It is strange that we only hear of traces left by the primitive people of Greenland, the Skrælings or Eskimo. This looks as though Eric the Red did not come across the people themselves, though this seems improbable. We shall return to this later, in a special chapter on them.
It is probable that in other works, which are now lost, Are Frode wrote in greater detail of the discovery of Greenland and its first settlement by the Icelanders, and that later authors, whose works are known to us, have drawn upon him; for where they speak of other events that are mentioned in Are's Íslendingabók, the same expressions are often used, almost word for word. The oldest of the later accounts known to us, which give a more complete narrative of the discovery of Greenland, were written between 1200 and 1305. The Landnámabók may be specially mentioned; upon this is based the Saga of Eric the Red (also called Thorfinn Karlsevne's Saga), written, according to the opinion of G. Storm, between the years 1270 and 1300, while Finnur Jónsson [1901] assigns it to the first half of the thirteenth century. By collating these various accounts we can form a picture of what took place; even though we must suppose that traditions which have been handed down orally for so long must in course of time have been considerably transformed--especially where they cannot have been based on well-known geographical conditions--and that they have received many a feature from other traditions, or from pure legend.
Many accounts, both in Hauk's Landnámabók and in the Sturlubók, and in other sagas, mention that Greenland was first discovered by the Norwegian Gunnbjörn, son of Ulf Kråka, shortly after the settlement of Iceland. On a voyage to Iceland, presumably about the year 900, he was carried out of his course to the west, and saw there a great country, and found certain islands or skerries, which were afterwards called "Gunnbjörnskerries." These must have been off Greenland, most probably near Cape Farewell; but if it was late in the summer, in August or September, when there is little ice along the east coast, he may even have come close to the land farther north, and there found islands, at Angmagsalik, for instance. It is, however, of no great importance where it was; for when he saw that it was not Iceland that he had made, but a less hospitable country which did not look inviting for winter quarters, he probably sailed again at once, in order to reach his destination before the ice and the late season stopped him, without spending time in exploring the country. Whether Gunnbjörn established himself in Iceland we do not know; but it is recorded that his brother, Grimkell, took land at Snæfellsnes and was among the first settlers, and his sons, Gunnstein and Halldor, took land in the north-west on Isafjord.