[31] The author designs shortly to give some full account of the early Christianity on the Western Continent in a separate work, now well advanced towards completion. It will include both the _Pre_ and _Post_-Columbian eras.
[32] Gissur the White and Hialte, went on the same errand to Iceland in the year 1000, when the new religion was formally adopted at the public Thnig.
[33] It will be seen hereafter that he went and established himself in Vinland.
[34] See _Memoires des Antiquaires du Nord_, p. 383.
[35] The location of Gardar is now uncertain. At one time it was supposed to have been situated on the eastern coast; but since it became so clear that the east coast was never inhabited, that view has been abandoned, though the name appears in old maps.
[36] See Crantz's _Greenland_, vol. I, p. 252.
[37] These inscriptions are all in fair runic letters, about which there can be no mistake, and are totally unlike the imaginary runes, among which we may finally feel obliged to class those of the Dighton rock.
[38] See Egede's _Greenland_, p. xxv; Crantz's _Greenland_, vol. I, pp. 247-8; Purchas, _His Pilgrimes_, vol. III, p. 518; _Antiquitates Americanæ_, p. 300.
[40] For the account of the manuscripts upon which our knowledge of Greenland is founded, see _Antiquitates Americanæ_, p. 255.
[41] In that year parties are known to have contracted marriage at Gardar, from whom Finn Magnussen and other distinguished men owe their descent.
[44] Crantz's _Greenland_, vol. I, p. 264.
[47] Hans Egede was a clergyman in priest's orders, and minister of the congregation at Vogen in the northern part of Norway, where he was highly esteemed and beloved. He spent fifteen years as a missionary in Greenland, and died at Copenhagen, 1758.
[48] The motto on the sword of Roger Guiscard was:
"_Appulus et Calaber Siculus mihi Servit et Afer._"
[49] See Laing's _Heimskringla_, vol. II, p. 450. This refers to his swimming match with Kiarten the Icelander, in which the king was beaten.
[52] Ledehammer. The point of land near the house of Lede, just below Drontheim.
[53] Laing's _Heimskringla_, vol. I, p. 457. It is related that while they were planking the ship, "it happened that Thorberg had to go home to his farm upon some urgent business; and as he stayed there a long time, the ship was planked upon both sides when he came back. In the evening the king went out and Thorberg with him, to see how the ship looked, and all said that never was seen so large and fine a ship of war. Then the king went back to the town. Early the next morning the king came back again to the ship, and Thorberg with him. The carpenters were there before them, but all were standing idle with their hands across. The king asked, 'What is the matter?' They said the ship was ruined; for somebody had gone from stem to stern, and cut one deep notch after another down the one side of the planking. When the king came nearer he saw that it was so, and said with an oath, 'The man shall die who has thus ruined the ship out of malice, if he can be found, and I will give a great reward to him who finds him out.' 'I can tell you, king,' says Thorberg, 'who has done this piece of work.' 'I don't think that any one is so likely to find it out as thou art.' Thorberg says: 'I will tell you, king, who did it, I did it myself.' The king says, 'Thou must restore it all to the same condition as before, or thy life shall pay for it.' Then Thorberg went and chipped the planks until the deep notches were all smoothed and made even with the rest; and the king and all present declared that the ship was much handsomer on the side of the hull which Thorberg had chipped, and bade him shape the other side in the same way and gave him great thanks for the improvement."