He says: "With us, an old house can stand upon a crooked, as well as upon a straight support. But in Iceland, in the tenth century, as in all the branches of that great family, it was only healthy children that were allowed to live. The deformed, as a burden to themselves, their friends, and to society, were consigned to destruction by exposure to the violence of the elements. This was the father's stern right, and, though the mothers of that age were generally blessed with robust offspring, still the right was often exercised. As soon as it was born, the infant was laid upon the bare ground, and, until the father came and looked at it, heard and saw that it was strong in lung and limb, took it up in his arms, and handed it over to the nurse; its fate hung in the balance, and life or death depended upon the sentence of its sire. That danger over, it was duly washed, signed with the Thunderer's [Thor's] holy hammer—the symbol of all manliness and strength—and solemnly received into the family as the faithful champion of the ancient gods. When it came to be named, there was what we should call the christening ale. There was saddling, mounting and riding among kith and kin. Cousins came in bands from all points of the compass: dependents, freedmen and thralls all mustered strong. The ale is broached, the board is set, and the benches are thronged with guests; the mirth and revelry are at the highest, when in strides into the hall, a being of awful power, in whom that simple age set full faith. This was the Norne, the wandering prophetess, sybil, fortune teller, a woman to whom it was given to know the weirds of men, and who had come to do honor to the child, and tell his fortune.... After the child was named, he was often put out to foster with some neighbor, his father's inferior in power, and there he grew up with the children of the house, and contracted those friendships and affections which were reckoned better and more binding than the ties of blood."—Antiquaires du Nord, 1859, pp. 8-9.
[117] There is nothing in this to indicate that Tyrker was intoxicated, as some have absurdly supposed. In this far off land he found grapes, which powerfully reminded him of his native country, and the association of ideas is so strong, that when he first meets Leif, he breaks out in the language of his childhood, and, like ordinary epicures, expresses his joy, which is all the more marked on account of his grotesque appearance. Is not this a stroke of genuine nature, something that a writer, framing the account of a fictitious voyage, would not dream of?
[118] Grapes grow wild almost everywhere on this coast. They may be found on Cape Cod ripening among the scrub oaks, even within the reach of the ocean spray, where the author has often gathered them.
[119] In Peringskiold's Heimskringla, which Laing has followed in translating Leif's voyage for his appendix, this statement of the cutting of wood is supplemented by the following statement: "There was also self-sown wheat in the fields, and a tree which is called massur. Of all these they took samples; and some of the trees were so large that they were used in houses." It is thought that the massur wood was a species of maple. Others have declared that it must have been mahogany, and that therefore the account of Leif's discovery is false. They forget that even George Popham, in writing home to his patron from Sagadahoc, in 1607, says that among the productions of the country are "nutmegs and cinnamon." Yet shall we infer from this that Popham never saw New England?
[120] See Adam of Bremen's testimony in the Introduction.
[121] It will be noticed that they were close upon the Greenland coast.
[122] They were evidently Norwegian traders who were shipwrecked while approaching the coast and sailing for the Greenland ports.
[123] Gissur, called the White, was one of the greatest lawyers of Iceland. We read that "there was a man named Gissur White, he was Teit's son, Kettlebiarne the Old's son, of Mossfell [Iceland]. Bishop Isleif was Gissur's son. Gissur the White kept house at Mossfell, and was a great Chief."—Saga of Burnt Nial, vol. i, p. 146.
[124] Hialte was doubtless the same person who entered the swimming match with King Olaf. See Saga of Olaf Tryggvesson.
[125] This is an error, unless the writer means that the voyage to Vinland, afterwards undertaken, was a part of the same general expedition. Leif went to Greenland first, as we have already seen.