of Norway who took no part whatever in the Greenland discoveries of, or colonies on, our continent.

Bancroft further tries to destroy our confidence in the sagas by saying that they are "mythological in form and obscure in meaning." It is true, mention is made in the Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne of a vicious uniped and of a sudden apparition and disappearance of an Indian woman, which are quite marvellous or childish; but what is said of the mythical Thor is in perfect keeping with the history of the time. As several writers have observed, there is in the sagas enough of a marvellous or supernatural character to serve as a proof of their authenticity, and so little of it as to leave them a more strictly historical aspect than that of most popular writings of the same period in civilized countries. Their warp and woof consist of plain, tangible, and likely material, not only free from mythological absurdities, but even devoid of philosophical considerations and generalities.

The vagueness strangely imputed to the sagas is probably to be understood according to another erroneous statement, that "Vinland has been sought in all directions, from Greenland and the St. Lawrence to Africa." If searchers after Vinland thus wandered away, even down to the Scandinavian "Serkland it Mikla," the fault does certainly not lie with the Icelandic manuscripts, which not only record the southwestern voyages of the Greenlanders and the correct

1 Some African tribes were anciently called Unipeds, because of their peculiar dress, that covered both their limbs. Hans Egede, in the year 1634, describes a seamonster which reared itself so high above the water that its head overtopped the mainsail, and, when it dived, raised its tail above

the water a whole ship's length. Hudson describes a mermaid, and Dr. Johnson believed in the reality of an apparition known in London as the Cock-Lane Ghost! ( DeCosta, Precolumbian Discovery of America, pp. 63, 133, n. 2.) We could not, on this account, disbelieve the actual facts they relate.

latitude to which their principal colonies extended, but also repeatedly give us, in orderly succession, all the countries-Vinland included-situated along the eastern coast of North America.1

To the objection drawn from the reported temperature in Rhode Island, it may be answered that the gradual lowering of temperature in the North since the eighth century, or earlier, ought to be taken into consideration; while, again, the winter of the year 10012 may have been as unusually mild in Vinland as the one of 1417 was in Iceland.3

Archæological discoveries confirm more and more every day the opinion that in former times the hunting- and fishing-grounds of the Esquimaux were down the Atlantic coasts of our northern continent, and that these low-statured tribes were gradually driven back by more warlike nations from the New England States to their frozen, cheerless haunts. One of Bancroft's objections, therefore, becomes an unexpected confirmation of the veracity of the saga-men.

Farnum correctly sums up the foregoing arguments when saying,* "When we find a distinct, coherent account of an event, in no way improbable in itself, transmitted through a people among whom certain classes cultivated to an extraordinary degree the art of memory, which was recorded in a manuscript of un

1 Supra, pp. 89, 90. A portion of Vinland had been determined to within a minute of latitude. It is true, an Icelandic geographical notice says, that some think Vinland to extend as far as Africa. But must its locality be therefore called uncertain? As well might we call vague and doubtful that of Massachusetts, because, according to the original grant, it extended

to the Pacific Ocean; and that of Virginia and of Florida, because both, at one time, included Massachusetts. (De Costa, Precolumbian Discovery of America, p. 183, n. 1.)

2

Supra, pp. 219, 220.

Historia del S. Don Fern. Colombo, cap. iv.

* P. 14.

doubted authenticity long before there could have existed any reason for inventing fictitious statements,—a manuscript now open to our inspection and giving this particular account, in connection with many others of accepted historical truth,—we shall certainly run little hazard in receiving the main features of such an account as absolute facts."

It has, indeed, just been observed that the evidence of the Codex Flatœensis is connected in perfect accord with that of several other Icelandic sagas of equal historical authority, and it is even placed beyond the shadow of doubt by documents of various other nations, which are either highly respectable or absolutely certain. De Costa sets forth several instances of perfect agreement between the entries of the Icelandic and of the English Annals' respecting the merchant voyages between both countries,-a circumstance, he remarks, which should go very far to establish the general value and credibility of those records of a distant age. So also do the observations made by the Icelandic Annals concerning the Black Death that ravaged Europe in the middle of the fourteenth century perfectly correspond to the information derived from a number of European authors, as do, in general, all their narratives fittingly coincide with what is known of the history of the Scandinavian nations.

Fiske gives several internal proofs, which he calls ear-marks of truth, of the credibility of the Icelandic reports of the voyages made by the ancient Greenlanders to the northeastern coasts of our continent. He pointedly remarks that no European writer could have made a description of the Skraelings and of their peculiari

1 Precolumbian America, pp. 47–51.

2 Thomas Rymer.

Discovery of

etc.

Islenzkir Annalar, S. 276, 278,

ties, unless he should have received information from eye-witnesses who took part in the events related. Mediæval Europeans knew nothing whatever about people who would show surprise at the sight of an iron tool, or frantic terror at the bellowing of a bovine, or who would eagerly trade off valuable property for little strips of cloth or a drink of milk. They knew nothing of our Indians' war-customs, much less of their famous warengine, of the big ball, not unlike a sheep's paunch and of a bluish color, which they swung from a long pole over the heads of the Northmen. This dangerous weapon was still in use among the Algonquins in New England and elsewhere. Schoolcraft calls it the "balista," and the Indians themselves call it the "demon's head." It was a large round boulder, sewed up in a new skin daubed in various colors. Plunged upon a boat or canoe, it was capable of sinking it; and, brought down upon a group of men on a sudden, it caused consternation and death.1

The narrative of the Vinland voyages belongs to the Icelandic historical sagas, and especially to two of these, the former of which was written by Hauk Erlendson between A.D 1305 and 1334 and is commonly called the "Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne." The other was made about the year 1387 by the priest Jon Thordharson, and is generally known under the title of "Saga of Eric the Red." The divergences between the two versions indicate that both writers were working independently upon the basis of antecedent written tradition, only the former being less complete and a kind of synopsis; while the agreement between the principal facts related in both versions, taken into consideration together with the space of time between these facts and

1 Cf. Fiske, vol. i. pp. 185–193, 198–213.

their existing records, clearly points to contemporary annalists. Various reminiscences of the same Vinland voyages in more ancient sagas and known contemporary authors leave no doubt that the history of the Greenlanders' southern explorations was written shortly after they were made, during the twelfth century.1

Neither are the sagas the only witnesses of the discovery and settlement of our continent by the Northmen. It is not necessary to recall to mind the interesting traditions of the Linapi Indians carved on their sticks and sung around their camp-fires, which take notice of the successive arrivals across the ocean of two white nations, represented by a boat with mast and sail and a cross over it, and the former of whom Rafinesque considers as the Northmen. It has also been sufficiently observed how well the Zeno narratives agree with the latest intelligence received from the sagas in regard to the Greenland colonies of our northeastern coasts. But other historians of unimpeachable reputation and authority plainly intimate and assert the important facts more fully related by the old manuscripts of Iceland.

Adam of Bremen, who wrote during the eleventh century, had gone for information regarding the Scandinavian countries to Swen Estrithson, king of Denmark, who told him of different islands lying in the Atlantic Ocean. "Besides these," he writes, "the king mentioned still another country, found by many3 in that same ocean,"-namely, which lies between Nor

1 Cf. Fiske, vol. i. pp. 198-213; Rafn, Antiq. Amer., pp. xiv. Rafn (Antiq. Amer., Introd.) produces several convincing proofs of the reliableness and credibility of the ancient historical sagas. We do not intend to speak of the Eddas

nor of the sagas avowedly romantic.

2

Supra, vol. i. pp. 115, 116.

This expression gives to understand that this distant country was often visited by Europeans at that time. (Supra, p. 246.)