[25-2] King Olaf ruled from 995 to 1000. He fell at the battle of Svolder (in the Baltic) in September, 1000. It was in the same year that Leif started out as the King’s missionary to Greenland. See [p. 43, note 1].
[25-3] A wild cereal of some sort. Fiske is convinced that it was Indian corn, while Storm thinks it was wild rice, contending with much force that Indian corn was a product entirely unknown to the explorers, and that they could not by any possibility have confused it with wheat, even if they had found it. There is, moreover, no indication in this saga that they found cultivated fields. Storm cites Sir William Alexander, Encouragement to Colonies (1624), who, in speaking of the products of Nova Scotia, refers, among other things, to “some eares of wheate, barly and rie growing there wild.” He also cites Jacques Cartier, who, in 1534, found in New Brunswick “wild grain like rye, which looked as though it had been sowed and cultivated.” See Reeves, p. 174, (50).
[25-4] Supposed to be maple.
[26-1] Also called Thorhild.
[27-1] That is, were near Ireland.
[28-1] The display of an axe seems to have been thought efficacious in laying fetches. See Reeves, p. 171, (39), citing a passage from another saga.
[30-1] Thorfinn Karlsefni, the explorer of the Vinland expeditions, was of excellent family. His lineage is given at greater length in the Landnama-bok (Book of Settlements).
[31-1] Usually called Gudrid.
[32-1] There is doubt as to why the expedition sailed northwest to the Western Settlement. Possibly Thorfinn desired to make a different start than Thorstein, whose expedition was a failure. See Reeves, p. 172, (45).
[32-2] Dœgr was a period of twelve hours. Reeves quotes the following from an old Icelandic work: “In the day there are two dœgr; in the dœgr twelve hours.” A dœgr’s sailing is estimated to have been about one hundred miles. There is evidently a clerical error in this passage after the number of days’ sailing. The words for “two” and “seven” are very similar in old Norse.