Anonymous Report This Comment Date: August 08, 2005 07:23PM
I don't know who the fuck has chosen a lame name like Greenland for this
(always white) big island.
hmmm Report This Comment Date: August 08, 2005 08:13PM
one story is that the name was from a Viking real estate advertisement scheme.
Another theory is that when the Vikings stumbled across Greenland it was covered
in grasses because of a mini warm up of the planet. Also Iceland use to be
forested until the Norse accidently took too many trees and introduced grazing
animals.
Anonymous Report This Comment Date: August 08, 2005 10:08PM
yeah my story goes something like that too, but the vikings put greenland to
the icey one and iceland on the nice green earth to confuse other vikings. . ..
mkcerusky Report This Comment Date: August 09, 2005 10:18AM
I found the following explanations:
mkcerusky Report This Comment Date: August 09, 2005 10:18AM
"The name Greenland comes from those Scandinavian settlers. In the Norse
sagas, it is said that Eiríkur Rauði (Erik the Red) was exiled from Iceland
for murder. He, along with his family and slaves, set out in ships to find the
land that was rumoured to be to the Northwest. After settling there, he named
the land Greenland in order to attract more people to settle there. The fjords
of the Southern part of the island are lush. This proved successful, and the
settlements seemed to be getting relatively well along with the new coming
Inuit, bearers of the Thule culture, who had arrived in Northern Greenland from
the West around AD 1200, and a Christian bishop was sent. In 1386, Greenland
became part of the Kingdom of Norway, which were part of the Kalmar Union and
later of the double monarchy of Denmark-Norway."
[
en.wikipedia.org]
mkcerusky Report This Comment Date: August 09, 2005 10:20AM
"Greenland did not have sustained contact with Europeans until Eric the
Red, the legendary Viking, used it as a home-away-from-home during his years of
exile. It was Eric the Red who called the country Greenland but the naming
proved to be more lyrical than factual; most of the time Greenland was anything
but. This did not deter the boatload of Icelanders who promptly set about
colonising the land and for a couple of centuries the colonists herded, farmed
and hunted while the country slipped back into its usual comatose state. Norway
got around to annexing the country in 1261, but it was a futile attempt at
control; 130 years later a big chill set in and by the time the country thawed
out and the outside world made contact again, the colonists had gone, either
fully acculturated into, or killed by, the Thule."
[
www.lonelyplanet.com]
mkcerusky Report This Comment Date: August 09, 2005 10:20AM
"The earliest Palaeo-Eskimo cultures had already arrived in Greenland from
Canada by c.2,500 BC The Thule Eskimo culture first arrived in N Greenland c.AD
900 and in the following 1,000 years spread to both W and E Greenland. From
Iceland, Greenland was discovered and S Greenland colonized (c.985) by Eric the
Red , a Norseman, who named it Greenland in order to make it seem attractive to
potential settlers. It was in sailing to Greenland (c.1000) that Leif Ericsson ,
the son of Eric the Red, probably reached North America. Greenland became a
bishopric c.1110, and ruins of churches of that period remain. By the 12th cent.
the population numbered some 10,000."
[
www.encyclopedia.com]