In this connection the statement in Ivar Bárdsson’s description must also be borne in mind:

It is true that Ivar’s description as a whole does not seem to be very trustworthy as regards details, nor do the whirlpools here spoken of tend to inspire confidence, suggesting as they do that it was near the earth’s limit, where the ocean ends in one or more vast abysses; but it is nevertheless possible that the mountain in question may have been an actual landmark in the extreme north, on that part of the west coast of Greenland to which voyages were habitually made, and in that case it must have been situated in “Nordrsetur.”

For many reasons it is unreasonable to look for “Greipar” and “Króksfjardarheidr” so far north as Smith Sound or Jones Sound (or Lancaster Sound), as, amongst others in recent times, Professor A. Bugge [1898] and Captain G. Isachsen [1907] have done:[283]

(1) In the first place this would assume that the Greenlanders on their Nordrsetu expeditions sailed right across the ice-blocked and difficult Baffin’s Bay and Melville Bay every summer, and back again in the autumn, in their small clinker-built vessels, which were not suited for sailing among the ice. We are told indeed (see above, p. 299) that the franklins had large ships and vessels for this voyage; but this was written in Iceland by men who were not themselves acquainted with the conditions in Greenland, and the statement doubtless means no more than that these vessels, or rather boats, were large in comparison to the small boats (perhaps for the most part boats of hides) which they usually employed in their home fisheries. Timber for shipbuilding was not easy to obtain in Greenland. Drift-wood would not go very far in building boats, to say nothing of larger vessels, and they must have depended on an occasional cargo of timber from Norway, or perhaps what they could themselves fetch from Markland. They could hardly have got the material for building vessels suited for sailing through the ice of Baffin’s Bay in this way. Moreover, we know from several sources that there was great scarcity of rivets and iron nails in Greenland; so that vessels were largely built with wooden nails. In 1189 a Greenlander, Asmund Kastanrasti, came with twelve others from Kross-eyjar in Greenland to Iceland “in a ship that was fastened together with wooden nails alone, save that it was also bound with thongs.... He had also been in Finnsbuðir.” He did not sail from Iceland till the following year, and was then shipwrecked.[284] This ship must have been one of the largest and best they had in Greenland. It is therefore impossible that they should have been able to keep up any constant communication with the countries on the north side of Baffin’s Bay.

(2) Then comes the question: what reason would they have had for exposing themselves to the many dangers involved in the long northward voyage through the ice? Their purpose may have been chiefly to kill seals and collect driftwood. But where there is much ice for the greater part of the year, the driftwood is prevented from being thrown up on shore; and it is the fact that in Baffin’s Bay there is unusually little of it, so that the Eskimo of Cape York and Smith Sound are barely able to get enough wood for making weapons and implements. In addition to the ice the reason for this is that no current of importance bearing driftwood reaches the north of Baffin’s Bay. Consequently, this again is conclusive proof that the Nordrsetur of the descriptions is not to be looked for there, nor was sealing particularly good; they had better sealing-grounds in the districts about Holstensborg, Egedes Minde and Disco Bay.[285]

Everything points to the Nordrsetur having been situated in the districts either in or to the south of Disco Bay,[286] which must have been a natural hunting-ground for the Greenlanders, just as the Norwegians sail long distances to Lofoten for fishing. Moreover, one of the objects of the voyages to Nordrsetur was to collect driftwood; now the driftwood comes with the Polar Current round Cape Farewell and is thrown up on shore along the whole of the west coast northward as far as this current washes the land—that is to say, about as far north as Disco Bay. In the south of Greenland, the ancient Eastern Settlement, there is drift-ice for part of the year, and not so much driftwood comes ashore as farther north, in the ancient Western Settlement (especially the Godthaab district) and to the north of it. Besides, in the settlements there were many to find it and utilise it, while in the uninhabited regions there were only the Eskimo, of whom perhaps there were as yet few south of 68° N. lat. On their way to and from the Nordrsetur, therefore, the Greenlanders travelled along the shore and collected driftwood wherever they found it. In Iceland this was misunderstood in the sense that driftwood was supposed to be washed ashore chiefly in Nordrsetur; and they believed it to come from Markland, perhaps because the Greenlanders sometimes went there for timber, and it was thus regarded by them as a country rich in trees. It is, however, also possible that the name Markland, i.e., woodland, itself may have created this conception. In reality most of the driftwood comes from Siberia, which was unknown to them, and it is brought with the drift-ice over the Polar Sea and southward along the east coast of Greenland.

Driftwood. From an Icelandic MS., fifteenth century

The following is the account of the voyage of about 1267, given by Björn Jónsson (taken, according to his statement, from the Hauksbók, where it is no longer to be found):

Björn Jónsson says that this account of the voyage was written by Halldor, a priest of Greenland (who did not himself take part in the expedition, but had only heard of it), to Arnold, the priest of Greenland who was stranded in Iceland in 1266. It was then rewritten in Iceland (or Norway ?), perhaps by one of the copyists of the Hauksbók, who was unacquainted with the conditions in Greenland; and afterwards it was again copied, and perhaps “improved,” at least once (by Björn Jónsson himself). Unfortunately, the leaves of the Hauksbók which must have contained this narrative have been lost. There is therefore a possibility that errors and misunderstandings may have crept in, and such an absurdity as that “they could not land on account of the bears” (though they nevertheless saw ancient Eskimo dwellings!) shows clearly enough that the narrative is not to be regarded as trustworthy in its details; but there is no reason to doubt that the voyage was really made, and it must have extended far north in Baffin’s Bay. It cannot have taken place in the same year (1266) in which the men spoken of came from Norðrsetur, but at the earliest in the following year (1267).

We may probably regard as one of the objects of the expedition the investigation of the northward extension of the Eskimo. The voyagers sailed out through Vaigat (Króksfjord), in about 70½° N. lat.; they met with a southerly gale and thick weather, and were obliged to keep along the coast; the south wind, which follows the line of the coast, also swept the ice northwards, and in open sea they came far north in the Polar Sea; but, if the statements are exact, they cannot have gone farther than a point from which they were able to return to Króksfjardarheidr in four days’ sailing and rowing.[289] If we allow at the outside that in the three days they sailed on an average one degree, or sixty nautical miles, a day, which is a good deal along a coast, and if we put a good day’s rowing at forty miles, we shall get a total of 220 miles; or, if they started from the northern end of Vaigat in 70½°, they may have been as far north as 74° N. lat., or about Melville Bay. In any case there can be no question of their having been much farther north. Here the land is low, and the inland ice (“jökull”) comes right down to the sea, with bare islands outside (see map, p. 259). Here they found old traces of Eskimo. Then they returned south to Vaigat, but on the way thither they found Eskimo dwellings (that is, in this case tents) on some islands at which they put in.[290] It may be objected to this explanation that it does not agree with the statement as to the sun’s altitude. But here there must be a misunderstanding or obscurity in the transmission of the text. Króksfjardarheidr is always mentioned elsewhere as a particularly well-known place in Nordrsetur, to which the Greenlanders resorted every summer for seal-hunting, and it is far from likely that the statements as to the midnight sun being visible, as to the frosts at night, and the detailed information as to the sun’s altitude (in a description otherwise so concise), referred to so generally familiar a part of the country. It is obvious that it must refer to the unknown regions, where they were farthest north; but we thus lose the information as to the date on which the sun’s altitude was observed; it must in any case have been four days before St. James’s day, and it may have been more. Moreover, the information given is of no use for working out the latitude. The measurement of the shadow on a man lying athwartships does not help us much, as the height of the gunwale above the man’s position is not given. The statement as to the sun’s altitude at midnight might be of more value; but whether “at home in the settlement” means the Western Settlement, or whether it does not rather mean Gardar (in the Eastern Settlement) to which they “returned home,” we do not now know for certain, nor do we know on what day it was that the sun was at an equal altitude in the north-west. If St. James’s day (July 25) is meant, then it is unfortunate that the sun would not be visible above the horizon at Gardar when it was in the north-west. According to the Julian Calendar, which was then in use, July 25 fell seven or eight days later than now. If Midsummer Day is intended, of which, however, there is no mention in the text, then the sun would be about 3° 41′ above the horizon in the north-west at Gardar. If it is meant that on July 20 the sun was at this altitude, then the latitude would be 74° 34′ N. [cf. H. Geelmuyden, 1883a, p. 178]. But all this is uncertain. We only know that the travellers saw the sun above the horizon at midnight. If we suppose that at least the whole of the sun’s disc was above the horizon, and that it was St. James’s day, then they must at any rate have been north of 71° 48′ N. lat. (as the sun’s declination was about 17° 54′ on July 25 in the thirteenth century).[291] If the date was earlier, then they may have been farther south.

From an Icelandic MS., fourteenth century

CHAPTER IX

While Helluland, Markland and Furðustrandir are first mentioned in authorities of the thirteenth century, “Vinland” occurs already in Adam of Bremen, about 1070 (see above, pp. 195 ff.). Afterwards the name occurs in Icelandic literature: first in Are Frode’s “Islendingabók,” about 1130, where we are only told that in Greenland traces were found of the same kind of people as “inhabited Wineland” (“Vínland hefer bygt”; see above, p. 260); it is next mentioned together with Hvítramanna-land in the “Landnámabók,” where it may have been taken from Are Frode, as the latter’s uncle, Thorkel Gellisson, is given as the authority. It has been thought that the original statement was contained in a lost work of Are’s; in any case it must belong to the period before his death in 1148. We are only told that Hvítramanna-land lay to the west in the ocean near Vin(d)land; but the passage is important, because, as will be discussed later, it clearly shows that the statements about Wineland in the oldest Icelandic authorities were derived from Ireland. The next mention of Wineland is in “Kristni-saga” (before 1245) and “Heimskringla,” where it is only said that Leif the Lucky found Wineland the Good. It should be remarked that while thus in the oldest authorities Wineland is only mentioned casually and in passing, it is not until we come to the Saga of Eric the Red, of the thirteenth century, and the Flateyjarbók’s “Grönlendinga-þáttr,” of the fourteenth, that we find any description of the country, and of voyages to it and to Helluland and Markland. But two verses, reproduced in the first of these sagas, are certainly considerably older than the saga itself; and they speak of the country where there was wine to drink instead of water, and of Furðustrandir where they boil whales’ flesh.

Before I recapitulate the most important features of these voyages, as they are described more particularly in the Saga of Eric the Red, I must premise that I look upon the narratives somewhat in the light of historical romances, founded upon legend and more or less uncertain traditions. Gustav Storm in his critical review of the Wineland voyages [1887] has separated the older authorities, which he regarded as altogether trustworthy, from the later narratives in the Flateyjarbók’s “Grönlendinga-þáttr,” which he thought were to be rejected. The last-named was written about 1387, while Eric the Red’s Saga, which we are to regard as trustworthy, must according to Storm have been written between 1270 and 1300.[292] The accounts of the discovery of Wineland and of the voyages thither are very conflicting in these two authorities; while the latter has only two voyages (after the discovery), the former has divided them into five; while one mentions Leif Ericson as the discoverer of the country, the other gives Bjarne Herjulfsson, and so on. We are led to ask whether it is reasonable to suppose that the traditions should have been handed down by word of mouth in such a remarkably unaltered and uncorrupted state during the first 250 or 300 years, when they have been transformed and confused to such an extent scarcely a hundred years later. This must rather prove that there was no fixed tradition, but that the tales became split up into more and more varying forms. Perhaps it will be answered that the Saga of Eric the Red was composed in the golden age of saga-writing, whereas the Flateyjarbók belongs to the period of decline.[293] But it cannot be psychologically probable that human nature in Iceland should suddenly have undergone so great a change, that while the saga-tellers of the fourteenth century were disposed to invent romances, they should not have had any tendency thereto throughout the three preceding centuries. It is particularly natural that many alterations and additions should be made when, as here, the narratives are concerned with distant waters which lay so far out of the ordinary course of voyages, and which for a long time had ceased to be known in Iceland when the sagas were put into writing. Features belonging to the description of other quarters of the globe were also inserted. Tales which in this way live in oral tradition and gradually develop into sagas, without any written word to support them, and to some extent even without any known localities to which they can be attached, are to be regarded as living organisms dependent on accidental influence, which absorb into themselves any suitable material as they may find it; a resemblance of name between persons may thus contribute, or a similarity of situations, or events which bear the same foreign stamp. The narratives of the Wineland voyages exhibit, as we shall see, sure traces of influences of this kind.

In the year 999, according to the saga, Leif, the son of Eric the Red, sailed from Greenland to Norway. This is the first time we hear of so long a sea-voyage being attempted,[294] and it shows in any case that this long passage was not unknown to the Icelanders and Norwegians. Formerly the passage to Greenland had been by way of Iceland, thence to the east coast of Greenland, southwards along the coast, and round Hvarf. But capable seamen like the intrepid Leif thought they could avoid so many changes of course and arrive in Norway by sailing due east from the southern point of Greenland. Thereby Leif Ericson becomes the personification of the first ocean-voyager in history, who deliberately and with a settled plan steered straight across the open Atlantic, without seeking to avail himself of harbours on the way. It also appears clearly enough from the sailing directions for navigation of northern waters, which have come down to us, that voyages were made across the ocean direct from Norway to Greenland. It must be remembered that the compass was unknown, and that all the ships of that time were without fixed decks. This was an exploit equal to the greatest in history; it is the beginning of ocean voyages.

From an Icelandic MS. (Jónsbók), sixteenth century

Leif’s plan of reaching Norway direct was not wholly successful according to the saga; he was driven out of his course to the Hebrides. They stayed there till late in the summer, waiting for a fair wind. Leif there fell in love with a woman of high lineage, Thorgunna. When he sailed she begged to be allowed to go with him; but Leif answered that he would not carry off a woman of her lineage in a strange country, when he had so few men with him. It was of no avail that she told him she was with child, and the child was his. He gave her a gold ring, a Greenland mantle of frieze, and a belt of walrus ivory, and sailed away from the Hebrides with his men and arrived in Norway in the autumn (999). Leif became Olaf Tryggvason’s man, and spent the winter at Nidaros. He adopted Christianity and promised the king to try to introduce the faith into Greenland. For this purpose he was given a priest when he sailed. In the spring, as soon as he was ready, he set out again to sail straight across the Atlantic to Greenland. It has undoubtedly been thought that he chose the course between the Faroes (61° 50′ N. lat.) and Shetland (60° 50′ N. lat.) to reach Cape Farewell, and afterwards this became the usual course for the voyage from Norway to Greenland. But he was driven out of his course, and

This land was “Vínland hit Góða.” As it was assumed that the wild vine (Vitis vulpina) grew in America as far north as 45° N. lat. and along the east coast, the historians have thought to find in this a proof that Leif Ericson must have been on the coast of America south of this latitude; but, as we shall see later, these features—the self-sown wheat-fields, the vines and the lofty trees—are probably borrowed from elsewhere.

So concise is the narrative of the voyage by which the first discovery of America by Europeans is said to have been made.[296]

Curiously enough, the saga tells us nothing more of Leif as a sailor. He appears after this to have lived in peace in Greenland, and he took over Brattalid after his father’s death. On the other hand, we hear that his brother Thorstein made an attempt to find Wineland, which Leif had discovered. After Leif’s return home “there was much talk that they ought to seek the land that Leif had found. The leader was Thorstein Ericson, a good man, and wise, and friendly.” We hear earlier in the saga, where Leif’s voyage to Norway is related, that both of Eric’s sons “were capable men; Thorstein was at home with his father, and there was not a man in Greenland who was thought to be so manly as he.” We hear nothing about Leif’s taking part in the new voyage; it looks as if it had been Thorstein’s turn to go abroad. But

In the autumn (1001) Thorstein celebrated his marriage with Thorbjörm Vivilsson’s daughter Gudrid, at Brattalid, and it “went off well.” They afterwards went home to Thorstein’s property on the Lysefjord, which was the southernmost fjord in the Western Settlement; probably that which is now called Fiskerfjord (near Fiskernes) in about 63° N. lat. There Thorstein died during the winter of an illness (scurvy ?) which put an end to many on the property, and Gudrid next summer returned to Eric, who received her well. Her father died also, and she inherited all his property.

That autumn (1002) Thorfinn Karlsevne came from Iceland to Eric’s fjord in Greenland, with one ship and forty men. He was on a trading voyage, and was looked upon as a skilful sailor and merchant, was of good family and rich in goods. Together with him was Snorre Thorbrandsson. Another ship, with Bjarne Grimolfsson and Thorhall Gamlason and a crew likewise of forty men, had accompanied them from Iceland.

Even if the tale is unhistorical, it gives a glimpse of the life and the hard conditions in Greenland; they only had grain occasionally when a ship arrived; for the most part they lived on what they caught, and when that failed, as we are told was the case in 999, there was famine. But to be without the Yule-brew was a misfortune to an Icelander; nevertheless we learn from the Foster-brothers’ Saga that “Yule-drink was rare in Greenland,” and that a man might become famous by holding a feast, as did Thorkel, the grandson of Eric the Red, in 1026.

After Yule, Karlsevne was married to Eric’s daughter-in-law, Gudrid.

From an Icelandic MS. (Jónsbók), fifteenth century

There was a good deal of talk about going to look for Wineland the Good, and it was said that it might be a fertile country. The result was that Karlsevne and Snorre got their ship ready to search for Wineland in the summer. Bjarne and Thorhall also joined the expedition with their ship and the crew that had accompanied them. Besides these, there came on a third ship a man named Thorvard—married to Eric the Red’s illegitimate daughter Freydis, who also went—and Thorhall, nicknamed Veidemand (the Hunter).

Eric the Red and Leif were doubtless supposed to have assisted both actively and with advice during the fitting-out, even though they would not take part in the voyage. It is mentioned later that they gave Karlsevne two Scottish runners that Leif had received from King Olaf Tryggvason.

The three ships sailed first “to the Western Settlement and thence to Bjarneyjar” (the Bear Islands).[299] The most natural explanation of the saga making them begin their expedition by sailing in this direction (to the north-west and north)—whereas the land they were in search of lay to the south-west or south—may be that the Icelandic saga-writer (of the thirteenth century), ignorant of the geography of Greenland, assumed that the Western Settlement must lie due west of the Eastern; and as the voyagers were to look for countries in the south-west, he has made them begin by proceeding to the farthest point he had heard of on this coast, Bjarneyjar, so that they might have a prospect of better luck than Thorstein, who had sailed out from Eric’s fjord. When it is said that Thorhall the Hunter accompanied Eric’s son and son-in-law because of his wide knowledge of the uninhabited regions, it must be the regions beyond the Western Settlement that are meant, and the saga-writer must have thought that these extended westward or in the direction of the new countries. It must also be remembered that in the spring and early summer there is frequently drift-ice off the Eastern Settlement, from Cape Farewell for a good way north-westward along the coast. The course would then naturally lie to the north-west of this ice—that is, towards the Western Settlement. But it may also be supposed that they had to begin by going northward to get seals and provision themselves with food and oil (fuel), which might be necessary for a long and unknown voyage. This explanation is, however, less probable.

From Bjarneyjar they put to sea with a north wind. They were at sea, according to the saga, for two “dœgr.”[300]

It may be the coast of Labrador that is here intended, and not Baffin Land, since the statement that they sailed thither with a north wind must doubtless imply that the coast lay more or less in a southerly and not in a westerly direction from Bjarneyjar. From Helluland

The name Markland suits Newfoundland best; it had forests down to the sea-shore when it was rediscovered about 1500, and even later.

When they had once more sailed for