[45-1] Reeves's translation. In _Origines Islandicae_, Vol. II., p. 598,
this saga is called "The Story of the Wineland Voyages, commonly called
The Story of Eric the Red."
[45-2] The original word for "Brief History" also means "section,"
"episode," "little story," _i.e._, extract or abbreviated account.
[46-1] About 985 (983-986). One vellum of the _Landnama-bok_ (Book of
Settlements) says sixteen, the other fifteen years.
[46-2] Bishop Frederick was from "Saxland" (Saxony). According to the
Kristni-Saga he came to Iceland "in the summer when the land had been
settled one-hundred-and-seven winters," _i.e._, in 981. He made but
little headway in preaching Christianity.
[47-1] _Hafgerdingar_ (sea-rollers) are supposed to have been earthquake
waves, and the lines evidently refer to such tidal-waves caused by an
unusually severe earthquake in the year 986. See Reeves, p. 180, (63).
The prose sense of the stave is: "I beg the blessed friend of the monks
to further our voyage. May the Lord of the heavens hold his hand over
me."
[49-1] "Certainly a marvellous coincidence, but it is quite in character
with the no less surprising accuracy with which the explorers of this
history [_i.e._, the Flat Island Book narrative] succeeded in finding
'Leif's-booths' in a country which was as strange to them as Greenland to
Biarni." (Reeves.)
[50-1] Earl Eric ruled in Norway from 1000 to 1015.
[52-1] These two words designate positions of the sun at two points of
time. Early commentators got much more definite results from this
observation than later ones, with scientific assistance, have succeeded
in getting. Largely on the basis of it, Rafn (in _Antiquitates
Americanae_), concluded that Vinland was in Rhode Island. Both Storm and
Reeves, after detailed investigation, declare that it cannot be shown
from this passage how far to the south Vinland was located. Captain
Phythian, U.S.N., who has given the question careful consideration, says:
"The data furnished are not sufficiently definite to warrant a more
positive assertion than that the explorers could not have been, when the
record was made, farther north than Lat. [say] 49 deg.." See Reeves, p. 181,
(66).
[56-1] Evidently an incorrect statement. _Landnama-bok_, the authority on
genealogical matters, says: "His son was Thorbiorn, father of Gudrid who
married Thorstein, son of Eric the Red, and afterwards Thorfinn
Karlsefni." Thori Eastman (the Norwegian) is not mentioned in the
_Landnama-bok_.
[62-1] This cruel virago plays a much less conspicuous part in the
version of Hauk's Book and AM. 557.
[65-1] "A weather-vane, or other ornament at the point of the gable of a
house or upon a ship." (Fritzner.)