The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 | Page 8

unfinished section of the work.
In regard to the extract from Adam of Bremen, which we print, it
should be observed that its only importance lies in the fact that it
corroborates the Icelandic tradition of a land called Vinland, where
there were grapes and "unsown grain," and thus serves to strengthen
faith in the trustworthiness of the saga narrative. The annals and papal
letters that follow need no further discussion, we think, than that
contained in the annotations.
Besides the texts in Icelandic, already described, by Rafn, Reeves,
Vigfusson and Powell, and Storm, it may be mentioned that the Flat
Island text is given in Vol. I. of Flateyjar-bok, ed. Vigfusson and Unger,
Christiania, 1860. There are translations of both texts in Beamish,
Discovery of North America by the Northmen (London, 1841), in
Slafter, Voyages of the Northmen (Boston, 1877), and in De Costa,
Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen (Albany, 1901).
But most of these are confused in arrangement, and the best is that by
the late Mr. Reeves, which by the kind consent of his representatives
we are permitted to use in this volume.

JULIUS E. OLSON.
FOOTNOTES:
[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 für 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.

THE SAGA OF ERIC THE RED
ALSO CALLED THE SAGA OF THORFINN KARLSEFNI[14-1]
The Saga of Eric the Red, also called the Saga