In Northern Mists: Arctic Exploration in Early Times (Volume 1 of 2)

Icelandic literature contains many remarkable statements about countries to the south-west or south of the Greenland settlements. They are called: "Helluland" (i.e., slate- or s...

There was a long interval after the time of Pytheas before the world's knowledge of the North was again added to, so far as we can judge from the literature that has come down t...

Thus it came about that the geographical knowledge of later antiquity shows nothing but a gradual decline from the heights which the Greeks had early reached, and from which the...

The discovery of the Faroes and Iceland by the Celts and the Irish monks, and their settlement there, give evidence of a high degree of intrepidity; since their fragile boats we...

The learned world of early antiquity had nothing but a vague premonition of the North. Along the routes of traffic commercial relations were established at a very early time wit...

In the ninth century the increasingly frequent Viking raids, Charlemagne's wars and conquests in the North, and the labours of Christian missionaries, brought about an increase...

The sagas give us scanty information about the east coast of Greenland--commonly called, in Iceland, the uninhabited regions ("ubygder") of Greenland. The drift-ice renders this...

Before we proceed to the Norwegians' great contributions to the exploration of the northern regions, we shall attempt to collect and survey what is known, and what may possibly...

Among all the vague and fabulous ideas about the North that prevailed in antiquity, the name of Pytheas stands out as the only one who gives us a firmer foothold. By his extraor...

This book owes its existence in the first instance to a rash promise made some years ago to my friend Dr. J. Scott Keltie, of London, that I would try, when time permitted, to c...