(4) It is not till the close of the thirteenth century that any information occurs as to what and where Wineland was, with statements as to the wine and wheat there, and a description of voyages thither (in the Saga of Eric the Red). But still the accounts omit to inform us who gave the name and why.
(5) The second and later principal narrative of voyages to Wineland (the Flateyjarbók’s Grönlendinga-þáttr) gives a very different account of the discovery, by another, and likewise of the later voyages thither.
(6) The first of the two sagas, and the one which is regarded as more to be relied on, contains scarcely a single feature that is not wholly or in part mythical or borrowed from elsewhere; both sagas have an air of romance.
(7) Even among the Greeks of antiquity we find myths of fortunate isles far in the western ocean, with the two characteristic features of Wineland, the wine and the wheat.
(8) The most significant features in the description of these Fortunate Isles or Isles of the Blest in late classical times and in Isidore are the self-grown or wild-growing vine (on the heights) and the wild-growing (uncultivated, self-sown or unsown) corn or wheat or even cornfields (Isidore). In addition there were lofty trees (Pliny) and mild winters. Thus a complete correspondence with the saga’s description of Wineland.
(9) The various attempts that have been made to bring the natural conditions of the North American coast into agreement with the saga’s description of Wineland are more or less artificial, and no natural explanation has been offered of how the two ideas of wine and wheat, both foreign to the Northerners, could have become the distinguishing marks of the country.
(10) In Ireland long before the eleventh century there were many myths and legends of happy lands far out in the ocean to the west; and in the description of these wine and the vine form conspicuous features.
(11) From the eleventh century onward, in Ireland and in the North, we meet with a Grape-island or a Wineland, which it seems most reasonable to suppose the same.
(12) From the Landnámabók it may be naturally concluded that in the eleventh century the Icelanders had heard of Wineland, together with Hvítramanna-land, in Ireland.
(13) Thorkel Gellisson, from whom this information is derived, probably also furnished Are Frode with his statement in the Islendingabók about Wineland; this is therefore probably the same Irish land.