"[Eric settled at Brattalid in Eiriksfjord.] Then Are Thorgilsson says that that summer twenty-five ships sailed to Greenland from Borgarfjord and Breidafjord; but only fourteen came there--some were driven back, others were lost. This was sixteen winters before Christianity was made law in Iceland."[248] This would therefore be about 984.
[Illustration: View from the mountain Igdlerfigsalik (see map, p. 271) over Tunugdliarfik (Eiriksfjord and Brattalid), farther to the left Sermilik (Isafjord and the Mid-fjords) into which a glacier falls; in the right centre Korok-fjord, with a glacier falling into it. The whole background is covered by the inland ice; behind it on the right the Nunataks near the east coast. (After D. Bruun, 1896)]
Eric the Red's first voyage to Greenland is one of the most remarkable in the history of arctic expeditions, both in itself, on account of the masterly ability it shows, and for the vast consequences it was to have. With the scanty means of equipment and provisioning available at that time in the open Viking ships,[249] it was no child's play to set out for an unknown arctic land beyond the ice, and to stay there three years. Perhaps, of course, he did it from necessity; but he not only came through it alive--he employed the three years in exploring the country, from Hvarf right up to north of Davis Strait, and from the outermost belt of skerries to the head of the long fjords. This was more than 500 years before the Portuguese came to the country, and exactly 600 before John Davis thought himself the discoverer of this coast.
But not only does Eric seem to have been pre-eminent, first as a fighter and then as a discoverer; as the leader of the colony founded by him in Greenland he must also have had great capabilities; he got people to emigrate thither, and looked after them well; and he was regarded as a matter of course as the leading man and chief of the new free state, whom every one visited first on arrival. His successors, who resided at the chief's seat of Brattalid, were the first family of the country.
[Illustration: Part of the interior of Eiriksfjord, at Brattalid and beyond. The mountain Igdlerfigsalik in the background (after D. Bruun, 1896)]