[301] The arctic fox is common in Labrador, but also in the northern peninsula of Newfoundland.
[302] Polar bears come on the drift-ice to the north and east coasts of Newfoundland, but not farther south.
[303] The name comes from “furða.” (warning, marvel, terror); “furðu” (gen. sing.) placed before adjectives and adverbs has the meaning of extremely (“furðu góðr” == extremely good). As “Furðustjarna” (the wonder-star) surpassed the others in size and brilliance, these strands may be supposed to surpass others in length, and thus to be endless; but it is doubtless more likely that it means marvel-strands, where there were marvels and wonderful things. In Örskog, Sunnmöre, Norway, there is a place-name “Fúrstranda” (with long, closed “u”). K. Rygh [Norske Gaardnavne, xiii., 1908, p. 155] remarks: “The first syllable must be the tree-name “fura” [fir], though the pronunciation with a long, closed ‘u’ is strange....”
[304] In the Faroes (Kodlafjord in Straumsey) there is a “Kjal(ar)nes,” the origin of which is attributed to a man’s name: “Kjölur á Nesi” [J. Jakobsen, 1898, p. 147]; but it is more probable that the name of the ness is the original one, and that the legend of Kjölur is later. As to place-names ending in “-nes,” O. Rygh [Norske Gaardnavne, Forord og Indledning, 1898, p. 68] says: “Frequently the first part of the name is a word signifying natural conditions on or about the promontory.... Very often the first part has reference to the form of the promontory, its outline, greater or less height, length, etc.... Personal names are not usual in these combinations.” In Norway names beginning with “Kjöl-” (“-nes,” “-berg,” “-stad,” “-set,” etc.) are very common; they may either come from the man’s name “Þjóðlfr” (which now often has the sound of “Kjölv,” “Kjöl,” or “Kjöle”), or from the Old Norse poetical word “kjóll,” m., “ship,” or from “kjǫlr” (gen. “kjalar”), “keel of a vessel, and hence, mountain-ridge” [cf. O. Rygh, Norske Gaardnavne, i., 1897, p. 269; iv. 2, ed. A. Kjær, 1902, p. 57; vi. ed. A. Kjær, p. 237; xiii. ed. K. Rygh, 1908, p. 344]. Our Kjalarnes above must undoubtedly be derived from the last. In Tanen, east of Berlevåg, there is a “Kjölnes”; in Iceland, just north of Reykjavik, outside Faxafjord, there is a “Kjalarnes.”
[305] This idea, that the land became broader towards the south, and the coast there turned eastward, must be the same that we meet with again in Icelandic geographies of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, where Wineland is thought to be connected with Africa (see later).
[306] “Svart” (i.e., black-haired and black-eyed) is the reading of Hauksbók, but the other MS. has “small.”
[307] The word “Skrælingar” here occurs for the first time in this saga, and seems to be used as a familiar designation for the natives, which did not require further explanation; of this more later.
[308] Blue (blá) perhaps means rather dark or black in colour (cf. “Blue-men” for negroes), and is often used of something uncanny or troll-like.
[309] Nothing of the kind is related in the “Grönlendinga-þáttr”; where, however, we are told of the first winter of Karlsevne’s voyage that the cattle pastured upon the land, “but the males (‘graðfe’) soon became difficult to manage and troublesome.”
[310] Ed. by P. Munch and C. R. Unger, Christiania, 1853, p. 75.