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Observations on the Discoveries of the Norsemen 179
130,1945), he discusses the Greenland ice. His conclusions
about the end of the old Greenland settlement must carry
full weight: "Thus it seems that the Norsemen were
troubled by deterioration of the climate in the 13th
century . however, before the extermination of the
Norsemen, amelioration of the climate set in (after 1400see
p. 354), so the Norsemen did not die out owing to a fall
in the 'emperature, but more probably on account of
a failing communication with Europe and the advance of
Eskimos from the north" (p. 349; Gwyn Jones, p. 56
note).
Professor Jones rightly points out that there was not
so much drift-ice in the Denmark Straits during the Viking
age as there was about 1200, but all the same the sea was
not free of ice and the coasts were uninhabitable. The
tale of Snsebjorn galti and the settlement of Eirik the Red
provide evidence for this. Gwyn Jones states rightly that
Iceland lay at the limit of the habitable world, but it is
questionable whether Greenland as a whole should be set
outside the same pale.
East Greenland was and is uninhabitable, but southwest
Greenland never seems to have afforded worse living
conditions than the West Fjords of Iceland. As far as
we know, the Greenlanders in Eystribyggt5 managed to live
reasonably well through the first cold period (fourteenth
century) and everything seems to have been in good order
around 1400. Climatic conditions improved in the
fifteenth century, but the population disappeared before
the second cold period began about 1600. Vestribyggt5,
the settlement around Godthab, on the other hand, was
desolate about the middle of the fourteenth century,
during the earlier cold period. As Professor Jones
suggests, the sources indicate that the settlement was laid
waste by Skrselings, The Eastern Settlements (Eystribygg6ar)
met a similar fate about ISO years later, when
the Skrzelings came southwards. They were hunters and,
like Eskimoes in recent times, made little distinction