Before that summer was over Thore told Gudrid that he should take her to Iceland, as he had business there. They would go almost at once.
"How long shall we be there?" she asked him.
He said that there was no telling. "A year and more, I expect."
Her face fell. "Then we shall miss Leif's sailing."
"No harm in that," said Thore. "What have you to do with Leif and his affairs? Enough for you that you have made him go." He was not angry with her; but he thought Leif altogether too fine-looking a man. That was a man's reason—no woman would have reasoned so.
XIII
Leif bought Biorn's ship from him that winter, and busied himself stocking her with tools, weapons and spare gear for his voyage. As soon as the weather was open he was ready, and then it was a question whether Eric Red would go with him. Eric was in two minds about it, old as he was, and extremely fat. He had been a great traveller in his youth, and was averse from exertion in these latter days, but he was uncomfortable at home, with no wife in the house, and all his sons holding the new faith. So he wavered until the last minute, and then said that he would not go at all. Leif was not sorry.
He had a crew of five-and-thirty with him, and sailed his ship as near to S.S.W. as might be. She ran for six days before a fair wind, and on the afternoon of the sixth they made land on the starboard bow. There were mountains with snow upon them, and much fog; but Leif said that he would land in the morning, whatever kind of country it was. "It shall never be said against me, as it has been against Biorn, that I travel six days over the sea and leave the land I reach because it is not Greenland," he said.
They found a good anchorage, waited the night through, and then rowed off in their boat and ran her up on to the beach. It was a naked country of broken rock and shale. No grass was to be seen, and hardly any trees, except a few stunted silver birch. They walked inland for a mile or more to where the snow began, and then saw, as it were, one vast unwrinkled sheet of snow stretching upwards into a bank of cloud. The ground was all scree of slate and shaly rock. They saw no signs of habitancy, and few tracks of animals. Then presently they looked at each other, and Leif laughed. "I think there is something to be said for Biorn; but although this is a barren land there is no reason why it should not have a name. I will call it Helloland, for such it is." [1] Then they returned to their ship, and up-anchor, and away along the coast, so far as that allowed, but always keeping a straight course.
They came to another land, lying low in the sea, and sailed in towards it. Here also they landed, but on a shore of fine white sand, very level towards the sea, but blown into hummocks, whereon grass grew, towards the land. That was a flat country, and swampy, with trees so far as they could see, in some places dense and in others more open; but where the country lay open there were the swamps. "This country pleases me more than the last," Leif said. "The least it deserves is to be named. We will name it after its quality, and call it Markland," he said.[2]