Another Account, In the Arna-Magnaean Manuscript
Beside Hauk’s Book, there is a corroborative, independent, but almost identical manuscript copy of the saga—No. 557 of the Arna-Magnaean collection at Copenhagen.
This saga[201] tells us:
Thence they sailed away beyond the Bear Islands with northerly winds. They were out two daegr (days); then they discovered land and rowed thither in boats and explored the country and found there many flat stones (hellur) so large that two men could well spurn soles upon them [lie at full length upon them, sole to sole]. There were many Arctic foxes there. They gave a name to the land and called it Helluland.
Thence they sailed two daegr and bore away from the south toward the southeast and they found a wooded country and on it many animals; an island lay off the land toward the southeast; they killed a bear on this and called it Biarney (Bear Island); but the country they called Markland (Forest Land).
When two daegr had elapsed they descried land, and they sailed off this land. There was a cape (ness) to which they came. They beat into the wind along this coast, having the land on the starboard (right) side. This was a bleak coast with long and sandy shores. They went ashore in boats and found the keel of a ship, so they called it Kjalarness (Keelness) there; they likewise gave a name to the strands and called them Furdustrandir (Wonder Strands) because they were so long to sail by. Then the country became indented with bays [or “fiord-cut,” as Dr. Olson translates] and they steered their ships into a bay.... The country round about was fair to look upon.... There was tall grass there.
A very severe winter, however, drove them far southward to a warmer bay, or hop, where they dwelt for nearly a year among the characteristic products of Wineland; but at last withdrew after an onslaught of the Indians.
Probably it was from this narrative that Arna-Magnaean Manuscript 194, an ancient geographic miscellany, partly in Icelandic, partly in Latin, derived the following statement, generally ascribed[202] to Abbot Nicholas of Thingeyri who died in 1159.
Southward from Greenland is Helluland, then comes Markland; thence it is not far to Wineland the Good, which some men believe extends from Africa, and if this be so there is an open sea flowing between Wineland and Markland. It is said that Thorfinn Karlsefni hewed a “house-neat-timber” and then went to seek Wineland the Good, and came to where they believed this land to be, but they did not succeed in exploring it or in obtaining any of its products.[203]
The foregoing view of the relative positions of these regions along the coast is also illustrated in the well-known map[204] ([Fig. 18]) of Sigurdr Stefánsson (1570, or 1590, according to Storm) which was evidently based on surviving Icelandic traditions.