From an Icelandic MS. (Jónsbók), fifteenth century
Karlsevne’s voyage to Wineland
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).
“He had been on hunting expeditions with Eric for many summers and was a man of many crafts. Thorhall was a big man, dark and troll-like; he was well on in years, obstinate, silent and reserved in everyday life, but crafty and slanderous, ever rejoicing in evil. He had had little to do with the faith since it came to Greenland. Thorhall had little friendship for his fellow men, yet Eric had long associated with him. He was in the same ship with Thorvald and Thorvard, because he had wide knowledge of the uninhabited regions. They had the ship that Thorbjörn [Vivilsson] had brought out to Greenland [and that Thorstein Ericson had used for his unlucky voyage two years before]. Most of those on board that ship were Greenlanders. On their ships there were altogether forty men over a hundred.”[298]
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]
“There they found land, and rowed along it in boats, and examined the country, and found there [on the shore] many flat stones so large that two men might easily lie stretched upon them sole to sole. There were many white foxes there.[301] They gave the land a name and called it ‘Helluland.’”
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