The Norse discoverers of America - the Wineland sagas

By G. M. Gathorne-Hardy

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Norse discoverers of America - the Wineland sagas

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Norse discoverers of America - the Wineland sagas

Author: F.R.G.S. G. M. Gathorne-Hardy

Release date: June 26, 2025 [eBook #76383]

Language: English

Original publication: Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1921

Credits: Charlene Taylor, Robert Tonsing, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NORSE DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA - THE WINELAND SAGAS ***

THE
NORSE
Discoverers of
AMERICA

Oxford University Press

_London_ _Edinburgh_ _Glasgow_ _New York_
_Toronto_ _Melbourne_ _Cape Town_ _Bombay_

Humphrey Milford _Publisher to the University_

THE
NORSE
Discoverers of
AMERICA

The Wineland Sagas

translated & discussed

By G. M. Gathorne-Hardy, F.R.G.S.

[Illustration]

_OXFORD_
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
M CM XXI

H. A. L. FISHER

WHO FIRST REVEALED TO ME
THE FASCINATION OF HISTORICAL PROBLEMS
AND WHO ENCOURAGED THIS WORK
IN ITS EARLY STAGES
IN GRATITUDE FOR MUCH PATIENT TUITION
AND IN MEMORY OF NEW COLLEGE DAYS
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION _Page_ 7

PART I. TRANSLATION

Chronological Summary 18

Genealogical Table 20

1. Eric the Red and the colonization of Greenland 21

* 2. The adventure of Bjarni Herjulfson 25

3. Of Thorbjörn Vifilson 28

4. Gudrid comes to Greenland 30

5. Gudrid and the Sibyl 33

6. Leif goes to Norway 37

* 7. Leif discovers Wineland 40

* 8. Thorvald’s Voyage and Death 45

9. Thorstein’s Unsuccessful Venture 49

* 10. The Expedition of Thorfin Karlsefni 52

11. Freydis 67

Appendix of Alternative Versions and Supplementary Passages 73

* Sections in Part I marked thus are those dealing with the discovery
and exploration of America.

PART II. DISCUSSION

1. Nature of the Evidence 88

2. Discrepancies of the Flatey Book 113

3. The Stories as History 147

4. Skrælings 173

5. The ‘Dægr’ and ‘Eyktarstad’ Problems 196

6. The Voyages. General Considerations 221

7. The Voyages in Detail: Bjarni, Leif, Thorvald 244

8. Karlsefni’s Expedition 261

9. Aftermath and Conclusion 282

BIBLIOGRAPHY 299

INDEX 301

INTRODUCTION

The study which has culminated in the production of the present volume
had been pursued for a number of years, and the work itself was
approaching completion, when the events of August 1914 necessitated its
abandonment, while the writer was called away from literary tasks by
the claims of active service. It is hoped, however, that the consequent
delay has not been altogether regrettable. In the first place, it has
enabled a fresh eye to be cast over what had previously been written,
with the result that some modifications have been made, which are, it
is hoped, an improvement. In the second place, the author found on his
return that there had been during the interval considerable additions
to the literature dealing with his subject. Worthy of special mention
among works too recent to have been read before the outbreak of war are
the monographs of Babcock (1913), Hovgaard (1915), and Steensby (1918);
these with Finnur Jónsson’s important paper in the _Aarbog for Nordisk
Oldkyndighed, &c._ for 1915, while they have not modified the views
hereinafter expressed, have been deemed worthy of close consideration
and have necessitated a considerable amount of re-writing: the minor
works of Neckel (1913), Kolischer (1914), Bruun (1915), and Mr.
Maurice Hewlett’s work of fiction based on these sagas under the title
of _Gudrid the Fair_ (1917) also fall within the same period. The
last-named book, while making no pretence to deal scientifically with
the subject, has been of particular interest to the present writer,
from the fact that its author comes to the same conclusion with regard
to Karlsefni’s ultimate landfall as that advocated in these pages. The
possibility of such an interpretation of the data supplied in the sagas
is admitted, in a rather hesitating manner, in the _History of the
State of New York_, by Yates and Moulton (1824); with this exception
the writer has been unable to trace any other authority taking the
view which he has independently formed. Yates and Moulton appear to
have depended for their information on a translation from a Swedish
book, Schröder’s _Om Skandinavernes fordna upptäcktsresor till Nord
Amerika_ (Upsala, 1818), which seems to have been based exclusively on
the version of the story contained in the Flatey Book; this does not by
itself provide enough information to enable a definite conclusion to be
formed.

In spite of a considerable bibliography, the early Norse voyages
to America provide a still unexhausted field for investigation and
discussion. So far are the authors who have dealt with the subject from
reaching final and unchallenged conclusions that it may almost be said
that each fresh commentator provides new matter for controversy. Apart
from the fascinating problem of attempting to locate on the map the
various parts of the American continent visited by the first explorers,
the historic value of the evidence has been the subject of the most
varied estimates, though it may be said that nowadays no student of
the subject has remained completely sceptical. The relative importance
to be attached to the different versions of the narrative has also
been much debated, and will no doubt continue to be so, though on this
point most recent critics will be found arrayed in the opposite camp
to the present writer. As regards the precise situation of the Norse
discoveries, most points from Northern Labrador and even Baffin’s
Land to well down the Eastern coastline of the United States have
their advocates, who by a judicious selection of the evidence have all
managed to find something to say in favour of their respective points
of view. In these circumstances it is felt that no apology is needed
from one who has given the matter close and protracted study, if he
ventures to add his quota to the discussion.

The topic is moreover one on which the man in the street—at any rate
in England—stands in considerable need of enlightenment. There are
probably few acknowledged historical facts on which the general public
is more surprisingly ignorant. Considering that the available data
compare favourably with what is known of the later discoveries of
Cabot and Corte Real, it is regrettable to find, as any one will who
takes the trouble to mention the matter to a dozen friends selected at
random, that to most of them the fact that the Norsemen visited America
is quite unknown, while by the remainder it is probably regarded as a
vague legend, containing perhaps a kernel of truth, but to be ranked
no higher than the Welsh tale of Madoc and similar insubstantial
traditions.

When Dr. Nansen’s _In Northern Mists_ appeared, three allusions were
made to it in _Punch_, the point of which was in every case that the
eminent explorer had proved that the honour of the first discovery of
America belonged to his compatriots. Of course, as a matter of fact,
the proof was forthcoming long ago, and Dr. Nansen, so far from adding
to it, is one of the most sceptical of the authorities dealing with the
subject; but here, as is usually the case, our leading humorous paper
has faithfully represented the views and the knowledge of the average
educated man.

It is perhaps not altogether surprising that the circle of the
initiated has been so restricted. The principal works dealing with
the question, with very few exceptions, are either written in
foreign tongues, or entombed in the pages of inaccessible scientific
periodicals or in works mainly concerned with a wider field, or have
been published so long ago that as the life of books goes nowadays
the man in the street can hardly be expected to have read or to have
remembered them. Reeves’ _Finding of Wineland the Good_, one of the
likeliest books on the subject to have fallen into the hands of the
general reader, is now more than twenty years old. How many books—other
than standard classics—of a similar age, come under the eyes of members
of the ordinary public?

It must be confessed, too, that a taste for Icelandic literature is
not widely prevalent in this country. The man in the street, if the
author’s experience of him is typical, does not find the method of
story-telling which enthralled contemporary Icelandic audiences at
all to his mind. He cannot stomach the long genealogies, on which no
doubt the original reader or listener insisted in order that he might
add to the story the flavour of personal interest arising from the
inclusion of ancestors, friends, or acquaintances. He gets confused
and irritated by names of unfamiliar sound, with uncouth nicknames
attached, many of the former closely resembling one another. When
he has at length managed to become engrossed in some thread of the
story, he finds himself suddenly switched off to follow the fortunes
of other characters, the previous mention of whom he had forgotten,
and finally losing his bearings he throws the book down in disgust.
The present writer has on this account considered carefully whether it
would not have been better to transpose the two parts of this work,
putting the translation last, but he feels that such an arrangement
would be illogical, and would make the arguments used in discussing the
question much more difficult to follow. As a sop to the indolent he
has, however, marked in the table of contents the parts of the story
dealing with the American discoveries, though he feels personally that
those who skip the remainder will miss some very interesting matter,
including the vivid description of the sibyl’s séance.

It is hoped that it is not doing the average Englishman an injustice
to say that the word ‘saga’ generally conveys to his mind an utterly
false idea. Very often he seems to think of a saga as poetry; almost
invariably as romance. In view of this it is perhaps necessary to point
out that almost all we know of the early history of Scandinavia, and
all that we know in the cases of Iceland and Greenland, is derived
from what can only be described as saga literature. Saga simply means
story, originally a story told by word of mouth, often in the lifetime
of those whose achievements it celebrated; and the great mass of
the earlier sagas aimed at historical truth, not of course at the
scientific accuracy of modern times, but at combining adherence to
facts with the exigencies of picturesque narrative, like the Books of
Kings or any early historical works. In fact, as will be indicated
later on (Part II, Chapter I), the historical saga of Iceland compares
favourably with the early history of most other countries, for a
variety of reasons.

Probably the erroneous ideas current on the subject arise to some
extent from what may be called the Morris tradition in translating
sagas into English. The associations of the quaint language used in
this convention are poetical and consequently romantic; the words are
obsolete in modern prose, whereas the language of pure saga of the
historical period is prosaic to the verge of baldness, the statement of
facts so direct and terse as to be almost crude. Why then should we be
told that men ‘hove into a cheapingstead’ rather than that they came to
a market? Why should we have ‘hight’ for named, ‘mickle’ for much or
many or great, ‘may’ for girl or maiden, ‘yeasay’ for consent, and so
forth? It serves no purpose except to show that at some bygone period
Scandinavian left its traces on the English language, and produces an
idea of the character of the literature translated which is the very
reverse of the true one.

What one should aim at reproducing in a translation—and particularly a
translation with an historical purpose—is surely the effect produced
on the audience for which the original was composed. It may be right
in translating Homer to avoid crude modernism, for Homer was archaic
to the people of any known historical period, but when we have one
Icelander telling another how his grandfather or even his nearer
contemporary fared at the hands of other men living under precisely
the same conditions as the listener, surely it is wrong to make use of
English calling insistently and continually for the help of a glossary.

Now, whether or no the present writer can be successful in popularizing
any Icelandic translation, to those who complain, as some may, that his
rendering is crudely modern, he replies that such is his deliberate
intention, for so it seems to him did the old Icelanders tell their
plain unvarnished tales. Art there was no doubt, in the arrangement of
the story, an art which kept in mind the demands of the contemporary
audience and which would in all probability have been modified to
captivate a different taste. But the diction is throughout more
straightforward, realistic, and unadorned than any other to be met
with in literature. And as this treatment seems appropriate to the
narration of historical facts, so as to bring conviction to the mind of
the hearer, the author has perhaps even gone too far in his desire to
emphasize this characteristic.

In one respect he has certainly taken a liberty. The incidental
impromptu verses which are incorporated in sagas would, in a literal
rendering, be almost as incomprehensible as in the original Icelandic.
Nearly every phrase, according to the convention of the time, involves
a riddling circumlocution, something like Samson’s ‘Out of the eater
came forth meat’. For example, the hymn of Herjulf’s Hebridean
companion, a verse of which is given in the chapter on Bjarni, would
read in a literal translation somewhat as follows:—

‘I pray the blameless monk-trier to assist my travels, may the lord
of the high hall of the earth hold over me the hawk’s perch.’ Here
‘the blameless monk-trier’ is God, who tries the hearts of good men,
‘the high hall of the earth’ is the sky or heaven, and—most obscure of
all—‘the hawk’s perch’ is the hand, an allusion to falconry. Only after
unravelling these riddles does one arrive at the true meaning—‘Sinless
God, who triest the hearts of thy saints, guide my wanderings; Lord of
heaven, hold thy hand over me and so protect me.’ This ultimate meaning
has been here paraphrased metrically, sacrificing the characteristics
of early Scandinavian verse in the interests of a clear and
intelligible historical narrative. And in the same way the translations
of other incidental verses aim at reproducing the effect on the mind
of an intelligent listener, rather than the mere words which produced
that effect. Apart from these cases, the writer, while allowing himself
a certain amount of freedom in passages upon which nothing turns, has
sacrificed every other consideration to literalness where any argument
may depend on the text.

A word or two remains to be said about the arrangement adopted. As
the reader will discover, the material is provided by three texts,[1]
embodying two independent versions which are in some cases difficult to
reconcile. The aim has been to present a consecutive narrative drawn
from all these sources indifferently. In only one case, however, has
the order of events as given in any version been consciously interfered
with. The Saga of Eric the Red, and Hauk’s Book—which, as will be seen,
is substantially the same version—both begin with a chapter in which
the only relevant name is that of Thorbjörn Vifilson, which appears
in the concluding sentence. The object of the chapter is to introduce
this character, whose daughter, Gudrid, may be described as the
heroine of the story.

But this object is likely to be defeated with an English audience if
the chapter is kept in its original position. For the saga, having just
mentioned Thorbjörn, turns off characteristically to deal with Eric the
Red and the colonization of Greenland, so that by the time Thorbjörn
is introduced again the reader is likely to have forgotten all about
him. It has consequently been thought better to begin with Eric and
his wanderings, following this up with the description of Bjarni
Herjulfson’s voyage and discoveries from the Flatey Book, which are
intimately connected with Eric’s colonization of Greenland both in date
and circumstances. The author has then reverted to the actual beginning
of the saga, connecting thus in one coherent narrative all parts of the
story dealing with Thorbjörn Vifilson. Having brought this character
and his daughter to Eric’s new home in Greenland, the original saga and
the present edition alike turn to Leif Ericson, and describe his voyage
to the court of Olaf Tryggvason in Norway. Inasmuch as the ‘accidental’
version of Leif’s discovery of America is incompatible with the
introduction into the main story of the fuller account in the Flatey
Book, the former has been relegated to the appendix and the latter
incorporated in the principal text. It will be seen from the chapter on
the Flatey Book that this is in the author’s opinion the most accurate
historical treatment, but this is not the motive of his action. Whether
the Flatey Book be right or wrong in ascribing Leif’s journey to a
deliberate project, it contains by far the fullest account of his
expedition, and for this reason merits a place in the main course of
the story. But it cannot be included without excluding—or removing to
a note or appendix—anything which conflicts with it. In the same way
an account of the death of Thorvald Ericson which conflicts with the
version of the Flatey Book has been taken out of the main text, and the
fuller narrative substituted.

In every case, however, where an alternative version of any incident
or episode exists, care has been taken to give it in the appendix, so
that the reader may have all the material available for forming his own
views on the question. Nothing is altogether omitted. The effect of
what has been done is to provide a consecutive narrative, containing
a fuller account of the Wineland voyages than is comprised in any one
version, which may be summarized as follows:—

Eric the Red and his father come to Iceland. The latter dies. Eric
marries: Leif is born. Eric makes the country too hot to hold him,
and explores and colonizes Greenland. He is accompanied by one
Herjulf, whose son, Bjarni, making an attempt to join him, is driven
accidentally to America, whence he eventually returns to Greenland.
Many years elapse during which we may suppose Leif Ericson to be
growing up. During the interval we return to Iceland, and follow the
fortunes of Thorbjörn Vifilson and his daughter Gudrid, up to the
time when they too emigrate to Greenland. Next comes Leif’s voyage to
Norway and his conversion, followed by his voyage of exploration in
America and his rescue of Gudrid among others from shipwreck, somewhere
on the Greenland coast. This is followed by Thorvald Ericson’s
expedition and death, his brother Thorstein’s unsuccessful venture,
the marriage of the latter to Gudrid and his death, and then by the
arrival of Karlsefni in Greenland, his marriage to Gudrid, and his
voyage to Wineland with his wife and companions. Last of all, we hear
of another voyage to the new country under the auspices of Freydis, the
illegitimate daughter of Eric the Red.

It is hoped that this connecting up of the material into one harmonious
story couched in ordinary phraseology may render it more palatable
to the general public than a more scientific treatment might prove,
while those whom this volume entices deeper into the problems of this
fascinating subject will find alternative readings and versions of the
story included, without being unduly obtruded.

The writer, in fact, while submitting his views to the consideration
of those who have studied the question, hopes especially that some
members of the general public may find the subject take hold of them in
precisely the same way in which it captivated him, now several years
ago. First, interest in the story, the bare text without unnecessary
note or comment; secondly a conviction of its historical accuracy in
main features; thirdly an interest in the problems and discussions
which it has evoked. Doubtless some will part company at each of these
three stages, but if such parts of the book as they have not skipped
have awakened in them any interest, the author’s task will not have
been undertaken in vain.

CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY

870. Ingolf comes to Iceland.

938. Birth of Thorgrim, father of Snorri Godi.

_c._ 950. Conjectural date of birth of Eric the Red.

963. Birth of Snorri Godi.

982. Eric’s first exploration of Greenland.

986. Foundation of the Greenland colony. Bjarni discovers
America.

999. Leif arrives in Norway. His conversion.

1000. Christianity established in Iceland. Leif converts
Greenland. Death of Olaf Tryggvason. Bjarni in Norway with
Eric Jarl.

1001. Bjarni returns to Greenland.

1002. Leif discovers Wineland.

1003. Leif returns. Death of Eric the Red? and Thori, first
husband of Gudrid.

1004. Thorvald’s expedition.

1006. Death of Thorvald.

1007. Return of Thorvald’s expedition.

1008. Thorstein’s expedition and death.

1009. Gudrid returns to Brattahlid.

_c._ 1018. Olaf the Holy sends Rörek to Leif Ericson.

_c._ 1019. Karlsefni arrives in Greenland.

_c._ 1020. Karlsefni marries Gudrid. They sail to Straumsfjord.
Snorri born.

_c._ 1023. Return of Karlsefni.

_c._ 1024. Freydis’ voyage.

_c._ 1055. Mean date of birth of Snorri’s children.

1067. Birth of Ari the Learned. Adam of Bremen director of Bremen
Cathedral School.

1076. Death of Svein Estridson, informant of Adam of Bremen.

1085. Birth of Bishop Thorlak, grandson of Snorri Karlsefnison.

1121. Eric, Bishop of Greenland, sails for Wineland.

1133. Death of Bishop Thorlak.

1148. Death of Ari the Learned.

1162. Death of Bishop Björn, Karlsefni’s great-grandson.

1163. Ordination of Bishop Brand I.

1201. Death of Bishop Brand I.

1285. New land discovered west of Iceland.

1294. Royal edict making trade with Greenland, &c. a crown
monopoly.

1299. Hallbera appointed abbess of Reynisness.

1334. Death of Hauk.

1347. A ship from Markland reported in Icelandic Annals.

1370–1387. Compilation of the Flatey Book.

GENEALOGICAL TABLE

PART I. TRANSLATION

§1. ERIC THE RED AND THE COLONIZATION OF GREENLAND

This passage is common to all versions of the story. The source is
Landnámabók, II. 14, which is accordingly the text followed here.
The transcript in the Flatey Book is somewhat abridged. Additional
matter supplied by any version of the story is given in italics.

Thorvald, son of Oswald, son of Wolf, son of Oxen-Thori, and Eric the
Red, his son, came from Jæderen (in Norway) to Iceland because they
were implicated in homicide. _Iceland was then largely settled._[2]
They took land in Hornstrands, and lived at Drange, where Thorvald
died. Eric then married Thjodhild, daughter of Jörund Atlison and
Thorberga the Ship-breasted, who at that time was married to Thorbjörn
of Haukadal. Eric then moved from the north, and cleared ground in
Haukadal, and settled at Ericstad near Vatshorn. _Eric and Thjodhild
had a son called Leif._[2] Now Eric’s slaves sent down a landslide
on the house of Valthjof at Valthjofstad. Eyulf Saur, a relation of
Valthjof, killed the slaves near Skeidsbrekka above Vatshorn. For
this Eric killed Eyulf Saur; he also killed Hrafn the Duellist at
Leikskáli. Geirstein and Odd of Jörfi, Eyulf’s relations, prosecuted
Eric, whereupon he was banished from Haukadal. He then took Brokey and
Öxney, and lived at Trade in Suderey the first winter. At this juncture
he lent his hall-beams[3] to Thorgest. Afterwards Eric moved to Öxney,
and lived at Ericstad. He then asked for his beams and failed to get
them. _Thence arose the quarrels and fights with Thorgest and his party
which are related in Eric’s Saga._[4] [Thereupon he went in search of
his beams to Breidabolstad, but Thorgest came after him. They fought a
short way from the farm at Drange, where two sons of Thorgest fell, and
some other men. After this both sides had a numerous following.[5] Styr
_Thorgrim’s son_[4] helped Eric _in the proceedings_[4] as did Eyulf of
Sviney, the sons of Thorbrand of Alptafjord and Thorbjörn Vifilson; but
the sons of Thord Gelli and Thorgeir of Hitadal, Aslak from Langadal
and his son Illugi sided with Thorgest. Eric and his men were outlawed
at the Thorsness sessions. He made ready his ship in Ericsvág, but
Eyulf hid him in Dimunavág while Thorgest and his men were looking for
him about the islands. Thorbjörn and Eyulf and Styr escorted Eric out
round the islands. He told them that he intended to look for the land
which Gunnbjörn, son of Wolf the Crow, sighted when he was driven west
past Iceland, when he discovered Gunnbjörn’s skerry. He said that he
would come back and look up his friends if he discovered the country,
_and they parted on the best of terms. Eric said that he would repay
them with such help as lay in his power if they should happen to need
him._[6] Eric sailed out to sea past Snæfellsjökul, and arrived (on the
Greenland coast) near Midjökul, which is now called Bláserk[7]; thence
he sailed south along the coast, to ascertain if it was habitable
there. He was the first winter at Ericsey near the centre of the
Western Settlement[8]; the following spring he came to Ericsfjord, and
took himself a site there. He went that summer to the western wilds,
_where he remained a long time_[9]: he gave names to places there over
a wide tract. The next winter he was at Ericsholm off Hvarfsgnipa,
but the third summer he went right up north to Snæfell, and into
Hrafnsfjord. Then he claimed to have come to the head of Ericsfjord.
At this point he turned back, and he was at Ericsey off the mouth of
Ericsfjord the third winter. But afterwards, in the summer, he returned
to Iceland, and arrived in Breidafjord.

[He passed that winter with Ingolf at Holmlat. In the spring he was
attacked by Thorgest and his men, and Eric was then defeated; after
which they were reconciled.[10] That summer Eric went to colonize the
country which he had discovered, and called it Greenland, stating as
his reason that men would be much attracted thither if the country had
a good name.[11]

Learned men tell us that the same summer _that Eric the Red went to
colonize Greenland_[12] twenty-five ships[13] set sail from Breidafjord
and Borgafjord, but only fourteen arrived at their destination: some
were driven back, and some were lost. This was fifteen winters before
Christianity was legally established in Iceland. _Bishop Frederic and
Thorvald Kodranson came out (to Iceland) the same summer._[12]

The following men who went out at this time with Eric took land in
Greenland:—Herjulf took Herjulfsfjord, he lived at Herjulfsness;
Ketil (took) Ketilsfjord; Hrafn, Hrafnsfjord; Sölvi, Sölvadal;
Helgi[14] Thorbrandson, Alptafjord; Thorbjörn Glora, Siglufjord;
Einar, Einarsfjord; Hafgrim, Hafgrimsfjord and Vatnahverfi; Arnlaug,
Arnlaugsfjord; but some went to the Western Settlement.

NOTE, _Hall-pillars_. ‘Setstokkar’ are strictly speaking the
horizontal beams running between the central hall and the side
aisles on to which the bedrooms opened. They were frequently
carved with the figures of Thor, or other heathen deities, and
were a sacred and valuable family possession. The loan of such
articles is difficult to explain, as they would be necessary to
their owner, and at first sight of no use to a temporary borrower.
Eric, however, had not at the time settled down in his new home; he
would wait to build a suitable house until he had definitely fixed
upon a site, and in the meantime presumably would not require his
‘setstokkar’. It may be that Thorgest represented that he wished
to copy them, but we know of another use to which such things
were put, which may throw some light on the matter. When Ingolf,
the founder of the colony, wished to select a home for himself in
Iceland, we are told that he ‘threw overboard the pillars of his
holy place (öndugis sulur) for an omen, saying that he would settle
in that place where the pillars came to land’ (Landnáma, 1. 6).
This practice was evidently widely adopted, for we read (Landnáma,
3. 7) how Kraku-Hreidar ‘said that he would not throw his pillars
overboard, saying that he considered it a poor thing to determine
his plans in that way’. That ‘setstokkar’ were used in the same
way as ‘öndugis sulur’ is shown by another passage in Landnáma
(5. 9) where ‘Hástein threw his setstokkar overboard after the
time-honoured custom’. There is something analogous in the usage,
which is recorded in various traditions of the Scottish Highlands,
whereby a man would take up his residence where the packs first
fell from his horse after he set out on his travels. Thorgest was
no doubt a native of Iceland, for he was the son of Stein the
Great Sailor, who was settled in Breidabolstad, still he may have
required supernatural aid in the choice of a new home.

§2. THE ADVENTURE OF BJARNI HERJULFSON

From the Flatey Book.

Herjulf was a son of Bard the son of Herjulf, who was related to Ingolf
the founder of the Iceland colony. Ingolf gave land between Vóg and
Reykjaness to Herjulf (the elder) and his people. Herjulf (the younger)
lived first at Drepstok. He had a wife named Thorgerd, and their son
was Bjarni, a very promising man. He had taken to foreign voyages
from his youth. This brought him both wealth and credit, and he used
to spend his winters alternately abroad and with his parents. Bjarni
soon had a trading-ship of his own, and the last winter that he was in
Norway was when Herjulf undertook the voyage to Greenland with Eric,
and removed his home there. Herjulf had on board his ship a Christian
from the Hebrides, who composed the Song of the Tidal Wave, which
contains this verse:—

Almighty God, to whom alone
The hearts of all thy saints are known,
Sinless and just, to thee I pray
To guide me on my dangerous way:
Lord of the heavens that roof the land,
Hold o’er me thy protecting hand.

Herjulf settled at Herjulfsness; he was held in the greatest respect.
Eric the Red lived at Brattahlid; he was the most distinguished person
there, and was obeyed by all. Eric’s children were Leif, Thorvald, and
Thorstein, and a daughter named Freydis, who was married to a man named
Thorvard: they lived at Garda, where the cathedral is now: she was
a very haughty woman, but Thorvard was a man of no account; she was
married to him mainly for his money. People were heathen in Greenland
at that time.

Bjarni arrived in his ship at Eyrar in the summer of the same year
in the spring of which his father had sailed away. Bjarni was much
concerned at the news, and would not discharge his cargo. His crew
thereupon asked him what he meant to do; he replied that he meant to
keep to his custom of passing the winter with his parents, ‘and I
will’, said he, ‘take my ship on to Greenland, if you will accompany
me’. They all said that they would abide by his decision; upon which
Bjarni remarked, ‘Our voyage will be considered rash, since none of us
have been in Greenland waters.’ Notwithstanding this they put to sea as
soon as they had got ready, and they sailed for three days before the
land was laid; but then the fair wind ceased, and north winds and fogs
came on, and they did not know where they were going, and this went on
for many days. After this they saw the sun, and so were able to get
their bearings, whereupon they hoisted sail, and after sailing that day
they saw land, and they discussed among themselves what land this could
be, but Bjarni said he fancied that it could not be Greenland. They
asked him whether he would sail to this land or not. ‘I am for sailing
in close to the land’, he said, and on doing so they soon saw that the
land was not mountainous, and was covered with wood, and that there
were small knolls on it, whereupon they left the land on the port side,
and let the sheet turn towards it. Then after sailing two days they
saw another land. They asked Bjarni if he thought this was Greenland;
he said that he did not think this was Greenland any more than the
first place, ‘for it is said that there are very large glaciers in
Greenland’. They soon neared this land, and saw that it was a flat
country and covered with wood. At this point the fair wind dropped,
whereupon the crew suggested that they should land there: but Bjarni
would not. They considered that they were short both of wood and water.
‘You are in no want of either’, said Bjarni, but he got some abuse for
this from his crew. He ordered them to hoist sail, which was done, and
they turned the bows from the land, and sailed out to sea for three
days before a south-westerly breeze, when they saw the third land: now
this land was high and mountainous, with ice upon it. So they asked if
Bjarni would put in there, but he said that he would not, since—as he
put it—this land appeared to him to be good for nothing. Then without
lowering sail they kept on their course along the coast, and saw that
it was an island: once more they turned the bows away from the land,
and held out to sea with the same breeze; but the wind increased, so
that Bjarni told them to reef, and not crowd more sail than their ship
and rigging could stand. They now sailed for four days, when they
saw the fourth land. Then they asked Bjarni if he thought this was
Greenland, or not. Bjarni replied, ‘This is most like what was told me
of Greenland, and here we will keep our course towards the land.’ So
they did, and that evening they came to land under a cape, which had
a boat on it, and there on that cape lived Herjulf, Bjarni’s father,
and it is from him that the cape received its name, and has since been
called Herjulfsness.

Bjarni now went to his father, and gave up voyaging, and he was with
his parents as long as Herjulf was alive, and afterwards he succeeded
his parents, and lived there.

§3. OF THORBJÖRN VIFILSON

This passage is a translation from the text of Eric’s saga,
collated with that of Hauk’s Book. Both are an accurate abridgement
from the Landnámabók. The words italicized are in Hauk’s book only.

There was a _warrior_ king named Olaf, who was called Olaf the White.
He was a son of King Ingjald, son of Helgi, son of Olaf, son of
Gudröd, son of Halfdan Whitelegs King of the Uplands. Olaf made a
raiding voyage in the West, and conquered Dublin in Ireland and the
Dublin district, and made himself king over it. He married Aud the
Very Wealthy, daughter of Ketil Flatnose, son of Björn Buni, a great
man from Norway. Their son was called Thorstein the Red. Olaf fell
in battle in Ireland, whereupon Aud and Thorstein went away to the
Hebrides. There Thorstein married Thurid, daughter of Eyvind Eastman
and sister of Helgi the Lean: they had many children. Thorstein became
a warrior king: he joined forces with _Earl_ Sigurd the Rich, son of
Eystein Glumri. They won Caithness and Sutherland, Ross and Moray,
and more than half Scotland. Thorstein made himself king over this
district, until the Scots betrayed him, and he fell there in battle.
Aud was in Caithness when she heard of Thorstein’s fall. Thereupon she
had a vessel built secretly in the wood, and when she was ready she
sailed for the Orkneys. There she gave in marriage Thorstein the Red’s
daughter Gró, who became the mother of Grelada, whom Earl Thorfinn the
Skull-cleaver married. After this Aud went to look for Iceland; she had
twenty free men on board. Aud came to Iceland, and stayed the first
winter in Björnhaven with her brother Björn. Later on Aud took all the
Dalelands between the rivers Dogurda and Skraumuhlaup, and she lived at
Hvamm. She had a private chapel at Crossholes, where she had a cross
set up, for she was baptized and of the true faith.

With her came out many distinguished men, who had been captured in the
western raids and were nominally slaves. One of these was named Vifil.
He was a man of good family, who had been taken captive beyond the
western sea, and was nominally a slave until Aud freed him. And when
Aud gave homes to her crew Vifil asked her why she did not give him
a home like the rest. Aud said that it would make no difference, and
remarked that he would be considered noble as he was. (Later on) Aud
gave him Vifilsdal, and he settled there. He had a wife. Their sons
were Thorgeir and Thorbjörn[15]: they were promising men, and they grew
up with their parents.

§4. GUDRID COMES TO GREENLAND

Translation from the saga of Eric the Red: there are no material
variations in Hauk’s Book.

Thorgeir Vifilson married, taking Arnora, daughter of Einar of
Laugarbrekka, the son of Sigmund, the son of Ketil Thistil,
who had taken Thistilsfjord. Einar had another daughter, named
Hallveig; Thorbjörn married her, getting with her Laugarbrekkaland
at Hellisvelli. Thorbjörn moved his home there, and became a most
respected man. He was a local chief (goði), and had a magnificent
estate. The daughter of Thorbjörn was called Gudrid; she was a very
beautiful woman and most noble in all her behaviour.

There was a man called Orm, who lived at Arnarstapi. He had a wife
named Halldis. Orm was a well-to-do yeoman, and a great friend of
Thorbjörn, and Gudrid was brought up for a long time in his home. There
was a man called Thorgeir, who lived at Thorgeirsfell. He was well off
for money and had been freed from slavery. He had a son named Einar,
who was a fine man and well-bred; he was also a great dandy. Einar was
engaged in the trade between Iceland and Norway, a business in which he
throve; he stayed alternate winters for an equal time in Iceland and
Norway. Now at this point it must be told how one autumn when Einar was
out here he went out with his wares along Snæfellness to sell them. He
came to Arnarstapi. Orm asked him to stop there, and Einar accepted,
for they were friends. His wares were carried into an outhouse. Einar
opened his wares and showed them to Orm and his household, inviting
him to take what he liked. Orm accepted, saying that Einar was a good
sailor and a very lucky man. Now as they were engaged over the wares a
woman passed the door of the outhouse. Einar asked Orm, ‘Who may that
beautiful woman be who passed by the door there? I have not seen her
here before.’ ‘That is Gudrid, my foster-child,’ replied Orm, ‘daughter
of squire Thorbjörn of Laugarbrekka.’ ‘She would be a good match,’
said Einar, ‘but I suppose more than one man has come to ask for her
hand.’ ‘Certainly there have been proposals, my friend,’ answered Orm,
‘but she is not to be snapped up by the first comer; it is thought
that both she and her father will prove particular.’ ‘However that may
be,’ said Einar, ‘she is the woman I mean to ask in marriage, so I
wish that you would take up the suit for me with her father, and put
all your mind into the matter to bring it about: for I shall consider
it a most friendly act on your part. Squire Thorbjörn should see that
a union between us would be a good thing, since he is a man of good
standing and of good estate, but I am told that his wealth is greatly
decreasing, while I and my father have no lack of land or goods, and
it will be the strongest support to Thorbjörn if this proposal is
accepted.’ ‘Certainly I consider myself a friend of yours,’ replied
Orm, ‘but still I am unwilling to undertake this suit, for Thorbjörn is
quick-tempered and a very proud man as well.’ Einar said that he would
be content with nothing but that his proposal should be conveyed. Orm
said he would undertake it. Einar went back south till he came home.

Some time afterwards Thorbjörn had a harvest festivity, as was his
custom, for he was a man of a very generous disposition. Orm came there
from Arnarstapi, and many others of Thorbjörn’s friends. Orm spoke to
Thorbjörn, and said that Einar had arrived there from Thorgeirsfell,
and that he had grown into a promising man. Then Orm started the
proposal for Einar’s hand, and said that it would be a good thing for
various reasons. ‘It might become a great source of strength to you,
squire, from the pecuniary point of view.’ Thorbjörn replied, ‘I did
not expect you to say such a thing as that I should give my daughter
in marriage to the son of a slave. You evidently think that my wealth
is on the wane, and Gudrid shall not stay with you any more, since you
think her suited to so poor a match.’ After this Orm and all the other
guests went home. Gudrid stayed thenceforward with her parents, and was
at home that winter.

But in spring Thorbjörn gave a party and a good feast was prepared:
many people came, and the feast was of the best. And at the feast
Thorbjörn prayed silence and spoke as follows:—‘I have lived here a
long time, I have experienced men’s goodwill and love towards me, and
I admit that we have got on well together in our intercourse. But now
my fortune is beginning to run low, though it has hitherto been thought
no unworthy one. Now I will rather shift my home than lose my standing,
rather quit the country than disgrace my family; so now I am resolved
to fall back upon the word of my friend Eric the Red, which he gave me
when we parted in Breidafjord, so now I mean to travel to Greenland
this summer, if things go as I wish.’

This decision created a great sensation among the audience,—Thorbjörn
had long been popular—but they felt sure that Thorbjörn, having made
this announcement so publicly, could not be prevailed upon to draw
back. Thorbjörn made presents to the guests, after which the banquet
came to an end and the men went back to their homes. Thorbjörn sold his
estates and bought a ship which was lying at the mouth of Hraunhaven.
Thirty men accompanied him on his voyage. Orm of Arnarstapi and his
wife were there, and such of Thorbjörn’s friends as were unwilling to
part with him. Thereupon they put to sea. The weather was fine when
they set out, but when they came into the ocean the fair breeze took
off and they were caught in a great storm, and they made slow progress
during the summer. Next a plague attacked their party, and Orm and
Halldis his wife and half of them died. The sea began to rise, and
they underwent a great deal of exhaustion and misery in many ways, yet
they reached Herjulfsness in Greenland just as the winter began. Now
a man named Thorkel lived at Herjulfsness. He was a good man and the
principal landowner. He took in Thorbjörn and all his crew for the
winter. Thorkel entertained them liberally. Thorbjörn and all his crew
were well satisfied.

§5. GUDRID AND THE SIBYL

Translation from the saga of Eric the Red, collated with Hauk’s
Book. Passages italicized occur only in Hauk’s Book.

At this time there was a great famine in Greenland; those men who had
gone fishing had made but a small catch, while some did not return.
There was in the settlement a woman named Thorbjörg; she was a
prophetess, and was called the little sibyl. She had had nine sisters,
who were all gifted with prophecy, but she alone remained alive.
Thorbjörg was accustomed to attend banquets in the winter, and she was
especially invited by those who were curious about their fate or the
prospects of the season. And since Thorkel was the principal landowner
there, he thought he would approach her to find out when these times
of scarcity which were oppressing them would cease. Thorkel asked the
prophetess to his house, where a good welcome was prepared for her,
as was customary when this sort of woman was received. A throne was
made ready for her, and a cushion laid beneath, in which there were
hen’s feathers. Now when she came in the evening with the man who had
been sent to fetch her she was attired as follows:—she had on a blue
mantle, which was set with stones down to the hem; she had a rosary
of glass on her neck and a black hood of lambskin lined with white
catskin on her head, and she had a staff in her hand with a knob on it:
it was ornamented with brass, and set with stones down from the knob:
round her waist she had a belt of amadou on which was a great skin
bag, in which she kept those charms which she needed for her art. On
her feet she wore hairy calfskin shoes, the thongs of which were long
and strong-looking and had great buttons of lateen on the ends. On her
hands she had catskin gloves, which were white inside and furry.

Now when she came in every one thought it right to offer her courteous
greetings, which she received according as they were agreeable to
her. Squire Thorkel took the wise-woman by the hand, and led her to
the throne which was ready for her. Thorkel then asked her to run her
eyes over household and herd and home there. She spoke little about
it all. In the evening a table was brought in, and at this point it
must be told what food was made ready for the prophetess. There was
made for her porridge of goat’s beestings, and for her food there were
provided hearts of all living creatures which were obtainable; she had
a brass spoon, and a knife with an ivory handle bound with copper, and
the point was broken off. But when the table was cleared away Squire
Thorkel approached Thorbjörg, and asked what she thought of the house,
or the behaviour of the men, or how soon those things would become
known to her which he had asked and men wished to know. She told him
that she would not say before the following morning, when she had first
slept the night.

But on the morrow late in the day the necessary preparations were made
for her to carry out the spell. She asked that such women should be
procured for her as were instructed in the knowledge which was needed
for the spell, and was called ‘varðlokkur’.[16] But no such women were
found, whereupon a search was made about the house to find if any one
knew these things. Then Gudrid said, ‘I am not skilled in magic, nor a
wise-woman, but Halldis my foster-mother taught me in Iceland that art
which she called “varðlokkur”.’ ‘Then you are wiser than I thought,’
answered Thorbjörg. ‘This is a kind of lore and a proceeding’, said
Gudrid, ‘which I intend in no way to forward, since I am a Christian
woman.’ ‘It may be’, said Thorbjörg, ‘that you might become useful to
the company in this matter, yet be no worse woman than before; however
I will leave it to Thorkel to procure those things which are necessary
to me.’ At this Thorkel urged Gudrid till she said she would do as he
wished.

The women then made a circle about the platform, while Thorbjörg sat
on the top of it; Gudrid sang the song so beautifully and well that
those who were by thought that none had heard the song sung with a more
beautiful voice. The prophetess thanked her for the song, and said that
she had brought many spirits there who thought it delightful to hear
the chant, _since it was so well done_, ‘who before wished to keep
themselves aloof from us, and not to yield us any assistance: and many
of those things are now clear to me which before were hidden from me
and others. Now I can say that this famine will not last longer _than
this winter_, and that the season will improve as the spring comes: the
sickness which has so long oppressed you will grow better sooner than
was hoped. But you, Gudrid, I will reward at once for the help which
has been received from you, for your fate is now quite clear to me.
You shall make the most distinguished match here in Greenland that is
open to you, though it will not last you long, for your ways lie out to
Iceland, where a great lineage and a good shall come from you, and over
the branches of your stock bright rays shall shine. But now farewell
and prosper, daughter mine.’

After this people approached the wise-woman, and every one inquired
about that which he was most curious to know, and she was free with
information, and that which she told turned out true. Next she was
sent for from other houses, and she went there. Then they sent for
Thorbjörn, for he would not be in the house while such heathen rites
were in progress. The state of the weather improved quickly when spring
came, as Thorbjörg had said. Thorbjörn made ready his ship and sailed
till he came to Brattahlid. Eric received him with open arms, and said
that he had done right to come there. Thorbjörn and his family passed
the winter with him, _but they lodged the crew with the farmers_. Later
in the spring Eric gave Thorbjörn land at Stokkaness, and a fine house
was built there, where he lived thenceforward.

§6. LEIF GOES TO NORWAY

From the Saga of Eric the Red, collated with Hauk’s Book.

At that time Eric had a wife named Thjodhild, and by her two sons,
one called Thorstein and the other Leif. They were both likely men.
Thorstein lived at home with his parents, and no man in Greenland was
considered so promising as he. Leif had sailed to Norway, and was with
king Olaf Tryggvason. But when Leif sailed from Greenland in the summer
they were driven by storms to the Hebrides. It was a long time before
they had a fair wind thence, and they made a protracted stay there in
the summer. Leif was attracted by a woman there, named Thorgunna.[17]
She was a woman of good family, and Leif formed the opinion that she
was gifted with supernatural knowledge. Now when Leif prepared to go
away Thorgunna asked to go with him. Leif asked whether this would have
the approval of her kin. She said that as to that she did not care.
Leif replied that he could not carry off a lady of such high birth in
an unknown country, especially considering how small a force he had.
‘It is not certain that the course which appeals to you is best,’ said
Thorgunna. ‘I must risk that,’ said Leif. ‘Then I tell you’, said
Thorgunna, ‘that I shall not suffer alone. I am with child, and I say
that the child is yours. I prophesy that it will be a boy when it is
born. And though you will not pay any heed still I will bring up the
boy, and send him to Greenland as soon as he can go with other men. And
I prophesy that the possession of this son will turn out such a joy as
befits our parting. And I intend myself to come to Greenland before the
end.’ Leif gave her a gold ring, and a cloak of Greenland homespun, and
a belt of (walrus) ivory. This boy came to Greenland, and was named
Thorgils. Leif accepted paternity; some men say that this Thorgils came
to Iceland in the summer of the Froda miracle. But anyhow Thorgils came
to Greenland, where it was thought that there was something uncanny
about him up to the last.

Leif and his men sailed away from the Hebrides, and reached Norway in
the autumn. Leif joined the court of king Olaf Tryggvason. The king
treated him with honour, evidently recognizing that he must be a man of
good breeding.

One day the king spoke to Leif, and said, ‘Do you mean to go out to
Greenland this summer?’ ‘Yes,’ said Leif, ‘with your consent.’ ‘I think
it will be well,’ replied the king, ‘you shall go with my mission, and
preach Christianity in Greenland.’ Leif said he would consider it, but
added that he thought such a mission would have a difficult task in
Greenland. The king, however, said that he knew no fitter person for
it than he, adding, ‘you will bring it good luck.’ ‘If so, the luck
will be solely derived from you,’ said Leif.[18]

* * * * *

Leif landed in Ericsfjord, and went home afterwards to Brattahlid,
where he was well received. He soon started preaching about the country
Christianity and the Catholic Faith, and published the message of King
Olaf Tryggvason, and told how great glory and treasure accompanied
this creed. Eric was slow to abandon his religion, but Thjodhild was
soon won over, and she had a church built, though not in the immediate
neighbourhood of the houses, which was called Thjodhild’s Church: there
she, and her fellow-converts, who were many, used to offer up their
prayers. Thjodhild would not live with Eric after her conversion, and
this he took very much to heart.

NOTE. _Thorgunna and the Froda Miracle._ From the mention of the
Froda miracle it is clear that this must be the same Thorgunna
who is mentioned in the Eyrbyggja Saga (R. L. Stevenson’s _Waif
Woman_). On the other hand, neither the chronology nor the
description of Thorgunna can be reconciled in the two sagas.
According to Eyrbyggja (chap. 50) Thorgunna came to Iceland in the
summer in which Christianity was legally established (A.D. 1000),
and the Froda miracle, which was concerned with her death, followed
immediately afterwards; Thorgils, her son, could not therefore
have come to Iceland at this time unless he accompanied her as
an infant, and he is not stated to have done so. Again, though
the Eyrbyggja Saga agrees in describing Thorgunna as a Hebridean,
and states that she had valuable dresses and other property with
her, it gives the following account of her personal appearance,
which does not suggest the maiden victim of Leif’s early
passion:—‘Thorgunna was a woman of great size, broad and tall and
very fat, swarthy and with eyes set close together, with a quantity
of brown hair; most men considered that she would have reached
the sixties.’ The words in Eric’s Saga, ‘some men say’, suggest
that there were various accounts of the matter. As the whole story
of the Froda miracle is obviously incredible, there may well be
some inaccuracy about the date of her arrival in Iceland, which is
really all that is required to reconcile the two stories.

§7. LEIF DISCOVERS WINELAND

From the Flatey Book.

Now the next event to be recorded (after the death of Olaf Tryggvason,
September 1000) is that Bjarni Herjulfson came over from Greenland to
Earl Eric (who became the ruler of a large part of Norway after Olaf’s
death), and the earl gave him a good reception. Bjarni told the story
of his voyage when he saw the (strange) lands, but people thought that
he had been lacking in curiosity, since he had nothing to report about
those countries, and some fault was found with him on this account.
Bjarni was made an officer of the earl’s court, but the following
summer he went out to Greenland.

There was now much talk of exploration. Leif, Eric the Red’s son from
Brattahlid, went to Bjarni Herjulfson and bought a ship of him, and
engaged a crew of thirty-five men. Leif asked his father Eric still
to be leader of the expedition.[19] Eric excused himself, saying that
he was now an old man, and less fitted to bear all the hardships than
formerly. Leif said that he was still the member of the family who
would bring the best luck; Eric thereupon gave way to Leif, and as soon
as they were ready for it he rode from home, and came to within a
short distance of the ship. The horse which Eric was riding stumbled,
and he fell off and hurt his foot. Then Eric said, ‘I am not fated to
discover more countries than this in which we are now settled, and we
ought not to bear one another company any longer.’ So Eric went home
to Brattahlid, but Leif went on board with his companions, thirty-five
men. There was a southerner (German) on the expedition called Tyrker.

Now they prepared their ship, and when they were ready they put to
sea, and they found first the country which Bjarni found last. There
they sailed up to the land, and having cast anchor and lowered a boat
went ashore, and saw no grass there. The background was all great
glaciers, and all the intermediate land from the sea to the glaciers
was like one flat rock, and the country seemed to them destitute of
value. Then Leif said, ‘We have not failed to land, like Bjarni; now I
will give this country a name, and call it Helluland (the land of flat
stone).’ Thereupon they returned on board, after which they sailed to
sea and discovered the second land. Again they sailed up to the land
and cast anchor, then lowered the boat and went ashore. This land was
low-lying and wooded, and wherever they went there were wide stretches
of white sand, and the slope from the sea was not abrupt. Then Leif
said, ‘This land shall be given a name from its resources, and shall be
called Markland (woodland),’ after which they returned to the ship as
quickly as possible. And they sailed after that in the open sea with a
north-east wind, and were out two days before they saw land, towards
which they sailed, and having come to an island which lay to the north
of the mainland they landed on it, the weather being fine, and looked
round; and they perceived that there was a dew on the grass, and it
came about that they put their hands in the dew, and carried it to
their mouths, and thought that they had never known anything so sweet
as that was. Then they went back to the ship, and sailing into the
sound which lay between the island and the cape which ran north from
the mainland they steered a westerly course past the cape. It was very
shallow there at low tide, so that their ship ran aground, and soon it
was a long way from the ship to the sea. But they were so very eager to
get to land that they would not wait for the tide to rise under their
ship, but hurried ashore where a river came out of a lake; but when
the sea had risen under their ship they took the boat and rowed to the
ship, and took her up the river and afterwards into the lake, where
they cast anchor, and carrying their leather kitbags ashore they put up
shelters, but later, on deciding to pass the winter there, they made
large houses.

There was no want of salmon, either in the river or the lake, and
bigger salmon than they had seen before; the amenities of the country
were such, as it seemed to them, that no cattle would need fodder there
in the winter; there came no frost in the winter, and the grass did not
wither there much. Day and night were more equally divided there than
in Greenland or Iceland: on the shortest day the sun was up over the
(Icelandic) marks for both nones and breakfast time.[20]

Now when they had finished building their houses, Leif said to his
men, ‘Now I will divide our party into two, and have the country
explored: and one half shall stay at home in camp while the other
explores the country, going no further than they can return by the
evening, and not separating.’ And so for a time they did this, Leif
sometimes going with the explorers and at others staying at home in
camp. Leif was a big, strong man, the handsomest of men in appearance,
and clever; in fact he was in all respects an excellent commander.

It happened one evening that a man of their party was missing, and
this was Tyrker the southerner. Leif was much distressed at this, for
Tyrker had been long with his father and him, and had been very fond
of Leif as a child: so now Leif, after finding great fault with his
men, prepared to look for him, taking a dozen men with him. But when
they had got a little way from camp Tyrker came towards them, and was
received with joy. Leif saw at once that his foster-father was in good
spirits.

Tyrker had a projecting forehead and a very small face with roving
eyes; he was a small and insignificant man, but handy at every kind of
odd job.

Then Leif said to him, ‘Why are you so late, my foster-father, and why
did you separate from your companions?’ Tyrker at this spoke for a long
time in German, rolling his eyes and grimacing, but the others did not
distinguish what he was saying. But a little later he said in Norse, ‘I
did not go much further than you, (but) I have found something fresh to
report. I found vines and grapes.’ ‘Is that true, foster-father?’ said
Leif. ‘Certainly it is true,’ he replied, ‘for I was born where there
was no lack of vines or grapes.’

Now they slept that night, but in the morning Leif said to his crew,
‘We will now do two things, keeping separate days for each; we will
gather grapes and cut down vines, and fell wood, to make a cargo for
my ship,’ and this suggestion was adopted. The story goes that their
pinnace was full of grapes. So a cargo was cut for the ship, and in
spring they made ready and sailed away, and Leif gave the country a
name according to its resources, and called it Wineland.

So after this they put to sea, and the breeze was fair till they
sighted Greenland, and the mountains under its glaciers. Then a man
spoke up and said to Leif, ‘Why are you steering the ship so much into
the wind?’ ‘I am paying attention to my steering,’ replied Leif, ‘but
to something else as well: what do you see that is strange?’ They
said they could see nothing remarkable. ‘I do not know’, said Leif,
‘whether it is a ship or a reef that I see.’ Then they saw it, and said
that it was a reef. But Leif was longer sighted than they, so that he
saw men on the reef. ‘Now,’ said Leif, ‘I wish that we should beat up
wind, so as to reach them if they need our help and it is necessary
to assist them, and if they are not peaceably disposed we are masters
of the situation and they are not.’ So they came up to the reef, and
lowered their sail and cast anchor: and they launched a second dinghy
that they had with them. Then Tyrker asked who was the captain (of the
shipwrecked party). ‘His name is Thori,’ was the reply, ‘and he is a
Norseman, but what is your name?’ Leif told his name. ‘Are you a son
of Eric the Red of Brattahlid?’ said Thori. Leif assented. ‘Now,’ said
Leif, ‘I will take you all on board my ship, and as much of your stuff
as the ship can hold.’ They agreed to these terms, and afterwards they
sailed to Ericsfjord with this freight, until they came to Brattahlid
where they unloaded the ship. After that Leif invited Thori and Gudrid
his wife, and three other men to stay with him, and procured lodgings
for the rest of the crews, both Thori’s men and his own. Leif took
fifteen men from the reef; he was subsequently called Leif the lucky.
So Leif gained both wealth and honour. That winter Thori’s folk were
much attacked by sickness, and Thori and a great part of his crew
died.[21]

§8. THORVALD’S VOYAGE AND DEATH

Translation from the Flatey Book.

Now there was much discussion of Leif’s expedition to Wineland, and
Thorvald, his brother, thought that the exploration of the country had
been confined to too narrow an area. So Leif said to Thorvald, ‘If you
wish, brother, you shall go to Wineland in my ship: but I wish the ship
to go first for the wood which Thori had on the reef.’ And this was
done. Thereupon Thorvald prepared for this expedition, taking thirty
men, by the advice of Leif, his brother. Afterwards they made their
ship ready and held out to sea, and there is no report of their voyage
before they came to Wineland to Leif’s camp. There they laid up their
ship, and remained quiet that winter, catching fish for their food.
But in the spring Thorvald told them to make ready their ship, and
ordered the ship’s pinnace with some of the crew to go to the west of
the country and explore there during the summer. It seemed to them a
fine wooded country, the trees coming close down to the sea, and there
were white sands. There were many islands, and many shoals. They found
no traces either of men or beasts, except that on an island to the west
they found a wooden barn.[22] Finding no further human handiwork they
returned, and came to Leif’s camp in the autumn. But the next summer
Thorvald sailed to the east with his trading ship, and along the more
northerly part of the country: then a sharp storm arose off a cape, so
that they ran ashore, breaking the keel under their ship; so they made
a long stay there to repair their vessel. Then Thorvald said to his
companions, ‘Now I wish that we should raise up the keel here on the
cape, and call it Keelness,’ and so they did. Afterwards they sailed
away thence and eastward along the coast and into the nearest fjord
mouths, and to a headland which ran out there: it was all covered with
wood. Then they moored their ship, and put out the gangway to land,
and there Thorvald went ashore with all his crew. Then he remarked,
‘This is a beautiful spot, where I should like to make my home.’
After this they returned to the ship, and saw on the sands inside the
headland three lumps, and on approaching they saw three canoes of
skin, with three men beneath each. Thereupon they divided their party,
and laid hands on all of them, except one who escaped with his canoe.
They killed the eight, and afterwards went back to the headland,
when they saw inside in the fjord some mounds, which they took to be
dwelling-places. After this there came over them so great a heaviness
that they could not keep awake, and they all fell asleep. Then came
a cry above them, so that they all woke up, and the cry was, ‘Awake,
Thorvald, and all your company, if you value your life: and return to
your ship with all your men, and leave the land with all speed.’ At
that there came from within the fjord countless skin canoes, which
made towards them. So Thorvald said, ‘We must set the war-shields over
the side, and defend ourselves as well as we can, while assuming the
offensive but little.’ So they did, but the savages,[23] after shooting
at them for a while, afterwards fled away, each as quickly as he could.
Then Thorvald asked his men if they were wounded at all; they said
there were no casualties. ‘I have got a wound under the arm,’ said he;
‘an arrow flew between the gunwale and the shield under my arm and here
it is, and it will be my death. Now my advice is that you prepare to go
away as quickly as possible, after carrying me to that headland which
I thought the best place to dwell in: maybe it was the truth that came
into my mouth that I should stay there awhile. Bury me there with a
cross at my head and at my feet, and call it Crossness hereafter for
ever.’ Greenland was then converted, though Eric the Red died before
conversion.

Now Thorvald died, but they carried out all his instructions, after
which they went and met their companions, and told each other such
tidings as they knew, and they stayed there that winter, gathering
grapes and vines for their ship. Then in the spring they prepared to
go back to Greenland, and arrived with their ship in Ericsfjord, with
great news to tell Leif.

NOTE. ‘_A wooden barn_’. (_Kornhjálm af tre_). This is the only
allusion, direct or indirect, which is made to corn in the course
of the Flatey Book version. It is frequently referred to as one of
the absurdities affecting the credit of this part of the story.
But it does not seem to me to have any necessary or probable
connexion with the wild corn of the Saga of Eric. The ‘selfsown
wheat’ is never mentioned by the historian of the Flatey Book;
unlike the wild grapes, he does not seem to have heard of this
feature. It is therefore impossible to suppose that the barn is an
imaginary feature introduced to colour the reports of wild corn.
It is recorded merely as the only trace of human occupation met
with during the exploration conducted in the ship’s pinnace. And
its very inappropriateness to the uncultivated crops of which we
are told in the rival version seems to me a strong proof of its
authenticity. Like the whole of this part of the story, it is too
purposeless to be invented. We need not on this account imagine
that it actually was a barn. The storage of Indian corn in New
England, according to the earliest observers, was, for the most
part at any rate, in holes in the ground, and an island remote from
human habitation seems a most unlikely situation.

On the other hand, De Laet’s _Nieuwe Werelt_ reports Hudson as
having seen ‘a house well constructed of oak bark, and circular in
shape, so that it had the appearance of being well built, with an
arched roof. It contained a great quantity of maize or Indian corn,
and beans of the last year’s growth, and there lay near the house,
for the purpose of drying, enough to load three ships.’ (_Hudson
the Navigator_, Hakluyt Society, p. 161).

But there may easily be a different interpretation. ‘Hjálm’ in its
primary meaning is a conical helm, then a stack or cock of similar
shape, and so finally a building used to cover such a stack of
corn. Two possible explanations occur to me. One is that what was
seen and originally reported was a structure of poles and bark of
conical shape, and that the explorers, being unfamiliar at this
time with savage architecture, assumed that it was intended to
cover a rick of corn, which in shape it resembled. Alternatively it
may be that originally the reference was solely to its shape, and
not to its purpose, and that the first report mentioned a conical
‘stack’ of poles. In either case what was actually seen may well
have been a deserted wigwam of poles and bark such as the Micmacs
and other Indians build at the present day. In the earliest records
similar dwellings are described, while in some cases those observed
by Champlain appear to have been roughly dome-shaped at the top;
this, as a glance at those illustrated in the sketch-maps of that
writer will show, would give them even more exactly the form of
a cock of hay or corn. It seems to me that the knowledge of the
wild corn mentioned in Eric’s Saga and by Adam of Bremen has alone
diverted the minds of previous commentators from this, the most
probable explanation.

§9. THORSTEIN’S UNSUCCESSFUL VENTURE

Translation from the Flatey Book.

It had happened in Greenland, meanwhile, that Thorstein of Ericsfjord
had taken in marriage Thorbjörn’s daughter Gudrid, who, as has already
been mentioned, had been the wife of Thori Eastman. Now Thorstein
Ericson wished to go to Wineland for the body of Thorvald his brother,
so he made ready the same ship, choosing his crew for their strength
and size; and with twenty-five men and Gudrid his wife they put to
sea when they were ready, and lost sight of land. All the summer they
tossed about in the open, and did not know where they went, and in the
first week of winter they made the land at Lysefjord in Greenland in
the Western Settlement.

Thorstein looked for lodgings for the party, and got them for all his
crew, but he and his wife were houseless. So they remained behind by
the ship some two nights. Christianity was still new then in Greenland.
One day some men came to their tent early in the morning. So these
men who were there asked what persons were in the tent. Thorstein
replied: ‘Two persons,’ he said, ‘but who are you who ask?’ ‘My name
is Thorstein,’ (said one of the men), ‘and I am called Thorstein the
Black, but my errand here is to invite both of you to lodge with me.’
Thorstein said that he wished to consult his wife, but she told him
to decide, whereupon he accepted. ‘Then,’ (said the man), ‘I will come
for you to-morrow with a carthorse, for I have plenty of room to take
you in; but it is very dull to stay with me, for there are just the
two of us, my wife and I, and I am of a very obstinate disposition. I
hold a different faith from you, though I consider that which you hold
is superior.’ So then he came for them in the morning with a horse,
and they went to lodge with Thorstein the Black, and he treated them
well. Gudrid was a woman of striking appearance, and a clever woman
who could get on well with strangers. Early in the winter a plague
attacked Thorstein Ericson’s party, and many of his companions died
there. Thorstein ordered coffins to be made for the bodies of those who
died, and directed that they should be taken to the ship and looked
after, ‘for’, he said, ‘I wish to remove all the bodies to Ericsfjord
in the summer.’ Now after a short interval plague attacked Thorstein’s
house, and his wife, whose name was Grimhild, was the first to fall
ill. She was very energetic, and as strong as a man, yet the plague
got the better of her, and soon afterwards Thorstein Ericson caught
the plague, and they were both laid up at the same time: and Grimhild,
wife of Thorstein the Black, died. Now when she was dead Thorstein
(the Black) went out of the room for a plank to lay the body on. Then
Gudrid spoke: ‘Do not stay away long, my Thorstein,’ she said. He said
it should be as she wished. Then said Thorstein Ericson, ‘Wonderful
things are happening to our hostess now, for she is raising herself
up with her elbows, and moving her feet from the bench, and groping
for her shoes’: and with that Thorstein the owner of the place came
in, whereupon Grimhild laid herself down, and every beam in the room
creaked. Now Thorstein made a coffin for Grimhild’s body, and took
it away and made preparations. He was a big man and strong, but he
needed all this before he got her out of the house. Now the illness
of Thorstein Ericson grew worse, and he died. Gudrid his wife hardly
realized it. They were all in the room at the time. Gudrid had seated
herself on a chair before the bench on which Thorstein her husband
had been laid. Then Thorstein the owner of the house took Gudrid from
the chair in his arms, and sat on another bench with her opposite
Thorstein’s corpse, and spoke to her about it in many ways, and
comforted her, promising her that he would go with her to Ericsfjord
with the bodies of Thorstein her husband and his companions, and said,
‘I will also engage more servants here to console and entertain you.’
She thanked him. Then Thorstein Ericson sat up and cried, ‘Where is
Gudrid?’ Three times he said this, but she remained silent. Then she
said to Thorstein of the house, ‘Shall I answer his speech or not?’
He told her not to answer. Then Thorstein of the house crossed the
floor, and sat on the chair with Gudrid on his knees, and then he
spoke, saying, ‘What do you want, namesake?’ A moment passed, and the
other answered: ‘I am anxious to tell Gudrid her fortune, so that she
can the better bear my death, for I have come to a good resting-place.
Now there is this to tell you, Gudrid, that you will be married to a
man of Iceland, and your life together will be long, and a great line
of men will spring from you, vigorous, bright and good, sweet and of
a good savour. You will travel from Greenland to Norway, and thence
to Iceland, where you will build a home. There the two of you will
live long, and you will survive him. You will go abroad and make a
pilgrimage to Rome (lit.: go south), and come back home to Iceland,
and then a church will be built there where you will remain and take
the vows of a nun, and there you will die.’ Upon this Thorstein sank
back, and his body was prepared and carried to the ship. Thorstein of
the house thoroughly performed all that he had promised Gudrid. He sold
his land and livestock in the spring, and accompanied Gudrid to the
ship with all that was his; he made the ship ready and engaged a crew,
and then sailed away to Ericsfjord. The bodies were now buried by the
church. Gudrid went to Leif at Brattahlid, while Thorstein the Black
built a house on Ericsfjord, where he stayed during his life, being
considered the most chivalrous of men.

§10. THE EXPEDITION OF THORFIN KARLSEFNI

Translation from the text of the saga of Eric the Red collated with
that of Hauk’s Book. Passages in italics from Hauk’s Book only.

There was a man named _Thord, who lived at Höfda in Höfdastrand. He
married Fridgerda, daughter of Thori Hyma and of Fridgerda daughter of
Kjarval king of the Irish. Thord was a son of Björn Byrdusmör, son of
Thorvald Hrygg, son of Asleik, son of Björn Ironside, son of Ragnar
Shaggy-Breeches. They had a son called Snorri: he married Thorhild
Rype, a daughter of Thord Gelli: their son was Thord Horsehead. Thord
Horsehead had a son called_ Thorfin Karlsefni, who lived in the north
at Reynisness in Skagafjord, as it now is called. Besides being of a
good stock Karlsefni was a wealthy man. His mother’s name was Thorunn.
He was in the cruising trade, and had a good reputation as a sailor.

One summer Karlsefni made ready his ship for a voyage to Greenland.
Snorri Thorbrandson from Alptafjord joined him,[24] and they had forty
men with them. A man named Bjarni Grimolfson from Breidafjord, and
another called Thorhall Gamlison[25] from Eastfjord both made ready
their ship the same summer as Karlsefni to go to Greenland; they had
forty men on board. They put to sea with these two ships, when they
were ready. We are not told how long they were at sea; suffice it to
say that both these ships arrived at Ericsfjord in the autumn. Eric and
other settlers rode to the ships, where they began to trade freely: the
skippers told Gudrid[26] to help herself from their wares, but Eric was
not behindhand in generosity, for he invited the crews of both ships to
his home at Brattahlid for the winter. The traders accepted this offer
and went with Eric. Thereupon their stuff was removed to the house at
Brattahlid, where there was no lack of good large out-buildings in
which to store their goods, and the merchants had a good time with Eric
during the winter.

But as it drew towards Christmas Eric began to be less cheerful than
usual. One day Karlsefni came to speak to Eric, and said: ‘Is anything
the matter, Eric? It seems to me that you are rather more silent than
you used to be; you are treating us with the greatest generosity, and
we owe it to you to repay you so far as lies in our power, so tell us
what is troubling you.’ ‘You have been good and courteous guests,’
replied Eric, ‘my mind is not troubled by any lack of response on
your part, _it is rather that I am afraid it will be said when you go
elsewhere that you never passed a worse Christmas than when you stayed
with Eric the Red at Brattahlid in Greenland_.’[27] ‘That shall not be
so,’ replied Karlsefni, ‘we have on our ships malt and meal and corn,
and you are welcome to take of it what you will, and make as fine a
feast as your ideas of hospitality suggest.’ Eric accepted this offer,
and a Christmas feast was prepared, which was so splendid that people
thought they had hardly ever seen so magnificent a feast _in a poor
country_.

And after Christmas Karlsefni asked Eric for Gudrid’s hand, since it
appeared to him to be a matter under Eric’s control, and moreover he
thought her a beautiful and accomplished woman. Eric answered, saying
that he would certainly entertain his suit, but that she was a good
match; that it was likely that she would be fulfilling her destiny
if she was married to him, and that he had heard good of Karlsefni.
So then the proposal was conveyed to her, and she left it to Eric
to decide for her. And now it was not long before this proposal was
accepted, and the festivities began again, and their wedding was
celebrated. There was a very merry time at Brattahlid in the winter
with much playing at draughts and story-telling, and a great deal to
make their stay pleasant.

[At this time there was much discussion at Brattahlid during the
winter[28] _about a search for Wineland the Good, and it was said
that it would be a profitable country to visit_; Karlsefni and Snorri
resolved to search for Wineland, and the project was much talked about,
so it came about that Karlsefni and Snorri made ready their ship to
go and look for the country in the summer.[29] The man named Bjarni,
and Thorhall, _who have already been mentioned_, joined the expedition
with their ship, and the crew which had accompanied them. There was
a man named Thorvald[30] (evidently Thorvard), who was connected by
marriage with Eric the Red. _He also went with them, and_ Thorhall _who
was called the Hunter_, he had been long engaged with Eric as hunter
in the summer,[31] and had many things in his charge. Thorhall was
big _and strong_ and dark, and like a giant: he was rather old, of a
temper hard to manage, taciturn and of few words as a rule, cunning but
abusive, and he was always urging _Eric to_ the worse course. He had
had little dealings with the faith since it came to Greenland. Thorhall
was rather unpopular, yet for a long time Eric had been in the habit of
consulting him. He was on the ship with Thorvald’s men,[32] for he had
a wide experience of wild countries. They had the ship which Thorbjörn
had brought out there, and they joined themselves to Karlsefni’s party
for the expedition, and the majority of the men were Greenlanders.
The total force on board their ships was 160 men.[33] After this they
sailed away to the Western Settlement and the Bear Isles. They sailed
away from the Bear Isles with a northerly wind. They were at sea two
days. Then they found land, and rowing ashore in boats they examined
the country, and found there a quantity of flat stones, which were so
large that two men could easily have lain sole to sole on them: there
were many arctic foxes there. They gave the place a name, calling it
Helluland. Then they sailed for two days with north wind, _and changed
their course from south to south-east_, and then there was a land
before them on which was much wood and many beasts. An island lay there
off shore to the south-east, on which they found a bear, and they
called it Bjarney (Bear Island), but the land where the wood was they
called Markland (woodland).

[Then when two days were passed they sighted land, up to which they
sailed. There was a cape where they arrived.[34] They beat along the
coast, and left the land to starboard: it was a desolate place, and
there were long beaches and sands there. They rowed ashore, and found
_there on the cape_ the keel of a ship, so they called the place
Keelness: they gave the beaches also a name, calling them Furdustrands
(the Wonder Beaches) because the sail past them was long. Next the
country became indented with bays, into _one of_ which they steered the
ships.]

Now when Leif was with king Olaf Tryggvason and he commissioned him
to preach Christianity in Greenland, the king gave him two Scots, a
man called Hake and a woman Hekja. The king told Leif to make use
of these people if he had need of speed, for they were swifter than
deer: these people Leif and Eric provided to accompany Karlsefni. Now
when they had coasted past Furdustrands they set the Scots ashore,
telling them to run southward along the land to explore the resources
of the country and come back before three days were past. They were
dressed in what they called a ‘_kjafal_’,[35] which was made with a
hood above, and open at the sides without sleeves: it was fastened
between the legs, where a button and a loop held it together: otherwise
they were naked. They cast anchor and lay there in the meanwhile. And
when three days were past they came running down from the land, and
one of them had in his hand a grape-_cluster_ while the other had
a wild (lit: self-sown[36]) ear of wheat. They told Karlsefni that
they thought that they had found that the resources of the country
were good. They received them into their ship, and went their ways,
till the country was indented by a fjord. They took the ships into
the fjord. There was an island outside, about which there were strong
currents, so they called it Straumsey (Tide or Current Island). There
were so many birds[37] on the island that a man’s feet could hardly
come down between the eggs. They held along the fjord, and called the
place Straumsfjord, and there they carried up their goods from the
ships and prepared to stay: they had with them all sorts of cattle, and
they explored the resources of the country there. There were mountains
there, and the view was beautiful. They did nothing but explore the
country. There was plenty of grass there. They were there for the
winter, and the winter was severe, but they had done nothing to provide
for it, and victuals grew scarce, and hunting and fishing deteriorated.
Then they went out to the island, in the hope that this place might
yield something in the way of fishing or jetsam. But there was little
food to be obtained on it, though their cattle throve there well. After
this they cried to God to send them something to eat, and their prayer
was not answered as soon as they desired. Thorhall disappeared and
men went in search of him: that lasted three successive days. On the
fourth day Karlsefni and Bjarni found Thorhall on a crag; he was gazing
into the air with staring eyes, open mouth, and dilated nostrils, and
scratching and pinching himself and reciting something. They asked him
why he had come there. He said it was no business of theirs, told them
not to be surprised at it, and said that he had lived long enough to
make it unnecessary for them to trouble about him. They told him to
come home with them, and he did so. Soon afterwards there came a whale,
and they went to it and cut it up, but no one knew what sort of whale
it was. Karlsefni had a great knowledge of whales, but still he did not
recognize this one. The cooks boiled this whale, and they ate it, but
were all ill from it: then Thorhall came up and said: ‘Was not the
Red-Beard (Thor) more useful than your Christ? This is my reward for
chanting of Thor my patron; seldom has he failed me.’ But when they
heard this none of them would avail themselves of the food, and they
threw it down off the rocks and committed their cause to God’s mercy:
_the state of the weather then improved and_ permitted them to row out,
and from that time there was no lack of provision during the spring.
They went into Straumsfjord, and got supplies from both places, hunting
on the mainland, and eggs and fishing from the sea.

Now they consulted about their expedition, and were divided. Thorhall
the Hunter wished to go north by Furdustrands and past Keelness, and
so look for Wineland, but Karlsefni wished to coast south [and off the
east coast, considering that the region which lay more to the south
was the larger, and it seemed to him the best plan to explore both
ways.[38] So then Thorhall made ready out by the islands, and there
were no more than nine men for his venture, the rest of the party going
with Karlsefni. And one day as Thorhall was carrying water to his ship
he drank it, and recited this verse:

_They flattered my confiding ear
With tales of drink abounding here:
My curse upon the thirsty land!
A warrior, trained to bear a brand,
A pail instead I have to bring,
And bow my back beside the spring:
For ne’er a single draught of wine
Has passed these parching lips of mine._[39]

After this they set out, and Karlsefni accompanied them by the islands.

Before they hoisted their sail Thorhall recited a verse:

_Now let the vessel plough the main
To Greenland and our friends again:
Away, and leave the strenuous host
Who praise this God-forsaken coast
To linger in a desert land,
And boil their whales in Furdustrand._[40]

Afterwards they parted, and they sailed north past Furdustrands and
Keelness, and wished to bear westward; but they were met by a storm and
cast ashore in Ireland, where they were much ill-treated and enslaved.
There Thorhall died, _according to the reports of traders_.

Karlsefni coasted south with Snorri and Bjarni and the rest of their
party. They sailed a long time, till they came to a river which flowed
down from the land and through a lake into the sea: there were great
shoals of gravel there in front of the estuary and they could not enter
the river except at high tide. Karlsefni and his party sailed into the
estuary, and called the place Hóp.

They found there wild (lit: self-sown) fields of wheat wherever the
ground was low, but vines wherever they explored the hills. Every brook
was full of fish. They made pits where the land met high-water mark,
and when the tide ebbed there were halibut in the pits. There was a
great quantity of animals of all sorts in the woods. They were there a
fortnight, enjoying themselves, without noticing anything further: they
had their cattle with them.

And one morning early, as they looked about them, they saw nine skin
canoes, on which staves were waved with a noise just like threshing,
and they were waved with the sun. Then Karlsefni said, ‘What is the
meaning of this?’ Snorri answered him, ‘Perhaps this is a sign of
peace, so let us take a white shield and lift it in answer,’ and they
did so. Then these men rowed to meet them, and, astonished at what they
saw, they landed. They were _swarthy_[41] men and ugly, with unkempt
hair on their heads. They had large eyes and broad cheeks. They stayed
there some time, showing surprise. Then they rowed away south past the
cape.

Karlsefni and his men had made their camp above the lake, and some
of the huts were near the mainland while others were near the lake.
So they remained there that winter; no snow fell, and their cattle
remained in the open, finding their own pasture. But at the beginning
of spring they saw one morning early a fleet of skin canoes rowing from
the south past the cape, so many that the sea was black with them,[42]
and on each boat there were staves waved. Karlsefni and his men raised
their shields, and they began to trade: the (strange) people wanted
particularly to buy red cloth, _in exchange for which they offered
skins and grey furs_. They wished also to buy swords and spears, but
Karlsefni and Snorri forbade this. _The savages got for a dark skin a
spans length of red cloth, which they bound round their heads._[43]
Thus things continued for awhile, but when the cloth began to give
out they cut it into pieces so small that they were not more than a
finger’s breadth. The savages gave as much for it as before, or more.

It happened that a bull belonging to Karlsefni’s party ran out of the
wood, and bellowed loudly: this terrified the savages, and they ran
out to their canoes, and rowed south along the coast, and there was
nothing more seen of them for three consecutive weeks. But when that
time had elapsed they saw a great number of the boats of the savages
coming from the south like a rushing torrent, and this time all the
staves were waved widdershins, and all the savages yelled loudly. Upon
this Karlsefni’s men took a red shield and raised it in answer. _The
savages ran from their boats and_ thereupon they met and fought; there
was a heavy rain of missiles; the savages had war-slings too. Karlsefni
and Snorri observed that the savages raised up on a pole a _very_ large
globe, _closely resembling a sheep’s paunch_ and dark in colour, and
it flew _from the pole_ up on land over the party, and made a terrible
noise where it came down. Upon this a great fear came on Karlsefni and
his party, so that they wished for nothing but to get away up stream,
_for they thought that the savages were setting upon them from all
sides, nor did they halt till they came_ to some rocks where they made
a determined resistance.

Freydis came out, and seeing Karlsefni’s men retreating she cried out,
‘Why are such fine fellows as you running away from these unworthy men,
whom I thought you could have butchered like cattle? Now if I had a
weapon it seems to me that I should fight better than any of you.’ They
paid no attention to what she said. Freydis wished to follow them, but
was rather slow because she was not well; yet she went after them into
the wood, pursued by the savages. She found before her a dead man,
Thorbrand Snorreson, with a flat stone standing in his head: his sword
lay beside him. This she took up, and prepared to defend herself with
it. Then the savages set upon her, but she drew out her breast from
beneath her clothes and beat the sword upon it: with that the savages
were afraid, and running back to their ships they withdrew. Karlsefni’s
men came up to her and praised her courage. Two men of Karlsefni’s
force fell, but four[44] of the savages, although the former were
outnumbered. So then they went back to their huts, _and bound their
wounds_, and considered what that force could have been which set upon
them from the land side; it now appeared to them that the attacking
party consisted solely of those who came from the ships, and that the
others must have been a delusion.

Moreover the savages found a dead man with an axe lying beside him.
_One of them took up the axe and cut at a tree, and then each of the
others did so, and they thought it a treasure and that it cut well.
Afterwards_ one of them cut at a stone, and the axe broke, whereupon he
thought that it was useless, since it did not stand against the stone,
and threw it down.

It now appeared to Karlsefni’s party that though this country had good
resources yet they would live in a perpetual state of warfare and alarm
on account of the aborigines. So they prepared to depart, intending to
return to their own country. They coasted northward, and found five
savages in skins sleeping _by the sea_; these had with them receptacles
in which was beast’s marrow mixed with blood. They concluded that
these men must have been sent from the country[45]: they killed them.
Later on they discovered a promontory and a quantity of beasts: the
promontory had the appearance of a cake of dung, because the beasts lay
there in the winter.[46] Now they came to Straumsfjord, where there was
plenty of every kind.

Some men say that Bjarni and Freydis[47] stayed there with a hundred
men and went no further, while Karlsefni and Snorri went south with
forty men, staying no longer at Hóp than a scant two months, and
returning the same summer.[48]

* * * * *

_They considered that those mountains which were at Hóp and those which
they now found were all one, and were therefore close opposite one
another, and that the distance from Straumsfjord was the same in both
directions._[49] They were at Straumsfjord the third winter.

At this time the men were much divided into parties, _which happened
because of the women_, the unmarried men claiming the wives of those
who were married, which gave rise to the greatest disorder. There
Karlsefni’s son, Snorri, was born the first autumn, _and he was three
winters old when they left_.[50]

_On sailing from Wineland_ they got a south wind, and came to Markland,
where they found five savages, one of whom was bearded. There were
two women and two children: Karlsefni’s men caught the boys, but the
others escaped, disappearing into the ground. But they kept the two
boys with them, and taught them speech, and they were christened.
They called their mother Vætilldi and _their father_ Uvægi. They
said that the savages’ country was governed by kings, one of whom
was called Avalldamon and the other Valldidida. They said that there
were no houses there: people lived in dens or caves. They reported
that another country lay on the other side, opposite to their own,
where people lived who wore white clothes, and uttered loud cries,
and carried poles, and went with flags. It is thought that this
was Hvítramannaland, _or Ireland the Great_. So then they came to
Greenland, and stayed with Eric the Red for the winter.

Then Bjarni Grimolfson was carried into the sea of Greenland,[51]
and came into a sea infested by the teredo, and the first thing
they noticed was that the ship beneath them was worm-eaten. So they
discussed what plan should be adopted. They had a boat which was coated
with seal-tar. It is said that the teredo does not eat wood which is
coated with seal-tar. The majority declared in favour of the proposal
to man the boat with such men as she would accommodate. But when this
was tested the boat would not accommodate more than half the crew.
Bjarni then said that the manning of the boat should be by lot, and
not by rank. But every man who was there wished to go in the boat, and
she could not take them all. For this reason[52] they agreed to the
course of drawing lots for the manning of the boat from the ship. So
the result of the drawing was that Bjarni drew a seat in the boat, and
about half the crew with him. So those who had been chosen by the lots
went from the ship into the boat. When they had got into the boat, a
young Icelander, who had been one of Bjarni’s companions, said, ‘Do you
mean, Bjarni, to desert me here?’ Bjarni replied, ‘So it has turned
out.’ ‘This is not what you promised me’, said he, ‘when I left my
father’s house in Iceland to go with you.’ ‘But still’, said Bjarni, ‘I
do not see any other course in this predicament: but answer me, what
course do you advise?’ ‘The course I see’, said he, ‘is that we change
places, and you come here while I go there.’ Bjarni answered, ‘Be it
so. For I see that you cling greedily to life, and think it a hard
thing to die.’ Thereupon they changed places. This man went down into
the boat, while Bjarni got on board the ship, and men say that Bjarni
was lost there in the teredo sea, with those men who were on board with
him. But the boat and those on board of her went their ways, till they
came to land, _at Dublin in Ireland_, where they afterwards told this
story.

NOTE. _Snorri Thorbrandson comes to Greenland._ The Eyrbyggja Saga
(chap. 48) mentions this emigration of Snorri Thorbrandson as an
event taking place ‘after the reconciliation of the men of Eyr
and Alptafjord’. The ingenuity of commentators in constructing a
difficulty is well exemplified in connexion with this passage.
Chapter 49 begins with the words ‘it was next after this that
Gizur the White and Hjalti his son-in-law came out with the
mission of Christianity, and all men in Iceland were baptized, and
Christianity was legally established at the general sessions’. The
events thus described happened in the year 1000. If therefore
the emigration of Snorri Thorbrandson is taken as the event after
which Christianity was introduced, a discrepancy in the chronology
is apparent. A reference to the context shows, however, that
chapter 48 concludes the section of the saga which deals with the
dispute between the men of Eyr and Alptafjord. It is in accordance
with the usual practice in such cases that the subsequent fate
of the principal characters should be briefly indicated. Thus
in the Flatey Book the Wineland episode concludes with the
subsequent careers of Karlsefni and Gudrid, and the mention of
their descendants. The book then reverts to the consideration of
other matters following upon the death of Olaf Tryggvason. It is
therefore quite unnecessary to regard Snorri’s journey to Greenland
and his Wineland adventures as taking place _immediately_ after the
settlement of the feud in which his family were concerned, while
the introduction of Christianity is the next main episode after the
Eyr-Alptafjord quarrel, and does not necessarily follow in date the
minor facts recorded in winding up this matter. It may further be
pointed out that the sequence of the two chapters is not the same
in all MSS. of the Eyrbyggja Saga.

Apart from this question of chronological discrepancy this passage
strongly corroborates the Wineland story, for it goes on to state
how ‘Snorri went to Wineland the Good with Karlsefni; when they
fought with the savages there Thorbrand Snorrison, the bravest
of men, fell there’. Some texts read ‘Snorri Thorbrandson’ for
‘Thorbrand Snorrison’, but, apart from the occurrence of the
correct name in what is probably the most reliable manuscript, the
sense seems to demand a different name from that of the original
subject of the sentence, while to substitute Snorri, incorrectly,
for a similar name not previously mentioned is a natural and
characteristic error for a copyist to commit.

§11. FREYDIS

Translation from the Flatey Book.

Now talk began again about the journey to Wineland, for the voyage
thither seemed both lucrative and honourable. The same summer that
Karlsefni returned from Wineland there came a ship from Norway to
Greenland, commanded by two brothers, Helgi and Finnbogi, and they
stayed that winter in Greenland. These brothers were of an Icelandic
stock from Eastfjord. Now the story goes that Freydis, Eric’s
daughter, made a journey from her home at Garda, and went to see the
brothers, Helgi and Finnbogi, and invited them to go to Wineland with
their ship, and divide with her all the profit they might make out of
it. They consented. From them she went and interviewed her brother
Leif, whom she asked to give her the houses which he had had built in
Wineland; but he gave her the same answer as before, that he would
lend the houses but not give them.[53] So it was arranged between the
brothers[54] and Freydis that each should take thirty fighting men on
board, besides women. But Freydis broke these terms at once, and took
five extra men, whom she hid, so that the brothers knew nothing of it
before they reached Wineland.

Now they put out to sea, having arranged to sail together as far as
practicable, and as it turned out there was not much difference between
them, but the brothers were slightly the first to arrive, and took
their belongings up to Leif’s camp. But when Freydis arrived her ship
was unloaded, and her things taken up to the camp. Then Freydis said,
‘Why have you brought your property in here?’ ‘Because we imagined’,
said they, ‘that the whole arrangement between us was going to be
kept.’ ‘Leif lent me the houses,’ said she, ‘but not you.’ Then Helgi
said, ‘We brothers are no match for you in wickedness’: so they carried
out their goods, and made themselves a camp, which they placed further
from the sea by the shore of a lake, and they thoroughly settled in,
while Freydis had wood cut for her ship.

Now when winter set in the brothers suggested that games should be
started to pass the time. This went on for a while, until a quarrel
arose which led to discord between them, and the games stopped, and no
one went from the one camp to the other. This state of things continued
for a long time during the winter. Then one morning early Freydis got
out of bed and dressed, but put nothing on her feet: and it happened
that there was a heavy dew. She took her husband’s cloak, and went out
to the brothers’ house, to the door: now a man had been out shortly
before, and had left the door ajar. She opened the door, and stood for
a while in the doorway without saying anything, till Finnbogi, who was
lying furthest from the door and who was awake, said, ‘What do you want
here, Freydis?’ She replied, ‘I want you to get up and come out with
me, and I want to talk to you.’ He did as she asked, and they went to
a log which was lying under the wall of the house, and sat down on it.
‘How are you enjoying yourself?’ she said. ‘I like the country,’ he
replied, ‘but I do not like the quarrel which has sprung up between us,
for I do not see any reason for it.’ ‘There you speak truly,’ said she,
‘and I am of the same opinion, but my reason for coming here to you
is that I want to buy the ship which belongs to you brothers, for you
have a larger ship than I, and I wish to go away from this place.’ ‘I
will agree to that’, said he, ‘if it will please you.’ With that they
separated; she went home, and Finnbogi went to bed. She climbed into
bed with her cold feet, and waked Thorvard with them, so that he asked
her why she was so cold and wet. She answered with great vehemence, ‘I
have been to the brothers to bid for their ship, since I wanted to buy
a larger ship; but they took it so ill that they beat me and grossly
maltreated me: and you, miserable man, will neither avenge my shame nor
your own; but I can realize now that I am not in Greenland, and I will
separate from you if you will not avenge this.’ And when he could bear
her reproaches no longer he ordered his men to get up at once and take
their weapons, and having done so they went to the brothers’ house, and
they went in to them as they slept, and took them and bound them, and
brought each man out as he was bound, and Freydis had each one killed
as he came out. Now all the men were killed, but the women were left,
and no one would kill them. Then said Freydis, ‘Hand me an axe.’ So
they did, and she killed the five women who were there, and left them
dead.

Now after that outrage they returned to their camp, and Freydis
appeared to them to think that she had arranged matters perfectly: and
she said to her men, ‘If we are lucky enough to get back to Greenland I
shall contrive the death of anyone who tells of these doings; we must
rather say that they stayed behind here when we came away.’

So early in the spring they made the ship ready which had belonged to
the brothers, and loaded it with all the good things which they could
collect and the ship would hold. After this they put to sea, and had
a rapid voyage, and came with their ship to Ericsfjord early in the
summer. Karlsefni was there then, ready to put to sea, and waiting for
a breeze, and it is said that no richer ship ever left Greenland than
this which he commanded.

Freydis now went to her house, which had stood safe meanwhile, and
having given large presents to all her followers, because she wished
to hush up her misdeeds, she settled down at home. But all were not
so close as to keep silent about their crimes and wickedness, that it
should not leak out anywhere. So now it came to the knowledge of her
brother Leif, who thought it a thoroughly bad business. Then Leif took
three men of Freydis’s crew and tortured them till they told the whole
of the circumstances, and their stories tallied with one another. ‘I
cannot bring myself’, said Leif, ‘to treat Freydis, my sister, as she
deserves, but I will predict of them that their stock will never be
worth much.’ And the end of it was that no one from that time forward
thought anything but ill of them.

Now we must go back to the point where Karlsefni made ready his ship
and sailed to sea. He made a good passage, and arriving in Norway
safe and sound he stayed there for the winter and sold his wares, and
both he and his wife were honourably received by the noblest men in
Norway. But in the following spring he made his ship ready to sail to
Iceland, and when he was quite ready and his ship was waiting for a
breeze alongside the quay, a southerner came to him who was of Bremen
in Saxony, and bargained with Karlsefni for his ‘húsa-snotra’.[55]
‘I will not sell it’, said he. ‘I will give you half a mark of gold
for it’, said the southerner. Karlsefni thought it a good bid, and
thereupon they clinched the bargain. The southerner went away with the
‘húsa-snotra’; now Karlsefni did not know what wood it was, but it was
‘mausur’ come from Wineland.

Now Karlsefni put to sea, and came with his ship along the north of
the land to Skagafjord, and his ship was laid up there for the winter.
But in the spring he bought Glaumbæjarland, and built a house there,
where he passed the remainder of his life: he was a most noble man,
and many men and a good stock are descended from him and his wife
Gudrid. And when Karlsefni was dead, Gudrid and Snorri her son, who
was born in Wineland, took over the management of the place. But when
Snorri married Gudrid went abroad, and made a pilgrimage to Rome
(lit.: went south), and returned to the house of Snorri her son, who
had by that time had a church built at Glaumbæjar. Afterwards Gudrid
became a nun and lived the life of a recluse, and she remained there
while she lived. Snorri had a son named Thorgeir, who was father of
Ingveld, mother of Bishop Brand. Snorri Karlsefnison had a daughter
named Hallfrid, she was the mother[56] of Runolf, the father of Bishop
Thorlak. There was a son of Karlsefni and Gudrid called Björn; he
was the father of Thorunn, the mother of Bishop Björn. Many men are
descended from Karlsefni, and he became blessed in his descendants: and
Karlsefni has told most clearly of all men the incidents of all these
voyages, of which something has now been related.

APPENDIX

ALTERNATIVE VERSIONS AND
SUPPLEMENTARY PASSAGES

1. ERIC THE RED.

_Eyrbyggja Saga, chap. 24._

At the same sessions the family of Thorgest the Old and the sons of
Thord Gelli prosecuted Eric the Red for the slaughter of Thorgest’s
sons, which had occurred in the autumn, when Eric went after his beams
to Breidabolstad; and these sessions were very well attended. The
parties had previously had a numerous following. During the sessions
Eric had a ship made ready for sea in Ericsvág in Oxney: and Eric’s
party were assisted by Thorbjörn Vifilson and Styr the Slayer and the
sons of Thorbrand of Alptafjord and Eyulf Æsuson from Sviney; but
Styr was Eric’s sole supporter at the sessions, and he drew away from
Thorgest all the men he could. Styr then asked Snorri Godi not to
attack Eric after the sessions with Thorgest’s men, promising Snorri in
return that he would help him another time, if he should happen to get
into difficulties; and because of this promise Snorri lost interest in
the proceedings. Now after the sessions Thorgest and his men went with
a number of ships in among the islands, but Eyulf Æsuson hid Eric’s
ship in Dimunavág, where Styr and Thorbjörn met Eric: Eyulf and Styr
followed Arnkel’s example by escorting Eric together on his journey out
round Ellida Island.

On that expedition Eric the Red discovered Greenland, and stayed there
three winters, after which he went to Iceland, where he stayed one
winter before setting out to colonize Greenland, and that was fourteen
winters before Christianity was legally established in Iceland.

_From Ari’s Íslendíngabók._

That land, which is called Greenland, was discovered and colonized
from Iceland. It was a man called Eric the Red from Breidafjord who
went out thither from this country, and he settled in the place which
was afterwards called Ericsfjord: he named the country, and called it
Greenland; saying that the fact that the country had a good name would
attract men to journey thither. They found there, both in the east and
the west of the country, dwellings of men, and fragments of canoes,
and stone implements of a kind from which one may tell that there
the same kind of people had passed who have settled in Wineland, and
whom the Greenlanders call ‘skrælings’ (savages). Now when he started
to colonize the country it was fourteen to fifteen winters before
Christianity came here to Iceland, according to what was told Thorkel
Gellison in Greenland by one who himself accompanied Eric the Red.

2. LEIF.

_Saga of Olaf Tryggvason_ (_Fríssbók text_).

The same winter Leif, the son of Eric the Red, was with King Olaf,
in great favour, and he adopted Christianity. But that summer when
Gizur went to Iceland King Olaf sent Leif to Greenland, to preach
Christianity there. He sailed that summer to Greenland. He found at
sea men on a wreck, whom he assisted. Then too he discovered Wineland
the Good, and he came in the autumn to Greenland. He brought thither
a priest and other clergy, and he went home to Eric his father at
Brattahlid. Men called him afterwards Leif the Lucky. But Eric, his
father, said that the account was balanced, by Leif’s rescue of the
crew at sea, and his importation of the hypocrite to Greenland. This
referred to the priest.

_Kristni Saga_ (_Hauk’s Book_).

That summer Olaf the king went from the country south to Wendland: then
too he sent Leif Ericson to Greenland, to preach the faith there: then
Leif found Wineland the Good, he found also men on a wreck at sea,
wherefore he was called Leif the Lucky.

_Flatey Book, chap. 352_ (_in the body of the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason_).

Then the king had the Long Serpent brought out, and many other ships
both great and small. That same summer he sent Gizur and Hjalti to
Iceland, as has already been written. Then King Olaf sent Leif to
Greenland to preach Christianity there. The king got him a priest and
some other holy men to baptize people there and teach them the true
faith. Leif went that summer to Greenland, and brought into safety a
crew of men who were at that time in distress and lay upon a wreck.
He came at the end of that summer to Greenland, and went to Eric his
father to stay at Brattahlid. Afterwards men called him Leif the
Lucky. But Eric his father said that the account was balanced, in that
Leif had rescued the crew and given the men life, and had brought a
hypocrite to Greenland. So he called the priest. Yet by the counsel
and persuasion of Leif, Eric and all the people in Greenland were
baptized.

_Saga of Eric the Red and Hauk’s Book, the latter italicized._

‘Leif put to sea when he was ready. He was driven about at sea for
a long time, and lighted on lands whose existence he had not before
suspected. There were wild (lit.: self-sown) wheatfields there, and
vines growing. There were also those trees which are called “mösur”,
and they had some samples of all these things: _some of the trees were
so large that they were used in house-building_. Leif _found men on a
wreck and_ took them home with him, and got them all lodging for the
winter. He showed in this the greatest courtesy and courage, _as in
many other ways_, since he introduced Christianity into the country,
and rescued the men, and he was _ever afterwards_ called Leif the
Lucky.’

_Flatey Book._

When sixteen winters had passed since the time when Eric the Red
crossed to live in Greenland, Leif, Eric’s son, travelled from
Greenland to Norway: he came to Trondhjem in the autumn when King Olaf
Tryggvason was come from the north from Halogaland (A.D. 999). Leif
brought his ship into Nidaros, and went straight to King Olaf. The
king preached the faith to him as he did to other heathen men who came
to him. The king had an easy task with Leif, so he was baptized, and
all his crew; Leif stayed with the king during the winter, and was
hospitably entertained.

3. THORVALD’S VOYAGE.

_Hauk’s Book: the companion text is here badly confused by the copyist._

Karlsefni went with one ship to look for Thorhall the Hunter, while
the main body remained behind, and they travelled north past Keelness,
and then bore along to the west of it, having the land on their port
side. There there was nothing but desolate woods, with hardly any
open places. And when they had sailed a long time, a river came down
from the land from the east to the west: they entered the mouth of
the river, and lay by its southern bank. It happened one morning that
Karlsefni and his men saw before them on an open place a speck, which
glittered before them, and they shouted at it; it moved, and it was
a uniped, which darted down to the bank of the river by which they
lay. Thorvald, son of Eric the Red, was sitting by the rudder, and the
uniped shot an arrow into his entrails. Thorvald drew out the arrow,
crying, ‘There is fat about my belly, we have reached a good country,
though we are hardly allowed to enjoy it.’[57] Thorvald died of this
wound soon afterwards. Then the uniped rushed away, and back northward.
Karlsefni and his men pursued him, and saw him from time to time. The
last they saw of him was that he ran towards a certain creek. Then
Karlsefni and his men turned back. Thereupon a man sang this little
ditty:

Hear, Karlsefni, while I sing
Of a true but wondrous thing,
How thy crew all vainly sped,
Following a uniped:
Strange it was to see him bound
Swiftly o’er the broken ground.

Then they went away, and back north, and imagined that they saw Uniped
Land. They would not then risk their people further.

4. THORSTEIN’S VOYAGE.

_Saga of Eric the Red and Hauk’s Book, the latter italicized._

At this time men spoke much of seeking for those countries which Leif
had found. The leader of the project was Thorstein Ericson, a clever
and popular man. Eric was also asked to join, since his luck and
foresight were most highly thought of. _He was a long time making up
his mind, but he did not refuse what his friends asked_;[58] so in
the end they made ready the ship which Thorbjörn had brought over,
and manned her with twenty men, taking little cargo, mostly arms and
provisions. The morning when Eric rode from his home he took a casket
containing gold and silver, which he hid before going on his way, but
when he had hardly started he fell from horseback and broke a rib,
and hurt his arm in the shoulder-joint, which made him cry out. In
consequence of this mishap he told his wife to remove the money which
he had hidden, considering that he had incurred this punishment by
hiding it. Thereupon they sailed out from Ericsfjord in high spirits,
thinking most favourably of their project. But they were tossed about
for a long time in the ocean, and could not keep on the course which
they desired. They sighted Iceland, and they came across birds from
Ireland. Then their ship was driven out over the ocean. They came
back in the autumn, exceedingly worn out and exhausted; they came to
Ericsfjord _at the beginning of winter. Then Eric said_, ‘We were
merrier in the summer sailing out of the fjord than we are now, and
yet we have still much to be thankful for.’ Thorstein replied, ‘It is
proper now for the leaders to think out some good plan for all these
men who are here now unprovided for, and to get them lodging for the
winter.’ Eric answered, ‘_It is a true saying that one is only wise
after the event, and our experience proves it. You shall now have your
way in this matter._’ _And so all who had no other lodging went with
the father and son, after which they went home to Brattahlid, where
they stayed during the winter._[59]

Now at this point the story tells how Thorstein Ericson proposed for
the hand of Gudrid, Thorbjörn’s daughter. The proposal was accepted
both by her and by her father, and the matter was concluded by the
marriage of Thorstein to Gudrid, which took place at Brattahlid in the
autumn. The festivity was a success, and very well attended. Thorstein
had an estate in the Western Settlement, in the district known as
Lysefjord. A man named Thorstein had also a share in the place: his
wife’s name was Sigrid. Thorstein went to Lysefjord in the autumn, to
his namesake, and Gudrid with him. They were given a good reception
and stayed there for the winter. But as the winter drew on it happened
that their estate was visited by a plague. The foreman there was a man
named Gardi, who was an unpopular man: he was the first to fall ill and
die. After that it was not long before one person after another fell
ill and died. Then Thorstein Ericson and Sigrid, wife of (the other)
Thorstein, fell ill, and one evening the latter wished to go to the
yard which stood opposite the front door. Gudrid accompanied her, and
they sat facing the doors. Then Sigrid uttered a cry. ‘We have been
foolish’, said Gudrid, ‘to come unprotected into the cold weather, so
let us go in at once.’ ‘It is not possible to do so’, replied Sigrid.
‘All the host of the dead is here before the doors, and there in the
throng I recognize Thorstein your husband, and myself, and a sad sight
it is.’ And when this passed off she said, ‘Now I do not see the host.’
The foreman had also vanished then, who had seemed to Sigrid at first
to have a whip in his hand, and to have made as if to beat the host.
After this they went in, and before morning came Sigrid was dead, and
a coffin was made for her body. And the same day men were intending to
go rowing out, and Thorstein conducted them to the quay, and in the
twilight he went to see after their fishing. Then Thorstein Ericson
sent his namesake word to come to him, saying that they were having an
uneasy time in the house, for the housewife made as if to get on her
feet, and get under the clothes by him; and when Thorstein came in she
had come to the bedpost close to Ericson. He took her by the hands,
and laid an axe to her breast. Thorstein Ericson died about sunset.
(His namesake) Thorstein told Gudrid to lie down and sleep, saying
that he would watch through the night over the bodies. She did as he
told her and soon fell asleep, but when a little of the night was past
Thorstein Ericson raised himself up, and said that he wished Gudrid to
be called there, and that he wished to speak to her. ‘It is God’s will
that this hour be given me for leave of absence, and for the perfecting
of my advice.’ Thorstein went to Gudrid, and woke her, telling her to
cross herself and pray God to help her, and said, ‘Thorstein Ericson
has spoken to me, saying that he wishes to see you. Now you must decide
what to do, for I cannot advise you.’ She replied, ‘It may be that
this, this wonderful event, is meant for one of those things which are
remembered afterwards, but I hope that God will watch over me. With
God’s mercy I will risk speaking to him, for I must not at such a time
shrink from harm to myself. I will do it lest he should go further,
for I suspect that would happen otherwise.’ So then Gudrid went and
saw Thorstein (her husband) and it seemed to her as if he shed tears,
and spoke some words low in her ear so that she alone heard, and he
said that those were blessed who kept the faith well, and mercy and
succour attended them: but he said that many kept it ill:—‘That is no
good custom which has prevailed here in Greenland since Christianity
was introduced, to put men in unconsecrated ground with but little
singing over them. I wish to be taken to the church with the others
who have died here, but Gardi I wish to have burnt on a pyre as soon
as possible, for he is the cause of all the apparitions which have
been here this winter.’[60] He spoke to her also of her affairs, and
said that she would have a great future. And he told her to beware of
marrying a Greenlander: he told her too to contribute their money to
the church, or to give it to poor men, and then he sank back for the
second time.

The custom in Greenland, since the introduction of Christianity,
had been that men were buried on the farms where they died, in
unconsecrated ground, and a stake would be set up from their breasts,
and later on, when priests came, the stake would be drawn up, and holy
water poured in there, and a funeral service sung over them, though it
might be long afterwards.[61]

The bodies were carried to the church at Ericsfjord and funeral
services held over them by the priests. After this Thorbjörn died, and
all his property then came to Gudrid. Eric took her in, and looked
after her well.

5. THORFIN KARLSEFNI.

_Flatey Book Version._

That same summer (when Thorstein the Black brought Gudrid to
Ericsfjord) a ship came to Greenland from Norway, commanded by a man
named Thorfin Karlsefni, who was a son of Thord Horsehead, son of
Snorri Thordarson of (Höfda).[62] Thorfin Karlsefni was a wealthy man,
and he stayed at Brattahlid with Leif Ericson during the winter. He
soon turned his attention to Gudrid, and proposed to her, but she left
it to Leif to answer for her. Afterwards they were betrothed, and
their wedding took place that winter. There were the same discussions
as before about a Wineland voyage, and people—both Gudrid and
others—strongly urged Karlsefni to undertake that journey. So then his
expedition was arranged, and he engaged his crew, sixty men and five
women. Karlsefni agreed with his crew that they should have an equal
share in any profit they might make. They had with them all kinds of
cattle, because they proposed to colonize the country if they could.
Karlsefni asked Leif for his houses in Wineland, but he declared that
he would lend his houses but not give them. Afterwards they put out to
sea with their ship, and arriving at Leif’s camp safe and sound they
carried up their baggage.

They soon made a great and a good catch, for a whale both large and
good was stranded there, upon which they went to the whale and cut it
up; they were then in no want of food. The cattle went ashore there,
but it soon came about that the males were unmanageable, and made great
havoc about them. They had brought a bull with them. Karlsefni had wood
cut, and shaped into a cargo for the ship, and laid the wood on a rock
to season. They all took advantage of the valuable resources of the
country, such as there were in the way of grapes and all kinds of game
and good things. In the summer following the first winter they became
acquainted with savages, a great crowd of whom came from the forest:
their cattle were close by, and the bull began to bellow and roar
very loudly; now this terrified the savages, and they ran away with
their packs, which consisted of grey furs and sables and all kinds of
peltries, and turning towards Karlsefni’s house they would have entered
it, but Karlsefni had the doors guarded. Neither side understood the
speech of the other: then the savages brought down their packs and
undid them and offered their wares, desiring especially weapons in
exchange, but Karlsefni forbade his men to sell weapons. And now he hit
upon the idea of telling the women to carry out milk to them, and when
they saw the milk they wished to buy that and nothing else. So then
the result of the savages’ trading was that they carried away their
purchases in their stomachs, but Karlsefni and his companions kept
their bales and furs; so they went away.

Now the story goes that Karlsefni had a strong palisade made round his
house, and preparations made there (for defence). At that time Gudrid,
Karlsefni’s wife, bore a boy child, and the boy was called Snorri. Then
at the beginning of the second winter the savages came to them in much
greater numbers than before, with the same kind of wares as previously.
Thereupon Karlsefni said to the women, ‘Now you must carry out the food
for which there was a demand on the former occasion, and nothing else.’
And when they saw it they threw their packs in over the palisade.

But Gudrid was sitting in the doorway by the cradle of Snorri her son:
then a shadow appeared in the doorway and there came in a woman in
a black ‘namkirtle’. She was rather short, and had a band round her
head; her hair was light brown; she was pale and had eyes so large
that no one had ever seen eyes so large in a human head. She went up
to where Gudrid was sitting, and said, ‘What is your name?’ ‘My name
is Gudrid,’ said she; ‘but what is yours?’ ‘My name is Gudrid,’ said
she. Then Gudrid the housewife beckoned with her hand to her to sit by
her, when all of a sudden Gudrid heard a great crash, and the woman had
then vanished, and simultaneously one of the savages was killed by one
of Karlsefni’s servants, because he had wanted to steal their arms,
whereupon they ran away as fast as possible, leaving their clothing and
wares behind them. No one had seen that woman but Gudrid only.

‘Now we must take counsel,’ said Karlsefni, ‘for I imagine they will
pay us a third visit in a strong and hostile body. Now the plan which
we should adopt is that ten men go forward on to this point and show
themselves there, while the rest of our force go into the forest and
there cut clearings for our cattle, as the army comes out of the wood.
We ought also to take our bull, and let it go before us.’

Now the place where their meeting was arranged had a lake on one side
and the forest on the other. Karlsefni’s advice was followed, and the
savages came into the place which Karlsefni had planned for the battle;
so the fight took place, and many of the savages’ army fell. There was
a tall and distinguished man in the army of the savages, who Karlsefni
thought must be their chief: now one of the savages had taken up an
axe, and having looked at it for a while he raised it against one of
his fellows and hewed at him so that he fell dead; whereat the tall man
took hold of the axe and looked at it for a time, after which he flung
it into the sea as far as he could; and thereupon they fled into the
forest, each one as best he might, and thus their fight then came to an
end.

Karlsefni’s men were there all that winter, but in spring Karlsefni
announced that he would not stay there longer, but would sail to
Greenland. So then they made ready for their voyage, and they brought
thence much that was of value in vines and grapes and furs. Now they
put out to sea, and came safely to Ericsfjord with their ship, and were
there for the winter.

6. KARLSEFNI’S DESCENDANTS.

_Saga of Eric the Red with Hauk’s Book._ (_The latter italicized._)

The second summer after this Karlsefni came to Iceland, and Snorri[63]
with him, and he went home to Reynisness. His mother thought that he
had made a poor match, and so _Gudrid_ was not at their house the first
winter. But when she found that Gudrid was a very fine lady she came
home, and they got on well together.

The daughter of Snorri Karlsefnison was Hallfrid, the mother of Bishop
Thorlak, son of Runolf. They (i.e. Karlsefni and Gudrid) had a son
called Thorbjörn. His daughter was called Thorunn, the mother of
Bishop Björn. There was a son of Snorri Karlsefnison called Thorgeir,
the father of Ingveld, the mother of Bishop Brand the first. _Another
daughter of Snorri Karlsefnison was Steinunn, who married Einar, son
of Grunda-Ketil, son of Thorvald Krok, son of Thori of Espihol. Their
son was Thorstein the Unjust, who was father to Gudrun who married
Jörund of Keldi: their daughter was Halla, mother of Flosi, father
of Valgerda, mother of Sir Erlend the Strong, father of Sir Hauk the
Lawman. Another daughter of Flosi was Thordis, mother of Lady Ingigerd
the Rich. Her daughter was Lady Hallbera, abbess of Reynisness at Stad.
A number of great men in Iceland besides are sprung from Karlsefni and
Gudrid, who are not catalogued here. God be with us. Amen._ And that is
the end of this story.

_Ari’s Íslendíngabók._

Aud, the woman colonist, who settled to the west of Breidafjord in
Hvamm, was mother of Thorstein the Red, father of Olaf Feilan, father
of Thord Gelli, father of Thorhild Rype, mother of Thord Horsehead,
father of Carlsefni, father of Snorri, father of Hallfrid, mother of
Thorlak, who is now bishop in Scalaholt.

PART II. DISCUSSION

I. NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE

In order to judge what historical value should be assigned to the
narrative here translated, it is necessary for the reader to have a
clear idea of the nature of saga literature, and some notion of the
process by which such stories were transmitted from the time of their
occurrence to the period, more than three centuries later, when they
assumed the form which is now known to us. In view of the fact, which
must be at once conceded, that we are dependent upon an interval of
oral tradition before any written account of the Wineland voyages can
have come into existence, we must first of all consider how the special
characteristics of story-telling in Iceland affect the reliability
of such tradition; next we should look for any early corroboration
bearing upon the questions involved; and finally we must consider the
manuscripts which form the basis of the story, and inquire into any
circumstances which may make one source preferable to another.

_Oral Tradition in Iceland._

None of the Wineland voyages which form the subject of our inquiry
can have taken place later than—say—A.D. 1030, and the earliest
would appear to date from as early as 986. Until the inconvenient
runic alphabet, suited only to short inscriptions, was superseded
by something better adapted to the requirements of fluent literary
composition, the history of such events could be preserved only by
word of mouth. This change did not occur till at any rate nearly a
century had elapsed from the time of the occurrences with which we are
dealing. Oral tradition, however, may, under favourable conditions,
show a fidelity to the actual facts which is at first sight surprising.
Mention might be made in this connexion of the Scottish Highlands,
where, in spite of the Celtic imagination, the ‘shenachies’ or prose
annalists attached to the more important families have been found
to have transmitted historical facts which have been most exactly
confirmed by subsequent investigation of documentary evidence. A little
consideration will show that this is not so extraordinary as one might
superficially be disposed to imagine. The distinction, recognized by
our law, between libel and slander is partly at any rate based upon
a consideration which should be borne in mind in this connexion.
The written word remains, even though contradicted and disproved;
nay, it may not infrequently survive its contradiction. The verbal
narrator of contemporary events, however, is always liable to have
among his audience those who are as thoroughly conversant with the
facts described as he is himself. An inaccuracy may be suddenly and
unpleasantly brought to book; the lie is no sooner uttered than it is
denounced and exposed. We find a good illustration of the embarrassing
predicament in which a story-teller might find himself placed (though
the hero in this instance came out of the ordeal with credit) in
the episode of the Icelandic saga-man at the court of King Harald
Haardraade which is reproduced among the excerpts in Vigfusson and
Powell’s _Icelandic Reader_ (p. 141). This young man, we are told, was
taken in at court for the purpose of entertaining the bodyguard with
his sagas. About Christmas time he began to grow melancholy, and on
the cause being investigated it was found that he had used up all his
stories but one just at the time—the Yuletide festivities—when his
accomplishment was most in demand. This remaining story he hesitated
to recite, for it was the saga of the king’s own travels. Encouraged,
however, by Harald himself, he ventured upon his embarrassing task,
the hero of the exploits described being present among the audience.
The story was told, and the days passed by, but the Icelander evinced
no curiosity to know how his rendering had pleased the person who had
first-hand knowledge of the facts. ‘I am afraid about it’ was his
reply, when the king drew his attention to this omission on his part.
Harald reassured him, however, saying that his version was perfectly
correct, and inquired the source from which so accurate a report had
been obtained. On learning that one Halldor Snorrison was the person
originally responsible, the king said that he was no longer surprised
at the accuracy of the tale, and offered the narrator the hospitality
of his court on any future occasion when he might wish to come there.

Another instance, where the consequences were not so satisfactory to
the story-teller, occurs in Njál’s Saga, where Gunnar Lambison is
requested by King Sigtrygg in the Orkneys to give an account of the
burning of Njál in his house, to which he had been a party. He starts
telling the story in an unfair and inaccurate manner, stating among
other things that Skarphedinn, Njál’s son, had wept as the danger
closed round him. Upon this Kári, who has been listening at the door,
dashes in with a drawn sword, and cuts off the head of the untruthful
historian. Flosi, another of the burners, defends and justifies Kári’s
action, and thereupon tells the story himself, and as he favours
neither one side nor the other unduly in his narration we are told that
his story was believed.

Now the conditions of this art of story-telling in Iceland were
unusually favourable to the maintenance of an accurate tradition. In
the first place, as may be seen from the instance cited, the practice
was to all intents and purposes contemporaneous with the occurrence of
the events described. In the second place, a point which will fall to
be developed later on, it is evident that the taste of the Icelandic
audience was intensely practical and unimaginative. Superstitions no
doubt there were, in Iceland as throughout the whole world of this
and indeed far later periods, but even their ghosts and supernatural
occurrences are treated by this people, far more than by any other
with whose works I am conversant, as something all in the day’s work.
The Icelander did not want, like the Celt or the later Romancers,
to surround his heroes with an atmosphere of picturesque mythology;
his principal desire was to learn in the utmost detail exactly how
everything was done, with the dates, genealogies, and circumstances
relevant to the story to which he was listening.

I have mentioned the word genealogies, and this brings me to the last
factor which operated in favour of the accuracy of oral tradition
in Iceland. The colony was from its very nature composed of a great
number of more or less connected families, equal in social status, and
known to each other to consist of men of like passions with themselves.
There was no king, no outstanding heroic personality, round whose
unapproachable majesty the flattering tongues of courtiers could
weave their myths and fictions. The saga-teller moreover was not,
like the bards and shenachies of the Scottish Highlands, the appanage
of a single family. He moved from place to place, whiling away the
monotony of the Arctic winter with his histories, and the hero of one
locality was in another an ancestor or a member of a family in no
way superior to the persons who were gathered to hear the tale. Each
listener was deeply versed in genealogy, a subject which was clearly
regarded as of primary importance. Most great families, by dint of
intermarriage, were connected with at all events some of the characters
which were introduced into almost any saga, and the necessity of
reciting correctly before the most critical of audiences the intricate
ramifications of all the family trees occurring in the course of the
narrative must have been the best possible discipline to produce a
school where accuracy was placed above every other consideration.

From the circumstance, too, that the story had to satisfy the
inhabitants and the visitors of a number of different settlements,
with an equal social status but with frequently conflicting interests,
arose the characteristic which has often been noticed by students
of Icelandic literature, that both or all sides of a question are
stated fairly, the author or reciter being, as Vigfusson has put it,
‘a heathen with the heathen, a wrathful man with the avenger, and
a sorrowful man with the mourner, as his style reflects the varied
feelings of his _dramatis personae_’.[64]

We have therefore the best of grounds for imagining that the exploits
of those who fought, litigated, or explored in the tenth and eleventh
centuries were carried with truth, impartiality, and accuracy over the
brief interval which separated them from the age of written history,
which dawned with Ari the Learned.

_Ari the Learned._

This pioneer of Icelandic history and of the age of writing was born,
as we learn from the Icelandic Annals, in the year following the Norman
conquest of England (1067). His grandfather, Gelli, was a contemporary
of Karlsefni, and was in fact his second cousin. (See Genealogical
Table, p. 20.) We are expressly told by Ari that his uncle, Thorkel
Gellison, supplied him with information relating to Eric the Red, which
he had obtained from direct speech with one of the latter’s companions.
The events with which we are concerned thus fall within a period
bridged by one human memory from the time of occurrence to the period
when they could be recorded in writing, and when written history, as
superseding oral tradition, may be said to begin.

It is moreover worthy of note in passing that the most important
explorer with whom these sagas deal, Thorfin Karlsefni, was of the same
stock as Ari, and must almost necessarily have been personally known to
one of his informants, his uncle Thorkel.

It should also be remarked that one of the persons for whom Ari
expressly tells us that he composed his Íslendíngabók, and to whom he
showed it, was Bishop Thorlak, the grandson of that Snorri who, as we
are told in the saga, was born to Karlsefni in Wineland.

To the truthful and conscientious work of Ari the Learned a well-known
introductory passage in the history of the kings of Norway known as
Heimskringla bears eloquent witness. The author of this book was
greatly indebted to the researches of Ari; in fact, though the latter’s
original work on the subject of the Norse kings no longer exists in
its intact and primitive form, we know that such a book was among his
literary achievements, and was in all probability followed closely by
subsequent compilers of stories relating to the earlier history of
Norway. Unfortunately, however, greatly as later writers were indebted
to Ari, of his original work only one book remains, and this in a
highly condensed and summarized form. This is the Íslendíngabók, or
history of the Icelanders. We know from the author’s own statement
that this book was originally written in a different and probably more
extended form, of which no copies now remain, but the little book now
extant contains, besides a genealogy of Karlsefni, one passage valuable
to us in dealing with the present subject, from the early corroboration
which it affords of the essential outlines of our story. This passage,
which will also be found in the Appendix of Supplementary Passages, p.
74, may be rendered as follows:

‘The country which is called Greenland was discovered and colonized
from Iceland. It was a man called Eric the Red from Breidafjord who
went out thither from this country, and he took land in the place
which was afterwards called Ericsfjord: he named the country and
called it Greenland, saying that the fact that the country had a
good name would attract men to journey thither. They found there,
both in the east and the west of the country, dwellings of men,
and fragments of canoes, and stone implements of a kind from which
one could tell that a race had come (_farit_) there _of the kind
that inhabited_ (_bygt_) _Wineland, and whom the Greenlanders call
Skrælings_. Now the date when the settlement of that country was
started was from fourteen to fifteen winters before Christianity
came here to Iceland, according to an account given to Thorkel
Gellison in Greenland by one who himself accompanied Eric the Red
out.’

This casual reference would appear to afford the strongest confirmation
both of the known and recognized existence of Wineland, and, in
particular, of the episodes described in the sagas relating to the
savages or ‘skrælings’.

It furnishes besides, in the present writer’s opinion, proof positive
that a land inhabited by savages had been visited by the Norsemen at
a time when no such people had actually been met with in Greenland
itself. The Eskimo of Greenland, it will be observed, had, so far as
Ari’s information went, come and gone before the Norse occupation
(_farit_), and their existence was only inferred from the traces above
described, while the natives of Wineland had at the same date ‘a local
habitation (_bygt_) and a name’. ‘Skrælings’ was not therefore a title
transferred from known inhabitants of Greenland to savages figuring in
tales of Wineland; the reverse was the case.

This point will be developed later, and certain objections which have
been raised to this interpretation of the passage will be fully dealt
with, but it will at once be seen that it is of considerable importance
in its bearing upon the accuracy of the saga and the fact of the Norse
discovery.

_The Landnámabók._

Another work of high authority, in which it is certain that the
conscientious hand of Ari played a large part, is the Landnámabók or
history of the settlement of Iceland. Hauk Erlendson, in his edition
of this classic, expressly acknowledges the authorship of the master,
saying that it is ‘according to that which first priest Ari the
Learned, Thorgil’s son, has written, and Kolskegg the Wise’. Kolskegg
was a contemporary of Ari’s, and Vigfusson[65] thinks that his share
in the collaboration was confined to supplying the genealogies of the
Eastern district. Judging from its uniformity of style, this great
authority[66] has no hesitation in ascribing the sole authorship of
the Landnámabók to Ari and Kolskegg. The authoritative character of
this work has a direct bearing upon our subject, for it is evident
that the writers of both versions of the story drew largely from its
pages, indeed both versions contain a great deal of absolutely literal
quotation.

As regards Wineland itself, however, the Landnámabók has but little
to say. It was in fact foreign to the purpose of a book whose whole
scope was confined to Iceland, and we ought not therefore to expect
more than we actually find. The only reliable mention of the place is
in the passage relating to Ari Marsson, who is there said to have
been cast upon Hvítramannaland, ‘which some call Ireland the Great,
it lies westward in the sea near Wineland the Good’. The importance
attaching to this passage is that Wineland is casually mentioned as a
well-known locality from which the position of Hvítramannaland could
be approximately fixed, without the necessity of further explanation.
Another passage, relating to ‘Karlsefni who found Wineland the Good’,
is of less value, as it is in all probability an interpolation by
Hauk, which consequently affords no independent corroboration of the
discovery.

_Adam of Bremen._

It has therefore been established so far that at the time when writing
superseded oral tradition the fact of the discovery of a ‘Wineland’
by the Norsemen was perfectly well known, that it lay to the west
(vide Landnámabók), and contained savages. The name moreover affords
some corroboration in itself of the details given in the sagas with
reference to the discovery of grapes there. A further confirmation of
the facts recorded as to the principal products of the country must now
be dealt with. This dates from an even earlier period, and comes from
an independent source, the _Descriptio_ of the ‘islands’ or countries
of the North which was written by Adam of Bremen. This worthy became
director of the cathedral school in Bremen in or about the year of
Ari’s birth (1067), and derived, as he tells us, the information upon
which his description is based from Svein Estridson, King of the Danes,
who died in 1076.

Knowledge obtained from such a source brings us practically to the
lifetime of Karlsefni’s contemporaries, and well within that of many
who might remember him or his associates. In the geographical work
referred to, Adam inserts the following reference to Wineland:

‘He (King Svein) told me of yet another island besides, discovered by
many in that Ocean, which is called ‘Wineland’, from the fact that
there vines grow naturally, producing the best wine. Moreover that corn
abounds there without sowing we have ascertained, not from fabulous
conjecture, but from the reliable (_certa_) report of the Danes.’

_Prima facie_, therefore, we have here the most controversial part of
the whole story—the existence of the wild corn and vines—substantiated
by an authority based on a Scandinavian source, almost within the
lifetime of the explorers themselves. In view of a contention which
will be dealt with more fully later, that the accounts of vines and
wild corn occurring in the sagas are derived from references to the
Fortunate Islands in Isidore Hispalensis and classical works, it may be
important to note here the emphasis laid by the writer on the source of
his information.

Adam of Bremen, a learned continental _magister_, must have been
already familiar with the numerous legends relating to these
Fortunate Islands, references to which are frequent in many classical
authorities, and he appears to be anticipating the criticism which has
in fact been made, when he draws, as he does, a careful distinction
between _fabulosa opinio_ and _certa relatio Danorum_. He seems in fact
to be saying,—‘Of course you think that this is another story based on
classical legends which are familiar to you, but it is nothing of the
sort: when I was in Denmark I had the opportunity of questioning the
Danes whose information I have recorded, and I find it impossible to
conclude that this is merely a case of the Insulae Fortunatae at second
hand.’

_Date of the Existing Manuscripts._

We may now pass on to consider the sources from which the present
translation is drawn. The existing manuscripts, it will be found, are
none of them earlier than the fourteenth century, but it may be well to
point out that this fact is not so damaging to their credit as might be
supposed.

The day of oral tradition was long over, the day of documentary history
had been long established, and the compilers of those versions which we
now possess must have worked in the main not from oral tradition, but
from earlier written sagas which had then attained to a large extent
the form in which we have them. A well-known passage in the Sturlunga
Saga is not without a bearing on this point. ‘Nearly all stories.’ it
says, ‘which had been made in Iceland before Bishop Brand Sæmundson
died (A.D. 1201) had been committed to writing; but stories of things
which have taken place since were hardly committed to writing at all
before the skald Sturla Thordson dictated the Iceland Sagas.’ Now while
we may admit, with Vigfusson, that this passage has reference primarily
to the three sagas which have at this point been incorporated in
Sturlunga, it is clear that ‘nearly all stories’ cannot be a statement
confined to three, and must have a general reference to the condition
of all the stories known at that date. It follows that any events
which took place before 1201 had in all probability assumed a more or
less fixed written form before Sturla (born _c._ 1217) started to write
down the later occurrences.

The contributions of later scribes would appear to have been confined
for the most part to bringing the genealogies down to their own day;
the fashion of romanticizing the earlier material to any great extent
did not become general till a later date than those which we have to
consider.

That Eric’s Saga had assumed a written form before the Flatey Book
version was compiled is evident from the reference to it in the opening
chapter of that story: ‘Thence arose the quarrels and fights between
Eric and Thorgest which are related in Eric’s Saga.’ How far the saga
of Eric known to the compilers of the Flatey Book corresponded with
any work which now bears the same name is a question which cannot
be adequately discussed till we have considered further the nature
and authenticity of the versions from which the translation has been
derived.[67]

_Hauk’s Book and the Saga of Eric the Red._

Our knowledge of the Wineland voyages is obtained, as the careful
reader of the translation will discover, from two apparently
independent sources, which may for convenience be described as Hauk’s
version and that of the Flatey Book. The story as known to Hauk is
found in two manuscripts: one contained in Hauk’s Book and partly
written by his own hand; the other, in an early fifteenth-century
hand, is No. 557 4to in the collection of Arne Magnusson, and is most
conveniently designated—according to its actual title—as the Saga of
Eric the Red.

This last-named manuscript, while it was undoubtedly written long
after Hauk’s Book, probably embodies the earlier and better text of
this version. It is certainly not a free rendering of the story, but a
literal transcript of some earlier manuscript, for it contains a number
of typical copyist’s errors. There are, for example, words repeated
twice in succession, and passages which as they stand are meaningless,
and require some simple emendation. It is equally certain that the
text followed was not that of Hauk, for the language differs slightly
throughout, and there are sentences in each version neither occurring
in the other nor arising from it by necessary implication. The theory
that the Saga of Eric the Red embodies an earlier text than that of
Hauk is deduced by experts from the greater simplicity of the language
in the former version. To the lay mind the most convincing proof
is to be derived from the genealogy at the end of the saga. As has
already been stated, it was the practice of transcribers to bring such
pedigrees down to their own day. Hauk follows this practice, tracing
the line of Karlsefni down to himself. The Saga of Eric stops short at
Bishop Brand the first, several generations earlier. Hauk, according
to his account, was the great-great-great-grandson of Bishop Brand’s
second cousin. (See Genealogical Table, p. 20.) The fact, however, that
Bishop Brand is described as ‘the first’ shows conclusively that the
text copied in Eric’s Saga was not completed till the ordination of the
second bishop of that name, which took place in 1263.

Of course, as far as this goes, it is not inconsistent with the
writers of these two versions having worked from the same manuscript,
which Hauk altered and edited, while the other scribe contented himself
with a literal copy. While, however, the sense of Hauk’s version
follows approximately that of the rival manuscript, the language is
rarely identical for many words together. Had both been working from
the same manuscript, this is not what one would expect to find: it is
so much simpler to transcribe a passage _verbatim_, when the meaning
which it is intended to convey is as adequately given by such a method.
And Hauk’s text occasionally gives us information which cannot be
explained as a mere intelligent amplification of the other.

We are consequently justified in all probability in imagining that
the common origin of the two versions must be assigned to a period
considerably earlier than either. Finnur Jónsson, an excellent critic
of Icelandic styles, considers that we may give the common archetype as
early a date as 1200. As regards the date of the extant manuscripts,
to which, for reasons already given, too much importance should not
be attached, it is sufficient to state that Hauk died in 1334, and as
his own hand concludes the saga it must have been written some time
before that date. The clue given by the mention of Bishop Brand ‘the
first’, noticed above, is common to both manuscripts, and fixes the
period before which neither manuscript was completed at 1263. In the
case of Hauk’s Book these limits are further narrowed by the mention of
Hallbera with her title as Abbess of Reynisness. We know that this lady
attained this position in 1299, so that Hauk’s Book cannot have been
completed before this date.

_Hauk’s Personal Authority._

Mr. W. H. Babcock, in his clear and valuable treatise on the
subject,[68] lays considerable stress on the fact that Hauk was a
descendant of Karlsefni, as enhancing the authority of this version
of the narrative. To some extent this is a good point, but it may
be doubted whether Hauk’s knowledge of his ancestors was sufficient
to check the written records accessible in his day. He follows the
demonstrable error of Landnámabók in making Thorbjörn Vifilson the
son of Aud’s freedman, which a close examination of the chronological
data shows to be an altogether untenable theory. (See Genealogical
Table, p. 20.) He was separated from Karlsefni by no fewer than eight
generations, and any reader who takes the trouble to consider how
much he knows of the achievements of so distant an ancestor will no
doubt form the conclusion that Hauk was not in a position to throw
much additional light on the subject, though it was naturally of
peculiar interest to him. All we can say is that he regarded the saga
as historical and not romantic, and his wide experience of Icelandic
literature, quite apart from his family connexions, made him a good
judge. That he had no special private sources of information is clear
from the fact that he transcribed the saga practically as it stood. It
cannot be sustained that he discarded the Flatey version, or preferred
the alternative; it seems much more likely that the editors of the
Flatey Book tapped sources to which he never had access. Hauk, had he
deliberately compared the two authorities, would for example inevitably
have selected the Flatey version of the stranded-whale episode, as
this tallies much better than his own text with the older verses
incorporated. (Cf. next chapter, p. 132.) Hauk, in fact, merely copied,
with more or less intelligence, the only version of the story which he
knew, and his manuscript, therefore, stands on exactly the same footing
as the Saga of Eric the Red: coming from a common archetype they of
course afford no independent corroboration of one another.

_Independence of the Flatey Version._

That such corroboration is, however, afforded by the version contained
in the Flatey Book is, I think, clear to demonstration. But for the
attitude of some modern writers on the subject, the independence of
this account might be said to be beyond dispute, whatever its relative
value as an authority might be. Some commentators have, however,
attempted to establish that the Flatey Book is but an embroidery based
on the rival text. Thus Mr. Juul Dieserud, in the Bulletin of the
American Geographical Society (1901), states boldly that the Flatey
Book ‘borrowed incidents and descriptions from the story of Thorfin’.
He adds: ‘This may seem to be a hazardous conjecture, but ... the only
way out of it is to regard the saga of Thorfin as the result of a
similar process.’

The alternative, however, with which Mr. Dieserud here considers
himself to be faced, is by no means the only one. The depositions of
two witnesses to a matter of fact may show many points of agreement as
well as discrepancies without any collusion or borrowing whatsoever.
So, too, different authors may treat of a question of history or
tradition without having consulted each other’s works. Again, if I and
a friend go through some experience together—suppose, for instance,
that we serve in the same unit during the war—the accounts which we
transmit to our respective descendants may be quite independent of one
another. A charge of plagiarism, under such conditions, needs to be
established by definite and cogent evidence.

Now what does Mr. Dieserud put forward as proof or support of his
contention? He says, for example, ‘an incident related of the stalwart
Freydis and the short mention of some quarrels caused by the women
during the last winter in Straumsfjord sets somebody’s imagination
working till we get a gruesome tale of her separate expedition to
Wineland in company with the brothers Helgi and Finnbogi’. The quarrels
over (not otherwise caused by) the women in the Saga of Eric the Red
are of a purely sexual character. The bachelors, we are told, coveted
the wives of the married men. This situation, though hardly unique,
might well provide an imaginative mind with a plot like that of a
modern problem novel. But where is anything of the kind to be traced
in the Flatey Book story of Freydis? There is no quarrel about women;
in fact, feminine charm was hardly Freydis’s strong point. There is
a purely mercenary dispute about the ownership of a boat, in which a
person who is incidentally a woman plays the principal part. In short,
there is no sort of connexion between the two plots; it might as well
be said that the story of Jezebel and Naboth was a plagiarism from that
of David and Bathsheba.

In the same way, the alleged development of Bjarni Herjulfson from
Bjarni Grimolfson, which is also asserted by Joseph Fischer,[69]
rests upon no more solid foundation than the coincidence of a name
by no means uncommon in Icelandic literature. Storm, more correctly,
recognizes the Bjarni of the Flatey Book as ‘en ellers ganske ubekjendt
person’ (a person otherwise quite unknown), and Neckel’s _Erste
Entdeckung Amerikas_ makes use of an identical expression. Would
anyone, desiring to make up a good story about Bjarni Grimolfson,
neglect the dramatic episode of his death in the worm-eaten ship, as
given in the saga of Eric? Why, as Neckel says, not let him land and
find the vines and corn, if the object was to give him a credit not
his due? Apart from their first names, Bjarni Grimolfson and Bjarni
Herjulfson have nothing whatever in common. When Fischer says, ‘Only
in this way (i.e. by inventing the Flatey Book story) could the
priest (John Thordson, one of the scribes of the Flatey Book) ascribe
the honour of the discovery of Wineland to his hero Bjarni, who was
really only one of the band who accompanied Karlsefni on his later
expedition’, one is disposed to ask, Who treats Bjarni as a hero? He
gets no credit for the discovery which accident threw in his way; Leif
is here, as elsewhere, treated as the discoverer of Wineland: nay, we
are told that Bjarni was severely criticized for lack of enterprise in
not pursuing his investigations further. Moreover, if Bjarni Grimolfson
was John Thordson’s hero, why change his surname altogether?

The third parallel suggested by Mr. Dieserud is between Tyrker in the
Flatey Book and Hake and Hekja in Eric’s Saga. Hake and Hekja, one
would think, make a more picturesque appeal to an imaginative writer
than Tyrker. They are at least as good material for a story. But they
are Scots or Celts while Tyrker is a German, they are two while he is
one; in fact, they show few points of resemblance. A better case could
be made out for a comparison between Tyrker and Thorhall the Hunter,
though even this would be pretty remote. These are the three instances
most prominently put forward to substantiate a charge of plagiarism.

When we look for points in one version which must inevitably have been
included in the other if the two accounts were interdependent, we are
only struck by the dissimilarity. The wild corn, so prominent in Eric’s
Saga and in the popular accounts which reached Adam of Bremen, is not
mentioned anywhere in the Flatey Book. The stranded whale, evidently
a fact, as shown by Thorhall’s verses, is referred to, but the whole
point of the story, as a story, is destroyed by too literal adherence
to what appears to be the simple truth.

On the other hand, numerous statements of a circumstantial nature are
made in the Flatey version which find no place in the rival account.
The important ‘eyktarstad’ observation (see Chapter V) is a good
instance of this. The Flatey Book gives the south-westerly course which
the necessities of the case, as known to us, demand, but we look in
vain for such a course in Eric’s Saga or Hauk’s Book, which follow
the current ideas of Icelandic geographers in reporting a uniform
progress to the south. Is it suggested that the greater accuracy of the
Flatey Book in this particular is a freak of a vivid but uninstructed
imagination? The savages, sleeping under their boats, as Jacques
Cartier found them centuries later, are also mentioned in the Flatey
Book alone. It is true that the authors of this version, coming to the
conclusion that all the explorers made the same landfall, have felt
at liberty to draw the description of Leif’s camp from what appears
to be a report of Karlsefni’s Hóp, but, assuming the latter place to
have been actually discovered by Karlsefni, there is no evidence in
this that another saga was consulted at all. In short, I can find
no evidence whatever that the compilers of the Flatey Book version
had any knowledge of the rival account known to us. It is true that
Finnur Jónsson[70] considers that the reference to ‘Eric’s saga’ in
the introductory matter quoted from Landnáma is to the document known
to us by that name; but, with all respect to the views of so fine an
Icelandic scholar, such a theory seems to me untenable. In the first
place, in the passage in question the author must be alluding to a
story so well known to his audience that he can refer them to it
without hesitation. _A fortiori_ a story known to himself. Yet no one
who had more than the haziest recollection of our Eric’s Saga could
possibly make the wide departures from it which are characteristic
of the Flatey version. Secondly, the reference to the ‘quarrels and
fights’ between Eric and Thorgest suggests a detailed account of the
whole dispute. Yet the matter omitted in the Flatey Book from that
supplied by Landnáma, which is the source quoted by all our authorities
at this stage, amounts to no more than a bare mention of the battle
which brought about Eric’s banishment, and that on his return to
Iceland which was the prelude to reconciliation. The omissions are in
fact hardly longer than the explanation which the author inserts. The
object of the reference being clearly to effect a saving of time or
space, one must suppose that the allusion is to some fuller account.
But even if the reference were to our Eric’s Saga, it would not
disprove the independence of the Flatey version as a whole, since at
this point the compiler has not reached the stage where he incorporates
new matter, but is copying practically _verbatim_ an abridgement from
Landnáma which is to be found in other texts of the Saga of Olaf
Tryggvason. The reference to ‘Eric’s saga’ is part of a quotation,
rather than an original observation. In fact, as Neckel puts it, ‘the
(Flatey Book) narrative makes pretty strong departures from the Saga
of Eric the Red. It knows on the one hand more, on the other less;
above all, the same occurrences appear in quite different order and
connexion’ ... ‘Between both accounts runs the remarkable relationship
that while clearly harmonious in the main features they are widely
separated from one another in details. The use of the older narrative
by the younger is accordingly excluded.’

The motive apparently suggested by Mr. Dieserud and those who agree
with him for the tone adopted in the Flatey Book is the glorification
of the family of Eric the Red. The introduction of a prior discoverer
to Leif does not seem likely to conduce to such a result, and one
feels that a member of Eric’s family would hardly regard the story of
Freydis with pride or pleasure. But let that pass. Those who adopt this
position seem to be faced with a dilemma. No one outside Greenland
had any interest in attempting such a task, while if—as I myself
believe (see next chapter, p. 139)—this version comes in the main
from a Greenland source, it is far more likely that it represents an
independent tradition than that compilers in so inaccessible a country
had access to the version current in Iceland. For these reasons we need
have no hesitation in accepting the independence of the Flatey version,
and in concluding with Vigfusson that ‘the correspondence of these
distinct versions throws great light on the vitality and faithfulness
of tradition, and is a strong confirmation of the credibility in
main points of a saga which is especially important for historic
reasons’.[71]

_Date of the Flatey Book._

The date and circumstances of composition of the Flatey Book are known
to us from the invaluable researches of Vigfusson, who transcribed the
entire manuscript for publication. From this source we learn that it
was compiled for one John Haakonson, who was born in 1350; the date
of its commencement can therefore hardly have been earlier than some
twenty years later (_c._ 1370). As originally planned it commenced
with the mythical tale of Eric the Far-travelled, a fact which is
plain from the words of the text, ‘He that wrote this book set this
story first’. It continues in the same hand to set down a long saga
of Olaf Tryggvason, King of Norway, followed by the saga of King Olaf
the Holy. At this point the first scribe, John Thordson, lays down his
pen, and the book is carried on by one Magnus, terminating with some
Annals, which it was intended to keep up to date by additions from
time to time. When therefore Magnus found himself in possession of
some additional matter, which it was thought desirable to incorporate
in the volume, he added a few leaves at the _beginning_ of the work,
leaving the blank pages at the end for the continuation of the Annals.
Towards the end of the newly incorporated matter comes the statement
that it was written in the year 1387. Magnus then added a title-page
with a list of the contents, and continued to add to the Annals from
time to time till 1394. The story of the Wineland voyages given in the
Flatey Book consists of two ‘thættir’ or episodes, interpolated after
the manner of the time in the saga of Olaf Tryggvason, which is the
second piece of literature included in the original volume. It follows
therefore that, so far as we are concerned, the manuscript dates from
some time after 1370, when the owner came to man’s estate, and before
1387. Considering the time which must have been occupied in writing a
book of such gigantic proportions, we may fairly ascribe the Wineland
parts of the book to a date considerably earlier than the year last
mentioned.

The manuscript at present extant is therefore of a later date than that
of Hauk’s Book. In admitting this we should, I think, for the reasons
given earlier, be chary of attaching too much importance to the fact.
Evidence is not wanting that the sources followed compare favourably in
age with the rival version. Two such proofs are mentioned by Reeves,
though only one of these seems to me of real importance. This is the
fact that, unlike the rival version, the Flatey Book refers to Bishop
Brand without the distinguishing title ‘the first’, which would in all
probability have been added by anyone composing the archetype used by
John Thordson at a date subsequent to the second Bishop’s ordination.
The other point mentioned by Reeves is the reference to Eric’s landfall
in Greenland by its original name of Midjökul, as well as by the later
designation of Bláserk, which latter is given alone in Hauk’s version.
A reference to the Landnámabók, however, shows that both names are
there preserved, and as the part of both versions where the name occurs
is obviously founded on Landnáma, the omission of a word of the matter
copied by Hauk appears to me devoid of significance.

Turning to the contents of the rival productions of Hauk and the Flatey
Book, though the two stories are obviously the same, we are at once
confronted by certain striking dissimilarities. Bjarni Herjulfson and
his adventure are recorded in the Flatey Book, and nowhere else in
literature. Leif’s voyage is represented by the same version alone as
being deliberately undertaken as a result of Bjarni’s discoveries;
elsewhere it is accidental, an episode of a different voyage. A
separate voyage of Thorvald Ericson, terminating in his death, is
detailed in the same account, whereas in the Saga of Eric the Red no
such person is mentioned at all till the episode of his death, and in
Hauk’s Book and the companion manuscript he is represented as sailing
and meeting his death under the auspices of Karlsefni’s expedition.
Finally, after Karlsefni’s return, we have in the Flatey Book alone the
story of Freydis’s second visit to the newly discovered country. With
these discrepancies, and the attitude of modern criticism towards them,
it will be necessary to deal in a separate chapter.

II. THE DISCREPANCIES OF THE FLATEY BOOK

The earlier writers on the subject of the Wineland voyages based their
theories very largely on the Flatey version, and indeed accepted its
authority as in every way preferable to the alternative rendering of
the story. Laing, for example, in his preface to the Heimskringla,
laments the fact that any other document besides the Flatey Book should
come into the discussion at all: and Hauk’s version is dismissed
by a writer in the _Cornhill Magazine_ for 1872 (vol. xxvi) as ‘a
later manuscript ... full of the most marvellous impossibilities’.
In a slashing and sceptical paper on the subject in vol. VII of the
_Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society_, by R. G. Haliburton,
the same view is emphasized. This writer had but little faith in any
of the stories, but he treated the Flatey account as at all events
preferable to that of the Saga of Eric the Red.

Perhaps none of the writers cited above can be considered as of very
high authority, but their attitude is typical of the older school of
thought, and the Flatey Book has as great a critic as Vigfusson on
its side. They are quoted to show how widely the opinions of students
can vary. For since Gustav Storm in 1887 published his _Studier over
Vinlandsreiserne_[72], his views, which have found very general
acceptance and still hold the field, have completely reversed the
relative status of the different versions. To-day it is the Flatey
Book which is criticized, and on all points where it joins issue with
the rival version the evidence of the latter is preferred. With great
deference to those whose learning has contributed to such a result,
it seems to me that such criticism has gone a great deal too far. Let
us endeavour impartially to consider the main points wherein there is
variance, and thus form our own conclusion as to which story is the
more correct.[73]

_Bjarni Herjulfson._

Herjulf, Bjarni’s father, was undoubtedly a real person, whose name
and pedigree occur in Landnáma, and it appears to be historically
established that he was one of Eric’s companions when Greenland was
colonized in A.D. 985 or 986. A well-known headland in Greenland was
named after him, and in fact no one hitherto has ventured to question
Herjulf’s existence, or his emigration to Greenland.

We start then from the certain fact that Herjulf, Bjarni’s father,
has sailed to Greenland about the summer of 986. If he had a sailor
son, absent in Norway on a trading voyage, that son on his return to
Iceland would almost certainly endeavour to rejoin his parent in the
new colony. All the best available pilots are gone, neither Bjarni
nor his crew have any clear knowledge of the seas they will have to
traverse, and it is with a knowledge of their risk, clearly stated,
that they start sailing west in the direction of Greenland, separated
from them by a distance imperfectly known, and also, if there is the
slightest deviation to the south of Cape Farewell, in the direction of
America. To America we are accordingly informed that they came, driven
thither by suitable winds and weather. From America, without landing,
without any information to impart as to these strange countries, they
returned to Greenland, and Iceland saw no more of Bjarni thenceforward.
As fiction, it is a pointless and barren narrative, whatever may
be its historical interest to persons of a post-Columbian age. It
was evidently disappointing to those who heard and to those who
subsequently wrote the story. So far from being treated as a hero,
as Professor Fischer would have us believe, we are told that Bjarni
received nothing but blame for his lack of enterprise and curiosity on
the occasion which chance and unsuccessful navigation had thrown in his
way. These were not circumstances favourable to the perpetuation of
a story devoid of incident in itself and redounding in no way to the
credit of the chief actor in it. It would not be surprising to find
that even in Greenland Bjarni’s adventure was not long remembered. The
disappearance of the tale from Iceland is _a fortiori_ immensely more
probable. The interest of narrator and audience alike were in that
country exceptionally domestic. It is the rarest possible exception to
hear in Icelandic sagas of the exploits of anyone who had permanently
left the country, and whose life never again threw him in contact with
Icelanders. Bjarni, from the time he set sail from Eyrarbakki, was,
short of a miracle, ‘out of the story’, as the Icelandic narrators
would have put it. That the popular account of the voyages of
Karlsefni and his predecessors should contain no mention of Bjarni is
in accordance with every probability. The alternative appears to me to
violate everything that experience teaches us of the development of
tradition here and elsewhere. A person, possibly it is said fictitious,
at best wholly devoid of interest for Icelandic audiences, is credited
with an extremely featureless voyage, from which he derives no sort
of kudos, the effect of which is—if anything—to some extent to impair
the glory of the Icelander Karlsefni. Such inaccuracy as characterizes
tradition has, it may be said with the utmost confidence, the effect
of merging the exploits of the less well known with those of the more
popular hero: the creation of a fictitious hero in addition to the real
one is, I submit, the reverse of the normal process.

Thus, the legends which grew up about Charlemagne endowed that hero
with the achievements of earlier Frankish kings and chieftains, and
in particular absorbed and confused with Charlemagne his ancestor,
Charles Martel. The national traditions of centuries were annexed and
grouped round Charlemagne and his circle. On a smaller scale, much the
same sort of process can occasionally be traced in saga literature.
For instance, the earlier versions of the Landnámabók mention a
certain Helgi Thorbrandson, who sailed with Eric to Greenland, and was
accordingly less known in Iceland than his brothers, who figure largely
in the Eyrbyggja Saga. This saga, therefore, ignores Helgi, and does
not mention him among the sons of Thorbrand of Alptafjord. Similarly
later editions of Landnáma substitute for Helgi’s name that of his
brother Snorri, who went out later to Greenland, and was better known
in Iceland. The less-known figure disappears and his history becomes
absorbed in that of the better-known character. Such is the normal and
natural working of tradition.

Prof. Gustav Storm, in his _Studier over Vinlandsreiserne_, makes a
great point of the fact that though Bjarni’s voyage is represented
as taking place about A.D. 986 nothing was done in the nature of
further exploration for a period of about sixteen years. I fail to
see the force of this argument. It was not till about a century had
elapsed from the time when Gunnbjörn, son of Ulf Kráka, sighted an
unknown coast to the west of Iceland, that Eric the Red, having made
his adopted country too hot to hold him, followed in his track to
Greenland. The battered and storm-tossed remnant who successfully
accomplished the emigration to Eric’s new colony had little motive,
in Bjarni’s bald description of unattractive coasts sighted from
shipboard, to induce them to tempt Providence again. Leif, Eric’s son
and the explorer of the future, was born in Iceland after the death of
his grandfather, and was in all probability still a child. He is the
only son of Eric mentioned in Landnámabók, which is concerned with the
Icelandic pedigrees only.

On coming of age, and accomplishing the remarkable voyage from
Greenland to Norway, having next carried out the difficult task of
converting his countrymen to Christianity, it was time for him to look
about for fresh worlds to conquer. The old story was recalled, the ship
was manned, and the first real discovery and exploration of the new
countries was effected, an exploit for which, in the Flatey Book as
elsewhere, Leif receives the entire credit, just as his father, and
not Gunnbjörn, is everywhere described as the ‘discoverer’ of Greenland.

_Leif’s Voyage._

Next it is said that whereas, in the Flatey version, Leif’s discovery
is represented as the result of an expedition deliberately equipped
to investigate Bjarni’s reports, it is uniformly described in every
other account as an accidental episode of his return voyage from the
court of Olaf Tryggvason in Norway. Here again it must be remembered
that Leif was by this time a Greenlander, as to the exact details of
whose exploits Iceland was likely to be imperfectly informed and but
little interested. The main facts of his career might be known: that
he was a son of Eric the Red, that he sailed to Norway and introduced
Christianity to Greenland, that he rescued a crew of shipwrecked
persons—more especially if, as related in the Flatey Book, one of these
was the Icelandic heroine Gudrid—that he discovered somehow and at some
time Wineland the Good, and thereby gave rise to Karlsefni’s subsequent
expedition. More exact knowledge was not necessary as a prelude to the
story of the adventures of the Icelandic hero Karlsefni; in fact, in so
far as there is likely to have been any conscious interference with the
truth, it may be observed that the less Leif’s voyage was dwelt on the
greater would be the credit attaching to the later explorer, in whom
alone Icelanders were likely to be generally interested. Such a state
of things was eminently calculated to produce the fusion by tradition
of two voyages into one, which was likely to be more generally known
for two obvious reasons. In the first place, Leif’s voyage to Norway
and his return with Olaf Tryggvason’s mission to Greenland was an
important fact in the history of that proselytizing king. In the
second, it was of interest to the priests who became the historians
both of Iceland and Norway. As I have urged already, merger rather than
expansion is the normal trend of tradition. The ‘man in the street’
at the present day might well be acquainted, for example, with an
incident in the career of Captain Cook, without being able accurately
to assign it to the correct voyage of the navigator, or indeed without
being certain as to the exact number of the voyages for which he was
distinguished. It is far more likely, in my opinion, that such a merger
took place in Leif’s story as usually summarized in Iceland than
that an imaginary and distinct voyage should have been invented and
described with much circumstance and detail.

But, it is said, the Flatey Book’s account stands alone, while that
of Hauk, short as it is, is corroborated elsewhere, by a body of
independent evidence. On examination, however, this body of evidence
shrinks to the dimensions of a single passage, repeated in one context
with unimportant verbal variations in a number of different manuscripts.

The oldest extant version of this passage, that occurring in the Friis
codex of the Book of the Kings of Norway, will be found included in
the Appendix to our translation (p. 74). Another example, from the
great Olaf Tryggvason Saga, may be usefully given here, for purposes of
comparison:

‘That same spring when Olaf the King sent Gizur and Hjalti to
Iceland, as has already been written, he also sent Leif Ericson to
Greenland, to preach Christianity there. The King got him a priest
and other holy men, to baptize the people there and teach them the
right faith. Leif went that summer to Greenland. He took at sea a
ship’s crew, who were then in misfortune, and lay on a completely
broken wreck of a ship, and on that voyage he found Wineland the
Good, and came at the end of that summer to Greenland, and went
home to Brattahlid to his father Eric. Men called him afterwards
Leif the Lucky. But Eric his father said that the account was
balanced, since Leif had preserved and given life to the men of
the ship’s crew, and had brought the hypocrite to Greenland, so he
called the priest.’

A similar passage in the Heimskringla may also be compared.

Besides these we have also a shorter passage in the Kristni Saga, which
has been preserved for us in Hauk’s Book. This last, translated in
the same baldly literal manner, may also be found in the Appendix of
Supplementary Passages, p. 75.

Now the first thing noticeable about all these passages is that
they occur in exactly the same context, the history of King Olaf
Tryggvason’s missionary enterprises. We have further the authority of
Vigfusson for saying that both the Kristni Saga and the Book of Kings,
though in their present shape they have passed through the hands of
various editors, were in their original form products of the pen of
Ari the Learned. We have therefore in all these cases one author, one
context, and substantially one phraseology.

And, setting aside for the moment the exact form of words used, we
may fairly say that the essential meaning of these various passages
is as follows:—Olaf Tryggvason also brought about the conversion of
Greenland. For this purpose he found an excellent agent in Leif, the
son of the founder of that colony, a man who attained distinction in
many ways, for he not only introduced the faith into those benighted
regions but he also earned the title of ‘Lucky’ by the discovery of
Wineland, and a brave and sensational rescue of a crew of shipwrecked
men. It will be observed that Leif’s career is only relevant in this
context in so far as it comes in contact with that of Olaf Tryggvason,
with whom the writer is principally concerned, and all that it was
necessary for him to know, and possibly all that he did know, was the
fact that Leif was Olaf’s missionary and that he had various other
claims to distinction. The when or the how of these various adventures
of Leif were altogether beside the point, and did not need to be
closely investigated. In this way, without any blame attaching to the
original chronicler, even if he was responsible for the present order
of the words, a false idea of the circumstances of Leif’s discovery may
easily have been started in Iceland.

Between the two ‘thættir’ or episodes which make up our story as
incorporated in the Flatey Book Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, the passage
already quoted from other texts appears, slightly edited into
conformity with the Wineland story of the book by the omission of any
reference to that country (see Appendix of Supplementary Passages, p.
75). The editing is incomplete, for the rescue of the crew remains, to
be repeated under different circumstances later on; but inasmuch as
the whole passage is obviously derived from the same source as the
others which have been mentioned, no point can legitimately be made
of this other than that the scribes of the Flatey Book did not carry
the interference with their sources very far, which on the whole only
goes to indicate that the Wineland story as they copied it suffered no
alteration in the process, a fact in favour of this version rather than
otherwise.

It also shows that the thættir were drawn from an independent source.

We may sum up the argument on this branch of the case as follows:

1. Leif was a person who came within the range of Icelandic interest
not because of his exploits in themselves, which rather concerned
Greenland, but because they had a bearing on the history of an
Icelandic hero, Karlsefni, and of a Norse king, Olaf Tryggvason.

2. For this purpose the precise circumstances and date of his Wineland
voyage were quite irrelevant.

3. The accounts therefore which appear of this voyage, both in Hauk’s
account of Wineland and in the sagas of Olaf Tryggvason, are, as we
should expect, extremely short and superficial.

4. The account of Leif given in the Flatey Book, on the other hand, is
extremely circumstantial and detailed and appears to have been written
from a more intimate knowledge of the facts.

5. The normal course of tradition is rather to blend many voyages into
one than to expand one voyage, in one and the same story, into many.

One other point may be mentioned.

Part at all events of the Flatey Book version is accepted by the
majority of those who have studied the subject, especially the
observation recorded of the length of the shortest day, which is indeed
one of the most circumstantial points to be found in any of these
stories. Now assuming this observation to be correctly attributed to
Leif, and it is recorded of no one else, then it is plain that Leif
must have wintered in the new country, and at the most southerly point
in it to which he penetrated. The alternative accounts are one and all
wholly inconsistent with any such idea. According to these, Wineland
was discovered by Leif while endeavouring to return from Norway to
Greenland in the summer of the year 1000. In the first place, at least
two of the texts giving this version of the story state distinctly, and
the others imply, that he arrived in Greenland in the year in which
he set sail. (Cf. Fríssbók: ‘He came in the autumn to Greenland’, and
the passage occurring in the body of the Flatey Book’s Saga of Olaf
Tryggvason: ‘He came at the end of that summer to Greenland.’)

But apart from these statements we may ask ourselves,—is it likely that
Leif would have passed the winter in Wineland, unless he came there on
a definite voyage of exploration? On the hypothesis of accident he had
come, and knew he had come, a tremendous distance out of his way by the
time he made land on the coast of America. Would he have had either the
supplies or the inclination to stay the winter in the newly discovered
land? Supposing that—as the Flatey Book tells us—he arrived first
at Helluland, why should he have sailed south across open sea from
that point if his destination was Greenland? If he followed the coast
he would arrive in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and would come across
nothing resembling the Wineland of the story.[74] And it is incredible
that he should have put directly to sea in the direction opposite
to his objective and happened by chance upon the two more southerly
‘lands’. Again, if we suppose him to have gone through the experience
recorded of Bjarni, is it not still more unlikely that he would have
elected to pass the whole autumn and winter in the very first place
at which he touched, without provisions and so very far from home?
Would he not at least have sailed for Greenland after a very cursory
examination of the country, however much he might have contemplated
returning thither on another occasion? Even if we reject the
circumstantial version of the Flatey Book altogether and attribute the
observation of the sun to Karlsefni, of whom it is nowhere recorded, it
seems to me that the delay necessary to collect the samples of local
products mentioned in Eric’s Saga and Hauk’s Book is most unlikely to
have taken place if the discovery of the country was accidental and the
party desirous of returning to Greenland. For these reasons, therefore,
in addition to those given above, it seems to me that we are justified
in taking the Flatey version as authentic.

Storm, in his _Studier over Vinlandsreisrne_, urges that it was more
likely that Leif, returning from Norway to Greenland, should have been
driven out of his course to America than that Bjarni should have met
the same fate on the shorter journey from Iceland. In the state of
navigation at the time it is course by no means incredible that either
captain should have missed his destination by the necessary margin.
There were practically no limits to the possible deviation in those
days. Thorstein, sailing to Wineland, is said to have been driven by
contrary gales to the neighbourhood both of Iceland and Ireland, and
whether this be true or no it clearly cannot have struck an Icelandic
audience as at all improbable. It has however to be remembered that
Leif, assuming the discovery to have been made on the voyage from
Norway, was retracing a known course, and traversing a known distance;
and if we follow the only version which supplies information on the
point, he, like Karlsefni, was carried first to Helluland, which seems
to argue a direction of the wind which could not be very unfavourable
for his projected destination, Greenland; Bjarni, on the other hand,
set out on a voyage of uncertain length across an unknown sea, and his
landfall in America is stated to have been so far to the south as to
point to really contrary winds. Subject to these remarks I do not think
that there is much in the point, either one way or the other.

_Thorvald._

The next difference to be noted is with regard to the fate of Thorvald
Ericson. The Flatey Book assigns to him an independent voyage, and
a reasonable death at the hands of the savages. The details of this
voyage are given at length, and substantially in a natural and credible
form. The other version of his death is clearly incredible, for it
introduces the agency of a ‘uniped’, fabulous creature, not unknown to
classical legend.

Hauk’s story, moreover, makes Thorvald a companion of Karlsefni, not
an independent explorer. It has further to be noticed that until the
episode of his death it is not certain that the original wording of
this text recognizes Thorvald Ericson at all. Up to the point of
Karlsefni’s expedition the only reference to Eric’s family in either
of the companion texts reads as follows: ‘At that time Eric had a wife
named Thjodhild, and by her _two_ sons, one called Thorstein and the
other Leif’: Thorvald, it will be observed, is not mentioned at all.
In the list of those accompanying Karlsefni, the purer text of Eric’s
Saga again contains no reference to this son of the house. ‘There was
a man named Thorvald’, it runs, ‘who was a connexion by marriage of
Eric the Red.’ Thorvald, the connexion by marriage, is obviously not
Eric’s son, but, as Hauk correctly so far amends the passage, a slip
for ‘_Thorvard_, who married Freydis, an illegitimate daughter of Eric
the Red’. Hauk then interpolates ‘and Thorvald Ericson’ in conformity
with the story of his death which is subsequently introduced. This,
the uniped episode, seems to be later in origin than the main body of
the saga. The melodramatic death-speech of Thorvald is borrowed almost
verbatim from the death-scene of Thormod Kolbrunarskald, as given in
the Heimskringla; so that a Greenlander in Wineland is here represented
as intelligently anticipating the utterance of an Icelander in Norway.
Then again the uniped, as has already been pointed out, is a borrowed
conception: it is not a creature typical of the normal superstitions of
early Scandinavia. The passage, as will be seen on a reference to the
text, where it has been omitted, is in no way necessary to the story,
and the sense is not affected by its absence. It would seem therefore
as if the author of the text on which Hauk’s version is founded, having
derived from another source an exaggerated and romanticized account
of Thorvald’s death in Wineland, interpolated it in the saga without
taking the trouble to make his account of Eric’s family or Karlsefni’s
companions tally with the final form of the story.

Two of the arguments which I have already used apply with equal force
to this part of the question. Thorstein, as the husband of Gudrid,
who subsequently became by her marriage with Karlsefni an Icelandic
heroine, was a person necessary to an Icelandic version of the story.
So was Leif, because his voyage, however and whenever accomplished, was
the reason of Karlsefni’s subsequent exploration. But Thorvald was a
person in no way interesting to Icelanders; he had gone to Greenland
with his father, probably as a child, and was ‘out of the story’. The
other point is the normal trend of tradition. The important voyage, to
Icelanders, was Karlsefni’s, and it was likely in the ordinary course,
like Aaron’s serpent, to swallow up all minor rivals, whose continued
existence was not necessary to its own. The Flatey Book version of
Thorvald’s adventures and death appears to me therefore infinitely more
satisfactory than the other, and the objections to it seem to have but
little weight.

_Freydis._

All that has been said hitherto applies to the second voyage of
Freydis. After Karlsefni’s return to Iceland his interest in Greenland
and in Wineland ceased, and with his own ceased naturally the interest
of the normal Icelandic historian and audience. ‘And that is the end
of this story’, says the author of Eric the Red’s Saga, as he lays
down his pen, having got Karlsefni safe at home, and his Icelandic
descendants duly chronicled. What happened in Greenland later on is no
concern of his. But life in Greenland went on, and it cannot in any way
be said to follow that nothing happened in the family of Eric because
nothing has been recorded in a saga dealing mainly with a different
person. Those who would attack the authenticity of this voyage must
take other ground, and show from the story itself that it is inherently
impossible. The task has no doubt been attempted, but it seems to me
that the saga emerges successfully from the ordeal. The conduct of
Freydis and her husband as described in the Flatey Book is entirely
consistent with their characters as delineated in the rival version.
I am wholly unable to follow the reasoning of Laing, who considers
this incident in itself incredible, though others seem to share his
view. The independence and power for evil possessed by an Icelandic
wife of the saga period are well illustrated in the Njál Saga, where
the wives of Njál and Gunnar respectively carry on a bloody vendetta
with complete immunity to themselves, but at no inconsiderable expense
to their reluctant but powerless husbands, who, though on terms of
complete amity, are continually forced to pay each other compensation
for the murder of members of their households perpetrated by third
parties on the instigation of these women.

Of course the interview between Freydis and Finnbogi cannot be
authentic, as no witness was left but Freydis herself, whose version
would naturally be different, and the details of the story may well
have been worked up by a later hand.

But consider the facts apart from this: Freydis, a woman everywhere
represented as of masculine temper, is married to a wealthy nonentity
named Thorvard. From the contemptuous vituperation which Freydis pours
upon her panic-stricken companions in the skræling fight in Hauk’s Book
we get a fine insight into her character. She and her husband sail to
Wineland with Helgi and Finnbogi, whom she swindles and bullies at
every turn. The crews of the two ships are soon not on speaking terms;
a very little more will lead to a violent encounter. The brothers have
a much better ship than Freydis, and on this ship she, who has got her
way in every other respect, has set her heart. She makes a fruitless
attempt to bargain for the coveted vessel, as Ahab treated first for
Naboth’s vineyard. Her overtures repulsed, she returns in a rage to
her miserable and helpless husband, to whom she represents the conduct
of Helgi and Finnbogi as an insult only to be wiped out in blood. The
henpecked Thorvard is screwed to the sticking-place, he turns out
his men, between whom and the rival crew there is already a quarrel,
smouldering under the cover of an armed neutrality. The camp of the
brothers is attacked, and the men are assassinated. The women remain,
damning witnesses of the outrage, whom nevertheless male chivalry would
spare. ‘Hand me an axe’, says Freydis (‘Infirm of purpose, give me
the daggers’). The coup is not to be ruined by humanitarian scruples:
dead men (and women) tell no tales. The massacre is completed. Surely
it is all consistent with our experience of women of this type in
history and even in modern life. Man draws the line, he is ruled by
convention, there are ‘things no fellow can do’. Woman is a law to
herself, and as a result there are heights to which she climbs where
no man’s ideals will follow, and depths to which she falls from which
men are fortunately protected. With men, treachery and cowardice go
hand in hand; in women a masculine bravery seems merely to kill their
natural delicacy and horror of blood, they can be brave and yet sink
to the lowest excesses of meanness and cruelty. Judith, Jezebel, Lady
Macbeth—how brave they are, and yet how disgracefully treacherous! It
is of course a matter for individual judgement: the touchstone for such
a tale is not to be found among the canons of criticism. To me this
dreadful story reads as one of the most natural, consistent, and human
episodes in history; and though of course such characterization is not
beyond the powers of a brilliant writer of fiction, it seems to me far
more reasonable to accept it as authentic history. Why should this
awful libel disfigure the annals of the distinguished house of Eric the
Red, if there were nothing in it? Who would dare to invent it, if it
were not true?

I contend, then, that on main lines, where the two stories are in
conflict, it is preferable throughout to adopt the version of the
Flatey Book, and that the alleged discrepancies come to nothing more
than this, that the natural development of tradition in Iceland led,
to a great extent, to the ignoring of some elements in the story and
the fusion of others in what, to Icelanders, were the more important
episodes. Some slight additional support to the view which has been
here put forward is supplied by Adam of Bremen’s reference to Wineland,
which has been referred to in another chapter. For he states that this
country has been ‘_a multis repertam_’, that is to say, discovered or
explored by many. This, so far as it goes, is in favour of the Flatey
Book, for a country visited on but two occasions, one of which was
accidental, could hardly be so described.

Even where the narratives are in closer agreement, the Flatey Book
appears to me on the whole the more reliable version.

_Courses._

Especially is this the case with the courses given in the narrative.
According to the Saga of Eric the Red and Hauk’s Book, Karlsefni rarely
sailed in any direction except south. Thus, Greenland to Helluland is
south; Helluland to Markland either south or south-east; Markland to
Keelness south according to Hauk, the companion version being silent;
Straumsfjord to Hóp, once more, south. Now, wherever we place the lands
discovered in America, the situation really calls for a great deal more
west than south for a large part of the voyage. In a statement which
is only approximate, the bearing we need is south-west. This occurs
nowhere in the synoptic versions. Now compare the Flatey Book. Bjarni’s
return is all north-east; the lands therefore lie, as they do in fact,
on a south-westerly line. Leif sails south-west from Markland to
Wineland, and it is implied that his course elsewhere corresponded with
Bjarni’s. This gives us at any rate good foundation for supposing the
data in the Flatey Book to be the more authentic. At the very least
these statements go far to establish the entire independence of the
Flatey version, and to demolish the suggestion already dealt with that
this narrative is merely a perverted embroidery of hints contained in
the other.

It is astonishing to find that Storm and his school prefer the courses
set out in the rival version, and seem to evince great difficulty in
making anything of the Flatey Book’s geography. They even say that the
latter conveys to them the idea of a coast facing north or north-east.
How this is arrived at it is difficult to see. When Bjarni turned in a
north-easterly direction to search for a way home, we are told that he
‘left the land on the port side’. This clearly indicates that the coast
lay to the north of him and faced south, trending away to the north
in a little while so as to disappear from sight. So again Thorvald
from his base in Wineland can go east or west, but to reach ‘the more
northerly part of the country’ he has first to turn east. This conveys
the same idea as Bjarni’s voyage, a south-facing coast, turning to the
north at its eastern extremity. True, there is a word in this voyage
which seems to imply an easterly course after leaving Keelness; this
will be discussed later, but in any case, if it had to be rejected, it
would not justify the views expressed by Storm and his followers as to
the Flatey Book’s geography as a whole.

_The Stranded Whale._

I have incorporated the rival version of Karlsefni’s voyage in the
story as I have rendered it, as the differences are but small, and the
version adopted is less condensed and therefore fuller of information.
I will however give an instance to show that here also the Flatey
version is the more likely to be accurate. Undoubtedly the oldest parts
of the text of either authority are the verses ascribed to Thorhall
the Hunter in the saga adopted by Hauk. These are admitted by the most
exacting critics to bear all the indications of a date corresponding
with their ascribed origin. Even Dr. Nansen allows their genuineness.
Now it will probably have struck the careful reader that the second of
these two poems bears no sort of relation to its context. The verses,
either expressly or by necessary implication, convey the following
facts:

1. They are the utterance of a person who is leaving the New World
behind, to return to his own country.

2. Those whom he is leaving behind him are at Furdustrands.

3. These people are satisfied with a diet of boiled whale, which the
poet considers unattractive.

The text, on the other hand, conveys a totally different set of facts:

1. The verses are composed by a person who is proposing to coast
northwards in search of Wineland.

2. The explorers are at Straumsfjord, far to the south of Furdustrands,
and the main body are proposing to go even further away from that
locality. (I do not, however, attach much importance to this
discrepancy, believing as I do that the name Furdustrands was applied
broadly to a large district in which Straumsfjord may well have been
included.)

3. The one person who appeared pleased with the whale, and indeed
claimed the credit for its appearance, was the author of the poem.
The rest were made ill by it, and on hearing of its supposed origin
refused altogether to eat it.

These differences are clearly quite irreconcilable, and, the poem
being the more reliable authority, the version in the text at this
point must be abandoned. As Storm says, the fact that the author has
plainly misunderstood the verses quoted is in itself evidence of the
greater age of the latter. But in the Flatey Book, though, the account
being much condensed, no mention is made of Thorhall or his verses,
the whale is given a perfectly natural origin, and is eaten without
any contretemps by the whole body of the explorers. We may, however,
reasonably assume that such fare would not be relished by a fastidious
person, and might well provoke the utterance of the sentiments embodied
in the old song. There is at all events no inconsistency between the
text of the Flatey Book and the poem.

There are one or two minor discrepancies which must now be considered.
Leif’s visit to Norway is said in the Flatey Book to have taken place
sixteen years after Eric’s colonization of Greenland. This would date
his arrival after Olaf’s death in September 1000. But Eric had explored
Greenland with an eye to the colony three years before it was actually
inaugurated, and if we take it that the date of the first visit is
referred to as part of the same transaction this point disappears.

_Thori Eastman._

In no other account in Icelandic literature do we find Gudrid mentioned
as the widow or wife of Thori Eastman, i.e. the Norwegian, whom Leif
rescued from the wreck. It is still not improbable that she was
so. Gudrid apparently arrived in Greenland about the time that Leif
was absent on his voyage of discovery, and Thori, from his remarks
as reported in the Flatey Book, seems to have been acquainted with
Brattahlid before his shipwreck, which was not far from the coast of
Greenland. Supposing him to have married Gudrid about this time, we are
told that he died the same winter, and Gudrid would almost immediately
be free to be married, as we are told she was, to Thorstein Ericson;
consequently when Karlsefni married her, which was the important
incident in her career from the point of view of the saga genealogists,
she would be, as all accounts make her, Thorstein’s widow, and the
brief episode of her marriage with the comparatively insignificant
Thori would soon be forgotten, particularly as Thori was a Norwegian,
and therefore of no interest to Icelanders.

_Death of Eric the Red._

A more important question arises in connexion with various conflicting
statements as to the ultimate religious faith of Eric the Red, and the
precise time of his death. On these points the Flatey Book is not quite
consistent with itself, for in the body of the Olaf Tryggvason Saga,
chap. 352, it states that Eric was converted. This passage, however,
is evidently from a different source, and speaking broadly we have the
statement in the Flatey Book that Eric died in the winter following
Leif’s return from Wineland, which would hardly give time for his
admittedly slow conversion to Christianity, while in Hauk’s version
Eric lives on to the time of Karlsefni. The repeated statements in
other authorities as to Eric’s low opinion of the priest, whom he
described as a humbug or hypocrite, give colour to the theory that he
died unconverted. The priestly chronicler of his achievements, on the
other hand, would doubtless favour any rumour of the final conversion
of his hero. It would hardly do, if it could be avoided, to leave
this pioneer of colonial enterprise in the hell which the belief of
the period would inevitably assign to him if he refused to the end to
abandon his old creed.

I am inclined to think, on the whole, that the Flatey Book is correct
in saying that Eric was dead when the later voyages took place.

If we glance at the chronology we find that Eric, by 981 or 982 (date
of first Greenland voyage), had been long enough in Iceland to have
made many friends as well as enemies. Before he came to Iceland he
was old enough to be implicated in homicide with his father.[75] He
married, and one son was born before his three years’ exile from
Iceland. The sons of Thord Gelli, brothers, that is, of Karlsefni’s
grandmother, were among his active enemies. The father of Gudrid,
Thorbjörn Vifilson, was among his contemporaries, as was Herjulf,
who had a grown-up son who had owned a ship for some years in 985–6.
True, Snorri Godi, born 963, and the sons of Thorbrand of Alptafjord,
were among those who participated in his quarrels, but they must have
been among his younger contemporaries. In 985 or 986 Eric had an
established position as a leader of men; at the date of Leif’s voyage
he considered himself an old man. If we put his birth midway between
that of Snorri Godi (963) and his father (938), we shall not then be
far wrong. Eric, therefore, would be born about 950.

Now Karlsefni’s voyage, in spite of some statements to the contrary in
the sagas, cannot have taken place till about a quarter of a century
after Leif’s, whether we date the latter from A.D. 1000, following
Hauk, or 1002, accepting the Flatey Book. This, though not generally
recognized, is clear from the known dates of the descendants of
Karlsefni’s Wineland-born son. Snorri’s grandson, Bishop Thorlak,
was born, as we find in the Annals, in 1085; Bishop Brand the first,
Snorri’s great-grandson, died in 1201. Brand’s mother therefore, of
the same generation as Thorlak, can hardly have been born so early as
1085. Putting the mean date of the birth of Snorri’s children at thirty
years before 1085, which is making a liberal allowance, we get the date
1055. Snorri therefore cannot have been born much before 1025. If the
Flatey Book is correct, Gudrid was married in 1003, and she certainly
was of a marriageable age before leaving Iceland, and was a widow when
Karlsefni married her. Karlsefni’s voyage and the birth of Snorri
should accordingly be placed rather earlier than 1025, say 1020. At
this time Eric would be about 70 years old, and, especially if he was
ageing in 1002, it is most improbable that he survived so long amid the
hardships of life in Greenland.

Again, when King Olaf the Holy, about 1018, wished to get rid of the
troublesome blind king Rörek, and commissioned Thorar Nefjolfson to
take him to Greenland, it was Leif Ericson, and not his father, whom
he designated as consignee. (Vide Heimskringla, Saga of Olaf the Holy,
_c._ 85.)

Finally, it seems strange that Leif should not have accompanied
Karlsefni on his voyage if there was nothing in particular for him
to do in Greenland, whereas if the management of Brattahlid and the
control of the colony had devolved on his shoulders by his father’s
death, the position is quite intelligible.[76]

There is accordingly abundant reason to conclude that on this point
also the Flatey Book is right, and Hauk is wrong.

Other small discrepancies which have not escaped the vigilance of
commentators can be explained as clerical slips, and consequently do
not go to the root of the matter. The alleged improbability of certain
details in both narratives will fall to be discussed hereafter.

It seems to me, however, that too much importance may easily be
attached to the fruits of this sort of microscopic criticism. The
broad fact that we have two quite independent versions telling to all
intents and purposes the same story—at any rate providing material for
a substantially consistent and circumstantial history collated from
both sources—is much more important than the existence of any number
of minor discrepancies. By placing ourselves as far as possible in the
positions both of the actors and chroniclers of these adventures we are
likely, I think, to get a fuller appreciation of the facts as they
were and of the truth with which they have been related than if we pore
with a too studious eye over every line and every word, with a view, if
it be possible, to establish an inevitable but trivial inconsistency.

_A Greenland Saga?_

The reader who has carefully followed the argument so far will at this
point probably be disposed to make some such observation as follows:
You argue that the story is more likely to have lost the additional
facts given in the Flatey Book than to have invented them by the
natural operation of tradition. Well and good. You also point out, with
a certain amount of plausibility, that the probable state of interest
and knowledge in Iceland was just such as to produce precisely those
alterations and omissions from what you consider the true course of
the story, which, according to you, have taken place in what we may
call Hauk’s version. You appear to forget, however, that both texts
are Icelandic, and that this argument ought therefore to apply with
equal force to the Flatey version, where the parts uninteresting to
Icelanders are notwithstanding retained.

My first answer to this would be that it is quite possible that actual
facts might be retained in one version in Iceland, even though not
of great interest to the people of that country, but it is highly
improbable that an Icelandic chronicler would be at the pains to supply
by invention precisely those points in which his audience would feel
the least concern.

My own private conviction, however, is that the Flatey version is in
the main drawn from a Greenland source. Here we are embarking upon
conjecture, a conjecture, by the way, which has been made before, but
it may be interesting shortly to consider the grounds upon which such a
theory is based.

It is in the first place improbable that in the narrow confines of
Iceland two quite independent versions of the same story should
exist side by side. The original story-tellers in this country were
peripatetic, there was a close intercourse between families residing in
different parts of the island, and it would be strange if the tradition
of one district had remained unaffected by that of another. But the
point most universally admitted with regard to these two versions is
that, except for certain introductory and genealogical points derived
from a common source, the Landnámabók, while on the whole the facts
correspond, the stories are obviously independent.

This curious circumstance is at once explained if we suppose the
historian of the Flatey Book to have had access to a saga composed in
Greenland.

Next, it is a marked and unique characteristic of the Flatey manuscript
considered as a whole that the library from which it was derived was
evidently rich in literature treating of the Scandinavian colonies
which existed outside the confines of Iceland. This feature has been
noticed by Vigfusson in his preface to the Orkney Saga in the Rolls
Series (p. xxxii). ‘Its pages’, he writes of the Flatey Book, ‘preserve
more than half of all we know of the older history of the Orkneys,
the Faroes, Greenland, and Vineland (America). Indeed John Haconson
and his two scribes seem for some reason, now unknown, to have paid
particular attention to gathering up every scrap relating to these
neighbour-lands of Outer, or Colonial, Scandinavia.’ It is therefore
precisely in such a work as the Flatey Book that we might expect to
find incorporated a saga derived from an outlandish source such as
I have suggested. We know, too, that the practice of saga-telling
went on in the new colony as in the old, as indeed was _a priori_
probable. In the Saga, of Eric the Red such a form of entertainment
is expressly mentioned as a means whereby the nights of the Arctic
winter were enlivened during the visit of Karlsefni to Brattahlid.
The stock-in-trade of these Greenland story-tellers must inevitably
have included a detailed account of the founder of the colony, thus
supplying a rival ‘Eric’s Saga’ such as I have argued (_supra_, p. 108)
that the Flatey Book is referring to in the passage where ‘Eric’s Saga’
is mentioned. Now, on turning to internal evidence, we shall find that
corroboration of the theory advanced is by no means wanting. Not only
does the Flatey Book, as has been remarked already, supply precisely
those episodes in which Greenland rather than Iceland would be
interested, e.g. Bjarni’s voyage, the circumstances, date, and details
of Leif’s, and the full description of Eric’s family, but conversely,
where Greenland interest would naturally cease, the Flatey Book is far
less rich in detail than its rivals. Take, for example, the case of
Gudrid. To Icelanders this lady was a most important character, the
ancestress of many distinguished men. To Greenlanders she was a girl
who paid a temporary visit to the colony, and was for a few months the
wife of a son of the house of Brattahlid who met with an early death,
before the promise of his youth was fulfilled. She then married the
Icelander, Karlsefni, and disappeared from their ken. Consequently,
though the Icelandic scribe of the Flatey Book has been able to supply
some facts about her descendants in the concluding paragraphs of the
story, we find an extraordinary lack of information on the subject of
Gudrid in this version as compared with the other.

In the Flatey Book she is subordinate in importance to the truculent
Freydis and her henpecked husband. Besides the principal adventures of
this couple we are given a summary of their characters, the mercenary
nature of their union, and the exact place of their abode, which is
described in a phrase of more interest, one would think, to a Greenland
than an Icelandic audience, as ‘Garda, _where the cathedral is now_’.
Of Gudrid’s origin we are told nothing. She appears suddenly in the
Flatey Book as the wife of the Norseman Thori, who was rescued at sea
by Leif. Of this marriage, which is only recorded in this one source,
I have spoken already. Whether it is to be accepted as a fact or no is
not for the moment material, the point is that Gudrid comes abruptly
into the story as a person whose previous history is of no importance.
In the rival versions she is the principal character, who holds the
stage from start to finish. The saga opens with a passage—otherwise
irrelevant—explaining the origin of her family in Iceland, in the
days of her alleged grandfather, Vifil. Next, after Eric the Red has
migrated to Greenland, we have another interlude devoted to explaining
the reasons which brought about her emigration with her father to the
new colony, followed by a description of the sibyl’s séance in which
Gudrid played so important a part, which is so vivid and real as to
give rise to the suspicion that it may have been derived from the
description of Gudrid herself.

Now the usually accepted explanation of the Flatey version is that,
being composed in the north of Iceland, in close proximity to the
religious establishment associated with Gudrid’s piety, and in the
district where Karlsefni’s family were settled, the story is derived
from the reports of the Icelandic explorer. And indeed, the final
paragraphs, wherein the descendants of the pair are duly recorded, may
well be ascribed to a local origin. That some combination of different
sources takes place at this point is indicated by the fact that the
statement ‘many men are descended from Karlsefni’ occurs twice over
in separate places towards the end of the saga. It reads, in fact,
exactly as if the final passage beginning ‘and when Karlsefni was
dead’ was an addition from local sources. But is it not in the last
degree surprising, if the accepted theory be true of the whole story,
that here alone we should be imperfectly informed as to the career and
descent of the local heroine?

Again, if this story is the result of the full report which we are told
that Karlsefni left of his adventures, is it not remarkable that in the
description of this voyage alone the Flatey Book gives place, in point
of circumstance and detail, to the rival account? Not a word is said
of the Icelandic co-adventurers, Bjarni Grimolfson and Snorri; nay, we
are given to understand that Karlsefni had come from Norway, without
stopping on his way in Iceland to join forces with any such companions.
And the whole story of the voyage, unlike the other expeditions
detailed in the Flatey Book, is, when compared with the alternative
account, quite sketchy and meagre. It may well be accurate as far as it
goes, for Karlsefni evidently returned to Greenland before proceeding
home, and many of his companions were Greenlanders, but it is, as one
would expect of a Greenland version of this story, compressed into the
briefest summary.

If the account of the Wineland voyages to be found in the Flatey Book
originated in Greenland, it is evident that it was far less exposed
than the Icelandic sagas to literary and other influences derived from
communication with other countries. Intercourse between Greenland and
the outside world must always have been rare, and the effect of the
edict issued by the King of Norway in 1294 creating trade relations
with Greenland a crown monopoly led very speedily to the decline and
disappearance of the colony, which appears to have been completed about
A.D. 1400. In particular, the edict cut off communication from Iceland.
Only in one respect should we expect to find a Greenland saga affected
by modern developments. And this is just what we actually do find in
the present case.

_Direct Voyages to Norway._

As Dr. Storm has pointed out in the preface to his excellent edition
of the Saga of Eric the Red, the Flatey narrative contains an
extraordinary number of direct voyages between Greenland and Norway.
Apart from Bjarni Herjulfson, there is first Karlsefni’s arrival,
which is here stated to be from Norway; there is his return, direct to
Norway, where he sells his ‘húsa-snotra’ to a German from Bremen; and
finally there is the arrival of the brothers, Helgi and Finnbogi, from
Norway, in the story of Freydis’s expedition.

Now Dr. Storm sees in all this merely an additional count in his
indictment against the Flatey Book. This talk of direct voyages between
Greenland and Norway smacks of the days of the royal monopoly; Germans
from Bremen suggest a date subsequent to the establishment of the
Hanseatic League in Bergen. I think these anachronisms are established
with some degree of certainty; but it also occurs to me that the
mistake is more suggestive of a Greenland than an Icelandic source.
It is difficult to suppose that the infrequent ships which sailed to
Greenland under the royal monopoly in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries did not in fact call at Iceland, which lay directly in their
track. If they did so, they would not suggest to an Icelander the idea
of direct voyages between Norway and Greenland; if they did not, they
would not be present to the Icelandic mind at all. To a Greenlander of
about the period of the Flatey Book’s composition, or even earlier, any
ship which arrived off Greenland would, on the other hand, be ‘a ship
from Norway’; i.e. a ship bringing his necessary supplies from the only
available source. And, as the original sagas handed down to him would
hardly be concerned very much with the origin or destination of the
ships which came to Greenland, the error of introducing Norway might
easily creep in.

So too with the episode of the Bremen merchant. It smacks of the
fourteenth century, and it is obvious that the doings of Karlsefni
after leaving Greenland would not be accurately known to an inhabitant
of that country. But it seems not improbable that the Greenlanders,
being without timber, continued to visit the new lands to obtain
such commodities, especially for use in ship-building, and indeed the
Icelandic Annals for 1347 contain an allusion to a ship coming from
Markland. It must be remembered that ‘mösur’ wood is not elsewhere
specifically mentioned in the Flatey Book account, which makes it
probable that this passage is from a different source from the main
narrative. But, at a later date, some anonymous Greenlander may well
have sold a ‘húsa-snotra’, which appears to have been something
connected with a ship, to a German at Bergen or elsewhere, and, in
conformity with the tendency to which allusion has been made of
attributing the actions of lesser-known characters to those more
distinguished, the transaction may easily have come to be associated
with Karlsefni, as the principal hero of the Wineland tradition, and
the only one who after his return left the coasts of Greenland.

All this points to Greenland as the country where the Flatey Book
version of the story originated, and if this be so it not only accounts
for several inconsistencies in the rival versions, but renders it
likely that the account here preserved escaped the contamination which
affected the later Icelandic sagas, through the influence of foreign
literature.

III. THE STORIES AS HISTORY

It has now, I think, been established that the Norse discovery of
America is an historical fact, and that the broad lines of the story
have a substantial claim to be regarded as history. While so much has
been and must be generally admitted, there is still a considerable
difference of opinion as to how far the details of any and which of
the versions are to be treated as part of an authentic record, and
how far, if at all, the saga has become contaminated with external
and mythological influences. Some writers, such as Rafn and Horsford,
have treated these records with a credulity to which no early work
of history is probably entitled; others, of whose views Dr. Nansen
is perhaps the most distinguished exponent, consider the admissible
element of truth to have been so overlaid with fiction and imported
mythology that the details can no longer make any claim to be regarded
as historical. ‘It will therefore be seen’, says the writer last
referred to, ‘that the whole narrative of the Wineland voyages is a
mosaic of one feature after another gathered from East and West.’[77]

Between these two schools of opinion it is necessary for us to pick
our way, and in doing so I propose to devote the largest part of
my attention to the arguments of Dr. Nansen, which set out most
skilfully, and with a wealth of research which it would be difficult to
equal, the point of view which is most directly opposed to my own.

_Admixture of the Supernatural._

Of course in the writings of so primitive and superstitious an age,
based upon oral traditions of an even earlier date, we cannot expect
to find a standard of historical accuracy equal to that of the present
day. The authors, however truthful in intention, had not reached a
stage of enlightenment enabling them to winnow fact from myth, both
elements appearing to them to be equally credible. As Livy candidly
postulated in the case of Rome, some licence must be conceded to
antiquity in the dressing-up of early history by an admixture of
superstition with the facts it seeks to record. ‘To suppose’, says
Dasent, in his admirable introduction to the Njál Saga, ‘that a
story told in the eleventh century, when phantoms, and ghosts, and
wraiths were implicitly believed in, and when dreams and warnings and
tokens were part of every man’s creed, should be wanting in these
marks of genuineness, is simply to require that one great proof of
its truthfulness should be wanting.’ In other words, one would be
entitled to regard the authenticity of any history alleged to be early
with great suspicion, if no traces of the supernatural were to be
found in it. Such things are to be seen in contemporary chronicles of
early times no less than in histories written long after the events
described; the evidence might not be sufficient to satisfy a member of
the Psychical Research Society, but it was good enough for those who
lived in primitive and credulous times. The ghosts and miracles of
such history, not in Iceland alone but everywhere, are not conscious
inventions on the part of the historian, and do not really damage his
credit.

It will be observed, in the narratives here under consideration, that
the great bulk of the supernatural happenings is confined to the
part dealing with Greenland, the part, that is, which is in the main
most conclusively established. Greenland of course was intended to
be a permanent colony, and consequently for some time communication,
of a more or less intermittent character, was maintained between
that country and Scandinavia. As a further result of this protracted
occupation of the country, traces were left which remain at the present
time. Ruins of houses and churches have been discovered, together with
the bones of horses, cattle, and other animals. Had the circumstances
been different, had Greenland been merely the object of fleeting visits
such as those of the explorers of Wineland, it may well be doubted
whether the scepticism with which some have been disposed to regard the
alleged exploration of the latter would not have been extended to the
former. We should have had our attention drawn to supernatural episodes
such as that of the apparitions in Lysefjord (see Thorstein’s voyage),
the inclement climate of the locality and the inappropriateness of the
name Greenland would have been insisted on, and the mention of horses
and cattle would not improbably have been regarded as incredible. But
the successful colonization of Greenland is an historical fact, and
its story is chronicled in precisely those sagas which are here under
consideration with regard to Wineland. It is therefore _prima facie_
unlikely that writings found to be historical so far as it is possible
to test them, in one respect should suddenly develop a character mainly
fictitious, as alleged by Dr. Nansen and others.

_Character of Early History._

Still it must be admitted that the historians of these early times, in
Iceland as elsewhere, were not so scientific in their methods as those
of the present day. The word History still retained its derivative
kinship with Story; the Muse presiding over this branch of literature
had not yet settled down in the humdrum _ménage_ of meticulous
professors. Like the classical and scriptural historians, the Icelandic
chroniclers considered themselves at liberty to clothe the dry bones
of their material, and even to present in the lively form of dialogue
speeches of which the substance only could have been known. If, for
example, the saga-writer has to chronicle the discovery of wild grapes,
it is quite natural for him to assume that a sailor who found the means
of intoxication ready to his hand did not neglect his opportunities.
This explains the conduct of the German, Tyrker, in the Flatey Book,
a great stumbling-block to some commentators. In the same category
comes Hauk’s account of the incantations of Thorhall the Hunter; it
is an expansion of a stranded-whale episode from the hint given in
Thorhall’s verses, and a very careless and inconsistent one at that.
Other absurdities can be explained in the same way, and the names of
such places as Keelness may have suggested the conflicting stories told
to account for them.

Again, if the historian had ready to hand a picturesque anecdote
from a different source, but manifestly connected with the principal
theme, which could be fitted into the main story, he would have little
hesitation in using it, though the unscientific joinery would be often
painfully evident. Hake and Hekja, for instance, whether or no they
have an historical basis, are manifestly introduced in the wrong place,
before any vines had really been discovered, and the limits of the
inserted passage are made glaringly apparent by the fact that the last
words of the preceding matter are substantially repeated immediately
afterwards (‘gerðiz vágskorit lanðit’ ... ‘er varð fjarðskorit’). Such
interpolations are frequently of great interest, as affording what
really amounts to independent confirmation of the story: they show it
to have been widely discussed and accepted at an early date, but they
hardly redound to the credit of the first amalgamating editor.

_Dr. Nansen’s Position._

A certain degree of caution is necessary, therefore, in the scientific
investigation of this as of all early historical documents. But Dr.
Nansen is not content with such reservations as these. He goes so far
in the direction of scepticism that the reader wonders in the end that
the frail remnants to which he clings are sufficient to hold this
author to any belief in the Norse discovery of America. His arguments,
if sound, play havoc with the very foundations of the story, and if he
sits unmoved among the ruins it is fair to doubt if he will find many
to share his attitude, or to trust to the tottering remains. It is
advisable, therefore, to examine Dr. Nansen’s arguments rather closely,
and to see whether the records which we are investigating are really
as unreliable as he has suggested.

_Minor Objections._

It would take a disproportionate allowance of space to deal in detail
with all the smaller and more incidental points in the argument. Some
of them will be found noticed elsewhere in the present volume, and
one or two may here be mentioned as typical. Dr. Nansen suggests, for
example, that the statement in the Icelandic Annals for 1121 that
Eric, Bishop of Greenland, went out to seek (leita) Wineland, shows
that Wineland was at that date not a known but a legendary country,
for ‘leita’ can only apply to a search for that the existence of which
is undetermined. For instances of a use of the word which entirely
upset such an argument it is not necessary to look outside the sagas
dealing with the present subject, where we find that Aud the Wealthy
‘fór at leita Íslands’ (went to seek Iceland), at a time when her own
brother was already settled there, and long after the foundation of the
Icelandic colony.

Again, Dr. Nansen asks us to see ‘an air of myth and invention’ in the
numerous Thor-names—Thorvald, Thorhall, Thorstein, Thorfin, &c.—which
are undoubtedly to be found in this story. To find, however, such
names conferred on men born in heathendom seems to me to prove less
than nothing, particularly when we find in the index of names to the
Landnámabók no fewer than fourteen pages in double columns devoted to
men and women whose names began with Thor.

_Occurrence of Number Three._

Of perhaps greater importance is the resemblance to fairy-tale which
Dr. Nansen seeks to establish from the frequent occurrence of the
number three.[78] This feature is not conspicuous in the Flatey Book
version, which gives us no fewer than six voyages—Bjarni, Leif,
Thorvald, Thorstein, Karlsefni, and Freydis—while the distances between
the lands are not given as equal in all cases. In the companion
version it is true that the figure three plays or can be made to play
a considerable part, yet it is doubtful if so much use can fairly be
made of the point as Dr. Nansen argues. There are three voyages—Leif’s,
Thorstein’s, Karlsefni’s; but the fact that the second alone is
unsuccessful robs the number of the significance which we should
expect in fairy-tale. Karlsefni’s expedition consists of three ships,
but this is explained by the circumstance that two of these belonged
to the visitors to Greenland, while one was manned by the local
contingent. Each ship had two leaders—not one or three—and the crews
totalled 160 men, so that the figure three is here only to be found
by selection from other quite arbitrary numbers. That three countries
are visited is only true if we take the nomenclature of the Flatey
Book; in the companion account we may rather say that five places are
mentioned—Helluland, Markland, Furdustrands, Straumsfjord, and Hóp.
With regard to the number of days’ voyage between the different places
visited, no emphasis is laid on the number three; the figure recorded
is two, and in some cases a long while. If it is said that two days’
voyage involves an arrival on the third day, then no use can fairly
be made of the three days’ search for Thorhall on the island, who was
found on the fourth day. Dr. Nansen draws attention to the fact that
three meetings with skrælings are recorded, but this is only true of
the skrælings at Hóp; it omits the five skrælings found sleeping by the
sea, and those whose boys were captured in Markland. If the episode
at Hóp is to be treated by itself, it is not a fair argument to say
that there were three casualties, for only two men were killed at this
time, with four of the savages. If Thorvald’s death at the hands of
the uniped is to be included, it would be reasonable to take the total
loss to the expedition from all causes, which would comprise Thorhall
the Hunter and his eight or nine companions, and Bjarni Grimolfson with
about half his crew. Altogether the uniformity of fairy-tale seems
conspicuously absent, and the mystic figure, appearing as it does with
other numbers which Dr. Nansen ignores, is explicable on quite rational
hypotheses.

_The Wild Grapes._

Turning now to the broader issues of Dr. Nansen’s argument, they
may be summarized as follows. The wild grapes and corn are rejected
altogether, and traced to legends of the Insulae Fortunatae in Isidore
Hispalensis and classical sources. Most of the other salient features
of the narrative, the whale, the bird-island, and above all the
skrælings, are treated as derived in the main from Irish legend.

The alleged classical and Celtic influences it will be convenient to
consider separately.

I may state at the outset that I believe there is something in Dr.
Nansen’s argument from the unusual form of the name Vínland hit Goða,
which however in its complete form is hardly to be found in the text of
the sagas.

I think it quite possible that this is an Icelandic form of the
classical Insulae Fortunatae, but I differ from the author under
consideration in concluding, for my part, that the Norsemen, or those
who recorded their achievements, identified the newly discovered
country with these legendary islands, or considered that the name was
appropriate, because of the commodities actually found in America.

It seems to me that herein may have lain the great importance attached
to the discovery of the grapes, &c., things of which Scandinavians had
little knowledge and could make but little use.

That wild grapes, at all events, were discovered I regard as
indisputable. Before the introduction of Christian learning into
Iceland and Greenland, which could hardly have been far advanced at the
time of the actual voyages, it cannot be said that any knowledge of
Isidore or the Insulae Fortunatae is likely to have existed in these
countries.

Now the verses of Thorhall the Hunter are admitted by all authorities
to bear the marks of contemporary composition. And it cannot be
disputed that the first of these verses contains an allusion to the
discovery of the grape and is very strong evidence that information of
this discovery had penetrated to Greenland at a date earlier than that
of the voyage in which the author took part. It is hardly possible,
in my opinion, to exaggerate the significance of a contemporary
composition which says in effect ‘I had been told before I started
that I should find vines, but I have not done so’. The latter part of
the verse is immaterial, for it may well have been the case, as indeed
is stated in the saga, that the vine region had not at this stage been
reached by the expedition; the point is that such a region appears to
have been discovered by some predecessor of Thorhall, who composed his
verse at a period when knowledge of the Fortunate Islands can hardly
have penetrated to the Icelandic or Greenland Colonies. It is moreover
not without importance that the briefest accounts of Leif’s voyage
contain allusions to the discovery of a ‘Wineland’, showing that this
was in fact the salient feature of the discovery in the minds of those
who heard of it, even if the name was not conferred by the explorers
themselves.

Then too we have the evidence of Adam of Bremen, to which allusion
has been made in the chapter on sources. Adam, indeed, is likely
to have been well acquainted with the classical allusions to the
Fortunate Isles, but the same can hardly be predicated of his informant
King Svein of Denmark, and the Danes whose ‘_certa relatio_’ is
contrasted by this author, and as I think purposely contrasted, with
the ‘_fabulosa opinio_’ on which the existence of such a country
had hitherto rested. Adam’s testimony, dating from about 1070, may
therefore be regarded as very strong and practically contemporary
corroboration of the discovery of the vines alluded to in these sagas.

Again, it is clear that by the time of Ari the Learned, who was born
in 1067, the name Wineland had become definitely attached to a country
discovered in the west by the Norse explorers, whose existence and
position were well enough known to be understood in a casual allusion.
It seems to me in the last degree improbable that, by the time Ari
wrote, so large an accretion of legend should have collected round
the story of the discovery as to account for the name containing an
allusion to wine if grapes had not in fact been discovered there. The
style of Ari’s writings, as indeed of all the earlier sagas, is the
most independent and natural to be found in the whole of literature;
this is due to the absence in these times of almost all external
influence. It is clear too that Ari was well qualified for the duties
of an historian by a most discriminating judgement as to the merits of
his sources of information; he is constantly giving us the names and
qualifications of the persons from whom his statements are derived,
and their knowledge not infrequently goes back to the period now under
consideration; hence it is impossible to ignore the value of a mention
of a land of vines or wine in the work of this early and conscientious
authority.

But it is further to be observed that if the Norsemen discovered
America—and it is generally agreed that they did—the commodities of
which the sagas speak were in fact there, waiting to be discovered.
Precisely the same two things—wild grapes and cereals—struck almost
every one of the rediscoverers and later explorers of this continent.
The coincidence of a mention of wild vines and corn in the mythical
lands of classical writers is just as strong an argument against the
truthfulness of these later explorers as of the Norsemen, yet no one
doubts their word, corroborated as it is by the facts known to us at
the present day. The whole force of Dr. Nansen’s argument under this
head rests upon this coincidence; in fact, he summarizes it in these
words: ‘The resemblance between this description (Isidore’s of the
Fortunate Isles) and that of Wineland is so close that it cannot be
explained away as fortuitous.’[79] Yet the resemblance is just as close
between the passage cited and many in the reports of later explorers,
where it is quite certainly fortuitous.

A few examples of such passages may here be given:

_Cartier._—(Brion Island.) ‘We found it full of goodly trees, meadows,
fields of wild corn.’

(North Point, Prince Edward Island.) ‘We landed there this day in four
places to see the trees, which are wonderfully fair, &c.,—many others
to us unknown.—The lands where there are no woods are very fair, and
all so full of wild corn, like rye, that it seems to have been sown and
cultivated there.’

(Baye de Chaleur.) ‘Their land is more temperate in heat than the land
of Spain—and there is not here any little spot void of woods and made
up of sand, which may not be full of wild grain, which has an ear like
rye, and the kernel like oats.’

(St. Lawrence River.) ‘On both sides of it we found the fairest and
best lands to look at that it may be possible to behold—full of the
goodliest trees in the world, and so many vines loaded with grapes
along the said river that it seems that they may rather have been
planted there by the hand of man than otherwise: but because they are
not cultivated nor pruned, the grapes are not so big and sweet as ours.’

Again, ‘Finest trees in the world: to wit, oaks, elms, &c., and, what
are better, a great many vines, which had so great abundance of grapes
that the crew came aboard all loaded down with them.’

_Champlain._—(Richmond Island.) ‘Many vineyards bearing beautiful
grapes in their season.’

(Cape Anne.) ‘We found in this place a great many vines, the green
grapes on which were a little larger than peas.’

(Gloucester Bay.) ‘We saw some very fine grapes just ripe.’

_Charles Leigh._—‘Concerning the nature and fruitfulnesse of Brion’s
Island, Isle Blanche, and of Ramea, they do by nature yeeld exceeding
plenty of wood, great store of wild corne like barley, &c.’

_Hudson._—(Near Cape Cod.) ‘They went on land, and found goodly grapes
and rose-trees, and brought them aboard with them.’

_Denys._—(St. John’s River.) ‘There is found here also a great quantity
of wild grapes.’

It may further be noticed that both Champlain and Cartier conferred
on different places the name Île de Bacchus, from the circumstance
that grapes were found there. This name, particularly as it is used of
different localities, seems quite as much open to Dr. Nansen’s attack
as the Norsemen’s Vínland hit Goða. One can imagine the force with
which the eminent explorer could point out the manifest connexion with
classical sources, and the close resemblance between this nomenclature
and that of the legendary islands from which he thinks the Norsemen
drew their vines. If then the resemblance in these cases is fortuitous,
as it clearly is, what becomes of Dr. Nansen’s argument?

_The Corn._

It will be noticed that in the passages above cited not only the vine
but the wild corn also makes its appearance. It is clear, therefore,
that any argument based on analogy or resemblance to these features of
the Fortunate Islands is quite inconclusive. Nevertheless the case for
the vines is, it must be admitted, considerably stronger than that for
the corn. In the first place, no mention of the latter commodity occurs
in the Flatey version, if the reference to ‘a wooden corn-barn’ be
explicable on another hypothesis, as I have endeavoured to indicate in
treating of Thorvald’s voyage.

In the second place, most of the later explorers seem to have meant by
‘wild corn’ something in the nature of lyme-grass (_Arundo arenaria_).
But there is a difficulty in accepting this plant as the ‘wild wheat’
of the Icelanders, since lyme-grass, under the name of ‘melur’, was
well known to this people; a reference to the method employed in
comparatively recent times in preparing flour from it will be found in
Troil’s _Letters on Iceland_ at page 105. It is true that Professor
Fernald of Boston, in his paper on the plants of Wineland, identifies
not only the corn, but the vines and the mösur wood, with commodities
known to the Norsemen in their own countries, but this has always
seemed to me to add to the already insuperable difficulties in the way
of accepting his theories, to which I shall have occasion to revert
later on.

All the same, I am inclined to think that something in the nature of
lyme-grass may be indicated by the wild corn, and if so perhaps we
may here trace to some extent the influence of the classical legends
on which Dr. Nansen lays stress. One may imagine, without much
straining of probability, that on hearing of the vines learned people
would ask leading questions as to the existence of corn, and so the
lyme-grass, hitherto considered, as we see from the Flatey Book, to
be comparatively unimportant, might have reappeared under a new name.
One can certainly imagine the schoolmaster, Adam of Bremen, in his
cross-examination of the Danes from whom his information was derived,
on hearing of the vines, making some inquiry as to the existence of
some sort of wild corn, and being quite truthfully told that it did
exist.

However this may be, the identification of the wild corn will always
be an insoluble problem. The older commentators on these sagas used to
consider that maize was indicated, but this is not, properly speaking,
a wild plant, and moreover bears singularly little resemblance to any
European cereal. The later school mostly identifies the corn of the
sagas with wild rice, but this is open to the objection that it is an
aquatic plant. On the whole, therefore, while I think the discovery of
the vine is indisputable, and was the cause rather than the effect of
any trace of the influence of the legends of the Insulae Fortunatae to
be met with in the sagas, I confess, in spite of the coincidence of the
reports of later explorers, to regarding the corn as a more difficult
problem.

In any case it seems to me that the absence of all mention of wild
corn in the Flatey Book version has a most significant bearing on Dr.
Nansen’s argument. For in practically all references to the Fortunate
Islands the corn and the vines are so closely connected that a borrower
from such sources could hardly take the one without the other.

E.g. Horace, _Epodes_, xvi. 41:

‘Beata
petamus arva, divites et insulas;
reddit ubi _Cererem_ tellus inarata quotannis,
et imputata floret usque _vinea_’;

and Isidore, _Etymologiarum_ xiv. 6:

‘Fortuitis _vitibus_ iuga collium vestiuntur; ad herbarum vicem
_messis_.’

The existence, therefore, of a circumstantial account of Wineland,
which contains no mention of wild corn, makes any derivative connexion
between the descriptions of this country and the Insulae Fortunatae,
apart from all other difficulties, exceedingly improbable.

_Celtic Legends._

When we turn to the other features of the saga, we find Dr. Nansen
displaying even greater resource and ingenuity in finding parallels in
the folk-lore of other lands. The argument from analogy is proverbially
untrustworthy, but it is at the same time rather difficult to combat
effectively where, as in the present case, it is impossible to set
out the full number of alleged resemblances with which Dr. Nansen’s
industry in research has provided him. Samples are open to the charge
of unfair selection. I should doubt, for example, whether even Dr.
Nansen himself, though he emphasizes the parallel with a marginal
heading, can attach any real importance to such an instance as the
following:

‘The great river that Brandan found in the Terra Repromissionis,
and that ran through the middle of the island, may be compared to
the stream that Karlsefni found at Hóp in Wineland, which fell
into a lake and thence into the sea.... But the river which
divided the Terra Repromissionis ... was evidently originally the
river of death, Styx or Acheron in Greek mythology (Gjöll in Norse
mythology). One might be tempted to suppose that, in the same way
as the whole description of Wineland has been dechristianized
from the Terra Repromissionis, the realistic, and therefore often
rationalizing, Icelanders have transformed the river in the
promised land, the ancient river of death, into the stream at
Hóp.’[80]

A striking parallel to this parallel leaps at once to the mind of the
irreverent. ‘There is a river in Macedon, and there is also moreover
a river at Monmouth: it is called Wye at Monmouth; but it is out of
my prains what is the name of the other river; but ’tis all one, ’tis
so like as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both’
(_Henry V_, Act IV, sc. vii).

In so far as there were ‘salmons in both’, it must I think be conceded
by the impartial reader that Fluellen’s analogy is more striking than
Dr. Nansen’s.

Before considering further examples of the resemblances which Dr.
Nansen has sought to establish, a few words may be said which are of
general application to the whole. As in the instance above cited,
Dr. Nansen’s analogies are practically all drawn from the mythical
‘imramha’ or voyages which form a definite class in early Irish
literature. This class merges gradually at a later period into vision
literature, where a vision of Paradise takes the place of a voyage
into the wonderlands of the unseen world. But in its earlier form,
with which Dr. Nansen is mainly concerned, the imramh took the form
of a kind of Odyssey, in course of which the voyagers discovered
many new and wonderful countries. It is manifest therefore that many
elements must necessarily be present from which analogies with any
voyage of discovery, however genuine, can be deduced. Unless, then,
the similarities to be found are more striking than anything which can
be explained from these necessary coincidences, we should, I submit,
attach but little importance to them. We should remember also that the
Icelander, however realistic or rational, is not likely to have been
a discriminating borrower or to have rejected fabulous elements quite
credible in a superstitious age. Thus we should expect, if extensive
loans were taken from a literature exceptionally rich in the monstrous
and marvellous, to find at any rate a good many definite instances
where these characteristics have been retained without much alteration.

I have said that Irish literature was exceptionally rich in the
monstrous and marvellous. This indeed is a characteristic insisted upon
by Mr. W. B. Yeats in his admirable introduction to Lady Gregory’s
_Cuchulain of Muirthemne_ as the great distinction between Celtic and
Scandinavian writings. ‘The Irish story-teller’, he says, ‘could not
interest himself with an unbroken interest in the way men like himself
burned a house or won wives no more wonderful than themselves. His
mind constantly escaped out of daily circumstance, as a bough that
has been held down by a weak hand suddenly straightens itself out.
His imagination was always running off to Tir-nan-Oge, to the land of
Promise, which is as near to the country-people of to-day as it was
to Cuchulain and his companions.’ ‘Just so,’ says Dr. Nansen, ‘and
therefore when the Icelander borrowed he rationalized.’ But had he the
necessary critical discrimination to enable him to reject the fabulous?
Was he so free from superstitious beliefs as to be able to discredit
the mythical? By no means. Nothing is clearer than that he was highly
superstitious, believing intensely in ghosts, and portents of all
kinds: in fact, he believed in them so thoroughly that they almost
ceased to be portentous from the matter-of-fact way in which he thought
of them. For all he knew, the wildest flights of the Celtic imagination
might be sober truth, and as truth he would have set them down if
they had concerned him. But if they were no part of the story he was
telling, they could be left out of it.

Now if we examine one of these Irish stories, we shall find the
marvellous elements to be the very bones and sinews of the tale.
Eliminate these and nothing is left which it would not be easy to
parallel from the records of any voyage of discovery. There is nothing
characteristic to which any resemblance can be traced, except these
clearly mythical features. Take as an example the summary of Maelduin’s
voyage given on p. 336 of the first volume of Dr. Nansen’s work. First
we hear how ‘swarms of ants, as large as foals, came down to the beach
and showed a desire to eat’ the crew and the boat.

‘This land’, says Dr. Nansen, ‘is the parallel to Helluland, where
there were a number of Arctic foxes.’ Now there seems to me no
reason why an Icelandic writer of the thirteenth century should have
discredited the possibility of these Brobdingnagian ants. Yet he
describes merely Arctic foxes, animals differing in every way about
as widely from these ants as could well be imagined. They are not
insects, they are not large, they are not dangerous or formidable. They
are animals actually to be found in the northern parts of the American
continent, and the locality where they are found is correctly described
as a land of rocks, and not a beach at all. Is it credible that the one
story, accurate in every particular, could have been derived by the
exercise of any amount of imagination from the other? Set your children
to rationalize Maelduin’s story, and see if you will get the ants
turned to foxes in any single case.

Next we hear of ‘a great lofty island with terraces around it and
rows of trees on which there were many large birds’. ‘This island’,
says Dr. Nansen, ‘might correspond to the wooded Markland, with its
many animals, where Karlsefni and his people killed a bear.’ Then
where is the island, or where are the terraces, or the loftiness, or
the birds, none of them features, one would have thought, which the
most rationalistic need have hesitated to retain? We have, on the
contrary, a low-lying land, apparently mainland, wooded indeed, but
otherwise unlike in every single particular. Next we read of a sandy
island, inhabited by a beast like a horse with dog’s paws and claws.
Next a flat island with marks of horses’ hoofs as large as a ship’s
sail, nutshells of marvellous size, and traces of human occupation.
Next comes a lofty island with a great house sumptuously furnished,
into which the waves of the sea threw salmon. Here Dr. Nansen might
claim, with Fluellen, ‘salmons in both’, but this has not usually been
regarded as a convincing analogy. Lastly we are told of an island
encompassed by a great cliff with a single tree growing on it. A
branch of this Maelduin caught, and held for three days while sailing
by the island, at the end of which time there were three apples at the
end of the branch. Not even grapes! I am not sure, in spite of some
ambiguous phrases, that in quoting this long passage Dr. Nansen wishes
to emphasize many similarities beyond the recurrence of a certain
number of periods of three days. But the description is convenient
for my purposes as affording a characteristic example of the type of
legend from which it is suggested that most of the features of the saga
were derived. And I ask myself in vain where is the slightest trace to
be found of one story in the other, except that both are voyages of
discovery?

_Correspondence with actual Facts._

Or the case may be put thus: If the fauna and natural products
described are merely the monstrosities of Celtic fiction taken
with a grain of Icelandic salt, how comes it that they invariably
correspond with the actual facts of the countries to which the earliest
discoverers of America would most probably have come?

Indisputably this is the case until we come to Straumsfjord, though not
much stress can be laid on the circumstance that descriptions so brief
and general as those of Helluland and Markland happen to be accurate.
The episode of the Irish runners appears indeed to have been inserted
out of its proper order, and while not impossible may embody a distinct
and less reliable tradition, and in the case of the whale incident the
details given by Hauk may be rejected in favour of the simpler account
given in the Flatey Book.

But there seems no good reason to doubt that a stranded whale did
actually provide food for the explorers, or to regard, as Dr. Nansen
does, this incident as borrowed from St. Brendan. The second song
of Thorhall the Hunter, generally admitted to be a contemporary
production, and anyhow the oldest part of the existing story, makes a
plain reference to such an episode when it speaks of ‘boiling whales’.
Whales moreover figure extensively in the legends collected from the
Algonquins and Micmac Indians of Nova Scotia and New England by C. G.
Leland, while Douglas, in his Summary of the planting of the British
North American Settlements (1760), refers to whales setting in along
shore by Cape Cod, and records that the back of Long Island, where
small whales affect the flats, was the first place of the English
whale-fishery. To eat whale-meat, even without the pressure of hunger,
was quite natural for an Icelander, for Troil writes in his _Letters
on Iceland_ (1780), with special reference to the ‘reydur’, the name
applied to the whale in question in the Flatey Book, ‘they are all
considered very dainty food; and the Icelanders say that the flesh has
the taste of beef.’ With regard to the whale incident, therefore—at any
rate as recorded in the simpler version—it may be said, first, that it
appears to be corroborated by contemporary allusion, secondly that it
was perfectly consistent with the local natural history, and lastly
that there was at any rate no need for an Icelander to go to Ireland
for stories of whales being used as food. Dr. Nansen’s case accordingly
breaks down in regard to the whale. The other salient feature mentioned
in connexion with Straumsfjord is the bird-island. This Dr. Nansen
dismisses as ‘evidently an entirely Northern feature, brought in to
decorate the tale, and brought in so infelicitously that they are made
to find all this mass of eggs in the autumn’. He further denies the
existence of any breeding-grounds of importance even so far south as
Nova Scotia. Now, in the first place, the statement that the eggs were
gathered in the autumn is not the saga-writer’s but Dr. Nansen’s. The
expedition left Greenland—according to Hauk—in spring, according to the
companion text in summer. We may suppose therefore that the start was
made not later than the beginning of May. No prolonged stay was made
anywhere until Straumsfjord was reached.

Even therefore if we reject all the distances recorded, and
assume a rate of sailing as low as one tylft a day, (75 miles, or
little over three knots), it is manifest that wherever we place
Straumsfjord the explorers would have arrived there before the end
of the nesting-season. And though they stayed in this place for the
winter, when they suffered from great scarcity, no mention is made of
egg-collecting till the following spring, after the first record of the
discovery, immediately upon their arrival in Straumsfjord.

Next, although the statement ‘a man’s feet could hardly come down
between the eggs’ is at first sight startling, it is an easy task to
find parallel passages among the later records of exploration in or
about these latitudes.

For example, Charles Leigh (in _Hakluyt’s Voyages_) says of the Islands
of Birds in the Gulf of St. Lawrence that they ‘are sandy red, but with
the multitude of birds upon them they looke white. The birds sit there
as thicke as stones lie in a paved street.’

The same locality is described in language almost equally striking by
Jacques Cartier: ‘These Islands are as full of birds as a field is of
grass, which nest within these islands.’

If Dr. Nansen objects that the islands here alluded to are not quite
so far south as Nova Scotia, where he denies the existence of large
breeding-places, we may refer him to Nicholas Denys, who writes of an
island off this coast which has been identified with Sambro Island,
near Halifax:

‘I was once there with a boat, at the time when the birds make
their nests. We found so great an abundance of all the kinds I have
named that all my crew and myself, having cut clubs for ourselves,
killed so great a number, as well of young as of their fathers and
mothers, which were very sluggish in rising from their nests, that
we were unable to carry them all away. And aside from these the
number of those which were spared and which rose into the air made
a cloud so thick that the rays of the sun could scarcely penetrate
through it.’

Or again take Champlain (islands near Cape Sable, Nova Scotia):

‘Thence we went to Cormorant island, a league distant, so called
from the infinite number of cormorants found there, of whose eggs
we collected a cask full.... At the two other islands there is
such an abundance of birds of different sorts, that one could not
imagine it, if he had not seen them.’

Lastly we may turn to more modern times and still more southerly
latitudes, and refer to the ‘hundreds of thousands’ of breeding
sea-birds observed on and about Muskegat Island as lately as 1870.[81]
This after centuries of indiscriminate plunder by the hand of man may
well lead us to accept as practically literal fact the birds’ nests of
Straumsey, wherever we may feel disposed to locate this island. In any
case it would appear rash to dismiss this detail as a purely northern
feature, and still more far-fetched to trace, as Dr. Nansen does, a
possible connexion between these eggs and the red and white ‘_scaltae_’
which covered the anchorite’s island in the legend of St. Brendan.[82]

Among the remaining descriptions of the fauna of Wineland there does
not appear to be much calling for any comment. As to the halibut—or
‘holy fish’—taken in pits dug at the tide-mark, it seems to me most
likely that the fish here alluded to was the American plaice or chicken
halibut. Of these it is said in Goode’s _American Fishes_ (p. 316):
‘Very shoal water seems to be particularly attractive, and they are
often found at the water’s edge, embedded in the sand, with only their
eyes in view.’ Cf. the tract _New English Canaan_:[83] ‘There are
excellent plaice and easily taken. They (at flowing water) do almost
come ashore, so that one may step but half a foot deep, and prick them
up on the sands.’

In any case, all Dr. Nansen’s researches have failed to provide him
with a mythical source for this feature.

We find, in short, wherever we look, in place of the wild absurdities
of Irish legend, sober descriptions of places with their fauna and
flora which are perfectly natural. What is more important, we do not
find in these descriptions the sort of thing likely to occur to an
Icelander or Greenlander, who was rationalizing a legend to make it
fit the circumstances to which he was accustomed. Apart from the wine
and corn, we have a temperate climate with woods and large trees, low
shores and sandy beaches; except for the introduction of glaciers into
Helluland in the Flatey Book, which may be an embroidery from local
sources to emphasize the desolate character of the landscape, we trace
a manifest attempt throughout to describe conditions, natural enough to
us, but quite unlike anything characteristic of Iceland or Greenland.
With regard to the vines in particular, one can see that the nature of
these things was imperfectly understood by the saga-writers, so unlike
were they to anything with which they were acquainted at home. The most
conspicuous example of the description of something utterly foreign to
Icelandic conceptions is, however, the account of the ‘Skrælings’ or
savages. These, however, are so important an item in the consideration
of the question that they must be allotted a chapter to themselves.

IV. SKRÆLINGS

There remains to be considered what is probably the most important
feature of all, the information given in the sagas on the subject of
the aborigines. In this connexion it is important to observe that at
the time of the voyages themselves in all probability a savage tribe
was a complete novelty to the Norsemen. The only possible exceptions
were the Eskimo of Greenland, of whom probably something was known by
the time that the Wineland sagas were reduced to writing. In so far,
then, as the descriptions of the Skrælings of Wineland are realistic,
and differ materially from anything which can have been derived from
Eskimo sources, these descriptions form probably the most convincing
proof of the historical accuracy of these stories. The inquiry at this
point falls therefore under three heads: possible or probable Eskimo
influences, any traces which may be found of legendary or mythical
influences, and characteristics indisputably Indian.

_Testimony of the Íslendíngabók._

Now first of all it must be stated that we have no evidence of any
meeting between the Norsemen and the Eskimo of Greenland until after
the time of Ari the Learned. And indeed we have some evidence that no
such meeting had up to this time taken place, while it is clear that
the existence of Skrælings in Wineland had at this date been reported.
In a previous chapter (p. 95) I have drawn attention to Ari’s
testimony on the point, but in view of Dr. Nansen’s comments upon it
some further reference must now be made to these matters.

In Ari’s Íslendíngabók, in the passage relating to the colonization of
Greenland (see Appendix and cf. p. 95), it is stated that dwellings
and fragments of canoes had been discovered. And the writer goes on
explicitly: ‘and stone smith-work (weapons) _such_ that from _it_
(steinsmíði þat, es af því) one may understand that there that kind
of folk had passed (farit) who have settled in (bygt) Wineland, and
the Greenlanders call Skrælings.’ One could hardly have a clearer
statement that the deduction as to the former presence of this people
in Greenland was based on such traces as are here mentioned, and on
nothing else. It seems _prima facie_ most improbable that such guarded
terms should be used if the Greenlanders had at this time actually met
the Eskimo, and thus provided themselves with a much more conclusive
proof of their existence. Moreover we have, besides the express terms
used by Ari, the apparently intentional contrast to which I have
alluded elsewhere between the transitory and past movement of the
Eskimo through the one country (farit) and the permanent residence of
the savages in Wineland (bygt). And it would seem a legitimate and
almost irresistible inference to draw from this passage that accounts
of savages with canoes and stone weapons (cf. the ‘hellustein’ which
slew Thorbrand Snorrison in Wineland) were forthcoming at a time
when the Norsemen had no other source but America from which the
existence of such things could be known to them. Dr. Nansen however
concludes that Ari’s silence as to the Eskimo themselves was due to
the fact that ‘they were supernatural beings of whom it was best to
say nothing’.[84] It is rather difficult to see, if this were so, why
Ari should have felt himself at liberty to mention the existence of
these people in Wineland any more than in Greenland, or why he should
have thought it any better to speak of the inferred existence of the
Eskimo than to record their actual occurrence. Further, we may fairly
demand where it is that Dr. Nansen finds in Icelandic literature any
reluctance to mention supernatural beings, where these are believed to
have existed. Altogether it appears to me an understatement of the case
to say that no meeting between the Norsemen and the Eskimo prior to the
date of the Íslendíngabók seems at all probable.

Dr. Nansen, however, writes (vol. ii, p. 77): ‘I am unable to read
Ari’s meaning in this way. He uses the present tense: “calla”, and
what one “calls Skrælings” must presumably be a people one knows, and
not one that one’s ancestors had met with more than a hundred years
ago.’ On this line of reasoning, if I speak of ‘the man whom Carlyle
_calls_ the Sea-Green Incorruptible’, I mean to imply that Robespierre
and Carlyle were contemporaries. Dr. Nansen further refers (loc. cit.)
to the parallel passage in Ari, mentioning the Irish monks in Iceland
‘whom the Norwegians call (calla) Papar’.[85] ‘From these words’, he
says, ‘it might be concluded, with as much justification as from the
statement about the traces of Skrælings, that the newcomers did not
come in contact with the earlier people; but in the latter case this
is incredible, and moreover conflicts with Ari’s own words.’ Let us
examine this statement. In the first place it is clear from Ari’s
statement, ‘they went away afterwards’, that none were left at the time
of writing, yet he still says, in conformity with normal grammatical
usage, that the Norsemen ‘call’, i.e. speak of, them as Papar. It is
obvious, therefore, from the very passage to which Dr. Nansen appeals,
that the use of the present tense does not denote the contemporary
presence of the Irish monks, and it need not therefore indicate in
the other passage the presence of any Skrælings in Ari’s time in the
Greenland colony.

In the second place, whereas in the Skræling passage Ari only mentions
traces from which their former presence could be inferred, he begins
his reference to the ‘Papar’ with the words, ‘_There were then
Christians here_, those whom the Norsemen call “Papar”, but they went
away afterwards ... and left behind’, &c. This passage therefore cannot
be taken as affording any support to Dr. Nansen’s construction of the
statement about the Skrælings.

In another place (vol. ii, p. 16) Dr. Nansen suggests that the mention
of traces of Skræling occupation without recording a meeting with
the men themselves has an uncanny significance, suggesting that the
Skrælings are treated as trolls. It seems more natural on the whole to
construe the passage as meaning what it says—that the traces were there
but not the men.

While on this subject I may as well refer to an inaccuracy which
appears in the note on page 77 of Dr. Nansen’s second volume. He says
there, ‘If it was the tradition of Karlsevne’s encounter with the
Skrælings that was referred to, then of course neither he nor the
greater part of his men were Greenlanders, but Icelanders, so that
it might equally well have been said that the Icelanders called them
Skrælings.’ This is in direct conflict with the statement in the
Saga of Eric the Red, ‘ok váru þar flestir Grœnlendskir menn á’—‘and
the majority of those there on (the expedition) were Greenlanders.’
Of course the real reason why Ari says ‘the Greenlanders call them
Skrælings’ is that he is here citing, as he tells us, a Greenland
source, viz. the information obtained by his uncle, Thorkel Gellison,
in Greenland. The argument, therefore, in Dr. Nansen’s note, like that
of the text, falls to the ground.

_The Skræling Canoes._

Conceding, however, that some knowledge of the Eskimo may have
prevailed at the time when our sagas assumed their present form, though
the ‘King’s Mirror’, composed about the middle of the thirteenth
century, says nothing of these people in its detailed description of
Greenland, the question next arises as to how far the writers can have
been indebted to such knowledge for their realistic descriptions of the
Wineland savages. These Skrælings, as they are called, make their first
appearance in the story during the exploration of Thorvald, as narrated
in the Flatey Book. We are told how three canoes of skin (húðkeipar)
were observed, with three men sleeping beneath each. These canoes
appear to have been so portable that one man, the only survivor of the
ensuing slaughter, was enabled to escape with one. Now here at first
sight we have an Eskimo characteristic, in the fact that the canoes
are said to have been of skin. And indeed it may well be that the word
used is simply the Greenlanders name for a kayak. This, however, is not
certain, for it would need a close inspection of an Indian canoe, with
its sewn ‘skin’ of birch-bark, to enable a people unfamiliar with the
use of this material in boat-building to distinguish between such a
covering and a hide. I prefer not to lay stress, as some have done, on
the fact that some Indian tribes used skin coverings for their canoes,
for the natives of the latitudes with which we are concerned are
represented in the earliest authorities as using birch-bark. Turning,
however, from the name used to the thing described, it is quite clear
that we here have neither kayaks nor umiaks, but Indian canoes. Three
men could not possibly sleep under a kayak, which is a narrow craft
covered in at all points but one, like a Rob Roy canoe or a racing
outrigger. Nor could one man carry off an umiak, which is a large and
clumsy boat, usually manned (if this is not a bull) by women. Both
these forms of Eskimo boat were observed and accurately described in
the contemporary account of Frobisher’s second voyage (1577), given in
Hakluyt,—‘The greater sort—wherein sixteen or twenty men may sit:—the
other boat is but for one man to sit and row in with one oar;’ and
doubtless at a much earlier time the Eskimo constructed their kayaks
and umiaks in practically the same manner as at the present day. But an
Indian canoe exactly and completely fulfils the conditions required in
both respects. It is exceedingly light and portable, yet it may be,
and frequently is, used as a shelter for its occupants. On this last
point one may compare the observation of Jacques Cartier with regard to
a tribe of Indians met with in the course of his explorations. ‘They
have no other dwelling but their boats, which they turn upside down,
and under them they lay themselves all along upon the bare ground.’
(Hakluyt’s translation.) Here, then, we have a feature which, with the
possible exception of the word used for canoe, can only have been drawn
from an actual meeting with the North American Indians, and of which
the historical accuracy is indisputable.

_The Skræling Food._

Another small point accurately observed and almost certainly pointing
to direct contact with the American Indians is to be found in the
passage relating to the sleeping Skrælings discovered and slain by
Karlsefni’s expedition. They had, we are told, cases containing
animal marrow mixed with blood, a description which seems to refer to
something in the nature of pemmican, or the ‘moose-butter’ of which
Denys speaks in his work on Nova Scotia, and Father Leclercq in his
_Relation of Gaspesia_. This was a cake of hard grease extracted from
the bones of the moose, and Denys tells us that ‘it was this which they
(the Indians) used as their entire provision for living when they went
hunting’.

_Personal Appearance._

In the description of the personal appearance of the Skrælings there
is little that is decisive, but much that is circumstantial. One of
the two companion texts describes them as ‘swarthy’, the other as
‘small’. ‘Small’ sounds more like Eskimo than Indian, and may be
a corruption of the original text based on knowledge derived from
Greenland. Ugliness, unkempt hair, and broad cheeks would apply to
many Indian tribes, e.g. Micmacs, as well as to Eskimo. Large eyes
would seem at first sight to apply to neither, and Dr. Nansen therefore
considers it to be a trait showing the introduction of troll ideas.
Yet the eyes of Indians have struck many genuine observers as large;
for example, Lescarbot tells us that these features ‘neantmoins ne
sont petits, comme ceux des anciens Scythes, mais d’une grandeur bien
agréable’. Carver, again (1779), says of the Indians, ‘their eyes
are large and black.’ Verezzano likewise speaks of ‘large black eyes
and a fixed expression’. Another characteristic claimed by Nansen as
evidence of the influence of the troll-idea is the beard which we are
told was possessed by one of the Skrælings discovered in Markland: but
this strikes me as telling rather the other way, for all trolls are
bearded, and the Norsemen were so commonly so as to be known to the
Greenland Eskimo as ‘Long-beards’. The point therefore appears to have
been recorded precisely because of its rarity among the Skrælings,
and, while Indians for the most part take care to remove all hair
from the face and body, the possibility of beards among this people
is recognized by almost all writers on the subject (cf. Lescarbot,
Schoolcraft, Carter, Catlin, &c.). It may be admitted, however, that
the personal appearance of the Skrælings is not a point from which any
very clear inference can be drawn either one way or the other.

_The Waving Staves._

The savages whose appearance is described in these ambiguous terms
made their appearance in canoes on board of which—we are told—certain
objects were waved with a noise like threshing. The word used of these
objects is variously written ‘trjánum’, ‘trjom’, and ‘trjónum’. It has
been usually translated ‘staves’ or ‘poles’, but if ‘trjónum’ be the
correct reading it would seem doubtful whether something more in the
nature of a totem-mask or movable figure-head is not indicated. For
‘trjóna’ means primarily a snout, and then a detachable figure-head;
cf. the interesting passage in Landnáma (IV. 7) referring to an old
law whereby men were enjoined to remove their figure-heads before
approaching Iceland, ‘and not to sail to land with gaping heads or
open-mouthed snouts (trjónum) which might disturb the local spirits’.
It might on the one hand be argued that figure-heads are things more
intimately connected with the idea of boats than staves are, but for
that very reason a copyist would be more likely to convert ‘trjánum’
into ‘trjónum’ in the passage under consideration than to err in the
opposite direction.

Accepting the meaning ‘staves’ or ‘poles’, a recent writer[86] regards
this as proof that the description is drawn from Eskimo, and Dr. Nansen
makes a similar suggestion. To Mr. Gosling it is ‘evident that this is
an attempt to describe the motion of the double-bladed paddle used by
the Eskimos, and it will be seen that an Eskimo, sitting in his kayak,
facing the direction towards which he is paddling, when going east or
north, will appear to wave his paddle contrary to the motion of the
sun in the heavens, but with it when travelling west or south’. I must
confess that this attempt at an explanation is very far from satisfying
me. In the first place it seems to me most unlikely, that the Norsemen
could observe a large number of kayaks on three separate occasions
without understanding that the waving paddle was merely the means of
propulsion. In the next place, though nothing explicit is stated as to
the direction from which the first visitors arrived, the second and
third visits, one peaceable and the other hostile—one therefore in
which the staves moved with the sun and the other in which they moved
against it—both came ‘from the south’, so that the movement of the
paddles would be the same in both cases. Again, a kayak paddle, having
a blade at each end, does not move continuously in one direction, but
from side to side, while, viewed broadside, the motion is that of a
stave rotated forward.

Finally, though perhaps of less importance, it may be pointed out that
on one occasion the language used seems to imply more than one ‘trjóna’
to each boat (var veift á hverju skipi trjánum). Having regard to the
prevalence in America, as in most other countries, of the ceremonial
use of solar and contra-solar motion (cf. Brinton’s _Myths of the New
World_), it seems to me a more probable explanation that we have here
a genuine and interesting use of a sign correctly interpreted by the
Norsemen, which further research into Indian customs and superstitions
might succeed in elucidating. For my part, I am inclined to think that
the ‘trjóna’ was a rattle-stick, such as is used by many Indian tribes.
No other explanation hitherto suggested takes into account the ‘noise
like threshing’ which is a circumstantial part of the description.
Rattles, being normally an accompaniment to dancing, would be likely to
be swung with or against the sun according to the significance of the
ceremony of which they were a part.

With regard to the white and red shields used as answering signals by
the Norsemen, of course there is no need to suppose that the Skrælings
understood them, as Dr. Nansen does, observing that these features
‘have an altogether European effect’. Yet by a curious coincidence
such signs would in fact have probably been intelligible to American
Indians, for it is stated in Wood’s _Natural History of Man_ that, ‘As
among us, white and red are the signs of peace and war, and each leader
carries with him two small flags, one of white bison’s hide and the
other of reddened leather.’ But we may be content to observe that the
Norsemen would be likely to make their customary attempts at signalling
regardless of the fact that their efforts might be unintelligible.[87]

_Trading and Fighting._

The fur-trading of the savages will recall to any student of the
history of exploration numerous parallels in the writing of Jacques
Cartier and others. In particular one may claim as a genuine Indian
characteristic the eager acquisition of red cloth to bind round the
head. Numerous parallels to this may be found in the records of later
explorers; in particular one may cite, from Juet’s description of
Hudson’s third voyage (ed. Hakluyt Society, p. 60), what reads almost
like a free translation of the saga: ‘They brought many beaver skinnes
and other fine furres, which they would have changed for redde gownes.’

It does not appear likely that the seal-clad Eskimo of Greenland, who
seem to have kept out of the way of the Norsemen as much as possible,
could have contributed such a feature to the story. Even more certainly
authentic is the account of the fights with the natives. Eskimo, as
Dr. Nansen points out, were unused to war in Greenland, where indeed
they had no other nation to fight, while of course warfare has always
been a normal part of the Indian’s existence. (It must be conceded,
however, that Frobisher found the American Eskimo distinctly warlike
and pugnacious.) It is clear that the Skrælings were formidable
antagonists, since it was the fear of them which ultimately drove
Karlsefni to withdraw from the country. Of their weapons only one seems
to call for comment, the large ball, resembling a sheep’s paunch and
dark in colour, which was slung from a pole towards Karlsefni’s force,
making a terrible noise where it came down. Dr. Nansen has sought to
parallel this incident from a number of disconnected sources, ranging
from the use of catapults and even gunpowder in European warfare to the
fiery mass thrown with tongs at St. Brendan’s ship by the inhabitants
of the Smith’s Island, and a similar incident in Mælduin’s voyage, and
through these last to the Cyclops in the _Odyssey_.[88] In all these
suggested sources, however, the differences seem quite as striking as
the resemblances. The pole is absent, the resemblance to a sheep’s
paunch seems remote, the missile in the case under consideration
appears to have been neither fiery nor explosive, and altogether it
is difficult to see that the incidents cited have more in common than
the presence of a large and in some cases noisy missile. Bearing
this in mind, let us see whether a resemblance far more striking
is not to be found in a passage which Dr. Nansen passes by with a
half-contemptuous footnote. The passage in question, which is to be
found in Schoolcraft’s _Indian Tribes of the United States_, vol. i, p.
85, appears to me of sufficient importance to be quoted in full.

‘Algonquin tradition affirms that in ancient times, during the
fierce wars which the Indians carried on, they constructed a very
formidable instrument of attack, by sewing up a large boulder in a
new skin. To this a long handle was tied. When the skin dried it
became very tight round the stone, and after being painted with
devices assumed the appearance and character of a solid globe upon
a pole. This formidable instrument, to which the name of ‘balista’
may be applied, is figured (Plate 15, fig. 2) from the description
of an Algonquin chief. It was borne by several warriors who acted
as balisteers. Plunged upon a boat or canoe it was capable of
sinking it. Brought down among a group of men on a sudden it
produced consternation and death.’

With all deference to Dr. Nansen, who regards the resemblance as
‘distant’, it seems to me that here we have the very thing described.
We have first of all a weapon which Schoolcraft thinks of as a
‘balista’, and one which therefore could easily give rise to the
statement that the Skrælings had ‘valslöngur’, i.e. war-slings or
catapults. We have the pole on which it was raised, we have several
men to sling it, we have in particular the resemblance to a sheep’s
paunch accounted for by the fact that it was covered with a stretched
skin. In fact, to reject an explanation of this passage, which fits
every single fact recorded, in favour of a suggested resemblance to
an explosive because it made a noise when falling, or to fiery masses
hurled at a ship because these, too, are large missiles, seems to me
to border on perversity. But the reader will judge for himself whether
it is necessary to impute to the saga writer here any borrowing from
mythical sources, or whether the description of this weapon is not in
itself a very strong instance of the substantial historical accuracy of
the story.

Mr. Babcock, indeed,[89] seems to me to have been unnecessarily puzzled
by this weapon. He seems to regard the thing described by Schoolcraft
as a ‘club’, whereas that author, by conferring on the implement the
name ‘balista’, distinctly suggests that the stone was discharged as
a missile. He also searches, not very conclusively, for evidence that
the Indians in these latitudes used slings; but it is pretty clear that
the remark about ‘valslöngur’ (war-slings) has reference exclusively to
this weapon, the description of which immediately follows. So at any
rate I read the passage (q. v., page 62).

Of the Skrælings, then, who are said to have been seen in Wineland, we
may say that the description contains practically no statement which
might not be truly made of American Indians. It contains, moreover,
points, such as the canoes under which three men slept and the balista
above referred to, which can hardly be due to any other source but
direct observation of the American natives. Possibly derived from a
knowledge of the Greenland Eskimo comes the word ‘húðkeipur’, used for
a canoe, and, as some have thought, the incident of the waving poles
on the boats, though the latter strikes me as a quite unjustifiable
inference. The description of the personal appearance of the natives
will suit either Eskimo or Indian. On the whole, however, we may say
with confidence that we have here a description of savages so realistic
as to point to direct and careful observation. In support of Dr.
Nansen’s claim that the tale is mainly a potpourri of borrowed folklore
we have really nothing but the double who appeared to Gudrid in the
Flatey Book version, the belated warning of the Skræling attack which
came to Thorvald, and the uniped which in one version is said to have
caused the death of this son of Eric the Red. Of these three incidents
two are typically Scandinavian and no more than we must expect in the
reports of an unscientific age. Did not even Hudson have his mermaid?
The uniped incident shows traces of importation from some separate and
later legend, e.g. the dying speech of Thorvald is clearly plagiarized
from that of Thormod Kolbrunarskald at Stiklestad. And the story, as
I have endeavoured to show, can quite well do without it. When these
fabulous elements are admitted we may still ask in vain for a single
clear instance of the adoption or adaptation of Celtic legend with its
continuous insistence on the supernatural; of the source, that is,
which Dr. Nansen claims as the chief contributor to the saga as we have
it.

_The Markland Skrælings._

There remains to be considered the episode of the savages captured in
Markland on the return voyage. With the circumstance that one of the
Skrælings captured on this occasion is said to have been bearded I
have dealt already. The statement that those who escaped disappeared
into the ground appears to me to mean no more than that, like good
stalkers, they contrived to take cover and creep away unseen. There
is therefore no clearer evidence of legendary influence in this case
than in the rest of the story. The rest of what is reported is hearsay
derived from the captives themselves, after they had—possibly not
very effectually—been taught to speak Icelandic. I therefore agree
with Dr. Nansen that it is hopeless to attempt, as some have done
(notably Mr. Thalbitzer, 1905 and 1913), to trace the nationality of
these savages from the words preserved, Vætilldi, Uvægi, Avalldamon,
Valldidida.[90] The explorers of a later age were not very happy in
their transliteration of native words, and we cannot imagine that these
names were handed down through a period of oral transmission without a
fatal amount of transformation. That the rest of what is reported is
inaccurate in most particulars is no more than we should expect under
the circumstances.

_Hvítramannaland._

One statement, however, in this passage, to which most commentators
have devoted an abnormal amount of attention, merely purports to be
a conjecture on the part of those who heard the story, and does not
involve any necessary inaccuracy in the reported utterance of the
captives. I refer to the allusion to Hvítramannaland (White Man’s
Country) or Ireland the Great. The existence or non-existence of such
a place as this, while it has exercised the ingenuity of almost all
writers on the present subject, has really nothing to do with the
authenticity of the Wineland stories. All that appears from the passage
is that certain persons, on hearing an account of an adjacent land
supposed to have been described by these Skræling children, jumped to
the conclusion that Hvítramannaland was the place described, and the
non-existence of such a country would merely prove that these persons
were wrong in their conjecture, not that the story itself was unworthy
of credence. What the savages may have been struggling to explain I
will suggest later. Here, the point having been made that it is quite
irrelevant, it may be interesting to follow the allusion a little
farther.

What was apparently in the minds of those who made the conjecture
referred to was a passage in Landnáma (i. 22) which tells how one Ari
Marsson was driven by storms to ‘Hvítramannaland, which some call
Ireland the Great; it lies westward in the ocean near Wineland the
Good: it is called six days’ (dægra) sail west from Ireland: Ari did
not succeed in getting away from thence, and he was baptized there.
This story was first told by Rafn the Limerick-farer, who had been long
at Limerick in Ireland. Thorkel Gellison (uncle of Ari the Learned)
stated that Icelanders say, who had heard it from (Earl) Thorfin in the
Orkneys, that Ari had been recognized in Hvítramannaland, and did not
succeed in getting away from it, but was held in great honour there.’

In the Eyrbyggja Saga a similar story is told, though the name of the
strange country is omitted, of one Björn Asbrandsson, who was cast in
the same way upon a land to the south-west of Ireland, where he was
subsequently recognized by an Icelander named Gudleif Gudlaugson. This
story does not appear to me sufficiently relevant to the subject in
hand to warrant more detailed notice, though the curious will find
ample mention of it in other works on the Wineland question.

Apart from the irrelevance of these stories, those familiar with
the laws of evidence will doubtless agree that lands where a hero
is said to have made his final disappearance, reported as they must
necessarily be on hearsay testimony, are on a very different footing
from countries whose explorers returned to describe them in person.
The only value—either one way or the other—of this passage from
Landnáma lies in the mention of Wineland the Good as a place known and
acknowledged to exist at a period long antecedent to the date of any
extant manuscript of these voyages. The proximity of Hvítramannaland
to Wineland is presumably a conjecture by the authors of Landnáma,
who would naturally tend to connect with one another any unknown lands
reported in a westerly direction. It seems to me highly improbable that
Wineland found any mention in the original story told by Rafn from
Limerick. At any rate, no one can be justified in basing an argument on
the assumption that it did, as does Dr. Nansen,[91] when he says, in
support of his argument that the Celtic imagination has played a large
part in corrupting the traditions of Wineland, ‘Ravn must have heard of
both Hvítramannaland and Wineland in Ireland, since otherwise he could
not have known that one lay near the other.’

Anyhow, if Hvítramannaland was but six ‘dægra’ sail from Ireland it
cannot really have been anywhere near Wineland, assuming the latter
to be in America. If we follow the Eyrbyggja Saga in placing it to
the south-west rather than the west of Ireland the distance is more
suggestive of the Azores. Storm, however, is of opinion that the
stories of Ari Marsson and Björn Asbrandsson are a perversion of Irish
legends of the Christian occupation of Iceland, which a knowledge
of the position and characteristics of that island had shifted to a
different locality, retaining the distance (six ‘dægra’ sail) which, in
the form ‘sex dierum navigatione’, is recorded by Pliny and adopted by
Bede and Dicuil with reference to Thule. There seems much to be said
for such a view, particularly as ‘Ireland the Great’ seems intended to
convey the idea of an Irish colony (cf. Magna Græcia, &c.), and, if so,
Hvítramannaland must be regarded as a mythical region.

It by no means follows, however, that the statements attributed to
the captive Skrælings must be placed in the same category. Whatever
these statements may have conveyed to a Scandinavian audience, either
contemporary or subsequent, there seems no reason for us to read
into the description a procession of Christian priests, as so many
commentators seem to have agreed in doing.

Of course such statements as these, even when the captives had been
‘taught speech’, would be very liable to misinterpretation. It is not
difficult, among the well-authenticated voyages of a later period,
to find instances of native reports which were understood to convey
notions the possibility of which must have originated in the mind of
the questioner. Thus we find in the explorations of Jacques Cartier
such passages as the following: ‘Donnacona had told us that he had been
in the country of Saguenay, in which are infinite Rubies, Gold, and
other riches, _and that there are white men, who clothe themselves with
woollen cloth, even as we do in France_.’ Misunderstanding of answers
to questions based on preconceived ideas may thus account for much,
but, farther than this, accounts in themselves accurate may easily
become coloured by a false association of ideas as the tradition passes
from mouth to mouth. Thus in the present case it may well be that those
who gave us the saga in its present form understood the statements of
the Skrælings to imply the existence of some such Christian community
as later commentators have imagined. But the statements themselves
are capable of an explanation more consonant with fact. The dressed
deerskin of the Indians, before being treated with smoke, is as white
as a kid glove, and robes of this unsmoked material are not uncommon,
particularly if intended for ceremonial use. I have myself seen coats
of the Indians of Labrador decorated with a few unimportant lines and
patterns in red paint which would have led me to say with perfect
truthfulness of the wearer that he ‘wore white clothes’. As for the
‘uttering of loud cries’, this is a trait far more easily reconciled
with the idea of an Indian than a Christian ceremony. What is described
as an ‘Indian Flag’, adorned it is true with feathers in place of
bunting, is figured in Schoolcraft’s book at Plate 13 of vol. iii, and
it is difficult to think how else any one could describe it, while
other instances of poles and flags will occur to the reader of almost
any work on the North American Indians.

On the whole there seems no very violent improbability in thinking that
some Indian ceremony on the mainland might be referred to in some such
language as is here attributed to the Skræling prisoners.

It will be convenient, before closing this chapter, to sum up the
conclusions at which we have arrived.

1. At the time when savages, using stone implements and canoes, had
been described and reported in Iceland, no meeting with the Greenland
Eskimo had taken place.

2. There was at the time no other source from which descriptions of
savages could be realistically drawn, unless the Norsemen had found
them in America.

3. The description of the personal appearance of the Skrælings
is neutral—it will suit either Indian or Eskimo very well; it is
manifestly an accurate picture of some sort of savage.

4. The canoes described resemble Indian canoes, except for the name
(húdkeipar), ‘skin-canoes’. This point, however, can be explained,
either by supposing a natural misconception as to the material used, or
by taking the word employed to be that which the kayaks of Eskimo in
Greenland, by the time the sagas were written, had brought into use as
the natural word for any form of canoe.

5. The trading with furs for red cloth, the beast’s marrow mixed
with blood, the sleeping under canoes, the yelling and fighting, are
markedly Indian characteristics.

6. An Indian weapon in use in former times has been independently
described by Schoolcraft, which exactly resembles something described
in the saga.

7. The people described display terror at unfamiliar sights and sounds,
e.g. a domesticated bull; they are unacquainted with civilized weapons;
they are unsophisticated but vindictive. All these are genuine savage
characteristics, some of them specially appropriate to Indians.

8. The waving poles cannot be satisfactorily explained as kayak
paddles, and any attempt made to identify the words ascribed to the
Skræling captives as Eskimo, after they had been transcribed by several
generations of copyists, must necessarily be very inconclusive.

9. The ‘Hvítramannaland’ passage can be interpreted in a sense
consistent with Indian customs, though any alleged statements by the
savages must be regarded as most untrustworthy and extremely liable to
misinterpretation.

10. The descriptions are accurate and life-like, and show no clear
traces of features borrowed from Celtic or other romantic sources.
On the whole, then, we may assert confidently that the sagas contain
accurate descriptions of American Indians, and that these, made at a
time when savages were otherwise unknown to the Norsemen, constitute an
unimpeachable confirmation of the essential historic accuracy of the
story.

V. THE ‘DÆGR’ AND ‘EYKTARSTAD’ QUESTIONS

Before passing on to examine the voyages themselves, with a view to
identifying so far as possible the territory explored, it is advisable
to clear the way by the discussion of two questions, the first of which
provides by its solution an approximate standard for the measurement of
certain distances recorded, while the second provides a rough northerly
limit to the possible situation of Wineland. The two questions are not
in any way connected, except as being preliminaries to any trustworthy
inquiry: as such they may conveniently be dealt with in one chapter,
which may be skipped by the unscientifically inclined.

‘_Dægr sigling_’.

In the early days with which the present volume is concerned, the
only method of measuring distances at sea was necessarily by time. No
astronomical observations capable of giving results even approximately
exact can then have been understood, and it is a curious fact in
the history of navigation that even the simplest form of log for
calculating the rate of progress was not introduced until comparatively
modern times. The most natural method of measuring nautical distances
in these circumstances would be by means of units corresponding to the
usual divisions of time. We should therefore expect to find one unit
representing an hour’s sail, another representing a voyage of twelve
hours, and for use over long tracts of open sea possibly a unit based
on the average progress during a period of twenty-four hours.

Now the standards of nautical measurement found actually to have been
used by the Icelanders are primarily two—the ‘vika’, and the ‘tylft’
or dozen, which, as its name implies, represented twelve of the
first-named units. It will be found useful for the present inquiry
to establish first of all, with as much certainty as possible, the
distances represented by the ‘vika’ and the ‘tylft’.

In a fifteenth-century manuscript incorporated in the collection of
scientific treatises known as _Rímbegla_ the following passage is to
be found (p. 482): ‘Between Bergen and Nidaros (Trondhjem) there are
about four degrees, so one degree comes to about a nautical “tylft”.’
Pausing here, we may observe that the voyage from Bergen to Trondhjem
was evidently recognized to be four nautical ‘tylfts’. The passage
continues: ‘now a degree on land and a “tylft” at sea are equal, and
there are two “tylfts” in a day’s (dægur) sailing.’ To the expression
used for a day’s sailing attention will have to be directed later on,
but for the present it may be allowed to stand in the non-controversial
form into which it is translated above. Taken as an accurate statement
of the case, this quotation from _Rímbegla_ has given us the following
table:

1 vika = 5 nautical miles.
1 tylft = 1 degree (60 nautical miles).
2 tylfts = 1 day’s sail (120 nautical miles).

Now if a day’s sail be taken here as equivalent to twenty-four hours,
we have precisely the divisions of distance which, as I said at the
outset, we ought to expect where the measurement is effected by time.
A ‘vika’ represents an hour’s run, a ‘tylft’ twelve hours, and a day’s
sail twenty-four hours. Whether, the geographical distances which they
are alleged to represent have been correctly stated is another matter,
into which we may now look a little more closely.

It is evident that the assumed correspondence between a ‘tylft’ and
a degree, which, having regard to the state of navigation in the
saga period, must in any case have been accidental, rests upon the
hypothesis that the length of a voyage from Bergen to Trondhjem is
four degrees or 240 nautical miles. The difference of latitude between
the two places is in fact little more than three degrees, and even
the rhumb-line connecting Bergen and Trondhjem is not 240 nautical
miles in length; this error, however, need not necessarily have any
effect on the author’s calculation. But on working out the shortest
distance covered by a ship sailing from the one place to the other,
it is apparent that in calling this distance four degrees a serious
under-statement is made which vitiates the conclusion arrived at.
This distance as sailed at the present day is said to be 318 nautical
miles, and calculation or inspection of a chart will show that it is
impossible to bring it much below 300, so that if this represents four
‘tylfts’, calculated by time, as it probably did, our table must be
revised as follows:

1 vika = 6·25 miles.
1 tylft = 75 miles.
1 day’s sail = 150 miles.

This estimate is corroborated to some extent by the scale of Icelandic
sea-miles (vikur) given in Troil’s _Letters on Iceland_ (1780), where
they are represented as nine to a degree or equal to 6⅔ miles each.
Exact correspondence is of course not to be expected in standards of
measurement arrived at by so rough a method as the time occupied on an
average voyage.

Another ‘tylft’ capable of measurement is that given in the Greenland
sailing directions attributed to Ivar Bardson. Here the distance so
described is that between Reykjanes (lat. 63° 24′ N., long. 22° 40′
W.) and Snæfellsnes (lat. 64° 55′ 30″ N., long. 23° 59′ 40″ W.).
Calculation gives the length of a rhumb-line between the two points as
73.54 miles, according to which a ‘vika’ would be about 6.12 miles,
which once more justifies the assumption that something over six rather
than five miles must be the correct measurement of this unit.

If the line of reasoning has been correct so far, it follows that
the average rate of speed on an Icelandic voyage under favourable
conditions would be something over six knots. The next thing to
ascertain is the highest speed possible under exceptionally favourable
circumstances. Fortunately this point is also capable of determination.
It is unnecessary, and probably misleading, to enter, as Mr. Babcock
does, into calculations based on the speed of modern ships. In the saga
of Olaf the Saint (see this saga in _Heimskringla_, §125), one Thorar
Nefjolfson accomplished what was evidently regarded as a remarkable
feat by sailing from Norway (Moeri) to Eyrarbakki in Iceland in the
space of four days and four nights. There is in this case no ambiguity
about the meaning of eight ‘dægra’, the period recorded, for Thorar
himself refers to the fact that four nights previously he was with
the King in Norway. The starting-point may safely be taken as Stad,
which lay in the Söndmöre district, since we know from other sources
that it was the usual place of departure for Iceland, as indeed its
geographical position at the extremity of the westerly trend of the
coast-line from Trondhjem would render inherently probable. The
geographical position of Stad is 62° 11′ N., 5° 8′ E. The distance to
Eyrarbakki (63° 51′ 45″ N., 21° 7′ W.) round the most southern point of
Iceland (63° 23′ 45″ N., 19° 5′ 5″ W.) comes in round figures to about
730 nautical miles. This would represent a rate of about 7·6 knots,
and though this is probably too little, as the course can hardly have
been so direct and we know neither the precise place of departure nor
the exact times of start and finish, we shall be safe in assuming that
anything appreciably over eight knots was beyond the extreme powers of
an Icelandic vessel.

According to our calculations, then, the average distance covered in
twelve hours with a fair breeze would be about seventy-five miles, and
having obtained these important data we may now proceed to consider
more particularly the unit of distance uniformly employed in the story
of Wineland, namely the ‘dægr sigling’ or day’s sail.

In its strictly scientific signification there can be no doubt that a
‘dægr’ is a period of twelve hours. The _Rímbegla_ (not the treatise
already cited, but another incorporated in the same collection) is
explicit upon the point. ‘In a day there are two “dægra”, in a “dægr”
twelve hours’ (p. 6). In nautical phraseology, in which the word most
commonly occurs, it cannot be denied that it is sometimes used with
the same meaning. The passage already quoted, recording the voyage of
Thorar Nefjolfson, is a case in point. On the other hand, the statement
of the _Rímbegla_ treatise already cited, that there are ‘two tylfts in
a “dægur” sailing’, must clearly be interpreted as meaning twenty-four
hours, since even 120 nautical miles could not be covered in twelve
hours at what we have found to be the extreme speed of an Icelandic
sailing ship, and we should always hesitate to assume the identity of
local or technical usage with accurate scientific terminology.

One might, for example, be led seriously astray by taking the length
of a mile from a geographical textbook and applying it under all
circumstances to any distance called by the same name.

The author of the last-mentioned passage in the _Rímbegla_ seems indeed
to use ‘dægr’ and ‘dag’ interchangeably, for he goes on to say that
ninety degrees of the earth’s circumference would take forty-five ‘dag
siglingar’, and the complete circumnavigation of the globe would occupy
180 ‘dag siglingar’. If this passage stood alone it would doubtless
be possible to explain the first ‘dægr’ as a mere verbal slip; it
is accordingly necessary to examine the matter from a different
standpoint, and to investigate the distances said to be covered by a
given number of ‘dægra sigling’.

A convenient passage for this purpose occurs in Landnáma I, 1. The
writer is evidently endeavouring to fix the position of Iceland by
reference to well-known points on all sides of it. With this object he
makes the following statement:

‘Wise men say that from Norway from Stad it is seven “dægra” sail
west to Horn on the east of Iceland; but from Snaefellsnes where
the distance is shortest, there are four “dægra” of sea to Hvarf
in Greenland[92].... From Reykjanes in the south of Iceland there
are five “dægra” of sea to Jolduhlaup in Ireland, to the south,
while from Langanes in the north of Iceland there are four “dægra”
of sea to Svalbarda in the Polar Sea (Hafsbotn) and it is a “dægr”
sail to the uninhabited parts of Greenland from Kolbein’s island
(Mevenklint) north.’

Let us examine these statements seriatim.

Horn in the east of Iceland may either mean the modern Cape Horn, the
most easterly point of the country, or more probably East Horn a little
further to the south-west. My reason for preferring the latter place
is that it appears to have been the most easterly Horn known as such
to the authors of Landnáma. It is referred to shortly afterwards in
describing the discovery of the land by Gardar, and was evidently not
the most easterly point of the country, for Gardar is said to have
arrived to the east of it. The position of the most easterly part of
Cape Horn is 65° 5′ N., 13° 27′ 45″ W.; that of East Horn is 64° 20′
N., 14° 25′ W. The distances from Stad to these two places respectively
are 524·67 and 543·46 miles. In this case, therefore, it is clear that
seven periods of twelve hours are meant, and the distance covered in
each ‘dægr’ corresponds closely with the average ‘tylft’ at which we
have already arrived, being from 74·9 to 77½ miles according to the
objective chosen. It is clear from this that we are here dealing with
averages, and not, as Storm suggests, with records, for the rate is
but 6·4 knots at the outside, which apart from what we know of Thorar
Nefjolfson’s voyage is obviously nothing extraordinary, while the
journey between these two points must in all probability have been
traversed more frequently than any of the others here referred to.

Hvarf (turning-point) in Greenland was either Cape Farewell or one of
the promontories such as Sermesok lying immediately to the north-west
of it, and for our present purpose it will be fair enough to calculate
the distance to Cape Farewell.

This works out at about 631 miles in a direct line, and it is at once
evident that four periods of twelve hours are quite insufficient to
cover the voyage. On the other hand, four days of twenty-four hours
suit remarkably well, the rate being about 6½ knots.

Let me now deal with one or two possible objections. First it may be
urged that the version of the passage which specifies Hvarf as the
objective may be wrong, and that the coast of Greenland immediately
west of Snæfellsnes is the point of measurement. The words ‘west
to Greenland’, which take the place of any mention of Hvarf in the
alternative reading, may seem to bear out this view, but a glance at
the chart will show that all the courses laid down must be interpreted
with considerable freedom, and that Hvarf answers as closely to west of
Iceland as, say, Ireland to south of Reykjanes. The real answers to the
objection, however, are first that no one can ever have completed an
uninterrupted voyage to a point in Greenland due west of Snæfellsnes,
having regard to the ice barrier which at this point intervenes between
the coast and the open sea; and next that the distance to Greenland due
west of Snæfellsnes, about sixteen degrees of longitude, is at least
400 miles, and is therefore an equally impossible distance to cover in
forty-eight hours sailing. Finally, it is surely more probable that
a point regularly passed on the voyage between Iceland and Greenland
should be chosen for measurement than an undefined locality in an
unexplored region hundreds of miles out of the track of practical
navigation. The next objection will possibly be that I have measured
the distance on the rhumb-line, whereas it appears from the old
sailing directions that this was by no means the usual course adopted.
The course laid down in the directions attributed to Ivar Bardson
appears to lie west for a day and a night and then in a south-westerly
direction parallel to the belt of ice. Now first of all it must be
remembered that a rhumb-line course is not actually the shortest,
and if a day and a night due west be laid down on the chart and the
remainder of the distance be calculated from say longitude 29·45 W.,
the resulting distance will not be very materially increased, but will
come to somewhere about 645 miles, which can still be covered in four
days, at a rate of about 6·7 knots. In point of fact probably all the
courses with which I am dealing would in practice be longer than I have
estimated them, and the average rate which I have deduced from them
should be slightly increased, while the same does not apply to the rate
of eight knots which I have taken as the maximum, since in this case a
liberal allowance for deviation has already been made. If it be said
that my maximum and average rates are in such circumstances brought
rather close together, I reply that in fact a gale does not bring with
it a very great advantage in speed over a fair sailing breeze, as the
effect of the sea raised is to neutralize much of the gain which might
otherwise be anticipated. If the distance actually travelled between
Snæfellsnes and Hvarf be increased even to 700 miles, the rate is not
much over seven knots, or well within the limits assigned. For these
reasons the distance given in Landnáma between the two points seems
to me to be a correct statement, but ‘dægra sigling’ must here be
interpreted as days of twenty-four hours.

Similarly in the case of the voyage from Reykjanes to Jolduhlaup in
Ireland. This cannot by any means be brought within the space of five
‘dægra’ of twelve hours each. Approximately the nearest points in
Ireland may be taken as about 688 miles distant. Malin Head in the
north and Erris Head in the west of Ireland are almost equidistant
from Reykjanes, the former being some 685, the latter 690 miles from
the starting-point. There is no real reason to suppose that any point
in Ireland so near to Iceland is the true position of Jolduhlaup. It
is evident on the other hand that a very few more miles will make the
distance recorded perfectly consistent with five days of twenty-four
hours. If we bring our ship into Sligo Bay the distance will be 718·6
miles, or ten ‘tylfts’ of 71·8. This would be perfectly consistent with
the standards of distance already considered, but of course Jolduhlaup
may easily have lain even farther away than this from Reykjanes. The
name is generally taken to mean ‘wave-run’, and is sometimes spelt
Olduhlaup. Joyce[93] attributes a Scandinavian origin to the name of
Olderfleet close to Larne Harbour, and as ‘hlaup’ and ‘fljót’ are both
common terminations meaning ‘stream’, this word in an Icelandic form
(Oldufljót) would be practically identical with Olduhlaup. The author
above quoted says that the first part of Olderfleet is a Scandinavian
corruption of Ollorbha, the Celtic name of Larne water, but whether the
true derivation be from this word or ‘oldu’ a wave is a question which
applies equally to Olderfleet and Jolduhlaup and affords no ground of
distinction between them. As far as names are concerned the two may
well be identical. Larne would be the first important harbour after
entering the North Channel between Scotland and Ireland, and may well
have been chosen therefore as a well-known point for the measurements
in Landnáma. From Reykjanes to Rathlin Island off the entrance of
the North Channel is about 713 miles, thence to Larne would be about
thirty-seven more, making a distance, if there be anything in this
conjecture, of some 750 miles to be covered in the five ‘dægra’—ten
‘tylfts’ of seventy-five miles, which corresponds exactly with our
amended table.

It has been objected that some of the MSS. do not read ‘five dægra’;
this is true, but the alternative (three dægra) does not help those who
contend for a twelve hours ‘dægr’, while even if we adopt the arbitrary
emendation of the version printed at Skalholt in 1688 and read ‘eight
dægra’, the rate of travel, even to the nearest point, would be too
rapid to be normal. We have therefore once more a statement remarkably
consistent with our data if we interpret a ‘dægr’ as twenty-four hours,
and wholly impossible if a ‘dægr’ must universally be considered as
only twelve.

In estimating the distance from Langanes to Svalbarda we are confronted
with the difficulty that we do not know where the latter place can
have been. I am content, however, to admit that in this case a dægr of
twelve hours seems to be indicated. Four times twenty-four hours would
penetrate too far into the Arctic regions to be at all probable, while
Jan Mayen seems best to fulfil the conditions of a spot to the north of
Langanes, situated in the Polar Sea.

From the point of Langanes to the southern extremity of Jan Mayen is
about 296 miles, or ‘tylfts’ of 74 miles, the route in summer would at
this point normally be clear of ice, and altogether it seems probable
that Jan Mayen rather than Spitzbergen, as sometimes suggested (840
miles away), is the place described as Svalbarda.

The last distance recorded is from Kolbein’s Island (Mevenklint) to
the uninhabited coast of Greenland lying to the north. The position of
Mevenklint is in lat. 67° 10′ N., long. 18° 30′ W., and the nearest
point on the Greenland coast would be about lat. 69° 40′ N., long. 22°
48′ W. The distance would therefore be 177·45 nautical miles, and so it
is evident that it could not be covered by a voyage of twelve hours. In
twenty-four hours, however, under exceptionally favourable conditions,
the whole distance could be traversed, and in any case in that period
of time a ship would be likely to have got as close to the land as the
ice would permit. It is not likely that this particular voyage, which
is not included in all the texts of Landnáma, was sufficiently often
accomplished to enable a fair average to be taken; the allusion is more
probably to a special case within the knowledge of the authors, which
would in all likelihood have taken place on an exceptionally favourable
opportunity.

Now the conclusions to which we are forced by the consideration of all
these distances recorded in Landnáma are as follows:

1. Only two out of the five voyages are at all compatible with a ‘dægr
sigling’ of twelve hours.

2. These two appear to be very accurately recorded, which raises a
presumption in favour of the correctness of the other data. In the
voyage from Stad to C. Horn we have exactly seven ‘tylfts’ of 74·9
miles to cover in seven dægra, in that from Langanes to Svalbarda (if
Jan Mayen is meant) four ‘tylfts’ of seventy-four miles each in four
dægra.

3. Either the remaining three are hopelessly inaccurate, or a ‘dægr
sigling’ in these cases means twenty-four hours.

4. If they are inaccurate, it is a most remarkable coincidence that
they can all be made accurate by adopting the basis of twenty-four
hours.

Thus, taking the average of seventy-five miles in twelve hours at which
we had previously arrived:

The distance from Stad to C. Horn would take 6·9 or practically seven
days of twelve hours (given as seven dægra).

If the alternative Horn be taken the voyage would occupy 7·1 days.

From Snæfellsnes to Hvarf would be 4·1 days of twenty-four hours (given
as four dægra).

In sailing from Reykjanes to any part of Ireland one could not arrive
before the fifth day of twenty-four hours was well advanced, and it
would be easy to find a point which would occupy exactly the time
prescribed. From Langanes to Jan Mayen the distance is correct within
eight miles, which may easily be accounted for by slight differences in
the points of arrival or departure.

From Mevenklint to Greenland would occupy 1·16 days of twenty-four
hours.

Thus the discrepancies are so slight that even if the rate had to be
limited to this average, the statements would be as correct as so vague
a unit as a day’s journey would permit, and of course the variation in
speed must have been greatly in excess of anything required absolutely
to justify these estimates in the smallest detail.

That in the case of three out of five statements such a correspondence
should be fortuitous seems to me to be out of the question.

It will doubtless be objected that I am not justified in interpreting
the same word in the same passage by two different periods of time.
The compilers of the Landnámabók, however, expressly disclaim
personal responsibility for the statistics recorded. They are based
on the reports of ‘vitrir menn’, men that is with the requisite
special knowledge, and once it is admitted that the meaning of the
expression ‘dægr’ may have varied from place to place, there is nothing
extraordinary in a discrepancy of this nature being exemplified in a
passage based on information gathered from different informants in the
east and west of Iceland.

It is comparatively easy to see how such a discrepancy in nautical
use may have arisen. Evidently ‘dægr sigling’ was the usual nautical
expression for a day’s sail. This is shown not only by the fact that
it is nearly always in a nautical context that the word ‘dægr’ makes
its appearance, but also by the opening sentence of the Landnámabók’s
preface, which renders Bede’s words ‘sex dierum navigatione’ by ‘sex
dægra sigling’ as the obvious equivalent. Now of course until the
exodus brought about in Scandinavia by the policy of Harold Haarfagre,
the vast majority of the voyages undertaken by Norsemen were along the
coast of Norway and the adjacent countries, and were carried on almost
entirely by day, the ships putting into a convenient haven almost
every night. The coast of Norway, before the days of lighthouses,
cannot have been a pleasant place to navigate in the dark, and in
fact we almost always find it recorded, as an exceptional occurrence,
when any motive induced the seamen of this period to sail day and
night without stopping. A day’s journey in a ship would therefore in
the normal course be equivalent to the distance covered in a ‘dægr’
of twelve hours, and thus the application of this word to a nautical
day’s journey doubtless began. Then, when colonial expansion and viking
enterprises made continuous open-sea voyages more common, two courses
would be open to those who wished to record the distance travelled.
They might take the nautical expression ‘dægr’ as referring to the
twelve hours actually occupied in sailing under old conditions, or
they might take it as extending to the period during which the ships
of less venturous seamen had usually lain at anchor. A man who had
taken—say—four ‘dægra’ to sail between two points, stopping at night,
would actually have travelled but forty-eight hours, but the time
occupied from point to point would have been four days of twenty-four
hours. According to the aspect of the question which struck a sailor
accustomed to this method of reckoning he would be likely to call a
continuous voyage of four days either four or eight ‘dægra’. Thus a
variety in local usage might quite naturally spring up which would
account for the discrepancy which has given rise to the difficulties
with which I have been endeavouring to deal.

Of course it is but seldom in passages where this expression is used
that we have any data at all to enable us to say which meaning should
be attached to the word. In the sagas of Wineland the word ‘dægr’
occurs perhaps with unusual frequency, and to my mind every passage
where it is there employed might be prayed in aid of the argument that
a ‘dægr sigling’ was frequently twenty-four hours. But to use these
passages at this stage would be to argue in a circle, and we must be
content to rest the assumption that the word was so used on the data
of which use has been made in the foregoing argument, reserving to
ourselves the right in subsequent investigation of the voyages to
accept what is there stated with regard to distances sailed, even
though on the hypothesis that a ‘dægr’ can only mean twelve hours the
statements made are clearly incredible.

_The ‘eyktarstad’ problem._

In the account of Leif’s sojourn in Wineland, contained in the Flatey
Book, will be found a passage which has given rise to more acute
controversy than any other in the story. It runs as follows:

‘Sol hafðe þar eyktarstad ok dagmálastad um skamdegi’—the sun had
there eykt place and breakfast place on the shortest day, or, as
rendered in our translation, p. 42, ‘on the shortest day the sun
was up over the (Icelandic) marks for both nones and breakfast
time’.

Now one may note in passing that, whatever the significance of the
words, they are evidently not the sort of thing which a romanticizing
saga-writer would introduce from his own imagination. This is admitted
by the most adverse critics of the authority which reproduces them.

In view of the attitude taken up by some modern writers, it is
important to point out their entire independence of anything to be
extracted from the rival version. They go far to disprove, if disproof
be necessary, the theory that the Flatey Book account is borrowed from
the Saga of Eric the Red.

But at this point in the inquiry we are less concerned with this than
with the precise significance of the expression used, and though the
question has finally been solved, and nothing new can be added, it is
necessary, for the sake of readers unfamiliar with the subject, to
devote some space to the matter.

The Icelanders, possessing no clocks or scientifically constructed
dials, were in the habit of estimating the time of day by the position
of the sun above the horizon. With this object they marked eight
points upon the horizon, utilizing hills and natural objects where
such were conveniently situated, and erecting cairns in places which
were otherwise undistinguished. This method of time-keeping, crude as
it was, persisted down to very recent times, if indeed it is not still
in use in some parts of the country. Henderson, who visited Iceland in
1814–15, describes the method in some detail (_Iceland_, vol. i, p.
186), and gives the names and time-equivalents of the various points as
follows:—

1. Midnaetti. About 11 p.m.
2. Otta. ” 2 a.m.
3. Midur-morgun
(or Hirdis-rismal). ” 5 a.m.
4. Dagmal. ” 8 a.m.
5. Hádegi. ” 11 a.m.
6. Nón. ” 2 p.m.
7. Midur Aptan. ” 5 p.m.
8. Nattmal. ” 8 p.m.

In an earlier work,[94] the same divisions of time are mentioned, but
with some difference in the equivalents, thus:—‘Otta is with them three
o’clock in the morning; Midur morgon or Herdis rismal, five o’clock;
Dagmal, half past eight; Haadege, eleven; Nonn, three in the afternoon;
Midur afton, six in the morning (sic: obviously should be ‘afternoon’);
nattmal, eight, and midnatt twelve o’clock at night.’ A little thought
will make apparent the reasons for these discrepancies in time, for
not only is the method exceedingly rough, but of course the horizontal
bearing or azimuth of the sun at a particular time is not the same
throughout the year, and it also varies with the latitude. For example,
taking the latitude of Iceland as 65°, and the obliquity of the
ecliptic in A.D. 1000 as 23° 34′, which is substantially accurate, and
calculating the sun’s bearing at three o’clock p.m. throughout the
year, we get:—

Midsummer: S. 57° 9′ W.
Equinox: S. 47° 49′ W.
Midwinter: S. 40° 36′ W. (not visible)

while on shifting the latitude to 51° 30′ (about that of London) we
get a bearing of 68° 17′ for 3 p.m. at midsummer.

It appears, however, from the fact that one of the eight points was
midnight, and another ‘hádegi’ (high day or noon), that the scheme
would aim at dividing the equinoctial day into three-hour intervals.
Dagmál would then be about 9 a.m. and Nón 3 p.m. The latter word
originally meant the ecclesiastical ‘nones’ (3 p.m.) and in old
Icelandic ‘eykt’ is used as synonymous with ‘nones’.

In the Icelandic Ecclesiastical Code, or Kristinret, instructions are
given for the correct location of the mark for ‘eykt’. ‘It is eykt’,
says the law, ‘when the south-west airt is divided into three, and
the sun has passed two divisions and has one to go.’ This gives us
a bearing of S. 52° 30′ W. for ‘eykt’ or nones, which would be, in
Iceland of the eleventh century, pretty correct for 3 p.m. between
the equinoxes and the summer solstice, during nearly the whole time,
that is, when the sun would be visible at this hour in these northerly
latitudes. (See accompanying diagram.)

Now the root error of all the earlier commentators who attempted the
elucidation of the passage under consideration consisted in treating
‘eykt’ not as a solar bearing, but as a definite clock time. Three
o’clock clearly would not do, for sunset at 3 p.m. on the shortest
day in winter indicates a latitude too far north to correspond in any
way with the climate indicated. Torfaeus, the earliest writer on the
subject, accordingly interpreted ‘the south-west airt’ as the whole
quarter between south and west, and dividing the _time_ between noon
and 6 p.m. (equinoctial west) into thirds he arrived at 4 p.m. as
the time of sunset, which with 8 a.m. for Dagmál gave an eight hours
day, or a latitude of approximately 49° N. Of course, for the reasons
already given, the bearing corresponding to such a division of the
horizon (S. 60° W.), assuming the latter to be justifiable, would not
unalterably represent 4 p.m. even in Iceland, and the clock time for
which the bearing stood in Iceland would be indicated by a wholly
different position of the sun in another latitude.

[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF SUN’S BEARINGS AT THREE-HOUR INTERVALS
LATITUDE 65. A.D. 1000]

Next came what may be called the school of Rafn, who claimed to have
located the Wineland of the sagas with certainty in the neighbourhood
of Rhode Island. For them an interpretation which resulted in a
latitude of 49° was unsatisfactory. They accordingly prayed in aid a
passage from Snorri’s Edda, in which the winter is said to begin at the
point where the sun sets in ‘Eyktarstad’. It was known that winter,
according to the Icelandic calendar, began in the week preceding the
18th of October, and observation in the latitude of Snorri’s home
showed that the sun set there on the 17th of October at 4.30 p.m. As
the passage is drawing a distinction between autumn and winter it
could hardly refer to the Icelandic winter beginning about the 18th of
October, for as Vigfusson has pointed out with regard to this division
of the calendar, which persists in modern Iceland, it is a division
of the year into summer and winter only, and leaves spring and autumn
out of account.[95] But it led Rafn and his followers to assert, in
the teeth of all the other evidence, that ‘eykt’ was not a point
but a period of time, and that ‘eyktarstad’ was a point which could
be interpreted as 4.30 p.m. apparently in any latitude! This, with
‘dagmálastad’ at 7.30 a.m. gave a day of nine hours, from which Rafn
claimed to deduce the latitude—to a second of arc—as 41° 24′ 10″, an
observation which, accepting Rafn’s theory as to the locality visited,
would be beyond the accuracy of a modern sextant. Unfortunately
for this surprising result, the method of calculation was hardly so
correct, for, apart from the fallacy of treating the local _time_ as
transferable, no correction was made for the effects of refraction,
&c., and the declination assumed was not that of the eleventh but of
the nineteenth century.

It remained for Dr. Gustav Storm to point out the correct way of
utilizing the data supplied. Assuming the instructions in the
Kristinret to apply to an observation recorded of an earlier day, and
assuming the passage to mean that the sun set at the precise moment of
‘eykt’, the amplitude, or distance from the west at setting, of the
sun on the shortest day in Wineland was 37½. We may assume, as the
observer would have been looking across the land, that the lower edge
of the sun was at least 19′ above the actual horizon, and this being
so no allowance for refraction or dip of the horizon need be made
before working out the formula:—sec : lat : = sin : amp : cosec : decl.
Professor Turner, of the Oxford University Observatory, has kindly
supplied me with the corrected declination for the year A.D. 1000, viz:
23° 34′ 8″. We need not trouble about the seconds, as we know neither
the precise moment of the solstice nor even the year with certainty;
omitting these the problem works out as follows:—

log sin : amplitude : 9·784447
log cosec : declination : 10·398140
—————————
log sec : latitude : 10·182587
=========

The latitude therefore would be about 48° 57′ N. This, however,
correctly understood, gives only the northern limit beyond which the
observation could not have been made.

It might be argued that the refinements enjoined in the Kristinret were
not likely to have been in operation in these primitive times. There
seem to have been eight day-marks, two of which represented midnight
and noon respectively, and it would seem more natural therefore for
men who attached no particular importance to the hour of 3 p.m. such
as was subsequently associated with the time of nones, to divide
their horizon into equal parts, which would serve, at any rate at the
equinoxes, accurately for 6 a.m. and p.m. and mid-day, while dagmál and
eykt would occupy the points midway between the others, and stand, less
accurately, for 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. The answer to this criticism probably
is that it was found necessary to divide the day into equal watches:
anyhow, such an interpretation cannot be correct, for an amplitude of
45° would give a latitude of 55° 34′ up to which this bearing would
be visible, and this would be too near the latitude of Greenland to
be remarkable, while nothing is clearer than that the writer of the
passage was endeavouring to record a marked and surprising difference
from the length of the winter day to which Greenlanders were accustomed.

This in fact, rather than a precise determination of latitude, would
seem to be the object of the statement, taken as a whole. It is as if
one were to say, ‘I could breakfast, or shave, by daylight all the
year round.’ It by no means follows from the passage that dagmálastad
and eyktarstad are meant to be understood as sunrise and sunset; in
fact, it would involve an extraordinary coincidence if they were. There
were only eight points in general use by which the time of day could
be measured or expressed, and to say therefore that the sun was up
at a particular time does not indicate that at that precise moment it
was on the horizon. Indeed if Rafn had been content with probabilities
instead of trying to make the passage support an exact determination
of latitude, he would have made out a fairly strong case, so far as
eyktarstad was concerned, for the locality which he identified with the
explorers’ camp. The chances are that, over a background of wooded and
hilly ground, actual sunrise and sunset were invisible, and that the
sun was well up at the time of passing over the points recorded. I have
calculated roughly the altitude of the sun in eyktarstad at the time
in question, and I make out that even so far south as 40° it would not
be as much as 5½°. Even assuming that the time of sunset was meant, it
would not require any very great unevenness of the horizon to produce
the effect of sunset at this point in the latitude supported by Rafn,
and it is almost certain that the locality indicated was much nearer to
this latitude than to the northern limit of the observation.

Taken with their context, the words seem to be an illustration of the
greater equality of day and night referred to in the opening words
of the sentence. Their real value lies in the fact that they embody
a remark of a circumstantial and business-like character, which goes
far to support the historical authenticity of the narrative. It is
not the sort of thing that a romancer would invent, it is the sort
of thing that a traveller would notice. Secondarily, though in all
probability the words indicate a much more southerly latitude, they
make it impossible that the site of the observation was north of
(roughly) 49°. To consider them as a deliberate attempt to fix latitude
is to lose sight of all probabilities. Let any who still adhere to
this interpretation go and fix marks for themselves, and endeavour
therefrom to ascertain the latitude. The south point could of course
be fixed accurately, by the place of the shortest shadow or various
other well-known devices. The time equivalents given by Henderson and
Troil do not, however, suggest that it was so fixed as a rule. But
without instruments to measure the angles for the other marks correctly
to—say—2° would be very difficult indeed, while the marks themselves
would probably subtend an appreciable angle. An error of one degree
will be more than reproduced in the latitude. Any change in the exact
position of the observer would be likely to cause an inaccuracy of at
least this extent; so that if the locality visited is to be identified
at all it certainly will not be by the use of this passage, on which so
many commentators have expended so much fruitless ingenuity.

VI. THE VOYAGES. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

The reader who has attentively followed the argument so far will, I
think, be convinced that the discovery and exploration of some parts of
America by the Norsemen rests upon a solid historical foundation.

It now becomes necessary to deal with a matter as to which there is
considerably more scope for controversy; the reconstruction, so far as
is reasonably possible, of the voyages themselves. No one acquainted
with the difficulties presented by the records of far later explorers,
such as Cabot and Corte Real, will expect this to be a subject on which
it is possible to dogmatize; the geographical details can probably
never be settled with absolute finality. We must advance cautiously and
by stages, eliminating the impossible and establishing broad lines,
before we embark on the fascinating task of theorizing on points of
detail.

_Difficulties of the Task._

The principal difficulty lies in the fact that in the primitive state
of the science of navigation at the period those particulars are
naturally most vague and unreliable on which we are most accustomed
to depend. There are no precise latitudes or longitudes, and even the
compass, though in use before the extant manuscripts were written, was
not known to these early explorers. For distances we have to depend
on periods of time which may have been inaccurately copied, and the
very meaning of which is a subject of acute controversy. (See previous
chapter, §1.) The courses set down are quite likely to have been
affected by the preconceived ideas of later editors, and are in any
case vague, often only roughly indicated by the direction of the wind.

We have in fact to depend to a large extent on what we are told of the
appearance of the various coasts, and of the different local products.

And so far as one version of the story is concerned, we have to depend
for these on the description of one voyage only—Karlsefni’s. With
regard to the other version, that of the Flatey Book, it must be borne
in mind that the writers of that saga considered all the explorers to
have made the same landfall. They came to ‘Leif’s camp’. Now, while
this was a natural idea to those who had no notion of the size of the
country, it seems to me improbable that it represents the actual facts.
To the writer of the Flatey Book version, ‘Leif’s camp’ and ‘Wineland’
were more or less synonymous terms. But the more detailed account of
Karlsefni’s voyage suggests that while the later explorer was looking
for the district visited by Leif, he never in fact found it. Leif
seems to have hurried ashore on his first sight of the country, and
to have conducted a merely local exploration. His brother, Thorvald,
who, following immediately after Leif, may have arrived at the same
base, we are told, ‘thought that the exploration of the country had
been confined to too narrow an area’. Karlsefni, on the other hand,
after arrival at Keelness, conducted a very protracted exploration,
and apparently split his party into two, one going north and the other
south, with the object of rediscovering Leif’s Wineland. As I hope
presently to show, Leif cannot have penetrated to Karlsefni’s Hóp.
Yet the writer of the Flatey Book, imbued with the idea that Leif and
Karlsefni occupied identical camps, has evidently felt himself at
liberty to draw his description of the scene of Leif’s landing from
the fullest report available, which, as he tells us, was Karlsefni’s.
Given the notion that all the explorers made the same landfall, this
was natural and legitimate enough, but it adds an element of confusion
to our already difficult task. There can, I think, be little doubt that
the combination of shoal, river, and lake in the description of Leif’s
camp is Karlsefni’s Hóp, but, as will be seen later, it is improbable
that Leif ever got there.

I am inclined to think that another instance of the same sort of
confusion is to be traced in Hauk’s version of the story. After the
resolve to return home on account of the savages, the author brings the
party back to Straumsfjord. He then evidently wishes to incorporate
some matter from different sources. So he first puts in a note of some
information at variance with that just given, ‘Some men say’, &c., and
then interpolates his version of the death of Thorvald Ericson, who, as
has been pointed out in the chapter on the Flatey Book (p. 126), has
really no place in this saga up to this point. It will be observed that
in both versions Thorvald is killed on a voyage north past Keelness,
where as one story has it, ‘it was all covered with wood’, while the
other says, ‘there was nothing but desolate woods’. It seems most
unlikely that Karlsefni’s party, after a definite resolve to return
home, should have embarked on a fresh voyage of discovery, so, though
the evidence may not be conclusive, I am inclined to think that the
matter here incorporated was originally an account of an independent
voyage undertaken by Thorvald, as given in the Flatey Book. The verses
about the uniped, which are old, certainly mention Karlsefni, but,
as Storm points out in his edition of the saga, the verses seem but
loosely fitted to the context, and make no mention of the uniped’s
ferocity. It seems probable therefore that the uniped is made to kill
Thorvald in order that the lay may be worked in, just as the author
works in the death-speech of Thormod Kolbrunarskald, with very little
alteration and considerable infelicity, as the last words of Thorvald
Ericson.

Seeing, then, that we have reason to suspect confusions of this
nature, it is plainly impossible to discriminate as much as could be
wished between the different voyages, and we are thrown back mainly
on Karlsefni, though Bjarni Herjulfson’s adventure is on rather a
different footing, and can be investigated independently.

_The Cardinal Points._

Faced with these difficulties, how are we to proceed? It is established
that the Norsemen visited North America: the map of that country lies
before us, awaiting the results of our survey. The evidence to hand
is plainly of unequal value; we are in fact very much in the position
of the cartographer, whose material ranges from the meticulously
accurate work of the professional expert with his theodolite to the
hasty compass traverses and sketches of the pioneer explorer fighting
his way through trackless and savage wilds. The method by which the
map-maker obtains the most satisfactory results from his material is, I
think, one to be imitated here. To a framework made up of a number of
points fixed with the utmost certainty of which science is capable, he
adjusts the less trustworthy material, rejecting altogether that which
cannot be brought into line with such facts as have been definitely
ascertained. Any haphazard selection of separate items is bound to
result in a considerable if not a cumulative error.

So in the present case, unless we adhere inflexibly to what may be
regarded as our fixed points, adapting that which fits, either wholly
or in part, and inexorably rejecting the remainder, we shall be apt to
jump to a conclusion and indulge in an arbitrary selection of whatever
pieces of evidence happen to support it. A study of the results
achieved by some earlier investigators of the subject presses this
danger very forcibly upon one’s attention.

Now perhaps some may be inclined to demur to the use of such an
expression as ‘fixed points’ in this connexion, but there are really
quite a number of statements standing out from the rest as facts which
anyone who credits the sagas at all must regard as reasonably certain.
These I will endeavour to set out before drawing any conclusions, in
the hope that, studied apart from any question of where they may lead
us, they may meet with general acceptance.

1. A line drawn about the 49th parallel of north latitude is fixed
by the ‘eyktarstad’ observation as the northern limit of the area in
which Wineland is to be sought. The passage, as we have seen, cannot
be interpreted to mean that the sun set on the shortest day precisely
at the point of eyktarstad. It would, in fact, be a coincidence
difficult to credit if the sunset on a particular day corresponded with
a mark arbitrarily fixed in Iceland for a wholly different purpose.
The passage means, in fact, rather that the sun had _not_ set at the
point in question; consequently to the south of this line we have an
increasing probability for a considerable distance.

2. The scope of our inquiry is further restricted by the limits within
which the wild vine is to be found. Omitting as irrelevant Jacques
Cartier’s discoveries of this plant in the Gulf of St. Lawrence,[96]
this area may be said to begin with the Annapolis Basin in western Nova
Scotia, excluding the rest of that peninsula, and from thence to follow
the coast of New England as far south as we care to go. The discovery
of the vine by the Norsemen is, I think, conclusively established.
The name conferred on the country, which can be traced back to the
very inception of written history, in itself goes far to prove it. It
is corroborated by Adam of Bremen at a still earlier date, and it is
plain from the apparently contemporary verses of Thorhall the Hunter
that before the time of Karlsefni’s voyage it had been alleged by
some member of a prior expedition that the vine flourished in the new
country. The corn is perhaps a little more doubtful, and its nature
more controversial; it is accordingly excluded from our cardinal points.

3. The area explored must be divided by stretches of open sea into
three independent land-forms. Different parts of one unbroken coastline
will not suit the conditions required. All the accounts agree in
deferring any coasting voyage to the point where Wineland is reached.

4. Helluland, Markland, Wineland, Furdustrands, are all place-names
drawn from natural characteristics. Whatever form their attributes may
have taken, we are justified in treating Helluland as a land of stones,
Markland as one of woods, Wineland as a grape-country, and Furdustrands
as a coast with a beach of extraordinary length. The last-named was not
an isolated point; the name survived into later Icelandic geography
as that of a district comparable with the three main divisions of the
country, though with most erroneous ideas as to its situation. Thus the
geographical treatise known as Gripla:

‘Furdustrands is the name of a land where there is hard frost,
so that it is not habitable, so far as is known; south of it is
Helluland, &c.’

Its existence is corroborated by a reference in the very early
verses ascribed to Thorhall the Hunter,—‘and boil their whales on
Furdustrand’—and if we accept the testimony of the saga as to the
locality where these verses were composed, the beaches in question must
have stretched at least from Keelness to Straumsfjord.

5. Keelness, as a cape running in a more or less northerly direction,
and constituting the first point touched at in Wineland, is established
by the constant references to such a feature in both the independent
versions of the story. The derivation of its name, in spite of
statements in the sagas, may well be treated as uncertain. Both
Keelness and Bjarney (Bear Island) are names existing elsewhere,
and what we are told of them may have been invented to account for
them. They may, in fact, owe their names to a fancied resemblance to
prototypes elsewhere.

6. Straumsfjord, with its island and strong currents, is too
circumstantially described to be an invention.

7. The topographical characteristics of Hóp, apart from the meaning of
the name, which seems to be a land-locked tidal estuary, are confirmed
by the evidence of both independent versions. We must therefore accept
its main features—extensive shoals, and a river running through a lake
into the sea.

These then are our points of departure. To these we may safely add,
as a general rule, points as to which the independent versions agree.
The savages, though equally well authenticated, and valuable as
evidence of the general truthfulness of the story, are not included,
since, whatever the opinion we ourselves have formed, it may still be
considered arguable by some that they were Eskimo. In any case they
do not help us to fix any situation more closely than our other data.
If they were Indians they might occur anywhere within the area of our
inquiry, if Eskimo they cannot carry Wineland with them north of the
49th parallel, or away from the vines from which it derived its name.
Their existence, if established, would only prove a more southerly
migration of the Eskimo than has been hitherto generally accepted.

_The Labrador Theory._

In spite of all this some writers have strenuously maintained that
the full scope of all the voyages recorded should be confined to the
Labrador coast. These are not generally to be found among those who
have specialized on the subject. They are more usually those who,
like Weise (_Discoveries of America to 1525_), deal with the matter
incidentally, as part of a wider historical study. Their view, for the
most part, seems to be connected with a sceptical attitude towards the
sagas as a whole. It is, indeed, independent of the story except in
so far as this supplies some corroboration of the bare fact that the
Norsemen discovered America. Its advocates mainly argue on independent
grounds that bold sailors like the Norsemen, having got so far as
Greenland, must occasionally have been driven to Labrador. Nothing
that is recorded of Wineland can really be brought into line with
such theory, except possibly the skrælings, who are made the most of
for that purpose with very inconclusive results. The ‘eyktarstad’
observation (see previous chapter, p. 211), a most circumstantial point
in the story, rules out the whole of Labrador.

The climate, too, is altogether inappropriate, and, of course, the
vines and corn become an absurdity. Apart from these things one may ask
where, on the Labrador coast, we are to find three distinct land-forms,
with wholly different characteristics, and separated from one another
by days of open sea.

It is true that a Boston botanist, Professor Fernald, has endeavoured
to suggest that the vines, the corn, and the mösur wood were all
products of quite a different order, which are to be found in Labrador.
The vines, according to him, are the ‘partridge-berry’ of Canada (the
_tyttebær_ of Norway); the corn, lyme-grass (arundo arenaria); and the
mösur a form of birch. If this were so it is difficult to understand
why things perfectly well known in Iceland should have attracted so
much attention, or have been described by totally new names; or why a
land containing nothing better than partridge-berries should have been
called Wineland. As regards the vines, it may be further pointed out
that ‘Vine-wood’ (vínvið) is more frequently mentioned in the sagas
than grapes, which seems to rule out berries; lyme-grass (melur) is
well known in Iceland, and a kind of flour was prepared from it in
that country in quite recent times.[97] Lastly, the mösur wood was
not anything known to the Norsemen, for we are expressly told, in the
episode of the Bremen merchant, that Karlsefni did not know what wood
it was.

Altogether this, the latest variant of the Labrador theory, must be
discarded like its predecessors.

_Storm’s theory—Labrador, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia._

The theory most generally accepted at the present time is that put
forward by Dr. Storm in _Studier over Vinlandsreiserne_.

Before making any independent analysis of the voyages, it will be
useful to examine this theory in the light of the principles just
laid down. According to Storm, Helluland, Markland, and Wineland are
Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia respectively.

The identification of Labrador with Helluland is based mainly upon the
appearance of that barren coast, and the presence there of arctic foxes
in large numbers. Certainly the little that we are told of Helluland
suits Labrador very well, and the name conferred is suggestive of
the unflattering description of the country written in later times by
Jacques Cartier:—‘It should not be named the New Land, but _the land
of stones and rocks_, frightful and ill-shaped, for in all the said
North coast I did not find a cartload of earth, though I landed in many
places,—in short, I deem rather than otherwise that it is the land God
gave to Cain’. Indeed, as I know from personal experience, the bald,
glaciated rocks of the Labrador coast are a feature so striking that
one must admit the probability of the country deriving a name from them.

Yet it can hardly be disputed that at the date under consideration
all that we are told of Helluland would suit Newfoundland as well as
Labrador. No doubt at the present day the arctic fox is more suggestive
of Labrador, but in past times this animal seems to have been quite
common in Newfoundland. Thus Antony Parkhurst writes to Hakluyt from
that country in 1578,—‘I had almost forgotten to speake of the plentie
of wolves, and to show you that there be foxes, blacke, _white and
grey_’, and in another passage he speaks of the remarkable fearlessness
of these foxes—a trait more characteristic, even in a new country,
of the arctic than the red species. The red fox, even where it is
unaccustomed to the sight of man, is easily scared and habitually
cunning, but I myself have found the arctic fox so fearless that it was
practically impossible to keep it away from meat lying close to the
camp. A handkerchief tied to the horn of a dead caribou was of no use
even as a temporary check.

Still, so far as all this goes, Helluland might well be in Labrador.
But even if Helluland be Labrador, can we consider Newfoundland as
Markland? Accepting the only authority relied on by Storm and his
school, we do not get any positive clue from the description given of
the country. ‘Much wood and many beasts’ is not distinctive, though,
no doubt, it can be made to apply to Newfoundland as well as any other
place. If we include the Flatey Book description, ‘low-lying, with wide
stretches of white sand, the slope from the sea was not abrupt’, it is
difficult any longer to look for Markland along the bold, rocky coasts
of Newfoundland. The description is certainly not characteristic. But
setting the question of local resemblance apart, the identification
is defended on the ground that one text gives for the direction from
Helluland, ‘they changed their course from south to south-east’. This
seems to me a most unreliable statement on which to found a definite
and positive conclusion. In the first place, the change of course
indicated is only given by Hauk; the purer companion version states
merely that the explorers had a north wind. Having regard to the
fact that the word ‘south-east’ (landsuðr) occurs in the very next
sentence,—‘an island lay to the south-east’—there is here an obvious
trap for the unwary copyist. Supposing the word in the archetype of
the saga to have been originally south-west (utsuðr), a course more
consistent with the general direction of Karlsefni’s investigations, it
is extremely likely to have been mistranscribed with a word so like it
close at hand to catch the eye. Besides, the courses on the whole are
so manifestly wrong, or at best vague approximations, that no one can
be on sure ground who relies on them. (Cf. Chapter II, p. 131.)

But, more than this, inherent probability is dead against a
south-easterly course between Helluland and Markland. The original
discoverer, whoever he was, would never have sailed into the open sea
south-east from Labrador. If return to Greenland was his object he
would turn north-east; if exploration, he would hug the coast. In the
latter event he would either sail through the Strait of Belle Isle,
which he clearly did not, or, regarding this as a mere inlet or fjord,
would treat Newfoundland and Labrador as one country. If Karlsefni was
navigating independently of the experience of a predecessor, he would
have acted in the same way, and formed the same conclusion. If he were
making use of another explorer’s sailing directions, he might, indeed,
cut south-east from Labrador to Cape Freels, but he would do so with a
knowledge of what lay before him, and would not therefore regard as a
separate country what his predecessor had decided to be connected with
Helluland. For these reasons I am disposed to reject the identification
of Markland with Newfoundland, and to conclude that, whether the spot
visited in Helluland lay in Newfoundland or in Labrador, the name must
be regarded as including both countries.

Still more unsatisfactory is the identification of Nova Scotia with
Wineland. Except in the Annapolis basin on the west, which does not
suit the requirements of the saga, no wild grapes can be found there.
The temperature falls to 20° below zero in winter; frost generally
continues from Christmas to April. Moreover, the description of the
coast in the sagas, at all events in the neighbourhood of Keelness, the
cape at its northern extremity, insists upon long beaches and sands,
so remarkable in extent as to give rise to the name Furðustrandir (The
Wonderful Beaches). Nova Scotia shows nothing of the kind. This is a
circumstance of such importance that I shall return to it hereafter;
here it will be sufficient to state that all authorities, ancient
and modern, agree in speaking of Nova Scotia as a rocky coast, with
numerous indentations. Of the authorities who accept Storm’s views in
the main, Mr. Dieserud and Mr. Babcock have realized this difficulty,
though Mr. Babcock alone has made a serious attempt to face it. His
solution may be left for later consideration; here he shall merely be
called as an unwilling witness against Nova Scotia. ‘These people had
swift ships. Beaches of ordinary length must also have been familiar
to all of them.... They would not marvel at a stretch of fifty
miles’. ‘The palpable fact that Nova Scotia does not now supply these
wonderstrands ... seems to have compelled Dr. Storm to piece out this
part of his theory with minor beaches that the Icelanders would have
hardly glanced at as they swept by’. The objection could not be more
forcibly stated; there let us leave it for the moment.

Again: Karlsefni was exploring for three years. On more than one
occasion he sailed ‘a long time’. When the saga means a day or two,
it says so; nay, it frequently seems, if anything, to understate the
time occupied. The extreme length of Nova Scotia is under 350 miles;
two days and nights at 7 knots would about cover the distance. We need
far more space than this theory affords; in fact, it needs Procrustean
methods to fit the Wineland of the sagas into the confines of Nova
Scotia. To compress the whole scope of the exploration, from Keelness
to Hóp, as Mr. Dieserud does, into the coast between Cape Breton and
Halifax, seems inconsistent both with the letter and the spirit of the
story.

_Theories including New England._

Members of the older school of Wineland investigators are, at present,
greatly discredited. Their enthusiasm outran all bounds of scientific
caution, and they heaped ridicule on their theories by the attempt to
support them with evidence which was largely pure rubbish. Alleged
Norse remains in America have justly become a byword; although Mr.
Babcock thinks it worth while to review all that has been adduced
of this sort of testimony, he adopts without hesitation the general
verdict that, as was _a priori_ probable, no vestiges of Norse visits
remain to the present day. There can never have been more than the
makeshifts of a transient encampment; ‘_perierunt etiam ruinae_’. As a
result of their ill-judged and credulous enthusiasm, no serious writer
finds himself able to agree on a point of detail with Rafn or Horsford
without a preliminary apology.

Yet there may be something to be said for the adoption of the main
lines of their identification of the ‘three lands’: Newfoundland,
Nova Scotia, and New England standing for Helluland, Markland, and
Wineland. It is the theory that leaps to the eye on looking at a map
with a view to discovering three separate land-forms lying in the track
of an exploration from Greenland or Iceland. It is, perhaps, at its
weakest in its identification of Helluland, though, as has been shown,
Newfoundland is not excluded by the conditions required. If, however,
as I have suggested, Labrador and Newfoundland were likely to have been
regarded as one and the same country, the identification of Markland
and Wineland is not affected.

The little we know of Markland fits Nova Scotia very well. ‘Much wood
and many beasts’ may, of course, be descriptive of Newfoundland and
its caribou, but it would also be true of Nova Scotia. In the voyage
of Mr. Hill of Redrife in 1593, given in Hakluyt, a casual run ashore
at Cape Breton is thus described;—‘and as they viewed the country they
saw divers beastes and foules, as black foxes, deere, otters, &c.,
&c.’. It is apparent that as late as the sixteenth century the fauna
of Nova Scotia was sufficiently plentiful to strike a ship’s crew as
soon as they went ashore. The description of the country given in the
Flatey Book, which is unlike anything Icelandic and consequently sounds
genuine, will suit the southern extremity of Nova Scotia, a very likely
landfall, much better than Newfoundland. It is low-lying and wooded, as
Champlain found between Port Mouton and Cape Negro,—‘the shores which
I saw, up to that point, are very low, and covered with such wood as
that seen at the Cap de la Heve’. As to the white sand we may compare
Hudson’s description,—‘The land by the water side is low land, and
_white sandie_ banks rising, full of little hills.’

While there is no sufficient extent of beach in Nova Scotia to serve
for Furdustrands, there is enough sand as a local feature to suit the
conditions required for Markland.

In their identification of Wineland with New England rather than Nova
Scotia, the older school are on even less questionable ground, however
rash their speculations on points of detail. Indeed, there seems to be
a tendency at the present day, which is exemplified in the conclusions
of Mr. Babcock, to depart so far from Storm’s theories as to include a
part of the New England coast-line. The addition of New England gets
over the formidable difficulties before noticed, of want of space for
the whole of Karlsefni’s expedition, and almost entire absence of the
wild vine. Whether or no we must also include Nova Scotia in the ‘third
land’ visited by the Norsemen, we shall be well advised to look for
Hóp, at any rate, along the coast of the United States. Personally,
I feel strongly that Nova Scotia is needed for Markland, and that
Wineland must have been situated altogether to the west or south-west
of it.

Before entering upon the more detailed consideration of the voyages
which forms the subject of the ensuing chapters, I would provisionally
fix the broad lines of our research in accordance with the arguments
adduced above. Helluland will then be in all probability Newfoundland
and Labrador considered as one country, or perhaps Newfoundland alone;
Markland will be Nova Scotia; and Wineland, the most important area in
the inquiry, somewhere on the eastern seaboard of the United States.

_Postscript on two recent theories._

It will be convenient here to deal with the theories advanced by two
recent writers, whose works did not come to my notice until all the
chapters of the present volume were written. These are:

1. Professor W. Hovgaard’s _Voyages of the Norsemen to America_ (New
York, 1915), and

2. Professor H. P. Steensby’s _The Norsemen’s route from Greenland
to Wineland_ (Copenhagen, 1918).

Of the two treatises the second is on the whole the more
revolutionary. For Professor Steensby, after locating both Helluland
and Markland in Labrador, and identifying Bjarney with Newfoundland,
brings his explorers into the gulf of St. Lawrence, with southern
Labrador for Furdustrands, Keelness (_after Furdustrands_) at Point
Vaches by the mouth of the Saguenay, Straumsey at Hare Island in the
St. Lawrence river, and Hóp, still in the St. Lawrence, at St. Thomas
on the southern side.

Though entertaining widely different views as to the relative value
of the sources—Professor Steensby altogether rejecting the Flatey
Book, whose authority the other author upholds—both writers agree in
certain respects which are somewhat novel. Both make Karlsefni’s first
landing-place, in Helluland, at a point in Labrador which is almost in
the same latitude as southern Greenland, involving a course very far
to the west of south; and both insist on a coasting voyage throughout,
with no intervals of open sea between the different lands visited. It
seems to me that both these theories rest on a substitution of what
their authors regard as inherent probabilities for the express language
of the sagas.

More especially is this the case with Professor Hovgaard’s treatment of
Bjarni. He brings him first to Newfoundland, and carries him back along
the Labrador coast to Resolution Island off Baffin Land, in order to
substantiate the ice (_jökul_, understood as glaciers) of the story.
The effect of this treatment, when the author comes to consider Leif’s
and Thorvald’s voyages, is to leave an enormous unexplained stretch
of coast between Helluland (Resolution Island) and Markland, which he
agrees cannot be reasonably identified with any place north of Cape
Sable in Nova Scotia. (As regards Leif’s Markland and Wineland, indeed,
Professor Hovgaard comes to substantially the same conclusions as
myself.) But, considered apart from this difficulty, there are still
formidable objections to this reconstruction of Bjarni’s voyage.

1. The text either expresses or implies an open sea passage out of
sight of land between the various landfalls. From the first to the
second land this is implied in the statement ‘after sailing two days
they saw another (or the second) land’. From the second to the third
land it is expressly stated that the ship sailed ‘_out to sea_ for
three days, when they saw the third land’. In the remaining case ‘they
turned the bows _away from_ the land and held out to sea’.

2. The whole point of giving the direction of the wind (south-west)
is to supply an indication of the course. To this course Professor
Hovgaard pays no attention: from Resolution Island to Herjulfsness the
bearing would actually be to the south of east, and the rest of the
voyage is to the west of north.

With regard to Karlsefni, Professor Hovgaard’s treatment of his
authorities is even more arbitrary. The previous expeditions, he agrees
with me, had found Wineland on the coast of the United States. Now
Wineland was Karlsefni’s objective, and his expedition, if somewhat
cumbrous, was more elaborately equipped and took more time than any
other. Yet, according to the writer under consideration, Karlsefni
never got to Wineland at all. He first paid a visit to Baffin Land
or northern Labrador, then coasted to Nain on the Labrador coast and
conferred on that locality a name (Markland) already allocated by
his predecessor to a spot far to the south,[98] and next, instead of
following Leif’s directions, went wandering into Sandwich Bay, which
is here identified with Straumsfjord. True, as our author remarks, the
winter at Straumsfjord is described as severe. Still, the expedition
was evidently not frozen in, as it would have been in Labrador, for
even at this time the Norsemen ‘hoped for fishing or jetsam’, and
actually acquired a stranded whale. Captain Cartwright, who settled in
this region, thus describes the winter conditions:—

Ascend yon Mountain’s top; extend your view
O’er Neptune’s trackless Empire, nor will you,
In all his vast Domain, an Opening have,
Where foams the Billow, or where heaves the Wave.
A dreary Desart all, of Ice and Snow.

In this spot, according to Professor Hovgaard, maddened by mosquitoes
in the summer, and hopelessly frozen in during a long winter, the
experienced Karlsefni, far north of his objective, established his
principal base. And in all the three years of his exploration,
according to the same author, Karlsefni never penetrated farther than
a ‘Hóp’ in Newfoundland, having failed to reach even the Markland of
his predecessor. The theory in fact involves a wholesale readjustment
and arbitrary selection of the available material which must be read
to be appreciated. Of course Karlsefni found no vines or corn, and the
‘sands’ of Furdustrands are conspicuously absent.

The minor point that this theory requires a coasting voyage throughout
may now be considered in conjunction with Professor Steensby’s
conclusions. I do not lay much stress on the evidence of the old maps,
dealt with later on in Chapter IX, though they show that there was
always understood to be open sea between the three principal ‘lands’.
The Icelandic geography referred to in the same chapter (p. 287)
likewise assumes sea at any rate between Markland and Wineland. I
would ask the impartial reader to refer to the text, and see whether
it conveys to him any idea of a coasting voyage until Keelness is
reached, except in one case in Hauk’s version, which is at variance
with the purer language of Eric’s Saga. Let him further decide whether,
on a dispassionate reading of the evidence, Helluland, Markland, and
Wineland can be treated as parts of one and the same unbroken coastline.

Professor Steensby (p. 32) argues that the Norsemen habitually coasted
on approaching land, saying, moreover, ‘This applies in a quite
especial degree when new land was in question.’ I should have thought
it more true to say that the Norsemen were the pioneers of open-sea
navigation, and the necessity for keeping plenty of sea-room would be
particularly cogent in the case of a coast whose dangers were quite
unknown. Moreover, according to all accounts, the first discovery was
accidental, and open sea might well have been crossed in the endeavour
to get back to Greenland, as we are told in the case of Bjarni: if this
were so, subsequent expeditions would keep as far as possible to the
track of their predecessors up to the point when they arrived at the
country (Wineland) which alone was considered desirable to visit and
explore. Along the shores of Wineland they would undoubtedly coast,
and this is exactly what we are told in the sagas.

I will not dwell on the modification of the courses given, as this is
not a point upon which much reliance can, in the circumstances, be
placed. The statement, however, of the saga, that Helluland lay south
of Greenland, is corroborated by the old Icelandic geography (see,
_post_ Chapter IX, p. 287), and in any case the ultimate objective
lay so far to the south that a ship, limited in storage capacity,
would naturally press in that direction as quickly as possible. As
I shall have occasion to point out later (Chapter VIII, p. 262), a
ship coasting Labrador in the early summer would be liable to be
tremendously delayed by ice, of which we find no mention, apart from
other considerations, in the report of Karlsefni’s expedition. If the
manipulation of the courses stood alone, however, this point would
hardly be conclusive.

But once we are in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the objections to this
theory are formidable indeed. In the first place, Professor Steensby
is compelled to keep Karlsefni in Straumsfjord (the St. Lawrence)
throughout, and to make Hóp a point actually in the fjord. This is
quite inconsistent with our authority. The climatic conditions of
Straumsfjord and Hóp appear to have been markedly different, and the
language everywhere implies that it was necessary to leave the one
place to reach the other.

Secondly, the author under consideration is forced to place Keelness
_after_ Furdustrands and close to the Straumsfjord base. The saga,
however, before mentioning Furdustrands, states ‘there was a cape
(Keelness) where they arrived’, i.e. it was the first point sighted
after leaving Markland. Again, in reverse order from Straumsfjord,
‘Thorhall wished to go north by Furdustrands and past Keelness.’
Straumsey is identified with Hare Island, which even at the present day
is described as ‘densely wooded’, an unlikely place, one would think,
for quantities of breeding sea-fowl, and ill-adapted as a pasture land
for cattle. Finally, Professor Steensby’s ‘Hóp’, at St. Thomas, faces
north, which is in conflict with the saga, where we are told more than
once that the Skrælings came in from the south. From the situation of
Karlsefni’s camp by the ‘lake’ it is clear that the arrival of the
savages could only have been perceived after they had entered the
estuary, which must accordingly, if the authority is to be trusted,
have faced south rather than north.

St. Thomas, being slightly south of the 47th parallel, is within the
possible limits of the eyktarstad observation. This, however, is only
true if we understand that the sun set at that precise point on the day
in question. As I have elsewhere pointed out, it would be too strange
a coincidence to be readily accepted if the Norsemen settled at a spot
where the sun, exactly on the shortest day of the year, covered at
the very moment of setting one of the eight marks fixed in a totally
different latitude for the purpose of determining three-hour intervals.
We are therefore forced to the conclusion that the sun had _not_ set at
the moment in question, but was up at this point so as to be capable of
being used. This being so, a latitude far south of the computed limit
is indicated, and, as regards this observation, Professor Steensby’s
Hóp is within an area too near this limit to be at all probable.

VII. THE VOYAGES IN DETAIL: BJARNI, LEIF, THORVALD

_Bjarni Herjulfson._

As has been stated in a former chapter, poor Bjarni has been severely
handled by Storm and most of the accepted authorities. The case for
and against his voyage has been already dealt with, and it is hoped
that some readers may have been persuaded that Bjarni has a solid claim
to be regarded as the first seaman who sighted American shores. But,
whether or no the personal claims of Bjarni can be substantiated, I
submit that we have here a very clear and correct account of the way
in which America was discovered, whether by Bjarni or another. The
first discovery must necessarily have been accidental, and must almost
certainly have been, as stated of Bjarni, from south to north, as
subsequent exploration in a southerly direction would not otherwise
have been encouraged. The northern part of America offered few
attractions to the practical minds of early explorers, whose criterion
was ‘that it would be a profitable country to visit’; Labrador or
Newfoundland from the sea would seem at first sight to deserve Bjarni’s
epithet ‘ogagnvaenligt’—good-for-nothing. Storm-driven mariners, with
stores running short, would hardly have pursued investigations from
north to south, while in the reverse direction discovery was forced
upon them by circumstances, and their experience might well prompt
further exploration on the part of the inhabitants of Greenland.
Whatever criticisms have been passed upon Bjarni’s voyage by those who
are unable to bring it into line with their theories, it seems to me
that if all the rest of our material had been destroyed, this voyage
would be regarded as in itself sufficient to substantiate the fact of
Norse discovery.

Slight and sketchy as it is, it presents fewer real difficulties
than any other. The chronicler, like his hero, was not interested in
the lands seen, but in the adventures of the ship, and both courses
and distances are given with perhaps greater precision and accuracy
than any others in these sagas. Probably this arises from the fact
that but few copies were ever made of this narrative. It was, as has
been already hinted, of little interest to the general reader of a
pre-Columbian age; it could appeal only to sailors and navigators,
who would be more interested in the accurate preservation of the data
supplied by it than would a mere scribe, wholly ignorant or misinformed
as to the actual topographical details.

It is worth while noticing how full the narrative is of nautical
phraseology and details of interest to sailors only. This confirms
one’s impression of its genuineness, as of course the story, if true,
must originally have been told by Bjarni or one of his sailors. The
lowering and hoisting of sails, the necessity for reefing on the voyage
home, together with such expressions as ‘distinguish the airts’ or,
as in our translation, ‘get their bearings’, ‘left the land to port
and let the sheet turn towards it’, ‘turned the bows from the land’,
‘the land was laid’, i.e. lost below the horizon (landit var vattnat),
give this part of the story an extremely nautical colour, while they
add little to the general interest of the tale. Moreover we get course
and distance in the greatest detail, except during the period of fog,
when the sailors themselves could have had no knowledge of what was
happening.

The simplest way of dealing with this voyage is to plot it backwards
from Greenland. The outward journey is but vaguely indicated, as that
of a ship struggling unsuccessfully on a westerly course against
northerly gales, and confused by fogs and many days of drifting. The
ship was presumably provisioned for a dangerous voyage into unknown
seas, yet appears to have been running short of water and other
necessaries before the end; one is consequently justified in assuming
a really long period for the duration of these adverse influences. The
voyage home is, however, recorded with the utmost precision.

Taking the data arrived at in Chapter V for the length of a ‘dægr
sigling’, we may plot the distance represented by this unit at
about 150 miles. The wind, we are told, was south-west. Plot from
Herjulfsness (Sermesok) in the south of Greenland four ‘dægr’ units
in a south-westerly direction and then draw a land-form which will
serve for the ‘island’ which was the third land seen, follow its coast
to a point further south, to cover the coasting voyage described,
then plot five more ‘dægr’ units south-west. Lastly mark land on
the course at the end of the five days and also two days from the
end. The result will be as shown on the shaded portions of the
sketch. These indications are quite near enough to the truth to show
pretty conclusively that the ‘lands’ were the Barnstable peninsula
(Massachusetts), Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland respectively. It is
true that if these lands are restored to their correct positions on
the map, the courses are only roughly north-east, and the distance
from Newfoundland to Greenland is lengthened, but during the last
part of the voyage it must be remembered that the wind was much
stronger, and the distance between either Cape Freels or Cape St. John
in Newfoundland and Sermesok (Herjulfsness) in Greenland is under
720 miles, and could easily be covered in four days and nights under
conditions as favourable as those of Thorar Nefjolfson’s voyage to
Iceland discussed in Chapter V. The whole account so far is quite
consistent and probable.

[Illustration: VOYAGE OF BJARNI HERJULFSON]

The problem may now be tackled in a different way. Bjarni, before
reaching Greenland, is met by a strong northerly gale. He struggles
against it for some time, and, delaying too long the moment for heaving
to, is forced to run before the wind. He is driven to the Newfoundland
Banks, where he runs into fog, and lowering sail, as we are told
he did, he drifts for some time. The set of the current is in the
direction of Cape Cod; the wind, working round with the sun as the
weather improved, would tend to drive him in the same direction. There
is accordingly no difficulty in supposing him to have first sighted
land somewhere on the Barnstable peninsula in the neighbourhood of Cape
Cod. The description given of this land, while not distinctive, is
certainly not inconsistent with the conclusion arrived at.

Now Bjarni is entirely taken up with the idea of getting back to
Greenland. Where is he? He has been sailing for a long time in an
attempt to get westward; he is probably to the west of his destination.
Moreover there is an unknown shore to the west or north of him, to
which he must give a wide berth. The visible change in the altitude of
the Pole-star or the mid-day sun, and the difference in the length of
the day, are data which show an experienced sailor that he is a long
way too far south. He must get away from the unknown coast into the
open sea, and he must go east and north. Sailing therefore on a course
slightly to the north of east, he sights in two days another land,
the south-western projection of Nova Scotia, ‘low-lying, and covered
with wood.’ This is not the least like Greenland: he sails away again
on the same course. The shore, trending here to the northward, sinks
out of sight, but after about 500 miles of open sea covered in three
‘dægr’ he sights some part of the south coast of the Avalon peninsula
of Newfoundland. It is a bleak-looking coast, and there are icebergs
about; moreover, though Bjarni’s reckoning still makes him too far
south, the crew have already been grumbling, and it must be proved to
their satisfaction that this is not Greenland. As regards the ice, I
am of course aware that the saga uses the word ‘jökul’, which suggests
glaciers, and it may well be that this is an embroidery on the part
of the author, accustomed to associate glaciers with any desolate
landscape. ‘Jökul’, however, can also mean merely ice, and is so used
in Gretti’s Saga and elsewhere. Icebergs, according to _the King’s
Mirror_, were known to Greenlanders as ‘falljöklar’. There may be some
confusion here. Still, there would be bergs about, and the appearance
of the country would be more Arctic; the place had better be explored a
bit. Accordingly Bjarni follows the coast till he convinces himself and
his crew that this place is merely an island. Probably he came to this
conclusion on rounding the Avalon peninsula; possibly he sailed as far
as Cape Freels or slightly further. It is less likely that he sailed
through the Strait of Belle Isle, and so conclusively demonstrated the
insular character of Newfoundland, for, if so, he could hardly have
avoided sighting the Labrador coast, which he evidently never saw. That
the Norsemen, without carrying their investigation so far, should have
come to the conclusion that what they saw was an island is not in
the least remarkable, when it is remembered that for nearly 100 years
after its rediscovery Newfoundland was regarded, owing to the broken
and indented character of its coastline, as an archipelago, and is so
depicted on the earlier charts.[99]

Anyhow, Bjarni came to the conclusion that this ‘third land’ was an
island. There is nothing conventional in the statement; it is not
suggested of the other lands, and the fact that the island comes into
the story in its proper place is a strong confirmation of its accuracy.
Having satisfied himself and his crew that this was not Greenland,
Bjarni could fall back with renewed confidence on his own reckoning,
and so reach his destination. That he did so with speed and precision
might give cause for surprise, were there not many well-authenticated
instances in Icelandic literature of men who, after drifting about,
the sport of adverse winds and fogs for a long time, retained to the
last sufficient knowledge of their position to enable them to return
home. It was a creditable feat of seamanship, and we may leave Bjarni
with a greater feeling of respect than his contemporaries seem to have
felt for him, whatever his shortcomings as an explorer may have been.
One point alone in Bjarni’s voyage may at first sight be regarded with
suspicion. This is the exact correspondence between the number of days
sailed and the number of the land reached. They sail two days to the
second land, three to the third, and four to the fourth. As has been
shown, however, in working out the voyage, this is not an impossible
coincidence. I think it is not without importance to note that what
is called ‘the fourth land’ is not a land _ejusdem generis_ with the
others, but is Bjarni’s original objective, Greenland, which would
naturally be so called. This looks to me rather as if the coincidence
above referred to was noted, and used as a _memoria technica_ for the
time occupied on the voyage.

_Leif._

Leif’s voyage may be dealt with shortly. The description of Helluland
is open to the suspicion that it has been coloured by the imagination
of the saga-writer. Snowy hills in Labrador may account for the ‘great
glaciers’, but it looks like a feature borrowed from Greenland to
emphasize the forbidding character of the landscape. The reason given
for the name, Helluland, may easily be founded upon the name itself.
However, as stated in the preceding chapter, it does not much matter
whether the landfall in Helluland was Labrador or Newfoundland, as,
before the discovery of the Strait of Belle Isle, both would presumably
be regarded as one country by an explorer coasting south. Leif’s
Markland, as already suggested (p. 232), sounds much more like Nova
Scotia than Newfoundland.

Now as to Wineland. The Flatey Book tells us that Leif, having arrived
on the shores of Wineland, landed at once, and conducted no further
exploration, except in the immediate vicinity. The passage recording
the eagerness of the men to get to shore is very convincing, and we are
probably justified in accepting it. In any case we have no evidence
that Leif’s expedition proceeded further along the coast of Wineland
after his arrival. In fact, the statement that it did not is to some
extent confirmed by the opinion, attributed to Thorvald, that the new
country had been insufficiently explored; it is also borne out by the
circumstance that Karlsefni and his crew manifestly expected to find
the locality of Leif’s camp somewhere in the neighbourhood of Keelness,
where they first arrived, but were uncertain as to which side of this
promontory it was situated. (See account of Karlsefni’s voyage in the
Saga of Eric the Red.) We are told that Karlsefni divided his forces,
one party sailing north of Keelness while the other proceeded in
the opposite direction. Clearly therefore Keelness, as the point of
departure selected, was supposed to be in the neighbourhood of Leif’s
landfall, and this confirms the view indicated by the Flatey Book that
Leif stayed at a point near that first sighted in Wineland.

It is difficult therefore to accept Mr. Babcock’s view that Leif
conducted a long coasting voyage along the shores of the United States;
at least it may be said that there is no positive evidence to support
such a theory.

So far we may treat the Flatey account as correct. The report brought
home by Leif, however, seems to have been more concerned with the
discoveries made on land than with the details of the coast in the
neighbourhood of his camp. Hence, as has been pointed out earlier, the
Flatey Book, which erroneously supposed all landfalls in Wineland to be
the same, proceeds to draw the description required from some abridged
account of Karlsefni’s voyage. Hóp is quite clearly indicated, and
this place we know was only reached by Karlsefni after a long coasting
voyage.

When we come to the consideration of the situation of Hóp, in connexion
with Karlsefni’s expedition (see next chapter), we shall, I think, be
perfectly justified in supplementing the description of this place
from what we are told of Leif’s landfall. The two places are obviously
identical. But the fact that this is the case puts a full stop to
any attempt to identify Leif’s camp in Wineland. If, as I think is
the case, Thorvald’s voyage took place as narrated in the Flatey
Book, it may throw some light on his predecessor’s discoveries, since
Thorvald, having the benefit of his brother’s advice, and probably
several members of the same crew, would be very likely to arrive at
the same destination. If so, as will be seen later, some place in
the neighbourhood of Chatham harbour on the heel of the Barnstable
peninsula seems indicated. But of course such an identification
involves a good deal of conjecture.

A word may be said here as to the account given of the discovery of
the vines, which has been severely criticized. It may well have been
touched up, but the very ignorance of the nature of vines which is
attributed to the saga-writer makes part of the story inherently
probable. The Greenlanders knew nothing of vines, and might not have
recognized them on sight. If, on the other hand, they had with them
a native of a wine country, the discovery is explained. This point
has impressed Neckel, who goes so far as to say that Icelanders or
Greenlanders of the period would certainly not have recognized grapes
on seeing them. Preferring Hauk’s version to that of the Flatey Book,
he is forced to the hypothesis that the original discoverer was the
priest who accompanied Leif on his missionary journey, and who may
have been a foreigner from a wine country, though as Olaf drew largely
for such men on the British Isles, Neckel’s conjecture is rather a wild
one. Now the difficulty is one which may strike a modern commentator,
though it does not seem to have troubled many of them, but it does not
appear to me at all likely that a writer of the saga period considered
the question so deeply as to invent a German to account for the
discovery. Tyrker in fact meets a difficulty which is only apparent
to a critical type of mind not then in existence. Tyrker is therefore
probable; in any case such a man was better qualified than half-naked
Scots like Hake and Hekja, whose _forte_ was rather activity than
botany.

As to Tyrker’s drunkenness, the circumstance that he spoke German,
which happened to be his native tongue, would not perhaps be considered
conclusive at Bow Street, yet possibly the saga-writer may have meant
to indicate intoxication. Nor is such intoxication necessarily a
figment of the historian. We must remember that Thorhall the Hunter,
as one gathers from his satiric verses, had evidently been promised a
drink in Wineland, and it therefore seems likely that some crude sort
of wine was actually made. This again calls for the presence of someone
with experience of wine-making, an art for which the priest, one would
think, would possess neither the capacity nor the inclination. The task
would not, however, be difficult. As Mr. Babcock has reminded us (p.
93), the _Historie of Travaile into Virginia_ asserts that at a later
date ‘twenty gallons at one time have sometimes been made, without any
other help than crushing the grapes in the hand, which letting to
settle five or six days hath in the drawing forth proved strong and
heady.’ In further support of the theory that wine was made, one may
refer to the words of Adam of Bremen,—‘producing the best wine.’ Who
more likely to have tried the method alluded to above than Tyrker of
the vineyards? And he may well have kept the experiment dark till he
had put his brew to a practical test.

But none of this really matters; the bare fact of the discovery of
grapes, which is abundantly corroborated, is the important thing.

_Thorvald._

Whether or no Thorvald Ericson was the leader of an independent
expedition, as stated in the Flatey Book, or a companion of Karlsefni,
as the rival versions make him, there can be no doubt that the voyage
on which he met with his death is described in all the accounts in
language which shows substantial agreement as to the topographical
facts. It is therefore possible, and even advisable, to deal with
Thorvald’s explorations as if no question of their connexion with
Karlsefni’s expedition had in fact arisen.

Thorvald’s base appears to have been situated on a coast facing
approximately south, along which, we are told, two voyages of
exploration were conducted. The first of these, according to the Flatey
Book, was carried out in a small boat, and lay to the west of the camp.
The expression used, ‘fyrir vestan landit’, might also be understood
to mean off or along a coast facing west, but this interpretation is
excluded by the fact that an island lying to the west (vestarliga) was
visited, and also by the absence of any coast fulfilling the required
conditions on the eastern seaboard of America, except the Nova Scotian
border of the Bay of Fundy. This last does not suit in any way, for we
are told ‘there were many islands and many shoals’, a circumstantial
statement unlikely to have been invented, and therefore reliable. Very
shallow water indeed is indicated in a report derived from persons in
a small boat, whose draught must have been insignificant. Now the name
Bay of Fundy is said to be a corruption of Baya Fonda (deep bay), and
the details given in the _Coast Pilot_ confirm the appropriateness of
such a name. Champlain moreover states explicitly, on passing Cape
Fourchu northwards, that ‘this coast is clear, _without islands, rocks
or shoals_; so that in our judgment vessels can securely go there.’

The only other feature in the description of the saga, ‘well-wooded
sandy shores’, is hardly more appropriate to a coast which is mainly
bold and rocky.

We are safe, then, in assuming a starting-point on a coast facing
south. To the east of the base the land must soon have turned towards
the north, to fulfil the conditions required by Thorvald’s second
voyage. So far there are two possibilities presented by the narrative:
the south coast of Nova Scotia, and that of the United States to the
west of Cape Cod. The latter exactly fulfils the conditions demanded by
the first or westerly voyage. In the words of the _Coast Pilot_, ‘from
the southern and principal entrance to Chatham harbour, the coast is
_low and sandy_, with _well-wooded hills in the background_, taking
a _generally westward direction_.’ It is, as the chart shows, a mass
of shoals, and there are a considerable number of quite important
islands, including Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and the Elizabeth
Islands, in the vicinity. In fact it would be hard to find a place more
accurately fitting the description given. The voyage, being conducted
in a small boat, was probably not a very long one.

[Illustration: THORVALD’S EXPEDITION]

As regards Nova Scotia, there are along this coast also many islands
and a considerable number of shoals, but the coast itself, treated as a
whole, is decidedly less appropriate to the description in the saga.

In considering Thorvald’s final voyage, we may take the descriptions
of both authorities together. We should aim, in fact, at finding a
locality embodying the highest common factor of both versions. To the
point of Keelness both stories agree, the Flatey version saying that
Thorvald sailed ‘fyrir austan’, i.e. either turned eastward from his
camp or followed an eastward-facing coastline. Both may be true if we
consider the starting-point to have lain somewhere on the heel of the
Barnstable peninsula. Thorvald would first turn east and then follow
the eastern coastline of Cape Cod, to reach ‘the more northerly part
of the country’ which, we are told, was his next objective. Eric’s
Saga says they sailed north to Keelness, which comes to the same
thing. Then, according to the Flatey version, they were wrecked on the
point of Keelness, and, after a long stay to carry out the necessary
repairs, they turned eastward into a closely adjacent fjord. The fact
that it was closely adjacent is important. Eric’s Saga states that on
rounding Keelness they bore along to the west of it, which, as Dieserud
points out—though with a different intention—should be taken with the
phrase which follows, ‘nordr aptr’ (back north), and therefore means a
voyage southwards along the west coast of the promontory, not a voyage
westwards. Apart from the clue given by the expression ‘back north’,
the Icelandic would bear either interpretation.

The same version of the narrative then mentions that they came to a
river flowing from east to west, and lay by its southern bank. Now, if
we consider Keelness to be Cape Cod, both versions are roughly correct,
though the Flatey Book is slightly more so than Eric’s Saga. From the
extreme point of Cape Cod the course would lie eastward to the mouth
of the Pamet river, which flows westward, but, broadly speaking, the
expedition would be following the west coast of the peninsula. In the
time of the Pilgrim Fathers all this coast was densely wooded. As to
its being a beautiful spot for a home, this may have been Thorvald’s
opinion, or an embellishment by the story-teller, who has apparently
introduced some fictitious touches here of bodings and warnings. Such
a detail need not trouble us. The only objection to the theory is that
the Saga of Eric the Red says that they had sailed a long time; if
this, however, means from Straumsfjord and not merely from Keelness, it
may well be literally true.

The alternative theory, which carries this voyage round Cape Breton
Island, in addition to difficulties about the scenery, and such
objections as apply to Nova Scotia generally, is open to the criticism
that it has altogether to reject the easterly course from the end
of the promontory which is mentioned in the Flatey Book. As a rule,
in spite of all that is alleged by Storm, the Flatey version, as I
have endeavoured to show, is more accurate in its courses than the
alternative record; the objection, however, if it stood alone, would
no doubt be of small weight. The rejection of the Nova Scotia theory,
in fact, involves consideration of the arguments adduced against it
throughout, rather than those which apply to this particular point.

It is perhaps worth while to draw attention here to the inconsistency
with which the uniped episode is interpolated. The explorers are by
the southern bank of a river running from east to west. The uniped
comes from the north, and retires in that direction. Consequently the
obstacle of a navigable river-mouth lies between this creature and
the pursuit which we are told, both in the text and the incorporated
verses, immediately took place. The fact appears to be that the river
is part of one story (Thorvald’s) and the uniped belongs to another,
which some one has tried to edit into conformity, with but slender
success.

There seems, in fact, to be a double interpolation here. After
Karlsefni has been brought to Straumsfjord with the intention of
returning home, the author feels that it is his last chance of working
in any odd scraps which he has collected from various sources. Hence,
having a description of the death of a son of Eric not previously or
otherwise known to him, which seems to have occurred in Wineland,
he attributes it to Karlsefni’s expedition, and combines it with
a separate anecdote, properly belonging to Karlsefni—but no part
of the main saga—which refers to the pursuit of a supposed uniped.
Possibly the sole source referring to the uniped on which the author’s
imagination worked was the verse incorporated here.

The apparently corrupt but much-discussed passage about the mountains
at Hóp and those seen elsewhere will be dealt with later on: it is, I
believe, part of the original Karlsefni matter, and has no relation to
the voyage of Thorvald. (See next chapter, p. 277.)

VIII. KARLSEFNI’S EXPEDITION

_Date._

As has been pointed out in the chapter on the Flatey Book (p. 137),
the expedition of Thorfin Karlsefni must have followed those of Leif
and the rest of Eric’s family at a considerable interval of time.
Though this has not been generally realized, it is not a mere matter
of opinion, but rests upon cogent and conclusive evidence when once
the known points of chronology are closely examined. Apart from this,
it is evident on consideration that it would involve a very curious
coincidence if Karlsefni arrived in Greenland exactly at the time
when the efforts of Eric’s sons at exploration were exhausted. It is
therefore far more unlikely in the case of Karlsefni than in that
of Thorvald, assuming the latter to have conducted an independent
expedition, that the landfalls were the same as those made by Leif. If
we accept Hauk’s version of the story, Leif’s voyage took place in A.D.
1000, and in any case it cannot have been many years later, while 1020
is as early as we can reasonably place Karlsefni’s expedition. For this
reason, apart from any others, it is right to assign to this voyage a
separate chapter and independent consideration.

_Greenland to Helluland._

Karlsefni’s starting-point, we are told, was not from the neighbourhood
of Eric’s home at Brattahlid, but from the Western Settlement
(Godthaab), and the ‘Bear Islands’. The latter name was apparently
applied to Disko, far to the northward, but it is difficult to
suppose that Thorfin sailed so far in the opposite direction to his
objective. It is more probable that the name refers to some islands
in the immediate neighbourhood of Godthaab. One has only to remember
the frequent occurrence of such local names as Bjørnuren, Bjørnlien,
in Norway, to realize that nomenclature of this character is often
repeated, indeed one need not go outside this saga for an instance of
such a repetition (in the neighbourhood of Markland).

Possibly the Western Settlement was visited for recruiting purposes.
The visitors from Iceland, as we are told, only accounted for 80 men
out of the 160 eventually taking part in the expedition; the original
Icelandic crews, after a winter in Greenland, would probably need to
be brought up to strength, and the better part of 100 volunteers must
have been difficult to collect in so small a colony.[100] Mr. Babcock,
p. 97, seems to think that the shortest way to Labrador _via_ the
north was already known in Greenland, and he also, curiously enough,
considers it the safest route. On the question of danger there is room
for difference of opinion, but it may be pointed out that progress from
north to south or _vice versa_ is frequently impeded by ice till a
late date in the summer. The very slow Moravian mission ship, sailing
from London, often reaches the stations on the Labrador coast before
the Newfoundland steamer service, since, sailing from east to west,
she travels across instead of along the ice-barrier. Karlsefni’s
ultimate and principal objective being to the south, he would hardly
have deliberately undertaken so dangerous, unexplored, and roundabout a
course, even if he had known of the possibility, which seems extremely
doubtful. As a basis for calculation we may therefore safely put the
point of departure in the neighbourhood of Godthaab.

From this point we are told that the expedition sailed for two days
with a north wind, i.e. in a southerly direction. It should be pointed
out that the map occurring opposite page 106 of Mr. Babcock’s treatise
is very misleading as to the courses which it suggests. It contains no
meridians, and is tilted westward at an angle of nearly 40 degrees,
with the result that the Western Settlement of Greenland is brought
almost exactly north of the neighbourhood of Nain on the Labrador
coast, which is the point selected by the author for Karlsefni’s
landfall in Helluland. As a matter of fact there are not far short
of 10 degrees of longitude between the two places, and the course
between them is very far to the west of south. Mr. Babcock appears to
have chosen this point on the coast of Labrador in order to retain
the statement made as to the voyage having occupied but two days. The
distance being about 450 miles, the author is compelled to assume
a speed of nearly ten miles an hour, in support of which he cites
statistics as to the speed of yachts and other modern sailing vessels.
Now, as we have seen in Chapter V, this seems far beyond the capacity
of ancient Icelandic ships, and, since on this point we have definite
evidence, it is impossible that the time can have been correctly
stated, even if we suppose the very nearest point on the Labrador coast
to have been the land first sighted. It is moreover difficult to
suppose that Karlsefni made the nearest point; he had no clue to its
position, and his ultimate objective, for which he had a guide in the
directions of his predecessor, Leif, lay far to the south.

Nor is a long coasting voyage along the shores of Helluland in any
way suggested by the text; in fact it is inconsistent with it. In the
summer, or still more in the spring, Karlsefni would almost certainly
have been greatly impeded by ice off the Labrador coast, but no mention
is made of any such feature. We must therefore either abandon the
figure, two days, altogether, which—having regard to its repetition
later on—is possibly the right course, or we must substitute some
plausible alternative. Reeves suggests ‘sjau’ (seven) for ‘tvau’ (two),
but in the manuscripts numbers seem to be usually given in figures.
A possible amendment would be five (=u=), as, if the light stroke
connecting the verticals in writing this figure had become erased by
time, =íí= and =u= would be almost identical in Icelandic manuscript.
This would be equivalent to 750 miles at average speeds, and would
bring land more nearly to the south of the starting-point well within
range.[101] It is, however, safer on the whole to decide that we have
no reliable guide to the distance.

The question of the situation of Karlsefni’s landfall in Helluland has
been already discussed (Chapter VI, p. 230), and we can only adhere to
the conclusion there arrived at, viz. that there is a slight balance
of probability in favour of Labrador as against Newfoundland, but that
both countries would almost certainly have been assumed to be one
and the same. Anyone who doubts this probability has only to look at
the maps reproduced on p. 364 of vol. 2 of Dr. Nansen’s _In Northern
Mists_, where the same confusion is shown to have been made in the case
of Corte Real.

_Markland and Bjarney._

The question of Markland has also been treated at an earlier stage,
and the improbability of the south-easterly course on which the
identification of this country with Newfoundland mainly depends has
been pointed out. Whatever theories we adopt as to the situation of the
various lands, it is clear that the courses given in the Saga of Eric
the Red and Hauk’s Book must at some point be abandoned. For example,
Storm identifies the coast of Nova Scotia with that followed by
Karlsefni after arrival at Keelness. The lie of this coast is a great
deal nearer west than south, which is the direction given, and the same
applies to the coast of New England after passing Cape Cod, which seems
to be the alternative. A uniform southerly course is excluded. Again,
two days of open sea from Newfoundland to Cape Breton, or from Cape
Sable to Cape Cod, especially the former, would indicate a westerly
rather than a southerly course for the expedition. If, on the other
hand, we assume the explorers to have coasted Newfoundland to Cape Ray,
the course to Nova Scotia is corrected at the expense of the distance.
The upshot of all this is that, as already indicated, a course given
in this version of the saga is a most unsatisfactory piece of evidence
on which to found an important conclusion. Moreover, Eric’s Saga is
silent as to this deflexion to the south-east, which consequently rests
upon Hauk’s unsupported authority. This editor may merely have thought
that, as the island next mentioned lay to the south-east, such a course
was necessarily implied.

On this island off the shore of Markland to the south-east we are told
that the explorers killed a bear, conferring in consequence the name
Bjarney (Bear Island) on the place in question. It has been generally
assumed that this must necessarily mean a polar bear. But Karlsefni was
acquainted with Norway, where the European bear still exists and must
then have been common, so that one would think that a bear which was
not white would equally be called a bear. I would further suggest that
this would be the case even if no bears other than the polar species
had previously been known to members of the expedition. But secondly,
supposing a polar bear to be meant, there does not seem any violent
improbability in the idea that one should be found, in the eleventh
century, so far south as Nova Scotia. At a far later date, Arctic
fauna had a much more southerly habitat than at present. Walrus were
regularly hunted in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as is shown by a number
of passages in Hakluyt. As to the polar bear itself, its restriction
to its present northerly habitat appears to be even more recent. In
Labrador, as far south and inland as Eagle River Falls, Sandwich Bay,
Captain Cartwright records in his diary under date July 22, 1778:
‘Numbers were in sight. I counted thirty-two white bears, and three
black ones; but there were certainly many more.’ In earlier days
Jacques Cartier found a polar bear between Newfoundland and the Funk
Islands, while both Cabot and Corte Real found the same animal on what
was probably Newfoundland, and cannot certainly have been far north of
it. It may further be pointed out that white bearskins are mentioned
more than once in the _Algonquin Legends of New England and Nova
Scotia_, collected by C. G. Leland. As to bears on islands, whether
white or black, Cartier found them on Brion Island, so there is no
improbability in this feature. If a polar bear is meant, Sable Island
seems a possible location for Bjarney, but in any case there are many
islands off the Nova Scotian coast which would fulfil the conditions.

_Furdustrands._

Until, however, the expedition reaches Keelness, we are on very
uncertain ground, and it would be imprudent to insist upon any definite
conclusion. We may in fact, at this stage, so far as our information
hitherto has taken us, be either at the north-eastern extremity of Nova
Scotia or in the vicinity of Cape Cod, according as our identification
of Helluland and Markland agrees with Storm or otherwise. We may
however fairly say that the choice lies between these two localities.
Any other theory breaks down at the first touch of criticism.

But when the description of Keelness given in the saga is compared
with what we know of the Nova Scotian coastline, one meets at once
with a very formidable objection to Storm’s theory. For here began
Furdustrands, the Wonderful Beaches, so called from their great length,
and thus described:—‘It was a desolate place, and there were long
beaches and sands there.... They gave the beaches a name, calling them
Furdustrands, because the sail past them was long.’ It appears too, as
already hinted, that this feature was sufficiently marked to give rise
to the application of the name to a large district, extending at least
to Straumsfjord (cf. second song of Thorhall the Hunter, see also p.
227).

_Mr. Babcock’s Theory._

Now the coast of Nova Scotia cannot, to an unprejudiced eye, be said
to comprise any continuous beach of a really remarkable length. On the
contrary, it is both indented and rocky. Mr. Babcock clearly sees this
difficulty; his remarks on the subject have been already referred to
(p. 234). He requires a continuous stretch of at least 100 miles for
Furdustrands, and this estimate compares favourably with those put
forward by Storm and most of his adherents. Now, to meet the objection
which is here raised, Mr. Babcock postulates a rise in the Nova
Scotian coastline since the eleventh century sufficient to account for
what is otherwise a fatal discrepancy in its present appearance. He
frankly admits that there is no direct evidence of such a phenomenon,
and indeed that ‘locally there is some scientific opinion that this
probably has not occurred’. But this is not the most that can be said.
In the first place, the early explorers who followed on the rediscovery
of the country found the coast exactly as it is to-day. The upheaval
postulated must therefore have taken place, if at all, within an
even shorter period than that allowed by Mr. Babcock. Thus Champlain
writes: ‘All the coast which we passed along from Cape Sable to this
place (Canso) is moderately high and rocky, in most places bordered by
numerous islands and breakers.’ Of Cape Breton Denys says (Green Island
to Louisburg), ‘All the coast is nothing but rocks.’ Thenceforward
‘nothing but rocks’ is a phrase constantly repeated, but one looks in
vain for any mention of a beach. Later on, ‘leaving there (St. Ann’s
harbour) and going to Niganiche (Ingonish) one passes eight leagues
of coast having shores of rock extremely high and steep as a wall....
Niganiche is not a bit better.’ Similarly right on to Cape North. We
have not much room left for these long and wonderful beaches, which so
struck the Norsemen immediately on their arrival at Keelness, and which
were so impressively long to sail past. It is true, as we have seen,
that there are white sands near the south-western end of the peninsula,
but the numerous indentations break up the coastline, and besides,
the description requires a cape facing a ship approaching from more
northerly latitudes.

In the second place, had there been such a change as that suggested
by Mr. Babcock, at so recent a date, there must necessarily have
been positive geological evidence of it. When a beach rises from the
sea, particularly if it be of such great extent as is required in
the present case, traces of the former sea-level remain, in the form
of raised beaches, water-worn rocks, or remains of marine fauna. In
Nova Scotia such things are found indeed, but dating from a period
far antecedent to that with which we are at present concerned. The
formation appears to be contemporaneous with the existence of some
form of mammoth, whose remains have been found, and in many places
the course of these beach-deposits is cut through by river valleys
which have been formed since. (See Dawson, _Acadian Geology_.) Now if
these vestiges, dating from a period antecedent to the existence of
human remains, are still to be traced, it is clearly impossible that
no evidence should survive of what is alleged to have happened at a
date which is, geologically speaking, yesterday. Mr. Babcock’s theory
must accordingly be abandoned, in spite of his careful, ingenious, and
elaborate argument, and, this being so, we are still faced with an
insuperable difficulty in the way of associating Furdustrands with Nova
Scotia.

_Cape Cod as Keelness._

Now let us turn to the alternative suggested, and consider Cape Cod to
be Keelness. Karlsefni has now indeed been brought to a coast meriting
the name bestowed, ‘a desolate place, with long beaches and sands.’ Not
only does the Cape Cod or Barnstable peninsula, as Horsford saw, comply
with the description, but beyond this point the name Furdustrands might
appropriately be applied to nearly the whole Atlantic coastline of
the United States. Passing the shores and sand-hills of Cape Cod and
Monomoy, from Chatham at the heel of the promontory to Nobska Point
at the entrance to Buzzard’s Bay, the coast, as the United States
_Pilot_ describes it (p. 341), ‘is low and sandy.’ If the course lay
to the south of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard the same description
would apply. Here there is a slight break formed by the indentations
of Buzzard’s and Narragansett Bays, but the former is masked from the
sea, until passed, by the Elizabeth Islands, and the latter by the
islands at its mouth; the prospect throughout was an unattractive
one, and these bays, from the sea, might easily pass unnoticed, while
from Point Judith, west of Narragansett Bay, to the entrance of Long
Island Sound, by Watch Hill Point, there is still, in the words of the
_Coast Pilot_, ‘a low beach with lagoons inside and higher wooded
land at the back.’ Until arrival at Straumsfjord, no attempt was made
to land. As Mr. Babcock notices, the episode of Hake and Hekja is
obviously an interpolation from another source, as no vines had been
found up to the time of Thorhall’s versified comments on the subject.
We have consequently to look for but one indentation, that presented by
Straumsfjord. The answer to Mr. Dieserud’s objection to Cape Cod that
the wild grape flourishes there close to the sea, and must therefore
have been found, is that no landing was made there.[102] Karlsefni,
unattracted by the prospect, sailed on, and consequently the discovery
was deferred. ‘They went their ways, till interrupted by a fjord’,
so one might almost interpret the language of the saga. In any case,
the likeliest fjord to attract attention on a coasting voyage would
be one lying right in the track of the ship. And such a fjord, if my
conjecture is right, was Straumsfjord.

_Straumsfjord._

Dead in the course of a ship following the coast westward from Cape Cod
lies Long Island Sound. Though not, strictly speaking, a fjord, it has,
until the East River channel, leading to New York, is explored, exactly
the appearance of one. It is very narrow at each end, and its greatest
breadth, fifteen to sixteen miles, is only maintained for about twenty
miles in its central part. Until the sound was explored by Adriaan
Block in 1614, it was probably not known that Long Island was separated
from the mainland.

[Illustration: SUGGESTED POSITION OF STRAUMSFJORD & HÓP]

At the mouth of the sound is an important island, Fisher’s Island, with
an extreme length of six miles, between which and the less important
Gull Islands runs a strong tidal stream, appropriately known as the
Race. This is sufficiently formidable to necessitate the warning of
the _Coast Pilot_,—‘Sailing vessels in the vicinity of the Race, or
navigating along the southern side of the Sound near Gull and Plum
Islands, should give them a wide berth when the ebb stream is running,
or they may be drawn into one of the passages before aware of their
danger.’ ‘There is always a strong tide-rip in the Race except for a
period of about thirty minutes slack between the turn of the streams.’

Long Island is of interest to naturalists as a meeting-place for
equatorial and arctic species of birds, and was a centre of the whaling
industry as late as the first part of the nineteenth century, and
Douglas, as already mentioned, in his _Summary of the Planting of the
British North American Settlements_ (1760) mentions specially that
small whales affect the flats of Long Island. Altogether this sound
appears to fulfil in every respect the requirements of Straumsfjord.
The mainland immediately to the north of Fisher’s Island is hilly,
though the mention of mountains at Straumsfjord may have another
significance, which will be dealt with later on.

Now if we assume that the dispute between Karlsefni and the unruly
Thorhall took place on Fisher’s Island or the mainland near it, the
arguments of the two men would run somewhat as follows: Thorhall
asserts that Leif’s landfall in Wineland must lie to the north of
Keelness (Cape Cod), because Leif could not possibly have arrived
on the coast which the later expedition had just explored, after
leaving Markland, without previously sighting land. Karlsefni, on the
other hand, regarding Keelness as the northernmost extremity of the
country, has observed that from that narrow promontory the land has
widened indefinitely as its southern coast was explored, and his view
‘that the region which lay more to the south was the larger’ may be
paraphrased thus: the northern extremity of the country was obviously
so narrow that Leif’s landfall could hardly have passed unobserved,
whereas, here, to the south, the country is of enormous extent, so
that, while we know everything there is to the north, to the south we
may find anything. This appears to me a more reasonable explanation
of this rather obscure passage than Dr. Nansen’s, viz. that it ‘was
evidently due to the assumption that it (Wineland) was connected with
Africa’.[103] Of such an assumption no real trace can be found, except
in a later Icelandic geography, ‘thence it is not far to Wineland the
Good, which some think is connected with Africa.’ To a geographer,
anxious to place his countries within the limits of the known world,
such a theory would be eminently natural. Confused by classical notions
of the all-encircling Mare Oceanum, and hampered by the limitations
imposed by early religious orthodoxy, primitive science would tend to
deny the possibility of land connected with the known world on the
farther side of the Atlantic; and to Africa, as the most westerly part
of the world to the south of Iceland, the newly discovered lands would
naturally be attributed; but it is hardly likely that Karlsefni would
be hampered by geographical theories—at any rate there is no real trace
of it in the saga.

_The Situation of Hóp._

Coming now to the furthest limits of Karlsefni’s expedition, at Hóp, it
is obvious that we are provided in this case with a description which
affords us more promising data than those with which we have hitherto
been forced to be content. If we combine the information given in
Eric’s Saga with that provided by the Flatey Book account of Leif’s
camp, which clearly refers to the same place, the description becomes
even more distinctive.

We need a land-locked bay, largely barred by shoals, guarded on one
side of the entrance by a cape facing north, and on the other by an
island, or something which might pass for one on a hasty visit. Into
this bay a river must flow, which expands into a lake-like widening
near its mouth, and then narrows, so as to divide the lake from the
bay. This river must flow in from the north, as the Skrælings who
visited the camp are said to have come from the south. A minor point,
which is not so reliable as the remainder, is the mention of salmon in
the river, which is included in the Flatey Book description.

Now it is manifestly not every river-estuary or land-locked bay which
will conform to such a description in all, or even in nearly all,
particulars. If therefore we find, in a suitable part of the American
coast, a place which fulfils every one of these requirements, we may
make our identification with something approaching certainty.

Now if the entrance of Long Island Sound be accepted as the site of the
Straumsfjord base, the furthest limit of the exploration, at Hóp, can
be made to fit the requirements of the story in a really remarkable
way. I am convinced that it is a mistake to look for all the places
mentioned in Karlsefni’s voyage within the restricted limits which
seem to have contented other students of the subject. It seems to me
illogical, when we hear of voyages of two or three days covering very
considerable distances, to suppose when the saga says, ‘they sailed a
long time,’ that we can be content to look for all the places mentioned
in the course of a year’s exploration within a few hours’ sail of one
another. It took a long time to sail past Furdustrands, and it was
a long way from Straumsfjord to Hóp. The latter place is therefore
to be sought about as far on from Straumsfjord as Straumsfjord was
from Keelness. One has, moreover, to bear in mind, in searching for
likely landfalls, that it is by no means every inlet which is likely
to attract the notice of sailors on a coasting voyage. Openings which
lie directly in their course, of which the situation selected for
Straumsfjord is an example, are really far more likely to be explored.
Now, about as far to the west of the entrance to Long Island Sound
as Cape Cod lies to the east of it, the direction of the coast-line
undergoes an abrupt change. And exactly in the angle formed by this
change of direction is a bay, fulfilling all the requirements of Hóp.
It is a land-locked estuary, largely barred by shoals, with a river
running into it from the north, which widens into a lake among hills a
short distance from the mouth. The approach involves a westerly course
between a cape running north and an island. This is the bay or estuary
of the Hudson River, constituting the modern approach to New York.

This was described by its first recognized discoverer, Verezzano, in
1524, in the following words: ‘We found a very pleasant situation among
some steep hills, through which a very large river, deep at its mouth,
forced its way into the sea.... We passed up this river, about half a
league, when we found it formed _a most beautiful lake_, three leagues
in circuit.’

Juet, in his account of Hudson’s visit to the same place, describes the
estuary itself as a lake, and adds, ‘the mouth of that land hath many
shoalds, and the sea breaketh on them as it is cast out of the mouth
of it.... To the northward off us we saw high hills.... This is a very
good land to fall with, and a pleasant land to see’.

De Laet, in his account of Hudson’s discovery, states, ‘he (Hudson)
found there also vines and grapes, ... from all of which there is
sufficient reason to conclude that it is a pleasant and fruitful
country.’ Even the salmon, reported in the Flatey account of Leif’s
voyage, in which, as has been pointed out, the description is largely
borrowed from Karlsefni’s Hóp, appear formerly to have existed here. At
any rate, Hudson is stated to have found them in this river, both by
Juet and De Laet.

_The Mountains at Hóp._

It is claimed that the analysis of Karlsefni’s voyage which has been
attempted above presents no real difficulty, and is open to far fewer
objections than any alternative theory. It is inconsistent with no fact
alleged in the saga with the exception of the southerly course, and
this, as has been shown, has to be abandoned on any hypothesis. It is
the only theory which really gets over the Furdustrands difficulty; it
provides a Straumsfjord and a Hóp which are both inherently probable
landfalls, and which correspond in every particular with the details
given. It does not seem to me that nearly as much can be said for the
accepted theory of Nova Scotia, or for any other alternative. One
further point must now be referred to. At the end of the section of
Eric’s Saga and Hauk’s Book dealing with the last voyage and death of
Thorvald Ericson comes a sentence which is quite differently rendered
in the two versions. According to the Saga of Eric the Red, it runs,
‘They intended to explore all the mountains, those which were at Hóp,
and those which they found.’ Hauk, however, gives it as follows: ‘They
considered that the mountains which were at Hóp and those which they
now found were all one, and so were close opposite to one another, and
that the distance from Straumsfjord was the same in both directions.’
The word translated ‘intended’ in the first case, and ‘considered’
in the second, is the same, and the first part of the sentence is
therefore nearly identical in the original, except for the omission of
the words ‘at kanna’ (to explore) in Hauk’s rendering.

From this passage, as given by Hauk, it has been understood by Storm
and some other authorities that after rounding Keelness the explorers
came upon mountains which they imagined, rightly or wrongly, to belong
to the same range as others which they had met with at Hóp.

Now the first point which occurs to one in this connexion is that
the passage in question had, at an earlier date than that of any
extant manuscript of the text, already become so corrupt as to be
unintelligible. We can hardly regard the later half of the sentence
as a gloss by Hauk: it is not characteristic of his work to make so
considerable an addition to the matter copied. Still less can we
suppose that the compilers of Eric’s Saga, who never retained any
prejudice in favour of making sense of a passage, introduced the
words ‘to explore’. It looks, in fact, as if at a very early date two
inconsistent attempts had been made to interpret a phrase the meaning
of which was already dubious. It is therefore a very dangerous passage
on which to found any important conclusion.

Secondly, as has been already suggested, the passage about Thorvald
bears all the marks of an interpolation. It comes between two
sentences referring to the return to Straumsfjord which look as if the
saga-writer were taking up the thread of his principal theme after a
digression. It follows immediately after what is obviously information
from a fresh source—the passage beginning ‘Some men say’. It introduces
Thorvald suddenly for the first time, if we accept the purer version of
Eric’s Saga (cf. p. 126). It is embellished with a speech plagiarized
from elsewhere, a form of treatment without parallel in the saga.
Towards the end of the suggested interpolation the words ‘they went
back’ are twice repeated in Eric’s Saga. In these circumstances it
seems fairly safe to regard this passage as having formed no part of
the original story.

But if this be so, the sentence now under consideration, which mentions
Hóp and Straumsfjord, cannot belong to the interpolated matter, but
must be part of the original saga, and in this case it cannot refer
to the topography of Thorvald’s voyage, but to the relation between
Straumsfjord and Hóp.

In the third place, it seems unlikely that unscientific explorers would
recognize two ends of a range of mountains as belonging to one another
if separated by a long sea-voyage; the phrase ‘þat staediz mjök svá á’
(were therefore close opposite one another) seems to refer to a closer
connexion, such as that of two sides of the same hill, which would be
much more readily recognized.

The conclusions to be drawn are therefore:

1. The passage is too corrupt to allow of any important argument being
based on it.

2. It is at least doubtful whether it refers to Thorvald’s voyage at
all.

What follows is therefore put forward rather as an interesting
suggestion than as a vital part of the main argument. But assuming
that the sentence under consideration refers to the relation between
Straumsfjord and Hóp, we know that mountains or hills were features of
the landscape of both these places, and such features are not elsewhere
specifically mentioned. If I am right in supposing Straumsfjord to be
Long Island Sound and Hóp the estuary or lower waters of the Hudson,
it would be quite correct to say that hills visible from the one place
would also be visible from the other. If, as seems probable, the camp
or base at Straumsfjord lay near the island at its mouth, it would
also be true to say that any such mountain would be about the same
distance from that camp, whether approached via Long Island Sound or
by a route to the south of Long Island. As the explorers did nothing
else, till the first winter at Straumsfjord, except investigate their
surroundings, it is more than likely that they cruised sufficiently
far up the sound to be able to see hills also visible from the Hudson
valley. If this interpretation could be relied on it would therefore
afford a strong confirmation of the topography suggested in this
chapter, and I feel that this may be the correct explanation of the
passage. It is safer, however, to treat the sentence as irremediably
corrupt, and to conclude that the information it appears to contain may
be a mere gloss, or may express a mistaken notion of the explorers. It
is one of the many points as to which certainty is impossible, but it
equally cannot afford a valid argument against theories which would
otherwise be acceptable.

IX. AFTERMATH AND CONCLUSION.

‘And here’, in the words of Eric’s Saga, ‘this story ends.’ The
attempt at colonization had proved a failure; the snows of Iceland
and Greenland were thenceforward to be preferred to the chance of
frequent collision with the Wineland Skrælings. No further attempt at a
permanent settlement seems ever to have been made.

It by no means follows that the newly-discovered countries remained
unvisited. A land full of timber, lying but a few days’ sail from
Greenland, where such a commodity was unobtainable, must almost
certainly have tempted the members of Eric’s small colony at any rate
to occasional visits. Of these we could not, in the nature of things,
expect to hear much. Always more or less isolated by its dangerous
coast and the little-known sea which separated it from Iceland,
Greenland became after 1294 almost entirely cut off from the land
of saga by the Norwegian royal edict making trade with the former
country a crown monopoly. The minor enterprises of the colonists were,
moreover, of little or no interest to Icelandic audiences.[104]

_Entries in the Annals._

From the prevailing obscurity two attempts at revisiting the New World
emerge in the Icelandic Annals. The first of these may indeed have been
intended as a prelude to further efforts at colonization. In 1121,
Eric, bishop of Greenland, sailed for Wineland. Of his intentions or
subsequent fate nothing is known, but we may imagine a bold resolve
to make an end of the one obstacle to settlement by converting the
Skrælings to Christianity. Anyhow, Bishop Eric set out, and never
returned, his episcopal seat being filled in a few years’ time. It
is true that the bishop is credited by the Danish poet Lyskander
(1609) with complete success both in his missionary and his colonial
enterprise, but of this there is no evidence, and we must regard the
statement as poetical licence.

The second visit recorded is of less importance, but may well have
been more successful in its objects. In 1347, we are told in the
Annals, there arrived in Iceland from Greenland a ship, which struck
the Icelanders as being of exceptionally small size. She had lost her
anchor, but contained a crew of 17 or 18 men, who had been to Markland,
but on the way back to Greenland had been driven by stress of weather
to the harbour where they arrived.

Probably no very unique enterprise is here chronicled. It was but the
accident occasioning the visit of this ship to Iceland which preserved
this voyage from oblivion. ‘Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona.’

_The New Land._

No other clear reference is to be found to subsequent voyages to the
lands named in the sagas of Wineland. In 1285, however, the Annals
mention a discovery of ‘New Land’, which is variously recorded in
different MSS. as follows, taken in order of date:

1. Land was discovered to the west of Iceland.

2. The Down Islands were discovered.

3. Helgi’s sons Adalbrand and Thorvald discovered the New Land.

4. Helgi’s sons sailed to the uninhabited parts of Greenland.

This discovery appears to have created no small stir at the time. The
King of Norway was interested, and commissioned one Land-Rolf to go
to Iceland and organize an expedition for exploring purposes. Rolf,
according to the Annals, sailed to Iceland in 1290, and endeavoured to
carry out his instructions, but he does not seem to have succeeded in
obtaining the requisite support, and his death in 1295 appears to have
put an end to the project.

Where was this New Land?

Storm, following the fourth authority, declares emphatically in
favour of the east coast of Greenland. But, if this be the correct
solution, it is difficult to understand the interest and excitement
occasioned. Voyages to the uninhabited parts of Greenland were not
unprecedented, but were bound to be quite unprofitable; we may doubt,
moreover, whether an isolated landfall on the east coast would have
been dignified with the title of discovery of a New Land. What would
be the object of further exploration? Down would hardly provide a
sufficient incentive; the Iceland eiders must then as now have provided
it in plenty. With lapse of time the supposed position of the New
Land may have become displaced, as we have seen was eventually the
case with Furdustrands. (See further, on this point, p. 294.) But even
if we accept it as true that Helgi’s sons sailed in the direction of
Greenland, it is quite possible that they were driven elsewhere. On the
whole, then, there seems more than a possibility that this allusion
has reference to some part of the American coast, though from the very
fact that it was treated as a new discovery it seems improbable that
the actual lands visited by Karlsefni and his predecessors are here in
question.

_The Hönen Runes._

There is another possible reference to a Wineland voyage, though it
must in any case have been an unsuccessful one. At Hönen in Ringerike
there existed in 1823 a stone with an undoubted runic inscription,
which was fortunately copied in that year. The stone subsequently
disappeared. As is the case with many runic inscriptions, the
interpretation is doubtful, but it has been thus rendered by Professor
Bugge, of Norway:

‘They came out and over wide expanses, and, needing cloth to dry
themselves, and food, away towards Wineland, up into the ice in
the uninhabited country. Evil can take away luck, so that one dies
early.’ (See _In Northern Mists_, vol. ii, p. 27.)[105]

If this is indeed a reference to an expedition to the Wineland with
which we have hitherto been dealing, it is plain that the luckless
explorers must have been driven far out of their course, probably to
some part of Greenland, or possibly the arctic regions of Canada. They
can never have revisited the temperate regions recorded by Leif and
Karlsefni.

_Voyage of Harald Haardraade._

Adam of Bremen’s allusion to Wineland, already referred to (chapter 1,
p. 98), is immediately succeeded by the following report of a voyage
undertaken by King Harald Haardraade, of which no other record is
preserved.

‘After which island (Wineland)’, said he (King Svein), ‘no
habitable land is found in that ocean, but all that is beyond is
full of intolerable ice and utter darkness (_immensa caligine_). Of
which matter Marcianus thus bears record, saying, “Beyond Thule,
one day’s sail, the sea is frozen solid (_concretum_).” This was
lately tested by the most enterprising Harald, prince of the
Norsemen, who, when investigating with his ships the breadth of the
northern ocean, hardly escaped with safety from the awful gulf of
the abyss, by turning back, when at length the bounds of the earth
where it ends (_deficientis_) grew dark before his eyes.’

Professor Yngvar Nielsen, in an article entitled _Nordmaend og
Skraelinger i Vinland_ (Norske Geografiske Selskabs Aarbog for 1904),
argues that the voyage here referred to was possibly another attempt to
find Wineland. He sees, too, a possible connexion with the Hönen runes,
since Harald hailed from Ringerike, from which district the unknown
hero of the inscription would seem also to have come. This connexion
is evidently too fanciful to be taken seriously, though, if Harald’s
voyage had Wineland as its objective, the possibility is not altogether
excluded. It is true that the voyage of the Norwegian king is reported
in a context which links it closely with Wineland, and it seems at
first sight unlikely that Harald would have organized an expedition of
so unprofitable a nature as a mere scientific exploration of the Arctic
Ocean. On the other hand, the words ‘_latitudinem septentrionalis
oceani perscrutatus_’ do seem to suggest that the object was arctic
exploration, and, since Adam considers Marcianus’s remarks about the
sea beyond Thule as relevant, we are not justified in concluding that
Harald’s voyage was any more intimately connected with the question
of Wineland. Of the theory which associates Wineland with the arctic
regions something remains to be said later. (See p. 294). Here we may
merely observe that there does not appear to be any reliable evidence
to connect Harald’s voyage with the subject of Wineland, particularly
as the experiences related, if they amount to more than a sailor’s
yarn, are suggestive of the ice-floes and long night of the Polar
regions.

_Ideas of Icelandic Geography._

An Icelandic geography preserved in various manuscripts of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries contains a reference to the lands
discovered in America, which, in its fullest form, runs as follows:

‘South from Greenland is Helluland, next to it is Markland, thence it
is not far to Wineland the Good, which some men think is connected
with Africa; and, if so, then the outer ocean must fall in between
Wineland and Markland. It is said that Thorfin Karlsefni cut a tree
for a “húsa snotra” (cf. Flatey Book account, p. 71), and after this
went to seek for Wineland the Good, and came where this land was
believed to be, but did not explore it or settle there. Leif the
Lucky was the first to discover Wineland, and on that occasion he
found merchantmen in danger on the sea, and rescued them by God’s
mercy; he also introduced Christianity to Greenland, and it prospered
so that an episcopal seat was placed there, at Garda.’

Part of this account claims to be founded on the information of Abbot
Nicholas of Thingeyre, who died in 1159. The references to Karlsefni
and Leif appear rather to be confused summaries of the statements
contained in the sagas. They can hardly be relied on to displace
anything occurring in the records with which we have been dealing.

As regards the relative position of the three countries, the geography
knows nothing precise, except that Helluland lay to the south of
Greenland, as stated in the Saga of Eric the Red. Probably it was
known, or deduced from the information as to climate, that Markland and
Wineland belonged to lower latitudes, and hence the error, reproduced
in Eric’s Saga, of imagining the course between all the lands to be
uniformly south, was generally accepted. The writers of the geography
do not, however, commit themselves to any such view. Apparently they
knew more about Helluland and Markland than about Wineland, which
looks as if the former had been more recently visited. They evidently
knew that Helluland and Markland were _not_ connected with Africa,
while Wineland might be. With the way in which such a theory as the
connexion between Wineland and Africa may have arisen I have already
dealt (p. 274). The theory, it will be noticed, is mentioned in
connexion with the ancient hypothesis of the all-encircling ocean,
which long hampered geographical and cartographical science.

_Early Maps._

We have to wait till a period subsequent to the re-discovery of
America for the earliest known attempt to depict Wineland, and the
two more northerly lands known to the Norsemen, in the form of a map.
There exists, however, in the Royal Library at Copenhagen, a copy,
made apparently about 1590, of a map drawn by Sigurd Stefansson, an
Icelander, about one hundred years previously. The map is dated 1570,
but it has been clearly proved that this is a mistake on the part of
the copyist, and that the date must probably have been 1590 on the
original map. The general lines of this map are here reproduced. With
regard to the point marked A there is a note by the author betraying a
knowledge of Frobisher’s voyage in 1576, which is in itself sufficient
to show the date, 1570, to be an error.

A map drawn by Hans Poulson Resen in 1605 is also in existence which
covers the same ground, and is so similar in most features that it has
generally been accepted as being a mere copy of Stefansson’s work,
revised in the light of such information as more recent voyages could
provide. The relevant features of this map are also here reproduced.

Now, in the first place, there arises on consideration a very great
difficulty in the way of adopting the current view, maintained by
Storm and others, that the Resen map is based on that of Stefansson.

[Illustration]

The inscription on Resen’s work runs as follows:

‘Indicatio Groenlandiae et vicinarum regionum, versus Septentrionem et
Occidentem, ex antiqua quadam mappa, rudi modo delineata, _ante aliquot
centenos annos_, ab Islandis, quibus tunc erat ista terra notissima, et
nauticis nostri temporis observationibus.’

[Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF GREENLAND ETC. ORIENTED AS IN EARLY
SCANDINAVIAN MAPS]

The error in the date on the extant copy of Stefansson’s map is
manifestly the work of an unintelligent copyist, which makes it
practically certain that the original was also dated; moreover the note
on the point A, to which allusion has been made, is stated to be by
Stefansson himself, and must therefore in all probability have been
attached to the original. In any case it must have been made about the
same time, for the author of the map was drowned in Iceland not long
after the date of its production. It seems, therefore, practically
impossible that Resen, with such evidence of recent composition before
him, could have described as a map made ‘some centuries ago’ a work
so nearly contemporaneous with his own. He could not have, in fact,
formed any such conclusion, and there would be no point in falsely
ascribing to his source an origin which detracts from its authority.
Again, though neither work is a masterpiece, Sigurd Stefansson’s
production compares quite favourably in point of finish with Resen’s,
and could therefore hardly be stigmatized by the latter author as
_rudi modo delineata_. The form, moreover, of Hvitserk in Greenland
is more complicated in Resen’s map than in the earlier work, and, as
the cartographer could have had no modern source from which to correct
this feature, it is difficult to suppose that its form is borrowed
from Stefansson. Finally, Resen introduces in his map such place-names
as Ericsfjord, Vesterbygdsfjord, and Österbygd, which do not occur in
Stefansson, and are not derived from the work of later discoverers.

In fact, all the evidence confirms the probability that both Resen
and Stefansson worked, not one from the other, but both from a common
source, of earlier date, which may well have been made, as Resen
claims, _ante aliquot centenos annos_, and was, if so, pre-Columbian.

Now, if the two maps are independent of one another, the common source
must clearly have contained, not only the representation of Greenland
which is found in both, but equally the representation of Helluland,
Markland, and Wineland, which shows, allowing for revision in the
light of later exploration, almost as marked similarity. Unless,
then, the mapping of these lands is merely based on the contemporary
interpretation of the sagas, we have here fresh evidence of subsequent
voyages, if not to the lands explored by Karlsefni, at least to some
parts of North America which became confused with them.

The hypothesis that the land-forms are merely drawn from a reading
of the sagas is that adopted by Storm. It is difficult, however, to
account in this way for such a feature as the south-easterly trend
from Markland to Wineland, which distinctly conflicts with the sources
which we have been following. There is, moreover, as will be seen by a
comparison with the map on p. 291, a striking resemblance to the actual
form of Baffin Land and northern Labrador, the shape of the latter
peninsula especially in Resen’s map being remarkably accurate in points
not traceable to any map of the period known to me. The indications of
Ungava Bay and Cape Chidley in particular are features unrepresented
by contemporary cartographers, and though Labrador is much too small
in proportion to the two main peninsulas of Baffin Land, this is what
one would expect from crude and early representations, which are apt
to devote more space to well-known than to less-known places. It is
quite clear, in any case, that both Stefansson and Resen considered
that their maps represented Baffin Land and Labrador, and this argues
a better knowledge of the appearance of these localities than other
cartographers of the period seem to have been able to derive from the
reports of explorers. On the whole, then, I incline to the view that
these maps are evidence of voyages to America subsequent to those of
which we have any record.

What then? Must we discard all the conclusions hitherto arrived at,
and adopt those of the Labrador school which we have rejected so
unhesitatingly and for such formidable reasons? By no means. It is
quite in accordance with precedent that a confusion should have arisen
in the identification of places visited by early explorers, and that
Baffin Land and Labrador, when visited by later Norsemen, should have
been wrongly assumed to be the lands discovered and described by their
predecessors. Thus Frobisher’s discoveries in Meta Incognita were for
a long time supposed to be situated in Greenland, while the latter
country, and not that which now bears the name, was the original
Labrador.

To suppose that the old Norsemen, with a possibly imperfect
recollection of the sagas, should have identified Labrador with
Wineland is to accuse them of no grosser error than that committed
by many modern critics of the subject, to whom the whole of the
relevant evidence was readily accessible. The reader can hardly have
failed to notice that some such confusion as is here suggested must,
at a very early date, have taken place. Whereas the sagas themselves
speak clearly of southerly latitudes and a temperate climate, the
later tradition and such records as we have of possible later voyages
indicate an idea that Wineland was to be found in the Arctic Regions.
Thus, the Hönen runes speak of ‘ice in the uninhabited regions’, Adam
of Bremen associates Wineland with ‘intolerable ice’ and frozen seas,
the ‘New Land’ is identified in the later MSS. of the Annals with the
wilds of Greenland, and Furdustrands becomes a region uninhabitable on
account of frost (see p. 227).

It is not difficult to see how such ideas may have arisen in Iceland
and European Scandinavia. The maps under consideration supply us with a
probable clue. Greenland is quite wrongly oriented, with its southern
extremity pointing south-east instead of south, or, as a compass-chart
would have represented it, considerably to the west of south. The
cartographer has evidently been misled by the names Western and Eastern
Settlement, conferred on the colonies at Godthaab and Julianehaab
respectively, which are, in fact, more or less north and south in
relation to one another. The confusion produced by this inappropriate
nomenclature persisted down to very recent times. The effect of such
an error is to suggest to intending explorers that land which really
lies to the west of Greenland may be reached by sailing in a direction
which is actually north. Although I have suggested another reason for
Karlsefni’s alleged visit to the Western Settlement before setting
out on his travels, it is always possible, as Dr. Nansen says (vol.
1, p. 321) that this too is a mistake on the part of the saga-writer,
based on the not unnatural assumption that the Western Settlement
lay due west of the Eastern, and was therefore the nearest point to
Wineland instead of the farthest from it. The unduly shortened distance
in the saga between Greenland and Helluland (two dægr) may possibly
be explained in the same way, and in this case the Bear Islands may
actually mean Disko. (Cf. Chapter VIII, p. 262). If so, however, one
would have to suppose the saga-writer to have had access to the report
of some subsequent explorer, who, sailing from Disko, had touched or
sighted the Cumberland peninsula of Baffin Land, and the earlier part
of the record of Karlsefni’s voyage would have to be rejected, in so
far as it purported to represent historically the experience of that
explorer.

Now if, from a misunderstanding, of the true orientation of the
Greenland peninsula, Icelandic or Norwegian sailors got the idea that
it was necessary to follow the Greenland coast in order to approach the
countries discovered in America, it is easy to see how they might bring
back reports of ice and arctic conditions, and possibly of parts of
Baffin Land and northern Labrador, which might thus become identified
with the lands discovered by Leif and Karlsefni.

The Icelandic geography referred to above conveys, as already stated,
an impression that while countries identified with Helluland and
Markland had been visited, Wineland had been sought for in vain, and
its exact situation was at the time of writing unknown. This is quite
intelligible if later explorers had, for the reason suggested above,
confined their search to more northerly latitudes.

Whilst, then, these early maps are of no use as authorities whereby we
may unravel the problems of the original Wineland voyages, I think that
they are of considerable interest both as affording evidence of later
Scandinavian voyages to America, and also as providing a solution of
the way in which the mistaken idea which associated Wineland with the
north may have come into existence.

_Conclusion._

The data being now exhausted, it only remains to bid farewell to our
explorers. Comparisons are proverbially odious, and it is futile to
bring Columbus and his successors into the question. Karlsefni and
his contemporaries were—as discoverers—born out of due time. With the
general interest which was felt in exploration in the fifteenth and
following centuries, with kings to back them and states to develop
their discoveries, above all, with an armament immeasurably superior
to that of the natives, such as the later explorers possessed, these
simple Norse seamen might have attained a far wider fame, or even have
affected the course of history. As it was their deeds were unimportant,
and soon almost if not quite forgotten. To-day the man in the street
looks incredulous or astonished at the very mention of the Wineland
voyages, however well authenticated these are seen to be by the student
of the subject. A little less scepticism, a little less complete
oblivion is all that shall be asked for them here.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, R. B. _America not discovered by Columbus._ Chicago, 1874.

Babcock, W. H. _Early Norse Discoveries in America._ Smithsonian
miscellaneous collections, Washington, 1913.

Beamish, N. L. _Discovery of North America by the Northmen._
Boston, 1841.

Beazley, C. R. _Dawn of Modern Geography._ London, 1901.

—— Articles ‘_Leif Ericson_’ and ‘_Thorfinn Karlsefni_’ in
Encyclopædia Britannica.

Bruun, D. _Erik den Röde._ Copenhagen, 1915.

Cornhill Magazine. Article in vol. xxvi. London, 1872.

De Costa, B. F. _Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the
Northmen._ Albany, 1901.

Dieserud, J. _Norse Discoveries in America._ Bulletin of the
American Geographical Society, 1901.

Du Chaillu, P. B. _The Viking Age._ London, 1889.

Fernald, M. L. _Notes on the Plants of Wineland the Good._ Boston,
1910.

Fischer, J. _Die Entdeckungen der Normannen in Amerika._ Freiburg
i. B., 1902. (English translation by B. Soulsby, 1903.)

Fiske, J. _The Discovery of America._ Boston, 1892.

Forster, J. B. _History of voyages, &c. made in the North._ London,
1786.

Haliburton, R. G. Article in _Proceedings of The Royal Geographical
Society_, vol. vii. London.

Hewlett, M. _Gudrid the Fair_ (fiction based on the sagas). London,
1917.

Horsford, E. N. _Discovery of America by the Northmen._ New York,
1888.

—— _The Problem of the Northmen._ Cambridge, Mass., 1889.

—— _The Landfall of Leif Ericson._ Boston, 1892.

Hovgaard, W. _The Voyages of the Norsemen to America._ New York,
1915.

Howley, M. F. _Vinland Vindicated._ Proc. and Trans. Royal Society
of Canada, 1898.

Irving, Washington. _Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus._
vol. iv. London, 1828.

Jónsson, Finnur. _Erik den Röde’s Saga og Vinland._ Historisk
Tidskrift. Christiania, 1911.

—— _Opdagelsen af og reiserne til Vinland._ Aarbog for Nordisk
Oldkyndighed, &c. Copenhagen, 1915.

Kolischer, K. A. _Zur Entdeckungsgeschichte Amerikas._ Mitt. K. K.
Geographischen Gesellschaft, Vienna, 1914.

Laing, S. Translation of _Heimskringla_. London, 1844.

Malte-Brun, C. _Précis de la géographie universelle_, vol. i, book
18. Paris, 1831–7.

Moulton and Yates. _History of the State of New York._ New York,
1824.

Nansen, F. _In Northern Mists._ London, 1911.

Neckel, G. _Erste Entdeckung Amerikas._ Leipzig, 1913.

Nielsen, Y. _Nordmænd og Skrælinger i Vinland._ Norske Geografiske
Selskabs Aarbog, 1905.

Olson, J. E. _The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot._ New York, 1906.

—— Article ‘_Vinland_’ in Encyclopædia Britannica.

Rafn, C. _Antiquitates Americanae._ Boston, 1837.

Reeves, A. M. _The Finding of Wineland the Good._ London, 1895.

Schroeder. _Om Skandinavernes fordna upptäcktsresor till Nord
Amerika._ Upsala, 1818.

Slafter, Rev. E. F. _Voyages of the Northmen to America._ Boston.

Smith, J. T. _The Discovery of America by the Northmen in the tenth
Century._ London, 1839.

Steensby, H. P. _The Norsemen’s Route from Greenland to Wineland._
Copenhagen, 1918.

Storm, G. _Studier over Vinlandsreiserne._ Aarbog for Nordisk
Oldkyndighed og Historie, Copenhagen, 1887.

—— _Islandske Annaler indtil 1578._ Christiania, 1888.

—— _Erik’s Saga Rauda._ Copenhagen, 1891.

Thalbitzer, W. _Skrælingerne i Markland og Grönland, deres sprog
og nationalitet._ Oversigt over det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes
Selskabs Forhandlinger, Copenhagen, 1905.

—— _Four Skræling Words from Markland in the Saga of Erik the
Red._ London, 1913.

Torfaeus, T. _Historia Vinlandiæ Antiquæ._ Copenhagen, 1705.

—— _Veteris Groenlandiæ Descriptio._ Copenhagen, 1706.

Vigfusson, G. (and York Powell, F.) _An Icelandic Prose Reader._
Oxford, 1879.

Vigfusson, G. (and York Powell, F.) _Origines Islandicæ._ Oxford,
1905.

Weise, A. J. _Discoveries of America to 1525._ London, 1884.

Winsor, Justin. _History of America_ (vol. i). London, 1889.

INDEX

Adam of Bremen, 49, 97, 156, 286.

Annals, Icelandic, 110, 137, 146, 152, 283–5, 295.

Ari Marsson, 96, 189.

Ari the Learned, 74, 87, 93, 120, 156, 173–7.

Aud the Very Wealthy, 28, 87, 103, 152.

Avalldamon, 65, 188.

Babcock, W. H., 7, 103, 186, 199, 234, 235, 236, 252, 254, 262,
263, 268–70.

Bacchus, Île de, 159.

Balista, 62, 184–6, 194.

Bardson, Ivar, sailing directions of, 199, 204.

Barn, discovered by Thorvald’s expedition, 46, 48, 160.

Barnstable Peninsula, 246, 248, 253, 257, 258, 270.

Bear, killed on Bjarney, 56, 266.

Bear Isles, 56, 262, 295.

Bede, the Venerable, 191, 209.

Birds, on Straumsey, 57, 154, 168–71.

Bjarney, 56, 228, 238, 265–7.

Bjarni Grimolfson, companion of Karlsefni, 53, 55, 58, 60, 64;
confused with Herjulfson, 105;
not mentioned in Flatey Book, 143.

Bjarni Herjulfson, discovers America, 25–8;
in Norway, 40;
sells ship to Leif, 40;
distinguished from Grimolfson, 105;
authenticity of voyage, 114–18;
course of voyage, 131;
Mr. Hovgaard on, 238;
reconstruction of voyage, 244–51.

Björn Asbrandsson, 190.

Björn, Bishop, descendant of Karlsefni, 19, 20, 72, 86.

Bláserk, 22, 112.

Brand I, Bishop, descendant of Karlsefni, 72, 86, 101–2, 111, 137.

Brattahlid, 25, 37, 39, 40, 44, 45, 52–5, 135, 138, 141.

Brendan, Saint, voyage of, 162, 168, 171, 184.

Bull, Karlsefni’s, frightens savages, 62, 83, 194.

Cabot, 9, 221, 266.

Canoes, 46, 61, 95, 107, 174, 177–9, 193.

Cartier, Jacques, 107, 158, 170, 179, 183, 192, 226, 231, 266,
267.

Cartwright, Captain, 240, 266.

Celtic literature, influence discussed, 154, 162–72, 184, 187,
191.

Champlain, 48, 159, 170, 236, 256, 268.

Charlemagne, character of traditions concerning, 116.

Cloth, red, coveted by skrælings, 61, 183–4, 194.

Cod, Cape, 248, 256–9, 265, 267, 270, 273, 276.

Corn, wild, 48, 57, 60, 76, 98, 107, 158, 159–62, 226, 229, 240.

Corte Real, 9, 221, 265, 266.

Courses, 107, 131, 222, 232, 239, 242, 258, 259, 265.

Crossness, 47.

Dægr, meaning discussed, 196–211.

Dasent, Sir George, 148.

Dawson’s _Acadian Geology_, 269.

De Laet: _see_ Hudson.

Denys, Nicholas, 159, 170, 179, 268–9.

Dicuil, 191.

Dieserud, Juul, 104, 234, 258, 271.

Down Islands: _see_ New Land.

Dublin, 28, 66.

Eggs, on Straumsey, 58, 168–71.

Eric, Bishop of Greenland, 18, 152, 283.

Eric the Far-Travelled, 110.

Eric the Red, adventures in Iceland and discovery of Greenland,
21–4;
children, 25, 37;
receives Thorbjörn Vifilson, 37;
slow to change faith, 39;
asked to accompany Leif, 40;
accident to, 41, 78;
death alleged, 45;
unconverted, 47;
entertains Karlsefni, 53;
in Eyrbyggja, 73;
Ari’s account of, 74, 94;
bad opinion of priest, 75, 136;
conversion alleged, 76;
accompanies Thorstein, 79;
problem of his death, 135.

Eric the Red, Saga of, 14, 100, 101, 108, 141.

Eyktarstad observation, 42, 107, 123, 211–20, 225, 229, 243.

Eyrbyggja Saga, 39, 66, 73, 190.

Fernald, Professor, 160, 229.

Fischer, Joseph, 106, 115.

Fisher’s Island, 272, 273.

Flags, Indian, 65, 183, 193.

Flatey Book, 14, 100, 104–46, 238.

Flóamanna Saga, 136.

Fortunate Islands: _see_ Insulae Fortunatae.

Fóstbraeðra Saga, 138.

Foxes, arctic, in Helluland, 56, 165, 230–1.

Freydis, daughter of Eric the Red, 25;
illegitimate, 55;
courage of, 62–3;
second visit to Wineland, 67;
crime of, 70;
independence of Flatey Book story of, 105;
probability of story, 127.

Fríssbók, 74, 119.

Frobisher, 178, 183, 184, 289.

Froda miracle, 38–9.

Furdustrands, 56, 59, 60, 133, 227, 233, 234, 236, 238, 240, 242,
267–71, 285, 295.

Fur-trading by skrælings 61, 84, 183, 194.

Garda, site of Greenland Cathedral, 25, 142, 288.

Genealogies, Icelandic love of, 10, 91.

Geography, Icelandic, 241, 274, 287–9.

Godthaab, 23, 262, 295.

Gosling, W., 181.

Greenland, 16, 22, 74, 94, 139–46, 149, 177, 261, 282, 284, 287,
288, 290–6.

Gretti’s Saga, 53, 249.

Gripla, 227.

Gudrid, early history of, 30;
helps the sibyl, 36;
marriage to Thori, 45, 134;
to Thorstein Ericson, 49, 79;
to Karlsefni, 54, 83;
son born in Wineland, 64;
later history and death of, 72;
descendants, 86;
heroine of Saga of Eric, 142.

Gunnbjörn, 22, 117, 118.

Hake and Hekja, 57, 106, 151, 167, 254, 271.

Hakluyt, 169, 178, 179, 231, 236, 250, 266.

Haliburton, R. G., 113.

Halibut, 60, 171.

Hallbera, Abbess of Reynisness, 19, 20, 87, 102.

Hall-beams (setstokkar), 21, 24.

Harald Haardraade, 90, 286.

Hauk Erlendson, 19, 20, 87, 96, 100–4.

Heimskringla, 94, 113, 120, 138, 199.

Helgi Thorbrandson, 24, 116.

Helgi and Finnbogi, 67–70.

Helluland, 41, 56, 165, 167, 172, 227, 230–1, 235, 238, 251,
263–5, 287, 288, 290, 295, 296.

Henderson’s _Iceland_, 212–13.

Herjulf, 16, 24, 25, 114.

Hewlett, Maurice, his _Gudrid the Fair_, 7–8.

History, character of early, 150.

Hönen runic stone, 285, 286, 294.

Hóp, 60, 64, 108, 162, 223, 228, 234, 237, 238, 240, 242, 252,
272, 275–81.

Horsford, E. N., 147, 235, 270.

Hovgaard, W., 7, 114, 237–40, 262.

Hudson, the Navigator, 48, 159, 184, 187, 277.

Hudson River, 272, 276.

Húsa-snotra, 71, 144, 146, 288.

Hvarf, in Greenland, 202, 203–5, 208.

Hvítramannaland, 65, 97, 189–91, 194.

Hvitserk, 22, 290, 292.

Imramha: _see_ Voyage literature, Celtic.

Insulae Fortunatae, 98, 154–62.

Ireland, 28, 60, 66, 154, 162–72, 189–91.

Isidore Hispalensis, 98, 154, 162.

Íslendíngabók, 74, 87, 94, 173–6.

Jan Mayen, 207, 208.

Jökul, 238, 249.

Jolduhlaup, 202, 205.

Jónsson, Finnur, 7, 40, 102, 108, 264.

Julianehaab, 23, 295.

Karlsefni, Thorfin, ancestors of, 52;
comes to Greenland, 53;
marries Gudrid, 54;
sails to Wineland, 55;
expedition of, 52–67;
in Flatey Book, 82–6;
trades with Bremen merchant, 71;
descendants, 72, 86, 87;
related to Ari, 20, 93;
mentioned in Landnámabók, 97;
ancestor of Hauk, 20, 101, 103;
an Icelandic hero, 116, 118, 122;
courses of voyage, 131;
date of voyage, 18, 137, 261;
Mr. Hovgaard on, 239, 240;
voyage reconstructed, 261–81.

Kayaks, Eskimo, 178, 181, 182, 194.

Keelness, 46, 56, 59, 60, 77, 150, 227, 238, 242, 258, 267, 270,
273, 276, 278.

‘_King’s Mirror_’, 177, 249.

Kjafal, 57.

Kolbein’s island: _see_ Mevenklint.

Kolskegg, 96.

Kristinret, 214, 218.

Kristni Saga, 75, 120.

Labrador, 228–31, 238–40, 242, 244, 249, 251, 262–4, 290, 291,
293, 294.

Laing, Samuel, 113, 128.

Landnámabók, 21, 28, 96, 181, 189, 201, 209.

Land-Rolf, 284.

Leif Ericson, born, 21;
seduces Thorgunna, 37;
converts Greenland, 39, 74–6;
goes to Wineland, 40–5;
alternative account, 76;
lends houses to Karlsefni, 83;
and to Freydis, 69;
still a child in 986, 117;
Flatey Book account of preferred, 118–25;
course sailed by, 131;
date of visit to Norway, 134;
Rörek sent to, 138;
voyage discussed, 251–5.

‘Leita’, meaning of, 152.

Long Island Sound, 271–4.

Lyme-grass, 160, 161, 229.

Maelduin, voyage of, 165–7, 184.

Maize, 161.

Maps of Wineland, early, 241, 289–96.

Markland, 41, 56, 65, 166, 180, 188, 227, 231–3, 235, 238, 239,
241, 251, 265, 283, 287, 288, 293, 296.

Mausur (or mösur) wood, 71, 76, 146, 160, 229, 230.

Melur: _see_ Lyme-grass.

Mevenklint, 207, 209.

Midjökul, 22, 112.

Milk, appreciated by skrælings, 84.

‘Moose-butter’, 179.

Morris convention in translating sagas, 12.

Moulton’s _History of New York_, 8.

Mountains at Straumsfjord and Hóp, 58, 64, 260, 277–81.

Nansen, Dr. Fridtjof, 9, 133, 147–72, 174–7, 180, 181, 183–8, 191,
265, 274, 285, 295.

Natives: _see_ Skrælings.

Neckel, G., 7, 106, 109, 253–4.

Newfoundland, 230–3, 235, 237, 238, 240, 247, 249, 250, 264, 265.

New Land, the, 283–5.

Nicholas, Abbot of Thingeyre, 288.

Nielsen, Dr. Yngvar, 286–7.

Njál’s Saga, 90, 128, 148.

Norway, significance of direct voyages to, 144–5.

Nova Scotia, 170, 179, 230, 233–6, 247, 248, 251, 256, 257, 259,
265, 267–70.

Olaf the Holy, Saga of, 110, 138, 199.

Olaf the White, 20, 28.

Olaf Tryggvason, 37–8, 40, 57, 67, 74–6, 109, 110, 111, 118–22,
134, 135.

Olderfleet, 205.

Oral tradition in Iceland, 88–93.

Pamet River, 257, 259.

‘Papar’ (Irish monks), 175–6.

Parkhurst, Antony, on Newfoundland, 231.

Rafn, C., 147, 216, 219, 235.

Rafn the Limerick-Farer, 190–1.

Reeves, A. M., 10, 111, 264.

Remains, Norse, in America, alleged, 235.

Resen, Hans Poulson, map by, 289–96.

‘Reydur’ (see whale).

Rice, wild, 161.

Rímbegla, 197, 200–1.

Rolf: _see_ Land-Rolf.

Saga, erroneous ideas concerning, 11;
historical value of, 147–51;
in Greenland, 55, 141.

Saint Lawrence, Gulf of, 124, 266.

Salmon, in Wineland, 42, 166, 275, 277.

Savages: _see_ Skrælings.

Scotland, partial conquest of, by Norsemen, 28.

Seal-tar, specific against teredo, 65.

Shenachies, 89, 92.

Ships, Icelandic, speed of, 196–201, 263.

Sibyl, the, 11, 33–7, 142.

Skrælings, 46, 61–3, 65, 74, 83–6, 95, 154, 173–95.

Snorri Godi, 18, 20, 73, 136.

Snorri Karlsefnison, 18, 20, 64, 72, 84, 86, 87, 94, 137.

Snorri Thorbrandson, 22, 24, 53, 55, 60, 61, 62, 64, 66, 73, 143.

Steensby, H. P., 7, 124, 226, 237, 238, 241–3.

Stefansson, Sigurd, map by, 289–96.

Storm, Gustav, 106, 113, 117, 124, 132, 134, 144, 191, 202, 217,
224, 230–4, 244, 259, 265, 267, 278, 284, 293.

Straumsey, 57, 168, 243, 273.

Straumsfjord, 58, 64, 133, 228, 238, 240, 242, 271–4, 279, 280.

Sturlunga Saga, 99.

Svalbarda, 202, 206, 207.

Svein Estridson, king of Denmark, 18, 97, 156, 286.

Teredo, 65.

Thalbitzer, W., 188.

Thjodhild, wife of Eric the Red, 21, 37, 39.

Thorar Nefjolfson, 138, 199, 201, 203, 248.

Thorbjörg: _see_ Sibyl.

Thorbjörn Vifilson, 14, 15, 20, 22, 28–33, 37, 55, 103, 136.

Thorbrand Snorrison, 63, 67.

Thorgest, 21–3, 73, 100, 108.

Thorgunna, 37–40.

Thorhall Gamlison, 53, 55.

Thorhall the Hunter, 55, 59, 60, 77, 107, 133, 155, 168, 226, 254,
268.

Thori Eastman, 44–5, 49, 134.

Thorkel Gellison, 20, 74, 93, 95, 177, 190.

Thorkel Leifson, 138.

Thorlak, Bishop, descendant of Karlsefni, 18, 20, 72, 86, 87, 94,
137.

Thormod Kolbrunarskald, 77, 126, 138, 187, 224.

Thor-names, frequent occurrence of, 152.

Thorstein Ericson, 25, 37;
marries Gudrid, 49, 79;
sails for Wineland, 40, 78;
illness and death of, 50–2, 80–2;
driven near Iceland and Ireland, 79, 125;
supernatural episodes connected with, 50–2, 80–2, 149.

Thorvald Ericson, mentioned among Eric’s children, 25;
voyage of, in Flatey Book, 45–8;
alternative account, 77;
only mentioned by Hauk as Karlsefni’s companion, 55, 126, 279;
accounts of death compared, 125–7;
voyage reconstructed, 255–60.

Thorvard, husband of Freydis, 25, 55, 69, 126, 129, 142.

Three, recurrence of number, 153, 167.

Time-keeping, Icelandic method of, 212.

Tir-nan-Oge, in Celtic myth, 164.

Torfaeus, 214.

‘Trjóna’, meaning discussed, 181–3, 194.

Troil’s _Letters on Iceland_, 160, 168, 199, 213, 220, 230.

Tylft (Icelandic measure), 169, 197–200.

Tyrker, 41, 43, 44, 106, 150, 254.

Umiak (Eskimo boat), 178.

Uniped, 77, 126, 154, 187, 224, 259, 260.

Uvægi, 65, 188.

Vætilldi, 65, 188.

Valldidida, 65, 188.

Varðlokkur, 35.

Verses, incidental, in sagas, 13, 14, 25, 59, 60, 78, 133, 155,
168, 224, 226, 260, 268.

Verezzano, 180, 277.

Vifil, 20, 29, 103, 142.

Vigfusson, G., 90, 93, 96, 99, 110, 113, 216.

Vika (Icelandic measure), 197–8.

Vines, discovery of, 43, 48, 57, 60, 76, 97, 98, 154–9, 226,
253–5.

Voyage literature, Celtic, 163–5, 184.

Whale, episode of, 58, 83, 104, 107, 132–4, 150, 154, 167–8, 240.

Wineland, 44, 74, 75, 95, 97, 98, 155, 156, 159, 225, 227, 229,
233, 235, 236, 237–43, 251–3, 255–60, 267–81, 283, 285, 287,
289–96.

Winter, Icelandic, 216.

Women, quarrels over, in Wineland, 64, 105;
characteristics of, 130.

Yates: _see_ Moulton.

Yeats, W. B., his comparison of Celtic and Icelandic literature,
164.

PRINTED IN ENGLAND
AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Hereinafter referred to as the Saga of Eric the Red, Hauk’s Book,
and the Flatey Book. See Part II, Chapter I.

[2] Flatey Book.

[3] See note at end of section.

[4] Flatey Book. Cf. Part II, Chapter I, p. 108.

[5] From [ omitted in Flatey Book.

[6] Hauk’s Book and Saga of Eric the Red.

[7] So Landnámabók, Hauk’s Book, and Flatey Book: Eric’s Saga has
‘Hvitserk’.

[8] Flatey Book and some texts of Landnámabók have ‘Eastern
Settlement’. The Eastern Settlement was near Julianehaab, the Western
near Godthaab. Both were thus on the west coast of Greenland.

[9] Hauk’s Book.

[10] Omitted in Flatey Book.

[11] What follows is transcribed in the Flatey version only.

[12] Flatey Book.

[13] Flatey Book has ‘35’.

[14] Hauk’s Landnámabók and some other texts have ‘Snorri’. In fact
Snorri Thorbrandson went out later, as will be seen.

[15] There must be an error in supposing this Vifil to have been the
father of Thorgeir and Thorbjörn. Even if we consider Vifil to have
been captured as a boy, and to belong to the generation of Aud’s
grandson, Olaf Feilan, we know that Thorgeir and Thorbjörn were of the
generation of Snorri Godi and Thord Horsehead, the great-grandsons
of Olaf Feilan, as their daughters married the sons of these persons
respectively. (See Genealogical Table, p. 20.) It will be seen,
moreover, later on, that Thorbjörn Vifilson looked down on the son of a
slave, which would hardly have been the case had he been one himself.
(See _post_, p. 32).

[16] i.e. a chant for attracting spirits.

[17] See note at end of section.

[18] At this point, on the voyage to Greenland, comes the accidental
discovery of Wineland by Leif, as given in this version. For this see
Appendix, p. 76.

[19] i.e. as he had formerly led the expedition to Greenland.
Finnur Jónsson sees in the word _enn_ (‘still’) a reminiscence of
Thorstein’s voyage in Eric’s Saga; this interpretation, however, seems
unnecessarily far-fetched.

[20] Lit: ‘the sun had there eykt-place and dagmál-place on the
shortest day’. See Part II, Chapter V.

[21] The text adds:—‘Eric the Red died also that winter.’ I am disposed
to think this statement probable, but as Eric is frequently mentioned
later on in the alternative version, I omit this from the story. (See,
however, Part II, Chapter II, p. 135.)

[22] See note at end of section.

[23] _Skrælingar._

[24] See note at end of this section.

[25] This is corroborated by Gretti’s Saga, Chaps. 14 and 30, where one
‘Thorhall Gamlison the Winelander’ is mentioned.

[26] Hauk’s Book: ‘Eric’.

[27] Following the text of Hauk’s Book, as the clearer sense.

[28] The copyist of Eric’s Saga misplaces this sentence, putting it
before ‘with much playing’. Hauk’s is the preferable reading.

[29] Hauk’s Book: ‘spring’.

[30] Hauk’s Book corrects this to ‘Thorvard, who married Freydis,
an illegitimate daughter of Eric the Red’, but adds ‘and Thorvald
Ericson’. Cf. Part II, Chapter II, p. 126.

[31] Plural, therefore he had been with Eric many years.

[32] Hauk’s Book: ‘with Thorvard and Thorvald’.

[33] Eric’s Saga says, ‘forty men of the second hundred’. Hauk’s Book
has, ‘forty men and a hundred’. As the Icelandic hundred was 120, this
means 160 in each case.

[34] From [ Hauk’s Book has: ‘Thence they coasted south for a long
while, and came to a cape’, &c.

[35] Hauk’s Book; Eric’s Saga has ‘bjafal’. The word is clearly Gaelic.
Nansen suggests an Irish word, ‘cabhail’, the body of a shirt. Or
possibly ‘gioball’ = garment.

[36] Hauk’s Book has ‘newly-sown’.

[37] Hauk’s Book: ‘eiders’.

[38] From [ omitted in Hauk’s Book.

[39] These verses follow the Hauk’s Book text, which is here less
corrupt than the other.

[40] See note 39 on previous page.

[41] So Hauk’s Book; the companion text has ‘small’.

[42] Lit. as many as if it had been sowed with coal.

[43] Following Hauk’s Book, as the clearer text.

[44] Hauk’s Book has ‘several’.

[45] i.e. sent from Hóp, as hostile emissaries or spies.

[46] Hauk’s Book: ‘at night’.

[47] Hauk’s Book: ‘Gudrid’.

[48] Here follows this narrative’s version of the death of Thorvald.
(See Appendix, p. 77.)

[49] Following Hauk’s text. Eric’s Saga reads, ‘They intended to
explore all those mountains which were at Hóp, and those which they
found.’ It continues ‘they went back, and the third winter’, &c.

[50] Following Hauk’s text.

[51] Hauk’s Book, probably more correctly ‘Ireland’.

[52] Hauk’s Book gives a different reason. ‘All thought this such a
manly offer that no one would speak against it.’

[53] See Appendix, p. 83.

[54] The text has ‘Karlsefni’, an obvious slip.

[55] The meaning of this word is uncertain.

[56] A mistake. Hallfrid was the wife of Runolf, and mother of Bishop
Thorlak.

[57] The dying speech ascribed here to Thorvald is evidently borrowed
from that of Thormod Kolbrunarskald after the battle of Stiklestad,
where the point is much more easy to grasp. Thorvald means that he has
come to a land providing plenty of nourishment, otherwise he would not
be fat.

[58] Following Hauk’s text, to supply what is illegible in the other
version.

[59] Following Hauk’s text, the other version being badly confused here.

[60] Or, ‘he lords it over all the apparitions’, etc.

[61] I have heard of a similar custom in the more remote parts
of Norway at the present day, where the visits of the priest are
infrequent. The only difference is that earth is sprinkled into the
hole when the funeral service is read, instead of holy water.

[62] Word omitted in MS.

[63] Hauk’s Book, ‘Gudrid’.

[64] _Prolegom. to Sturlunga_, p. xxv.

[65] _Prolegom. to Sturlunga_, p. xxxvii.

[66] Ibid., p. xxxi.

[67] See below, p. 108.

[68] _Early Norse Visits to North America._ Washington, 1913.

[69] _Die Entdeckungen der Normannen in Amerika._ Freiburg, 1902.

[70] _Opdagelsen af og Reiserne til Vinland_, Aarbog for Nordisk
Oldkyndighed, etc., for 1915.

[71] _Prolegom. to Sturlunga_, p. lix.

[72] Aarbog for Nordisk Oldkynd. og Hist. 1887.

[73] Since this chapter was written, my attention has been called to W.
Hovgaard’s _Voyages of the Norsemen to America_ (1915), in which the
Flatey Book is defended.

[74] This was written before the appearance of Professor Steensby’s
monograph, which will be dealt with later (p. 237). This author brings
his explorers into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but I adhere to my opinion.

[75] If the statement of the Flóamanna Saga can be relied on, Eric
as a young man, already grown up, was with Haakon Jarl in Norway at
the time when the latter ‘took the kingdom’, i.e. immediately after
Harald Greyfell’s death (_c._ 970). The passage refers to Eric as an
‘Icelander’, but must almost necessarily relate to the period before
Eric’s emigration from Norway.

[76] According to the Fóstbraeðra Saga, when Thormod Kolbrunarskald
visited Greenland about five years before his death at Stiklestad
(1030) Eric’s grandson, Thorkel Leifson, had succeeded to Brattahlid.

[77] _In Northern Mists_, vol. ii, pp. 20–21.

[78] _In Northern Mists_, vol. i, p. 335.

[79] _In Northern Mists_, vol, i, p. 346.

[80] _In Northern Mists_, vol. i, p. 359.

[81] See Stearn’s _New England Bird Life_, Part II, p. 362.

[82] _In Northern Mists_, vol. i, p. 345, and cf. p. 360.

[83] Force’s Tracts, vol. ii, p. 61.

[84] _In Northern Mists_, vol. ii, p. 75.

[85] ‘There were then Christian men here, those whom the Norsemen call
Papar, but they went away afterwards, because they would not live here
with heathen men, and they left behind them Irish books and bells and
croziers: from which it might be inferred that they were Irishmen.’

[86] W. G. Gosling, _Labrador_, p. 17.

[87] Cf. Frobisher’s first voyage, in Hakluyt, ‘And so _with a white
cloth_ brought one of their boates with their men along the shoare,
rowing after our boate.’

[88] See _In Northern Mists_, vol. ii, pp. 8–10.

[89] _Norse Visits to North America_, p. 157.

[90] The most that can be said is that the ‘lld’ sound occurring in
three of the four words was probably characteristic of the language.
Mr. Thalbitzer permits himself an unrestricted range through the Eskimo
vocabulary for words resembling in sound those cited in the saga. This
obviously leaves room for a considerable chance of merely accidental
resemblance. Mr. Thalbitzer’s equivalents for ‘Vætilldi’ and ‘Uvægi’
are ‘uwätille’ and ‘uwätje’, meaning ‘wait a little, please’ and ‘wait
a little’. The ‘ll’ we are told is strongly aspirated, and may be
represented by ‘tl’. By a curious coincidence, which shows the danger
of arguing on these lines, these Eskimo words have almost the same
sound as their English rendering—‘you wait a little’, ‘you wait’.

[91] _In Northern Mists_, vol. i, p. 354.

[92] So Hauk: other texts have simply ‘west to Greenland’.

[93] _Irish Place Names_, vol. i, p. 106.

[94] Troil’s _Letters on Iceland_, 1780, p. 118.

[95] _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, vol. i, p. 430.

[96] This was written before the appearance of Professor Steensby’s
monograph, which is dealt with in a postscript (p. 237).

[97] See Troil’s _Letters on Iceland_, p. 105.

[98] Though there are woods at Nain, and were formerly more, it must
be remembered that there is an intricate barrier of sterile islands
between the coast and the open sea, in and about these latitudes.

[99] Cf. Hakluyt, _A briefe relation of the New found lande_:—‘That
which we doe call the New found lande ... is an iland, or rather, after
the opinion of some, it consisteth of sundry ilands and broken lands.’

[100] It is also possible, as Mr. Hovgaard suggests, that Karlsefni had
to sail north to penetrate the ice round the coast.

[101] Since writing this, I find that the same emendation has been
suggested by Finnur Jónsson.

[102] Unless we accept the story told to account for the name,
Keelness. Even this would only be a very temporary landing, on the
beach.

[103] _In Northern Mists_, vol. ii, p. 24.

[104] In an article on the fauna of Greenland by Herluf Winge
(_Meddelelser om Grönland_, vol. xxi, p. 322), the author cites a list
of furs said by Archbishop Erik Walkendorff of Trondhjem (_circa_ 1516)
to be obtained from Greenland. Many of the animals therein referred to
are not properly attributable to Greenland, and Winge suggests that
these skins may have found their way via Greenland to Trondhjem from
America.

[105] It is perhaps rash for an amateur to criticize the interpretation
of an expert, but the numerous ‘ands’ in the early part of the
inscription suggest to my mind that the words between them should be
names of persons. The stereotyped form for a memorial runic inscription
usually begins with a list of the persons responsible for it, separated
by ‘and’ (auk = ok). The original, as read by Bugge, runs ‘út _ok_ vitt
_ok_ þurfa þerru _ok_ ats’, &c.

Transcriber’s Notes:

• Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
• Text enclosed by equals is in bold (=bold=).
• Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NORSE DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA - THE WINELAND SAGAS ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.