[291] Cf. “Grönl. hist. Mind.,” iii. p. 885.
[292] Finnur Jónsson [1901, ii. p. 648] thinks it was written about 1200.
[293] Gudbrand Vigfusson [1878, i. pp. lix. f.] thinks that Eric the Red’s Saga and the Flateyjarbók’s “Grönlendinga-þáttr” are derived, in complete independence of one another, from oral traditions, which were different in the west, at Breidafjord, where the former was written, and in the north, from whence the latter is derived.
[294] We cannot here take any account of Rolf Raudesand’s having come to Norway on his return from Greenland (see [p. 264]); for even if this were historical, which is doubtful, and even if it be referred to a date anterior to Leif’s voyage, which is not certain either, he was driven there accidentally instead of to Iceland.
[295] “M surr” (properly “valbirch”) was probably a veined tree, like “valbjerk,” which was regarded as valuable material. “Valbjerk” is birch grown in a special way so that it becomes twisted and gnarled in structure. It is still much used in Norway, e.g., for knife-handles.
[296] I do not mention here the fourteenth-century tale (in the Flateyjarbók) of Bjarne Herjulfsson’s discovery of Wineland as early as 985, since, as G. Storm has shown, this account hardly represents the tradition which in earlier times was most current in Iceland.
[297] Thorbjörn Vivilsson came from Iceland to Greenland in 999, the same summer that Leif sailed to Norway. His daughter was Gudrid, afterwards married to Thorstein Ericson. The exact statement as to which ship was used on this occasion, and as to those which were used later on Thorfinn Karlsevne’s expedition, shows how few ships there were in Greenland (and Iceland), and in what esteem the men were held who owned them. The Saga of Eric the Red seems to assume that Leif’s ship was no longer very fit for sea after his last voyage, as we hear no more about it. This may perhaps be regarded as the reason for his not going again, if indeed there be any other reason than the patchwork character of the saga. In the Flateyjarbók, on the other hand, we are told that it was Leif’s ship, and not Thorbjörn Vivilsson’s, that was used first by Thorvald and afterwards by Thorstein.
[298] If the “great hundred” is meant, this will be 160 men.
[299] From the context it would seem probable that these islands, or this island (?), lay in the Western Settlement. If they had been near Lysefjord, Karlsevne, as Storm points out, might be supposed to go there first because his wife, Gudrid, had inherited property there from Thorstein, and there might be much to fetch thence. But the name Bjarneyjar itself points rather to some place farther north, since the southern part of the Western Settlement (the Godthaab district) must have been then, as now, that part of the coast where bears were scarcest. In Björn Jónsson’s “Gronlandiæ vetus Chorographia” a “Biarney” (or “-eyiar”) is mentioned, to which it was twelve days’ rowing from Lysefjord [cf. above, [p. 301]], and as they are the only islands (or island ?) of this name mentioned on the west coast of Greenland, there is much in favour of their being the place here alluded to.
[300] “Dœgr” was half a twenty-four hours’ day [cf. Rymbegla]; but whether twelve hours or twenty-four, the distance, like those given later, is impossible. They cannot have sailed from Greenland to Labrador, or even if it was Baffin Land they made, in two days of twelve hours, and scarcely in two of twenty-four. According to the MS. in the Hauksbók “they sailed thence [i.e., from Bjarneyjar] two half-days [i.e., twenty-four hours in all] to the south. Then they sighted land.” It might be supposed that this should be taken to mean that the difference in latitude between this land and their starting-point was equivalent to two half-days’ sail. It is true that we read in the “Rymbegla” [1780, p. 482] there are two dozen sea-leagues, or two degrees of latitude, in a “‘dœgr’s’ sailing,” and two “dœgr” would therefore be four degrees; but when we see later that from this first land they found to Markland (Newfoundland ?) was also only two half-days’ sail, then these distances become altogether impossible [cf. G. Storm, 1888, pp. 32-34; Reeves, 1895, p. 173]. Reeves proposes that “tvau” might be an error for “siau” (i.e., seven; but in the MS. of the Hauksbók we have “two” in numerals: II). It is probable that this repetition of the same distance, two “dœgr’s” sail, in the case of each of the three new countries, has nothing to do with reality; it reminds us so much of the stereotyped legendary style that we are inclined to believe it to be borrowed from this. Storm thinks that as Iceland was supposed to lie in the same latitude as the Western Settlement, and Wineland in the same latitude as Ireland, there would naturally be the same distance between the Western Settlement and Wineland as between Iceland and Ireland, and the latter was put at five (or three ?) “dœgr.” However, it is not five, but six “dœgr” between Bjarneyjar and Furðustrandir, according to the Saga of Eric the Red [cf. Storm’s ed., 1891, p. 32]. In the copy in the Hauksbók, it is true, the distance is given as two “dœgr” between Bjarneyjar and Helluland, two “dœgr” between this and Markland, and “thence they sailed south along the coast a long way and came to a promontory ...”; but this circumstance, that the distance is not given the third time, again inclines one to think of the fairy-tale, and here again there is no statement that the distance was five “dœgr” from the Western Settlement to Kjalarnes.