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

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

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

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

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