[16-1] Movable planks used in constructing the lock-beds of the sleeping apartment. They were often beautifully carved, and hence valuable.
[16-2] An island midway between Iceland and Greenland, discovered in the latter part of the ninth century. Gunnbiorn was a Norwegian. This island is no longer above the surface. See Fiske, The Discovery of America, p. 242.
[17-1] This should read Eastern Settlement, evidently a clerical error in an original manuscript, as both Hauk’s Book and AM. 557 reproduce it. There were two settlements in Greenland, the Eastern and Western, both, however, to the westward of Cape Farewell, and between that cape on the south and Disco Island on the north. Ericsey (i.e., Eric’s Island) was at the mouth of Ericsfirth, near the present Julianshaab. For further details on the geography of these settlements, see Reeves, The Finding of Wineland the Good, p. 166, (25), and Fiske, The Discovery of America, I. 158, note.
[17-2] On the western coast of Greenland, about 70° N. Lat.
[17-3] The saga up to this point is taken from Landnama-bok, the great Icelandic authority on early genealogy and history. It might well have included one more paragraph (the succeeding one), which gives an approximate date to the colonization of Greenland: “Ari, Thorgil’s son, says that that summer twenty-five ships sailed to Greenland out of Borgfirth and Broadfirth; but fourteen only reached their destination; some were driven back, and some were lost. This was sixteen [S: fifteen] winters before Christianity was legally adopted in Iceland.” That is, in about 985, as Christianity was accepted in 1000 (or 1001). There is a possible variation of a year in the usually accepted date. See Origines Islandicae, I. 369.
[20-1] “Winter-night-tide” was about the middle of October.
[23-1] The home of Eric the Red, in the Eastern Settlement.
[24-1] This was evidently the first time that the voyage from Greenland to Norway was accomplished without going by way of Iceland, and was a remarkable achievement. The aim was evidently to avoid the dangerous passage between Greenland and Iceland.
[24-2] A reference to some strange happenings in the winter of 1000-1001 at the Icelandic farmstead Froda, as related in the Eyrbyggja Saga.
[25-1] Of the year 999. See [next note].