rmerly cultivated with decent
success in that northern region; whereas, in the present day, not a tree is
to be found in the whole island, except some stunted birches, and very low
bushes or underwood, in the most sheltered situations, and no corn will now
ripen, even in the most favourable years. But the roots and stumps of large
firs are still to be seen in various parts; and the injurious alteration of
its climate is known to have been occasioned by the straits between
_old_ Greenland and Iceland having been many years choked up with ice,
which the short summers of that high latitude are not sufficiently powerful
to dissolve.

About the present period, Harold Harfagr, or the fair-haired, one of the
petty sovereigns or vikingr of Norway, began to subjugate the other
chieftains of the country under his paramount authority, and was so
successful as to establish the Norwegian monarchy in 875. Gorm, likewise,
about the same time, united the petty states of Jutland and the Danish
islands into one kingdom, as Ingiald Illrode had done long before in
Sweden. Such independent spirits as found themselves dissatisfied with this
new order of affairs, found a sure asylum in Iceland; and the emigrations
to this new country became so numerous, that Harold at length deemed it
expedient to impose a tax of half a mark of silver, equal to five pounds of
our modern money, on every one of his subjects who were desirous of going
to settle in that island.

[1] Fragm. Vet. Islandic. ap. Langebeck, II. 31.--Forster, Hist. of Voy.
and Disc. in the North, p. 50.

SECTION II.

_Voyages of Ohthere to the White Sea and the Baltic, in the Ninth
Century._[1]

Some of the Norwegian chieftains, who were dissatisfied with the usurpation
of supreme authority by Harold, took refuge in England, where Alfred had
recently settled many of the vanquished Danes and Nordmen in the northern
part of his dominions, which had been almost entirely depopulated and laid
waste, by their long-continued and destructive ravages. Among these was one
Ohthere, who had made himself famous by his voyages to unknown parts of the
north, and who was invited to court by Alfred, to give an account of the
discoveries and observations he had made during his unusual expeditions.
This person had been a chief of some note in his own country, and dwelt at
a place which he called Halgoland, supposed by some to have been in
Numadalen, while others say in Nordland, the most n