Footnote 204: It is extremely difficult for an impostor to concoct a narrative without making blunders that can easily be detected by a critical scholar. For example, the Book of Mormon, in the passage cited (see above, p. [3]), in supremely blissful ignorance introduces oxen, sheep, and silk-worms, as well as the knowledge of smelting iron, into pre-Columbian America.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 205: "Thar í drápu their einn björn," i. e. "in qua ursum interfecerunt," id. p. 138.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 206: "Hvorki skorti thar lax í ánni nè í vatninu, ok stærra lax enn their hefdhi fyrr sèdh," i. e. "ibi neque in fluvio neque in lacu deerat salmonum copia, et quidem majoris corporis quam antea vidissent," id. p. 32.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 207: "Helgir fiskar," i. e. "sacri pisces," id. p. 148. The Danish phrase is "helleflyndre," i. e. "holy flounder." The English halibut is hali = holy + but = flounder. This word but is classed as Middle English, but may still be heard in the north of England. The fish may have been so called "from being eaten particularly on holy days" (Century Dict. s.v.); or possibly from a pagan superstition that water abounding in flat fishes is especially safe for mariners (Pliny, Hist. Nat. ix. 70); or possibly from some lost folk-tale about St. Peter (Maurer, Isländische Volkssagen der Gegenwart, Leipsic, 1860, p. 195).[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 208: "Svâ var mörg ædhr í eynni, at varla mátti gánga fyri eggjum," i. e. "tantus in insula anatum mollissimarum numerus erat, ut præ ovis transiri fere non posset," id. p. 141. Eider ducks breed on our northeastern coasts as far south as Portland, and are sometimes in winter seen as far south as Delaware. They also abound in Greenland and Iceland, and, as Wilson observes, "their nests are crowded so close together that a person can scarcely walk without treading on them.... The Icelanders have for ages known the value of eider down, and have done an extensive business in it." See Wilson's American Ornithology, vol. iii. p. 50.[Back to Main Text]
| "Svâ | er sagt | at | eptirbátr | theirra | var | fylldr | af vinberjurn." |
| So | it-is-said | that | afterboat | their | was | filled | of vine-berries. |
Rafn, p. 36.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 210: Storm, "Studies on the Vinland Voyages," Mémoires de la société royale des antiquaires du Nord, Copenhagen, 1888, p. 351. The limit of the vine at this latitude is some distance inland; near the shore the limit is a little farther south, and in Newfoundland it does not grow at all. Id. p. 308.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 211: The attempt of Dr. Kohl (Maine Hist. Soc., New Series, vol. i.) to connect the voyage of Thorfinn with the coast of Maine seems to be successfully refuted by De Costa, Northmen in Maine, etc., Albany, 1870.[Back to Main Text]