The following is a letter from King Magnus Ericcson to Paul Knutson authorising the "Holy Mission":

Magnus, by the grace of God, King of Norway, Sweden, and Skane, sends to all men who see of hear this letter good health and happiness.
We desire to make known to you that you are to take the men with you who shall go in the Knorr, whether they be named or not named, from my bodyguard and also from among the retainers of other men whom you may wish to take on the voyage who are best qualified to accompany him, whether as officers or as men. We ask that you accept this our command with a right good will toward the cause, inasmush as we do it for the honor of God, and for the sake of our soul, and for the sake of our predecessors who in Greenland established Christianity and have maintained it until this time, and we will not let it perish in our days. Know this for truth, that whoever defies this our command shall meet with our serious displeasure and receive punishment.
Executed in Bergen, Monday after Simon and Judah's day in the six and thirteenth year of our rule. By Orm Ostenson, our regent, sealed.

The original letter of 1354 which belonged to the University Library in Copenhagen was lost in the great fire of 1728. A copy, of which a translation is given above, was made in the 16th century. A photostatic copy is printed in William Thalbitzer's Two Runic Stones from Greenland and Minnesota, translated and published by the Smithsonian Institution, Miscellaneous Collections, Vol 116, No. 3

From Explorations in America Before Columbus, Hjalmar R. Holand, 1956, P. 156

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