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.