[4-1] _Eiriks Saga Raudha_ (Copenhagen, 1891), p. xv.
[5-1] A translation, with the title "The Story of Thorfinn Carlsemne,"
based on AM. 557, may be found in _Origines Islandicae_, II. 610.
[5-2] _Origines Islandicae_, II. 590.
[6-1] _Den oldnorske og oldislandske Litteraturs Historie_ (Copenhagen,
1901), II. 648.
[6-2] _The Discovery of America_, p. 212.
[6-3] Prolegomena, _Sturlunga Saga_, p. lxix.
[7-1] Snorri, the Icelandic historian, says that "it was more than 240
years from the settlement of Iceland (about 870) before sagas began to be
written" and that "Ari (1067-1148) was the first man who wrote in the
vernacular stories of things old and new."
[7-2] "Among the mediaeval literatures of Europe, that of Iceland is
unrivalled in the profusion of detail with which the facts of ordinary
life are recorded, and the clearness with which the individual character
of numberless real persons stands out from the historic background....
The Icelanders of the Saga-age were not a secluded self-centred race;
they were untiring in their desire to learn all that could be known of
the lands round about them, and it is to their zeal for this knowledge,
their sound historical sense, and their trained memories, that we owe
much information regarding the British Isles themselves from the ninth to
the thirteenth century. The contact of the Scandinavian peoples with the
English race on the one hand, and the Gaelic on the other, has been an
important factor in the subsequent history of Britain; and this is
naturally a subject on which the Icelandic evidence is of the highest
value." Prefatory Note to _Origines Islandicae_.
[8-1] _Studies on the Vinland Voyages_ (Copenhagen, 1889) and _Eiriks
Saga Raudha_ (Copenhagen, 1891).
[8-2] Of the same opinion are Professor Hugo Gering of Kiel, _Zeitschrift
fuer deutsche Philologie_, XXIV. (1892), and Professor Finnur Jonsson of
Copenhagen, _Den oldnorske og oldislandske Litteraturs Historie_, II.
646.
[8-3] The Kristni-Saga, which tells of the conversion of Iceland, says:
"That summer [1000] King Olaf [of Norway] went out of the country to
Wendland in the south, and he sent Leif Eric's son to Greenland to preach
the faith there. It was then that Leif discovered Vinland the Good. He
also discovered a crew on the wreck of a ship out in the deep sea, and so
he got the name of Leif the Lucky." For passages from other sagas that
corroborate Leif's discovery on his voyage from Norway to Greenland
(_i.e._, in the year that Olaf Tryggvason fell, namely, 1000), see
Reeves, _The Finding of Wineland the Good_ (London, 1895), pp. 7-18.
[10-1] See, in support of Storm, Juul Dieserud's paper, "Norse
Discoveries in America," _Bulletin of the American Geographical Society_,
Feb., 1901.
[10-2] _Discovery of America_, p. 182.
[11-1] See _Origines Islandicae_, I. 294.
[11-2] See notes 6 and 8 to Papal Letters, p. 71 of this volume.
[12-1] See note 1, p. 43.
[12-2] In other respects the editors speak highly of the saga as found in
Hauk's Book and AM. 557: "This saga has never been so well known as the
other, though it is probably of even higher value. Unlike the other, it
has the form and style of one of the 'Islendinga Sogor' [the Icelandic
sagas proper]; its phrasing is broken, its dialogue is excellent, it
contains situations of great pathos, such as the beautiful incident at
the end of Bearne's self-sacrifice, and scenes of high interest, such as
that of the Sibyl's prophesying in Greenland...." II. 591.
[12-3] _Icelandic Prose Reader_ (where AM. 557 is printed), notes, p.
377.