8 quotes found
"For Greenland is a barren place, A land where grows no green, But ice and snow, and the whale-fish blow, And the daylight’s seldom seen, brave boys! And the daylight’s seldom seen!"
"As Men in Greenland left beheld the sun From their horizon run; And thought upon the sad half-year Of cold and darkness they must suffer there:So on my parting mistress did I look."
"The Icelander Biœrn of Skardsa...relates that Jon Grœnlander, a Hamburgh seaman, was thrice driven among the Greenland islands, where he saw fishers' huts like those of Iceland, but could discern no people in the neighbourhood. Fragments of shattered boats, according to the same authority, have frequently been stranded on the coast of Iceland; and in 1625, an entire canoe was driven on shore, compacted of sinews and wooden pegs, and smeared over with blubber. An oar has since been found, inscribed in Runic characters, with the words, Oft var ek dasa, dur ek dro thik: "Oft was I tired, while I drew thee.""
"In my first voyage not experienced of the nature of those climates, and having no direction either by Chart, Globe, or other certaine relation in what altitude that passage was to be searched, I shaped a Northerly course and so sought the same toward the South, and in that my Northerly course I fell upon the shore which in ancient time was called Groenland, [...] the land being very high and full of mightie mountaines all covered with snow, no viewe of wood, grass or earth to be seene, and the shore two leagues off into the sea so full of yce that no shipping could by any meanes come neere the same. The lothsome view of the shore, and irksome noyse of the yce was such, as that it bred strange conceites among us, so that we supposed the place to be wast and voyd of any sensible or vegitable creatures, whereupon I called the same Desolation."
"Nunarput utoqqarsuanngoravit Niaqqut ulissimavoq qiinik. Qitornatit kissumiaannarpatit Tunillugit sineriavit piinik.Akullequtaasutut merlertutut Ilinni perortugut tamaani Kalaallinik imminik taajumavugut Niaqquit ataqqinartup saani."
"A stunted, stern, uncouth, amphibious stock Hewn from the living marble of the rock Or sprung from mermaids, and in ocean's bed With orcs and seals in sunless caverns bred, They might have held, from unrecorded time Sole patrimony in that hideous clime, So lithe their limbs, so fenced their frames to bear The intensest rigours of the polar air; Nimble and muscular and keen to run The rein-deer down a circuit of the sun; To climb the slippery cliffs, explore their cells, And storm and sack the sea-birds citadels; In bands, through snows, the mother-bear to trace Slay with their darts the cubs in her embrace, And while she licked their bleeding wounds to brave Her deadliest vengeance in her inmost cave. Train'd with inimitable skill to float Each, balanced, in his bubble of a boat, With dexterous paddle, steering through the spray, With poised harpoon to strike his lunging prey As though the skiff, the seaman, car and dart Were one compacted body, by one heart With instinct, motion, pulse, empower'd to ride A human Nautilus upon the tide; Or with a fleet of Kayaks to assail The desperation of the stranded whale, When wedg'd twixt jagged rocks he writhes and rolls In agony among the ebbing shoals, Washing the waves to foam, until the flood From wounds like geysers seems a bath of blood, Echo all night dumb pealing to his roar Till morn beholds him slain along the shore."
"“How do you find America?” a reporter asked Ringo Starr just over 61 years ago. The Beatles’ drummer replied: “Turn left at Greenland.”"
"If anyone thinks that the US Congress would have stood for any sort of troops moved to Greenland, I believe we’d have veto-proof majorities within two weeks."