------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CLIMATE OF GREENLAND; THE NORTHERN LIGHTS
_Son._ I believe I still have some questions to ask about this country. How do you account for the fact that Greenland and the ocean that lies about it have greater masses of ice than any other land or sea? For I gather from what you have said that the ocean is deep and also very salt and always in commotion; and I did not suppose that it could freeze readily there, since, where the ocean is deep and the water is salt, ice forms with difficulty, especially when the sea is in turmoil and the waves roll high. But now I hear about these waters that we have just talked about and likewise about the land, that there is never an interval when the land or the sea is not covered with ice, except that occasionally an opening appears here and there in the ice field; but this is due to the stirring of the sea and not to the heat.
Now since the land is constantly frozen over in both winter and summer, I wish to ask you to tell me exactly how the climate is in Greenland: whether there is any warmth or fair sunshine as in other lands, or if the weather is always unpleasant, and whether that is what causes the excessive ice and frost. I should like to have you clear this matter up for me along with those things that I asked about earlier in our conversation, and what that thing is which the Greenlanders call the northern lights.[228] All these questions I should like to have you answer, and also this, in what part of the world you believe that country to be located: whether it lies somewhere on the edge of the world or about some large bend in the ocean like other extensive lands, seeing that you think it is joined to other mainlands.
We should infer from the form of this question and from the later discussion of the northern lights that this phenomenon was not prominent in Norway in the thirteenth century. There seem to be periods when these “lights” are less in evidence than at other times. But it should also be noted that the author discusses whales in connection with Greenland and Iceland only, though it is extremely likely that whales were not unknown on the shores of Norway.