[14] Professor Rafn, and those who have followed him, thought Dagmalastad and Eyktarstad denoted hours of the day, and that the former was 8 a.m. and the latter 4 p.m. This gave nine hours for the duration of the shortest day, which would be in latitude 42° 21′ N. But Dagmal and Eykt were points of the horizon, not hours of the day. The Norsemen had no means of knowing the hours. In 1885 Professor Gustav Storm gave the correct interpretation of the passage, and showed that the position must have been south of 49° N., but not far to the south of that latitude. The inhabitants met with by the Norsemen in Markland and called by them Skrællings are held by Tholbitzer to have been Eskimos. In Vinland the natives appear to have been Algonquin Indians.
[15] The different events which, according to the Hauk book, occurred in Karlsefni’s voyage, are scattered over several voyages in the Flatey book, the companions of Karlsefni being made the leaders of separate expeditions at different times. There is a voyage of Thorstein which failed, a voyage of Thorwald who was killed by Skrællings, a voyage of Karlsefni, and a voyage of Fredis in company with two brothers whom he murdered. The two accounts are contradictory as regards some of the details.
[16] The Kakortak ruin was discovered by Hans Egede in 1723. It was visited by Lieut. Graah in 1827 who first described it, with careful measurements. It was again visited by Sir Leopold M’Clintock in 1860.
[17] These are recorded in the Icelandic annals, which commence in 1260. Another series is appended to the Flatey book and dates from 1395.
[18] A Norse festival which falls on April 28th.
[19] In 1246.
[20] July 25th.
[21] Antiq. Amer. XXXIX.
[22] The sailing directions of Ivar Bardsen were published in English by Purchas, from a copy which had belonged to Henry Hudson. Rafn, in the Antiquitates Americanae, gave the text of an early copy found in the Faroes, with a Latin translation. Mr Major, in his Voyages of the Zeni, gives an English translation of the Latin version.
[23] We learn this from a parchment MS., known as the Skalholt Annals, believed to have been written in 1347.