Greenland, they could hardly fail to do. Let us pursue
the re