But notwithstanding the _probabilities_ of the case, we have no solid reason for accepting any of these alleged voyages as facts. Much labor has been given to the subject, yet the early history of the American continent is still veiled in mystery, and not until near the close of the tenth century of the present era can we point to a genuine trans-Atlantic voyage.
The first voyage to America, of which we have any account, was performed by Northmen. But who were the Northmen?
The Northmen were the descendants of a race that in early times migrated from Asia and traveled towards the north, finally settling in what is now the kingdom of Denmark. From thence they overran Norway and Sweden, and afterwards colonized Iceland and Greenland. Their language was the old Danish (_Dönsk túnga_) once spoken all over the north,[20] but which is now preserved in Iceland alone, being called the Icelandic or old North,[21] upon which is founded the modern Swedish, Danish and Norse or Norwegian.
After the Northmen had pushed on from Denmark to Norway, the condition of public affairs gradually became such that a large portion of the better classes found their life intolerable. In the reign of Harold Harfagr (the Fair-haired), an attempt was made by the king to deprive the petty jarls of their ancient udal or feudal rights, and to usurp all authority for the crown. To this the proud jarls would not submit; and, feeling themselves degraded in the eyes of their retainers, they resolved to leave those lands and homes which they could now hardly call their own. Whither, then, should they go?
In the cold north sea, a little below the arctic circle, lay a great island. As early as the year 860, it had been made known to the Northmen by a Dane of Swedish descent named Gardar, who called it Gardar's island, and four years later by the pirate Nadodd, who sailed thither in 864 and called it Snowland. Presenting in the main the form of an irregular elipse, this island occupies an area of about one hundred and thirty-seven square miles, affording the dull diversity of valleys without verdure and mountains without trees.[22] Desolation has there fixed its abode. It broods among the dells, and looks down upon the gloomy fiords. The country is threaded with streams and dotted with tarns, yet the geologist finds but little evidence in the structure of the earth to point to the action of water. On the other hand, every rock and hillside is covered with signs that prove their igneous origin, and indicate that the entire island, at some distant period, has already seethed and bubbled in the fervent heat, in anticipation of the long promised _Palingenesia_. Even now the ground trembles in the throes of the earthquake, the Geyser spouts scalding water, and the plain belches mud; while the great jokull, clad in white robes of eternal snow--true priest of Ormuzd--brandishes aloft its volcanic torch, and threatens to be the incendiary of the sky.