[16] W. Thalbitzer’s attempt [1905, pp. 190, ff.] to explain the words, not as originally names, but as accidental, misunderstood Eskimo sentences, which are supposed to have survived orally for over 250 years, does not appear probable (see next chapter).
[17] Moltke Moe has called my attention to the possibility of a connection between “Avalldamon” and the Welsh myth of the isle of “Avallon” (the isle of apple-trees; cf. vol. i. pp. 365, 379), to which Morgan le Fay carried King Arthur. It is also possible that it may be connected with “dæmon” and “vald” (== power, might). The possibility suggested above seems, however, to be nearer the mark.
The Skrælings of Markland having kings agrees, of course, neither with Indians nor Eskimo, who no more had kings than the Greenlanders and Icelanders themselves. On the other hand, it exactly fits elves and gnomes. The Ekeberg king and other mountain kings are well known in Norway. The elves of Iceland had a king who was subject to the superior elf-king in Norway. The síd-people in Ireland, the pygmies and gnomes in other lands (such as Wales) also have kings. This feature again points, therefore, in the direction of the fairy-nature of the Skrælings, like the name “Vætthildr.”
[18] It might be objected that when it is so distinctly stated that “it was there more equinoctial [i.e., the day and night were more nearly equal in length] than in Greenland or Iceland, the sun there had ‘eykt’ position and ‘dagmål’ position [i.e., was visible between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.] on the shortest day” [cf. Gr. h. Mind., i. p. 218; G. Storm, 1891, p. 58; 1887, pp. 1, ff.], this shows that the Greenlanders were actually there and made this observation. In support of this view it might also be urged that it was not so very long (about forty years) before the Flateyjarbók was written that the ship from Markland (see later) arrived at Iceland in 1347, and through the men on board her the Icelanders might have got such information as to the length of days. This can hardly be altogether denied; but it would have been about Markland rather than Wineland that they would have heard, and Markland is only once mentioned in passing in the “Grönlendinga-þáttr.” Moreover, it was common in ancient times to denote the latitude by the length of the longest or shortest day (cf. vol. i. pp. 52, 64), and the latter in particular must have been natural to Northerners (cf. vol. i. p. 133). The passage quoted above would thus be a general indication that Wineland lay in a latitude so much to the south of Greenland as its shortest day was longer; they had no other means of expressing this in a saga, nor had they perhaps any other means of describing the length of the day than that here used. It appears from the Saga of Eric the Red that Kjalarnes was reckoned to be in the same latitude as Ireland (see vol. i. p. 326); as a consequence of this we might expect that Wineland would lie in a more southern latitude than the south of Ireland, the latitude of which (i.e., the length of the shortest day) was certainly well known in Iceland. If, therefore, in a tale of the fourteenth century, the position of Wineland is to be described, it is natural that its shortest day should be given a length which according to Professor H. Geelmuyden [see G. Storm, 1886, p. 128; 1887, p. 6] would correspond to 49° 55′ N. lat. or south of it; in other words, the latitude of France, and that was precisely the land that the Icelanders knew as the home of wine, and that they would therefore naturally use in the indication of a Wineland.
[19] Cf. Grönl. hist. Mind., iii. p. 220; Storm, 1887, p. 12. “Húsa-snotra” is explained as a vane or similar decoration on the gable of a house or a ship’s stern [cf. V. Guðmundsson, 1889, pp. 158, ff.]. The statement given above shows that a “húsa-snotra” was something to which great importance was attached, otherwise attention would not have been called to it in this way. And in the “Grönlendinga-Þáttr” [Gr. hist. Mind., i. p. 254] we read that Karlsevne, when he was in Norway, would not sell his “húsa-snotra” (made of “mausurr” from Wineland) to the German from Bremen, until the latter offered him half a mark of gold for it. One might suppose that this ornament (vane-staff) on the prow of a ship or the gable of a house was connected with religious or superstitious ideas of some kind, like the posts of the high seat within the house, or the totem-poles of the North American Indians, which stood before the house.
[20] On the initiative of Professors Sophus Bugge and Gustav Storm, a thorough examination of the spot was made in 1901, the first-named being himself present; but the stone was not to be found.
[21] I cannot accept the conjectures that Professor Yngvar Nielsen thinks may be based upon this inscription [1905].
[22] It is true that only a portion of this work has been preserved, and that Wineland may have been mentioned in the part that has not come down to us (if indeed the work was ever finished); but this is not likely.
[23] Cf. Storm’s edition, 1888, pp. 19, 59, 112, 252, 320, 473.
[24] “Upsi” (or “ufsi”) would mean “big coalfish” or “coalfish.”