Читать книгу The Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen - B. F. DeCosta - Страница 18

Of the reality and importance of the Greenland colony there exists no doubt, notwithstanding the records are so meagre and fragmentary.[40] It maintained its connection with the mother countries for a period of no less than four hundred years; yet it finally disappeared and was almost forgotten.

The causes which led to the suspension of communication were doubtless various, though it is difficult to account for the utter extinction of the colony, which does not appear ever to have been in much danger from the Skrællings. On one occasion, in 1349 or later, the natives attacked the western settlement, it is said, and killed eighteen Greenlanders of Icelandic lineage, carrying away two boys captives.

We hear from the eastern colony as late as the middle of the fifteenth century. Trade was carried on with Denmark until nearly the end of the fourteenth century, although the voyages were not regular. The last bishop, Andreas, was sent out in 1406, and Professor Finn Magnussen has established the fact that he officiated in the cathedral at Gardar in 1409.[41]

From this time the trade between Norway and Greenland appears to have been given up, though Wormius told Peyrere of his having read in a Danish manuscript that down to the year 1484 there was a company of more than forty sailors at Bergen, in Norway, who still traded with Greenland.[42] But as the revenue at that time belonged to Queen Margaret of Denmark, no one could go to Greenland without the royal permission. One company of sailors who were driven upon the Greenland coast, came near suffering the penalty of the law on their return. Crantz[43] says, that "about the year 1530, Bishop Amund of Skalholt in Iceland is said to have been driven by a storm, on his return from Norway, so near the coast of Greenland by Heriulfness, that he could see the people driving in their cattle. But he did not land, because just then a good wind arose, which carried the ship the same night to Iceland. The Icelander, Biærnvon Skardfa, who relates this, also says further, that a Hamburgh mariner, Jon Greenlander by name, was driven three times on the Greenland island, where he saw such fisher's huts for drying fish as they have in Iceland, but saw no men; further, that pieces of shattered boats, nay, in the year 1625, an entire boat, fastened together with sinews and wooden pegs, and pitched with seal blubber, have been driven ashore at Iceland from time to time; and since then they found once an oar with a sentence written in Runic letters: 'Oft var ek dasa, dur elk drothik,' that is, 'Oft was I tired when I drew thee.'"[44]