Footnote 184: The name means "Turk," and has served as a touchstone for the dullness of commentators. To the Northmen a "Southman" would naturally be a German, and why should a German be called a Turk? or how should these Northmen happen to have had a Turk in their company? Mr. Laing suggests that he may have been a Magyar. Yes; or he may have visited the Eastern Empire and taken part in a fight against Turks, and so have got a soubriquet, just as Thorhall Gamlason, after returning from Vinland to Iceland, was ever afterward known as "the Vinlander." That did not mean that he was an American redskin. See below, p. [203]. From Tyrker's grimaces one commentator sagely infers that he had been eating grapes and got drunk; and another (even Mr. Laing!) thinks it necessary to remind us that all the grape-juice in Vinland would not fuddle a man unless it had been fermented,—and then goes on to ascribe the absurdity to our innocent chronicle, instead of the stupid annotator. See Heimskringla, vol. i. p. 168.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 185: On the homeward voyage he rescued some shipwrecked sailors near the coast of Greenland, and was thenceforward called Leif the Lucky (et postea cognominatus est Leivus Fortunatus). The pleasant reports from the newly found country gave it the name of "Vinland the Good." In the course of the winter following Leif's return his father died.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 186: "Jam crebri de Leivi in Vinlandiam profectione sermones serebantur, Thorvaldus vero, frater ejus, nimis pauca terræ loca explorata fuisse judicavit." Rafn, p. 39.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 187: Three is the number usually given, but at least four of their ships would be needed for so large a company; and besides Thorfinn himself, three other captains are mentioned,—Snorro Thorbrandsson, Bjarni Grimolfsson, and Thorhall Gamlason. The narrative gives a picturesque account of this Thorhall, who was a pagan and fond of deriding his comrades for their belief in the new-fangled Christian notions. He seems to have left his comrades and returned to Europe before they had abandoned their enterprise. A further reference to him will be made below, p. [203].[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 188: To this boy Snorro many eminent men have traced their ancestry,—bishops, university professors, governors of Iceland, and ministers of state in Norway and Denmark. The learned antiquarian Finn Magnusson and the celebrated sculptor Thorwaldsen regarded themselves as thus descended from Thorfinn Karlsefni.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 189: Compare the alarm of the Wampanoag Indians in 1603 at the sight of Martin Pring's mastiff. Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist., iii. 174.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 190: The fate of Bjarni was pathetic and noble. It was decided that as many as possible should save themselves in the stern boat. "Then Bjarni ordered that the men should go in the boat by lot, and not according to rank. As it would not hold all, they accepted the saying, and when the lots were drawn, the men went out of the ship into the boat. The lot was that Bjarni should go down from the ship to the boat with one half of the men. Then those to whom the lot fell went down from the ship to the boat. When they had come into the boat, a young Icelander, who was the companion of Bjarni, said: 'Now thus do you intend to leave me, Bjarni?' Bjarni replied, 'That now seems necessary.' He replied with these words: 'Thou art not true to the promise made when I left my father's house in Iceland.' Bjarni replied: 'In this thing I do not see any other way'; continuing, 'What course can you suggest?' He said: 'I see this, that we change places and thou come up here and I go down there.' Bjarni replied: 'Let it be so, since I see that you are so anxious to live, and are frightened by the prospect of death.' Then they changed places, and he descended into the boat with the men, and Bjarni went up into the ship. It is related that Bjarni and the sailors with him in the ship perished in the worm sea. Those who went in the boat went on their course until they came to land, where they told all these things." De Costa's version from Saga Thorfinns Karlsefnis, Rafn, pp. 184-186.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 191: The stories of Gudleif Gudlaugsson and Ari Marsson, with the fanciful speculations about "Hvitramannaland" and "Irland it Mikla," do not seem worthy of notice in this connection. They may be found in De Costa, op. cit. pp. 159-177; and see Reeves, The Finding of Wineland the Good, chap. v.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 192: Laing, Heimskringla, i. 152.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 193: See his Larger History of the United States, pp. 32-34.[Back to Main Text]