[43] “A day before you descry the said Hvarf you ought to see another high mountain called Hvidserk. Under these two mountains—Hvard and Hvidserk—is a promontory (nes) called Herjulfsnes, near which is a harbor called Sand-haffn.... The inhabited part of Greenland lying eastwardly, next to Herjulfsnes, is called Skagefjörd.”—Antiq. Amer. Ivar Bardsen’s treatise. pp. 304, 305.
[44] Christianity, it is said, was introduced in Iceland in the year 1000.—Antiq. Amer. pp. 10, 11, 14, and note b. The discovery of America by the Northmen. By North Ludlow Beamish. London, 1841. pp. 47, 48.
[45] The traditions of the voyages of Bjarni, the son of Herjulf, and of Leif, the son of Eric the Red, are contained in a large folio of manuscripts found in the seventeenth century, in a monastery on the island called Flatö, north of Breidafjörd, in Iceland. This book of Flatö was purchased, about the year 1660, by Bishop Brynjulf Sveinson of Skalholt, in Iceland, and was sent by him as a gift to King Frederic III. of Denmark, and is now in the Royal Library of Copenhagen. A part of the inscription on the first page of the volume bears this translation: “This book, Jónn, the son of Hakon, owns.... The priest, Jónn, the son of Thord, wrote out the narrative concerning Eric, the traveller, and the histories of each of the Olafs; and the priest, Magnus, the son of Thorhall, wrote out that which follows, also that which precedes, and illuminated the whole. God Almighty and the Holy Virgin Mary bless those who wrote and him who dictated.”
It is supposed that these traditions, which are finely engrossed in Icelandic on vellum, contained in the Codex Flateyensis, were compiled between the years 1387 and 1395.—Antiq. Amer. pp. 1-4.
[46] Thaettir af Eireki Rauda ok Graenlendingum.
[47] Bjarni leitadi Graenlands.—Antiq. Amer. pp. 17-25. Discovery of America. Beamish, pp. 47, 48.
[48] From hella, a flat stone.
Certain writers believe that Newfoundland was called Helluland by the Northmen. The island lies about six hundred miles south of Greenland.
[49] Nova Scotia is supposed by some writers to be the region named Markland by the Northmen. It is about four hundred miles southwest of Newfoundland.
[50] Hèr Hefr Graenlendinga Thátt. Antiq. Amer. pp. 26-40. Discovery of America. Beamish, pp. 59-70.