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resolved to abandon the undertaking and return to Greenland. The two vessels were soon laden and rigged. The one commanded by Bjarne Grimolfson was, it is stated, driven out of her way, and perished, worm-eaten, in the sea of Ireland. Thorfinn coasted eastward at first, and then to the North, sailing past Vinland to his old Greenland home. One incident of his return should not be overlooked. We here translate it literally:1

As they then sailed away from Vinland, southern weather took them, and they then hit Markland, and found there five Skraelings, and one was bearded; there were two women and two children. The companions of Karlsefne took these, but the others got away, and the Skraelings were absorbed down in the earth. They [the Northmen] had with them these two boys, who learned their language and were baptized. They called their mother Vethilda, and their father Uvaege. They said that kings governed the Skraelings, and one of them had name Avaldania, but one, Valdidia. They told that there was no house there; the men lay there in caves and holes. They said, there lay another great land opposite their land, where the men had settled, who were [walked] in white clothes, and bore poles afore themselves, to which were fastened pieces of cloth, and who screamed hard; and they think that that has been White-man's Land or Ireland the Great." 2

This closing remark of the saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne, almost identical with the statement of the Landnámabók, evidently proves that the knowledge of a

1 See Document XXXIII.

'Cf. Rafn, Antiquitates Americanæ, pp. 161, 182; Mémoire sur la Découverte, p. 10, seq.; Beauvois,

La Découverte, pp. 19-21; Peschel, Zeitalter, S. 82, n. 1; Gravier, pp. 81, seq., 103; Reeves, p. 51.

3

Supra, p. 76.

portion of the western hemisphere, under the name of Great Ireland, was as common among the ancient Scandinavians of Iceland and Greenland as it was in Ireland, where Rafn, the Limerick merchant, had heard of it; and in the Orkneys, where the earl Thorfinn had incidentally mentioned the name long before Thorfinn Karlsefne heard the report of the Skraeling youths. Nay, and this is rather remarkable, the name of Ireland the Great, Irlandah-al-Kabirah,— together with an indication, though not altogether correct, of its location, is found in the learned works of the Arabian geographer Edrisi, who flourished between the years 1099 and 1175.2

Notwithstanding, therefore, the rather illogical disbelief of Short,3 who admits the statements of the Icelandic sagas as being beyond discussion, we could not seriously doubt the real existence of Great Ireland as a special country on the Atlantic border of North America. Reeves," who mistakes in asserting that "the sum of information which we possess concerning White-man's Land or Ireland the Great is confined to the passage from the Landnámabók," relating the adventure of Ari Marson, says that "it does not seem possible from these very vague notices to arrive at any sound conclusions concerning the location of this country, which he consequently styles a 'terra incognita.""

The fact, however, is that we have ample and various sources from which to determine the geographical position of Great Ireland.

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The Landnámabók, as we noticed before,' states that White-man's Land lay in the ocean at six days' sail to the west of Ireland. Already Torfæus remarks, before Rafn,3 that probably the copyists of the original, now lost, could not well read the dimmed number, and wrote VI. instead of XX., XI., or XV., as meant by the author, who further declares that Great Ireland was situated near Good Wineland, that is, the present New England States,-as we shall notice in the proper place.

The Icelandic Codex is quite particular in its enumeration of the various countries which succeed one another from North to South along the Atlantic shore of North America: "Now there are, as is said before, to the south of Greenland, which is inhabited, deserts, wildernesses, and mountains of ice; then follow the Skraelings; then Markland; then comes Vinland the Good; next to it, and a little higher, lies Albania, -that is, Hvítramannaland,-to which there was at one time sailing from Ireland. There it is that Irish and Icelandic men recognized Ari, son of Mar and of Katla of Reykjanes, who had not been heard of for a long time, and had been taken there as a chief by the inhabitants." 4

Besides this, three other ancient fragments of Icelandic geography clearly exclude Great Ireland, adjacent to Vinland, from any position betwixt this latter country and Greenland.

"To the South from Greenland lies Helluland, then Markland; from there it is not far to Vinland, which some men think that it goes to Africa." 5

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The "Gripla" says, "Now it is to be mentioned what lies opposite Greenland, out from the bay. It is Furdustrandir; there are severe frosts there, so that it is not habitable as far as is known. South from thence is Helluland, which is called Skraelingsland; south from thence it is not far to Vinland the Good, which, some think, goes to Africa." 2

Finally, the third geographical notice follows an inverse direction: "Westward the great sea of Spain, which some call Ginnungagap, that goes between the lands; then they name it, towards the North, first, Vinland the Good; next they name Markland, still to the North; then there are deserts, where the Skraelings dwell; then there are deserts still till Greenland." 3

From this last statement, combined with the fact that it was about Markland or Nova Scotia that Thorfinn seized his young captives, Beauvois concludes that White-man's Land, said to lie opposite that of the Skraelings, was probably located on the left banks of the St. Lawrence River. This conclusion is, however, directly disproved by the statement of Great Ireland's location beyond Vinland, to the South. The apparent difficulty which carried the learned antiquarian's opinion is easily solved when we remember that the Skraelings-more generally known as the Esquimaux-were, in former ages, wandering over a more extensive and more southern country than at present. This fact is attested by both ancient documents and by the study of those people's skeletons discovered along our eastern shores. They were slowly

1 Cf. Rafn, Antiquitates, p. 215; Gleeson, vol. i. p. 210; Beauvois, La Découverte, p. 84; De Costa, The Precolumbian Discovery of America, p. 185; MS. No. 192 of Arna

Magneana Collection and Groenl.
Hist. Mindesm, t. iii. p. 220.

2 Cf. Document XXXIV., a.
Ibid., b.

3

La Découverte, p. 42.

driven to their glaciers by more warlike southwestern tribes.1

3

Moreover, the noted direction of Björn Asbrandson's voyage from Iceland under a steady northeast wind, and of Gudleif's, who was driven a long time to the west and then to the southwest of Ireland, to a country where Irish was spoken: this direction, we must observe, perfectly agrees with the Icelandic geographical information in locating White-man's Land in the southeastern part of our United States. Rafn, therefore, thinks that Great Ireland corresponded to the States south of the Chesapeake Bay, and, in particular, with the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida." Von Humboldt is of the same opinion when saying, "In the older sagas, the Landnámabók and the narrative of Thorfinn Karlsefne, the southern coasts between Virginia and Florida are designated under the name of Land of the White Men."5 Another competent authority, Charney, likewise says that Texas, the Floridan peninsula, the valleys of the Mississippi, Georgia, and the two Carolinas were named Whiteman's Land or Great Ireland by the Icelandic sagas.

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6 Cités et Ruines, 1861, p. 18, ap. Gleeson, vol. i. p. 212, n. 1.

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