Χαῖρε καὶ ἐν νεφέλαισι καὶ ἐν νιφάδεσσι βαρείαιςΚαὶ πυρὶ καὶ σεισμοῖς νῆσε σαλευομένη·Ἐνθάδε γὰρ βασιλῆος ὑπέρβιον ὕβριν ἀλύξαςΔῆμος Ὑπερβορέων, κόσμου ἐπ' ἐσχατιῇ,Αὐτάρκη βίοτον θείων τ' ἐρεθίσματα ΜουσῶνΚαὶ θεσμοὺς ἁγνῆς εὗρεν ἐλευθερίας.
Χαῖρε καὶ ἐν νεφέλαισι καὶ ἐν νιφάδεσσι βαρείαιςΚαὶ πυρὶ καὶ σεισμοῖς νῆσε σαλευομένη·Ἐνθάδε γὰρ βασιλῆος ὑπέρβιον ὕβριν ἀλύξαςΔῆμος Ὑπερβορέων, κόσμου ἐπ' ἐσχατιῇ,Αὐτάρκη βίοτον θείων τ' ἐρεθίσματα ΜουσῶνΚαὶ θεσμοὺς ἁγνῆς εὗρεν ἐλευθερίας.
These verses are thus rendered by Sir Edmund Head (Viga Glums Saga, p. v.):—
"Hail, Isle! with mist and snowstorms girt around,Where fire and earthquake rend the shattered ground,—Here once o'er furthest ocean's icy pathThe Northmen fled a tyrant monarch's wrath:Here, cheered by song and story, dwelt they free,And held unscathed their laws and liberty."
Laing (Heimskringla, vol. i. p. 57) couples Iceland and New England as the two modern colonies most distinctly "founded on principle and peopled at first from higher motives than want or gain."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 175:Just what was then considered wealth, for an individual, may best be understood by a concrete instance. The historian Snorro Sturleson, born in 1178, was called a rich man. "In one year, in which fodder was scarce, he lost 120 head of oxen without being seriously affected by it." The fortune which he got with his first wife Herdisa, in 1199, was equivalent nominally to $4,000, or, according to the standard of to-day, about $80,000. Laing,Heimskringla, vol. i. pp. 191, 193.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 176:Laing's excellent English translation of it was published in London in 1844. The preliminary dissertation, in five chapters, is of great value. A new edition, revised by Prof. Rasmus Anderson, was published in London in 1889. Another charming book is Sir George Dasent'sStory of Burnt Njal, Edinburgh, 1861, 2 vols., translated from theNjals Saga. Both the saga itself and the translator's learned introduction give an admirable description of life in Iceland at the end of the tenth century, the time when the voyages to America were made. It is a very instructive chapter in history.
The Icelanders of the present day retain the Old Norse language, while on the Continent it has been modified into Swedish and Norwegian-Danish. They are a well-educated people, and, in proportion to their numbers, publish many books.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 177:A full collection of these chronicles is given in Rafn'sAntiquitates Americanæ, Copenhagen, 1837, in the original Icelandic, with Danish and Latin translations. This book is of great value for its full and careful reproduction of original texts; although the rash speculations and the want of critical discernment shown in the editor's efforts to determine the precise situation of Vinland have done much to discredit the whole subject in the eyes of many scholars. That is, however, very apt to be the case with first attempts, like Rafn's, and the obvious defects of his work should not be allowed to blind us to its merits. In the footnotes to the present chapter I shall cite it simply as "Rafn;" as the exact phraseology is often important, I shall usually cite the original Icelandic, and (for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with that language) shall also give the Latin version, which has been well made, and quite happily reflects the fresh and pithy vigour of the original. An English translation of all the essential parts may be found in De Costa,Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen, 2d ed., Albany, 1890; see also Slafter,Voyages of the Northmen to America, Boston, 1877 (Prince Society). An Icelandic version, interpolated in Peringskiold's edition of theHeimskringla, 1697, is translated in Laing, vol. iii. pp. 344-361.
The first modern writer to call attention to the Icelandic voyages to Greenland and Vinland was Arngrim Jónsson, in hisCrymogœa, Hamburg, 1610, and more explicitly in hisSpecimen Islandiæ historicum, Amsterdam, 1643. The voyages are also mentioned by Campanius, in hisKort beskrifning om provincien Nya Swerige uti America, Stockholm, 1702. The first, however, to bring the subject prominently before European readers was that judicious scholar Thormodus Torfæus, in his two booksHistoria Vinlandiæ antiquæ, andHistoria Gronlandiæ antiquæ, Copenhagen, 1705 and 1706. Later writers have until very recently added but little that is important to the work of Torfæus. In the voluminous literature of the subject the discussions chiefly worthy of mention are Forster'sGeschichte der Entdeckungen und Schiffahrten im Norden, Frankfort, 1784, pp. 44-88; and Humboldt,Examen critique, etc., Paris, 1837, tom. i. pp. 84-104; see, also, Major,Select Letters of Columbus, London, 1847 (Hakluyt Soc.) pp. xii.-xxi. The fifth chapter of Samuel Laing's preliminary dissertation to theHeimskringla, which is devoted to this subject, is full of good sense; for the most part the shrewd Orkneyman gets at the core of the thing, though now and then a little closer knowledge of America would have been useful to him. The latest critical discussion of the sources, marking a very decided advance since Rafn's time, is the paper by Gustav Storm, professor of history in the University of Christiania, "Studier over Vinlandsreiserne," inAarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, Copenhagen, 1887, pp. 293-372.
Since this chapter was written I have seen an English translation of the valuable paper just mentioned, "Studies on the Vineland Voyages," inMémoires de la société royale des antiquaires du Nord, Copenhagen, 1888, pp. 307-370. I have therefore in most cases altered my footnote references below, making the page-numbers refer to the English version (in which, by the way, some parts of the Norwegian original are, for no very obvious reason, omitted). By an odd coincidence there comes to me at the same time a book fresh from the press, whose rare beauty of mechanical workmanship is fully equalled by its intrinsic merit,The Finding of Wineland the Good—the History of the Icelandic Discovery of America, edited and translated from the earliest records by Arthur Middleton Reeves, London, 1890. This beautiful quarto contains phototype plates of the original Icelandic vellums in theHauks-bók, the MS. AM. 557, and theFlateyar-bók, together with the texts carefully edited, an admirable English translation, and several chapters of critical discussion decidedly better than anything that has gone before it. On reading it carefully through, it seems to me the best book we have on the subject in English, or perhaps in any language.
Since the above was written, the news has come of the sudden and dreadful death of Mr. Reeves, in the railroad disaster at Hagerstown, Indiana, February 25, 1891. Mr. Reeves was an American scholar of most brilliant promise, only in his thirty-fifth year.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 178:Rink,Danish Greenland, p. 6.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 179:We thus see the treacherousness of one of the arguments cited by the illustrious Arago to prove that the Greenland coast must be colder now than in the tenth century. The Icelanders, he thinks, called it "a green land" because of its verdure, and therefore it must have been warmer than at present. But the land which Eric called green was evidently nothing more than the region about Julianeshaab, which still has plenty of verdure; and so the argument falls to the ground. See Arago,Sur l'état thermométrique du globe terrestre, in hisŒuvres, tom. v. p. 243. There are reasons, however, for believing that Greenland was warmer in the tenth century than at present. See below, p.176.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 180:The map is reduced from Rafn'sAntiquitates Americanæ, tab. xv. The ruins dotted here and there upon it have been known ever since the last rediscovery of Greenland in 1721, but until after 1831 they were generally supposed to be the ruins of the West Bygd. After the fifteenth century, when the old colony had perished, and its existence had become a mere literary tradition, there grew up a notion that the names East Bygd and West Bygd indicated that the two settlements must have been respectively eastward and westward of Cape Farewell; and after 1721 much time was wasted in looking for vestiges of human habitations on the barren and ice-bound eastern coast. At length, in 1828-31, the exploring expedition sent out by the Danish government, under the very able and intelligent Captain Graah, demonstrated that both settlements were west of Cape Farewell, and that the ruins here indicated upon the map are the ruins of the East Bygd. It now became apparent that a certain description of Greenland by Ivar Bardsen—written in Greenland in the fourteenth century, and generally accessible to European scholars since the end of the sixteenth, but not held in much esteem before Captain Graah's expedition—was quite accurate and extremely valuable. From Bardsen's description, about which we shall have more to say hereafter, we can point out upon the map the ancient sites with much confidence. Of those mentioned in the present work, the bishop's church, or "cathedral" (a view of which is given below, p.222), was at Kakortok. The village of Gardar, which gave its name to the bishopric, was at Kaksiarsuk, at the northeastern extremity of Igaliko fiord. Opposite Kaksiarsuk, on the western fork of the fiord, the reader will observe a ruined church; that marks the site of Brattahlid. The fiord of Igaliko was called by the Northmen Einarsfiord; and that of Tunnudliorbik was their Ericsfiord. The monastery of St. Olaus, visited by Nicolò Zeno (see below, p.240), is supposed by Mr. Major to have been situated near the Iisblink at the bottom of Tessermiut fiord, between the east shore of the fiord and the small lake indicated on the map.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 181:In Herjulfsfiord, at the entrance to which the modern Friedrichsthal is situated. Across the fiord from Friedrichsthal a ruined church stands upon the cape formerly known as Herjulfsness. See map.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 182:"Leifr var mikill madhr ok sterkr, manna sköruligastr at sjá, vitr madhr ok gódhr hófsmadhr um alla hluti," i. e. "Leif was a large man and strong, of noble aspect, prudent and moderate in all things." Rafn, p. 33.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 183:The year seems to have been that in which Christianity was definitely established by law in Iceland, viz.,A. D.1000. The chronicleThattr Eireks Raudhais careful about verifying its dates by checking one against another. See Rafn, p. 15. The most masterly work on the conversion of the Scandinavian people is Maurer'sDie Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes zum Christenthume, Munich, 1855; for an account of the missionary work in Iceland and Greenland, see vol. i. pp. 191-242, 443-452.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 184:The name means "Turk," and has served as a touchstone for the dullness of commentators. To the Northmen a "Southman" would naturally be a German, and why should a German be called a Turk? or how should these Northmen happen to have had a Turk in their company? Mr. Laing suggests that he may have been a Magyar. Yes; or he may have visited the Eastern Empire and taken part in a fightagainstTurks, and so have got a soubriquet, just as Thorhall Gamlason, after returning from Vinland to Iceland, was ever afterward known as "the Vinlander." That did not mean that he was an American redskin. See below, p.203. From Tyrker's grimaces one commentator sagely infers that he had been eating grapes and got drunk; and another (even Mr. Laing!) thinks it necessary to remind us that all the grape-juice in Vinland would not fuddle a man unless it had been fermented,—and then goes on to ascribe the absurdity to our innocent chronicle, instead of the stupid annotator. SeeHeimskringla, vol. i. p. 168.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 185:On the homeward voyage he rescued some shipwrecked sailors near the coast of Greenland, and was thenceforward called Leif the Lucky (et postea cognominatus est Leivus Fortunatus). The pleasant reports from the newly found country gave it the name of "Vinland the Good." In the course of the winter following Leif's return his father died.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 186:"Jam crebri de Leivi in Vinlandiam profectione sermones serebantur, Thorvaldus vero, frater ejus, nimis pauca terræ loca explorata fuisse judicavit." Rafn, p. 39.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 187:Three is the number usually given, but at least four of their ships would be needed for so large a company; and besides Thorfinn himself, three other captains are mentioned,—Snorro Thorbrandsson, Bjarni Grimolfsson, and Thorhall Gamlason. The narrative gives a picturesque account of this Thorhall, who was a pagan and fond of deriding his comrades for their belief in the new-fangled Christian notions. He seems to have left his comrades and returned to Europe before they had abandoned their enterprise. A further reference to him will be made below, p.203.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 188:To this boy Snorro many eminent men have traced their ancestry,—bishops, university professors, governors of Iceland, and ministers of state in Norway and Denmark. The learned antiquarian Finn Magnusson and the celebrated sculptor Thorwaldsen regarded themselves as thus descended from Thorfinn Karlsefni.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 189:Compare the alarm of the Wampanoag Indians in 1603 at the sight of Martin Pring's mastiff. Winsor,Narr. and Crit. Hist., iii. 174.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 190:The fate of Bjarni was pathetic and noble. It was decided that as many as possible should save themselves in the stern boat. "Then Bjarni ordered that the men should go in the boat by lot, and not according to rank. As it would not hold all, they accepted the saying, and when the lots were drawn, the men went out of the ship into the boat. The lot was that Bjarni should go down from the ship to the boat with one half of the men. Then those to whom the lot fell went down from the ship to the boat. When they had come into the boat, a young Icelander, who was the companion of Bjarni, said: 'Now thus do you intend to leave me, Bjarni?' Bjarni replied, 'That now seems necessary.' He replied with these words: 'Thou art not true to the promise made when I left my father's house in Iceland.' Bjarni replied: 'In this thing I do not see any other way'; continuing, 'What course can you suggest?' He said: 'I see this, that we change places and thou come up here and I go down there.' Bjarni replied: 'Let it be so, since I see that you are so anxious to live, and are frightened by the prospect of death.' Then they changed places, and he descended into the boat with the men, and Bjarni went up into the ship. It is related that Bjarni and the sailors with him in the ship perished in the worm sea. Those who went in the boat went on their course until they came to land, where they told all these things." De Costa's version fromSaga Thorfinns Karlsefnis, Rafn, pp. 184-186.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 191:The stories of Gudleif Gudlaugsson and Ari Marsson, with the fanciful speculations about "Hvitramannaland" and "Irland it Mikla," do not seem worthy of notice in this connection. They may be found in De Costa,op. cit.pp. 159-177; and see Reeves,The Finding of Wineland the Good, chap. v.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 192:Laing,Heimskringla, i. 152.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 193:See hisLarger History of the United States, pp. 32-34.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 194:Perhaps it may have been a square-headed lug, like those of the Deal galley-punts; see Leslie'sOld Sea Wings, Ways, and Words, in the Days of Oak and Hemp, London, 1890, p. 21.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 195:Some people must have queer notions about the lapse of past time. I have more than once had this question put to me in such a way as to show that what the querist really had in mind was some vague impression of the time when oaks and chestnuts, vines and magnolias, grew luxuriantly over a great part of Greenland! But that was in the Miocene period, probably not less than a million years ago, and has no obvious bearing upon the deeds of Eric the Red.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 196:Bardsen,Descriptio Grœnlandiæ, appended to Major'sVoyages of the Venetian Brothers, etc., pp. 40, 41; and see below, p.242.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 197:Zahrtmann,Journal of Royal Geographical Society, London, 1836, vol. v. p. 102. On this general subject see J. D. Whitney, "The Climate Changes of Later Geological Times," inMemoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy at Harvard College, Cambridge, 1882, vol. vii. According to Professor Whitney there has also been a deterioration in the climate of Iceland.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 198:One must not too hastily infer that the mean temperature of points on the American coast south of Davis strait would be affected in the same way. The relation between the phenomena is not quite so simple. For example, a warm early spring on the coast of Greenland increases the discharge of icebergs from its fiords to wander down the Atlantic ocean; and this increase of floating ice tends to chill and dampen the summers at least as far South as Long Island, if not farther.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 199:Rink'sDanish Greenland, pp. 27, 96, 97.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 200:See Read'sHistorical Inquiry concerning Henry Hudson, Albany, 1866, p. 160.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 201:"Nú tekst umrædha at nýju um Vínlandsferdh, thviat sú ferdh thikir bædhi gódh til fjár ok virdhíngar," i. e. "Now they began to talk again about a voyage to Vinland, for the voyage thither was both gainful and honourable." Rafn, p. 65.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 202:Heimskringla, i, 168.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 203:"Fjöldi var thar melrakka," i. e. "ibi vulpium magnus numerus erat," Rafn, p. 138.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 204:It is extremely difficult for an impostor to concoct a narrative without making blunders that can easily be detected by a critical scholar. For example, the Book of Mormon, in the passage cited (see above, p.3), in supremely blissful ignorance introduces oxen, sheep, and silk-worms, as well as the knowledge of smelting iron, into pre-Columbian America.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 205:"Thar í drápu their einn björn," i. e. "in qua ursum interfecerunt," id. p. 138.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 206:"Hvorki skorti thar lax í ánni nè í vatninu, ok stærra lax enn their hefdhi fyrr sèdh," i. e. "ibi neque in fluvio neque in lacu deerat salmonum copia, et quidem majoris corporis quam antea vidissent," id. p. 32.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 207:"Helgir fiskar," i. e. "sacri pisces," id. p. 148. The Danish phrase is "helleflyndre," i. e. "holy flounder." The Englishhalibutishali=holy+but=flounder. This wordbutis classed as Middle English, but may still be heard in the north of England. The fish may have been so called "from being eaten particularly on holy days" (Century Dict.s.v.); or possibly from a pagan superstition that water abounding in flat fishes is especially safe for mariners (Pliny,Hist. Nat.ix. 70); or possibly from some lost folk-tale about St. Peter (Maurer,Isländische Volkssagen der Gegenwart, Leipsic, 1860, p. 195).[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 208:"Svâ var mörg ædhr í eynni, at varla mátti gánga fyri eggjum," i. e. "tantus in insula anatum mollissimarum numerus erat, ut præ ovis transiri fere non posset," id. p. 141. Eider ducks breed on our northeastern coasts as far south as Portland, and are sometimes in winter seen as far south as Delaware. They also abound in Greenland and Iceland, and, as Wilson observes, "their nests are crowded so close together that a person can scarcely walk without treading on them.... The Icelanders have for ages known the value of eider down, and have done an extensive business in it." See Wilson'sAmerican Ornithology, vol. iii. p. 50.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 209:
Rafn, p. 36.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 210:Storm, "Studies on the Vinland Voyages,"Mémoires de la société royale des antiquaires du Nord, Copenhagen, 1888, p. 351. The limit of the vine at this latitude is some distance inland; near the shore the limit is a little farther south, and in Newfoundland it does not grow at all. Id. p. 308.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 211:The attempt of Dr. Kohl (Maine Hist. Soc., New Series, vol. i.) to connect the voyage of Thorfinn with the coast of Maine seems to be successfully refuted by De Costa,Northmen in Maine, etc., Albany, 1870.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 212:
Footnote 213:Dr. Storm makes perhaps too much of this presumption. He treats it as decisive against his own opinion that Vinland was the southern coast of Nova Scotia, and accordingly he tries to prove that the self-sown corn was not maize, but "wild rice" (Zizania aquatica).Mémoires, etc., p. 356. But his argument is weakened by excess of ingenuity.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 214:"Thar var svâ gódhr landskostr at thví er theim sýndist, at thar mundi eingi fènadhr fódhr thurfa á vetrum; thar kvomu eingi frost á vetrum, ok lítt rènudhu thar grös," i. e. "tanta autem erat terræ bonitas, ut inde intelligere esset, pecora hieme pabulo non indigere posse, nullis incidentibus algoribus hiemalibus, et graminibus parum flaccescentibus." Rafn, p. 32.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 215:"Thar voru their um vetrinn; ok gjördhist vetr mikill, en ekki fyri unnit ok gjördhist íllt til matarins, ok tókust af veidhirnar," i. e. "hic hiemarunt; cum vero magna incideret hiems, nullumque provisum esset alimentum, cibus cœpit deficere capturaque cessabat," Id. p. 174.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 216:A favourite method of determining the exact spots visited by the Northmen has been to compare their statements regarding the shape and trend of the coasts, their bays, headlands, etc., with various well-known points on the New England coast. It is a tempting method, but unfortunately treacherous, because the same general description will often apply well enough to several different places. It is like summer boarders in the country struggling to tell one another where they have been to drive,—past a school-house, down a steep hill, through some woods, and by a saw-mill, etc.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 217:It is not meant that stone implements did not continue to be used in some parts of Europe far into the Middle Ages. But this was not because iron was not perfectly well known, but because in many backward regions it was difficult to obtain or to work, so that stone continued in use. As my friend, Mr. T. S. Perry, reminds me, Helbig says that stone-pointed spears were used by some of the English at the battle of Hastings, and stone battle-axes by some of the Scots under William Wallace at the end of the thirteenth century.Die Italiker in der Poebene, Leipsic, 1879, p. 42. Helbig's statement as to Hastings is confirmed by Freeman,Norman Conquest of England, vol. iii. p. 473.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 218:My use of the word "inventing" is, in this connection, a slip of the pen. Of course the tales of "men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders," the Sciopedæ, etc., as told by Sir John Mandeville, were not invented by the mediæval imagination, but copied from ancient authors. They may be found in Pliny,Hist. Nat., lib. vii., and were mentioned before his time by Ktesias, as well as by Hecatæus, according to Stephanus of Byzantium. Cf. Aristophanes,Aves, 1553; Julius Solinus,Polyhistor, ed. Salmasius, cap. 240. Just as these sheets are going to press there comes to me Mr. Perry's acute and learnedHistory of Greek Literature, New York, 1890, in which this subject is mentioned in connection with the mendacious and medical Ktesias:—These stories have probably acquired a literary currency "by exercise of the habit, not unknown even to students of science, of indiscriminate copying from one's predecessors, so that in reading Mandeville we have the ghosts of the lies of Ktesias, almost sanctified by the authority of Pliny, who quoted them and thereby made them a part of mediæval folk-lore—and from folk-lore, probably, they took their remote start" (p. 522).[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 219:"En that var grávara ok safvali ok allskonar skinnavara" (Rafn, p. 59),—i. e. gray fur and sable and all sorts of skinwares; in another account, "skinnavöru ok algrá skinn," which in the Danish version is "skindvarer og ægte graaskind" (id. p. 150),—i. e. skinwares and genuine gray furs. Cartier in Canada and the Puritans in Massachusetts were not long in finding that the natives had good furs to sell.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 220:Rafn, p. 156.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 221:Much curious information respecting the use of elephants in war may be found in the learned work of the Chevalier Armandi,Histoire militaire des éléphants, Paris, 1843. As regards Thorfinn's bull, Mr. Laing makes the kind of blunder that our British cousins are sometimes known to make when they get the Rocky Mountains within sight of Bunker Hill monument. "A continental people in that part of America," says Mr. Laing, "could not be strangers to the much more formidable bison."Heimskringla, p. 169. Bisons on the Atlantic coast, Mr. Laing?! And then his comparison quite misses the point; a bison, if the natives had been familiar with him, would not have been at all formidable as compared to the bull which they had never before seen. A horse is much less formidable than a cougar, but Aztec warriors who did not mind a cougar were paralyzed with terror at the sight of men on horseback. It is the unknown that frightens in such cases. Thorfinn's natives were probably familiar with such large animals as moose and deer, but a deer isn't a bull.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 222:The Phœnicians, however (who in this connection may be classed with Europeans), must have met with some such people in the course of their voyages upon the coasts of Africa. I shall treat of this more fully below, p.327.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 223:As for Indians, says Cieza de Leon, they are all noisy (alharaquientos).Segunda Parte de la Crónica del Peru, cap. xxiii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 224:For example, Dr. De Costa refers to Dr. Abbott's discoveries as indicating "that the Indian was preceded by a people like the Eskimos, whose stone implements are found in the Trenton gravel."Pre-Columbian Discovery, p. 132. Quite so; but that was in the Glacial Period (!!), and when the edge of the ice-sheet slowly retreated northward, the Eskimo, who is emphatically an Arctic creature, doubtless retreated with it, just as he retreated from Europe. See above, p.18. There is not the slightest reason for supposing that there were any Eskimos south of Labrador so lately as nine hundred years ago.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 225:"Their voru svartir menn ok illiligir, ok havdhu íllt hár á höfdhi. Their voru mjök eygdhir ok breidhir í kinnum," i. e. "Hi homines erant nigri, truculenti specie, fœdam in capite comam habentes, oculis magnis et genis latis." Rafn, p. 149. The Icelandicsvartris more precisely rendered by the identical Englishswarthythan by the Latinniger.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 226:"Mais quãt à noz Sauvages, pour ce qui regarde les ïeux ilz ne les ont ni bleuz, ni verds, mais noirs pour la pluspart, ainsi que les cheveux; & neantmoins ne sont petits, cõme ceux des anciens Scythes, mais d'une grandeur bien agréable." Lescarbot,Histoire de la Nouvelle France, Paris, 1612, tom. ii. p. 714.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 227:"Hún fann fyrir sèr mann daudhan, thar var Thorbrandr Snorrason, ok stódh hellusteinn í höfdhi honum; sverdhit lá bert í hjá honum," i. e. "Illa incidit in mortuum hominem, Thorbrandum Snorrii filium, cujus capiti lapis planus impactus stetit; nudus juxta eum gladius jacuit." Rafn, p. 154.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 228:These Eskimo skin-boats are described in Rink'sDanish Greenland, pp. 113, 179.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 229:Cf. Storm,op. cit.pp. 366, 367.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 230:"That sá their Karlsefni at Skrælíngar færdhu upp á stöng knött stundar mykinn thví nær til at jafna sem saudharvömb, ok helzt blán at lit, ok fleygdhu af stönginni upp á landit yfir lidh theirra Karlsefnis, ok lèt illilega vidhr, thar sem nidhr kom. Vidh thetta sló ótta myklum á Karlsefni ok allt lidh hans, svâ at thá fýsti engis annars enn flýja, ok halda undan upp medh ánni, thvíat theim thótti lidh Skrælínga drífa at sèr allum megin, ok lètta eigi, fyrr enn their koma til hamra nokkurra, ok veittu thar vidhrtöku hardha," i. e. "Viderunt Karlsefniani quod Skrælingi longurio sustulerunt globum ingentem, ventri ovillo haud absimilem, colore fere cæruleo; hune ex longurio in terram super manum Karlsefnianorum contorserunt, qui ut decidit, dirum sonuit. Hac re terrore perculsus est Karlsefnius suique omnes, ut nihil aliud cuperent quam fugere et gradum referre sursum secundum fluvium: credebant enim se ab Skrælingis undique circumveniri. Hinc non gradum stitere, priusquam ad rupes quasdam pervenissent, ubi acriter resistebant." Rafn, p. 153.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 231:Schoolcraft,Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge, Philadelphia, 1860, 6 vols. 4to, vol. i. p. 89; a figure of this weapon is given in the same volume, plate xv. fig. 2, from a careful description by Chingwauk, an Algonquin chief.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 232:Rafn, p. 160; De Costa, p. 134; Storm, p. 330.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 233:Here the narrator seems determined to give us a genuine smack of the marvellous, for when the fleeing uniped comes to a place where his retreat seems cut off by an arm of the sea, he runs (glides, or hops?) across the water without sinking. In Vigfusson's version, however, the marvellous is eliminated, and the creature simply runs over the stubble and disappears. The incident is evidently an instance where the narrative has been "embellished" by introducing a feature from ancient classical writers. The "Monocoli," or one-legged people, are mentioned by Pliny,Hist. Nat., vii. 2: "Item hominum genus qui Monocoli vocarentur, singulis cruribus, miræ pernicitatis ad saltum." Cf. Aulus Gellius,Noctes Atticæ, viii. 4.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 234:Between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, June 15, 1608. For the description, with its droll details, seePurchas his Pilgrimes, iii. 575.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 235:Proceedings Mass. Hist. Soc., December, 1887.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 236:I used this argument twenty years ago in qualification of the over-zealous solarizing views of Sir G. W. Cox and others. See myMyths and Mythmakers, pp. 191-202; and cf. Freeman on "The Mythical and Romantic Elements in Early English History," in hisHistorical Essays, i. 1-39.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 237:Curtin,Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland, pp. 12, 204, 303; Kennedy,Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts, pp. 203-311.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 238:Nowhere can you find a more masterly critical account of Icelandic literature than in Vigfusson's "Prolegomena" to his edition ofSturlunga Saga, Oxford, 1878, vol. i. pp. ix.-ccxiv. There is a good but very brief account in Horn'sHistory of the Literature of the Scandinavian North, transl. by R. B. Anderson, Chicago, 1884, pp. 50-70.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 239:It is printed in Rafn, pp. 84-187, and inGrönlands historiske Mindesmærker, i. 352-443. The most essential part of it may now be found, under its own name, in Vigfusson'sIcelandic Prose Reader, pp. 123-140.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 240:It belonged to a man who lived on Flat Island, in one of the Iceland fiords.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 241:It is printed in Rafn, pp. 1-76, under the title "Thættir af Eireki Rauda ok Grænlendíngum." For a critical account of these versions, see Storm,op. cit.pp. 319-325; I do not, in all respects, follow him in his depreciation of the Flateyar-bók version.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 242:Lewis'sInquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman History, 2 vols., London, 1855.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 243:And notably in that terrible fire of October, 1728, which consumed the University Library at Copenhagen, and broke the heart of the noble collector of manuscripts, Arni Magnusson. The great eruption of Hecla in 1390 overwhelmed two famous homesteads in the immediate neighbourhood. From the local history of these homesteads and their inmates, Vigfusson thinks it not unlikely that some records may still be there "awaiting the spade and pickaxe of a new Schliemann."Sturlunga Saga, p. cliv.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 244:An excellent facsimile of Hauk's handwriting is given in Rafn, tab. iii., lower part; tab. iv. and the upper part of tab. iii. are in the hands of his two amanuenses. See Vigfusson,op. cit.p. clxi.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 245:Vigfusson,Eyrbyggja Saga, pp. 91, 92. Another of Karlsefni's comrades, Thorhall Gamlason, is mentioned inGrettis Saga, Copenhagen, 1859, pp. 22, 70; he went back to Iceland, settled on a farm there, and was known for the rest of his life as "the Vinlander." See above, pp.165,168.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 246:Werlauf,Symbolæ ad Geogr. Medii Ævi, Copenhagen, 1820.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 247:For a critical estimate of Ari's literary activity and the extent of his work, the reader is referred to Möbius,Are's Isländerbuch, Leipsic, 1869; Maurer, "Über Ari Thorgilsson und sein Isländerbuch," inGermania, xv.; Olsen,Ari Thorgilsson hinn Fródhi, Reykjavik, 1889, pp. 214-240.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 248:Their "fundo thar manna vister bæthi austr ok vestr á landi ok kæiplabrot ok steinsmíthi, that es af thví má scilja, at thar hafdhi thessconar thjóth farith es Vínland hefer bygt, ok Grænlendínger calla Skrelínga," i. e. "invenerunt ibi, tam in orientali quam occidentali terræ parte, humanæ habitationis vestigia, navicularum fragmenta et opera fabrilia ex lapide, ex quo intelligi potest, ibi versatum esse nationem quæ Vinlandiam incoluit quamque Grænlandi Skrælingos appellant." Rafn, p. 207.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 249:Landnáma-bók, part ii. chap. xxii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 250:Id. part iii. chap. x.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 251:Kristni Saga, apudBiskupa Sögur, Copenhagen, 1858, vol. i. p. 20.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 252:Indeed, the parallel existence of the Flateyar-bók version of Eric the Red's Saga, alongside of the Hauks-bók version, is pretty good proof of the existence of a written account older than Hauk's time. The discrepancies between the two versions are such as to show that Jón Thordharson did not copy from Hauk, but followed some other version not now forthcoming. Jón mentions six voyages in connection with Vinland: 1. Bjarni Herjulfsson; 2. Leif; 3. Thorvald; 4. Thorstein and Gudrid; 5. Thorfinn Karlsefni; 6. Freydis. Hauk, on the other hand, mentions only the two principal voyages, those of Leif and Thorfinn; ignoring Bjarni, he accredits his adventures to Leif on his return voyage from Norway in 999, and he makes Thorvald a comrade of Thorfinn, and mixes his adventures with the events of Thorfinn's voyage. Dr. Storm considers Hauk's account intrinsically the more probable, and thinks that in the Flateyar-bók we have a later amplification of the tradition. But while I agree with Dr. Storm as to the general superiority of the Hauk version, I am not convinced by his arguments on this point. It seems to me likely that the Flateyar-bók here preserves more faithfully the details of an older tradition too summarily epitomized in the Hauks-bók. As the point in no way affects the general conclusions of the present chapter, it is hardly worth arguing here. The main thing for us is that the divergencies between the two versions, when coupled with their agreement in the most important features, indicate that both writers were working upon the basis of an antecedent written tradition, like the authors of the first and third synoptic gospels. Only here, of course, there are in the divergencies no symptoms of what the Tübingen school would call "tendenz," impairing and obscuring to an indeterminate extent the general trustworthiness of the narratives. On the whole, it is pretty clear that Hauks-bók and Flateyar-bók were independent of each other, and collated, each in its own way, earlier documents that have probably since perished.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 253:It is further interesting as the only undoubted reference to Vinland in a mediæval book written beyond the limits of the Scandinavian world. There is also, however, a passage in Ordericus Vitalis (Historia Ecclesiastica, iv. 29), in whichFinlandand the Orkneys, along with Greenland and Iceland, are loosely described as forming part of the dominions of the kings of Norway. This Finland does not appear to refer to the country of the Finns, east of the Baltic, and it has been supposed that it may have been meant for Vinland. The book of Ordericus was written about 1140.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 254:The passage from Adam of Bremen deserves to be quoted in full: "Præterea unam adhuc insulam [regionam] recitavit [i. e. Svendus rex] a multis in eo repertam oceano, quæ dicitur Vinland, eo quod ibi vites sponte nascantur, vinum bonum gerentes [ferentes]; nam et fruges ibi non seminatas abundare, non fabulosa opinione, sed certa comperimus relatione Danorum. Post quam insulam terra nulla invenitur habitabilis in illo oceano, sed omnia quæ ultra sunt glacie intolerabili ac caligine immensa plena sunt; cujus rei Marcianus ita meminit: ultra Thyle, inquiens, navigare unius diei mare concretum est. Tentavit hoc nuper experientissimus Nordmannorum princeps Haroldus, qui latitudinem septentrionalis oceani perscrutatus navibus, tandem caligantibus ante ora deficientis mundi finibus, immane abyssi baratrum, retroactis vestigiis, vix salvus evasit."Descriptio insularum aquilonis, cap. 38, apudHist. Ecclesiastica, iv. ed. Lindenbrog, Leyden, 1595. No such voyage is known to have been undertaken by Harold of Norway, nor is it likely. Adam was probably thinking of an Arctic voyage undertaken by one Thorir under the auspices of King Harold; one of the company brought back a polar bear and gave it to King Swend, who was much pleased with it. See Rafn, 339. "Regionam" and "ferentes" in the above extract are variant readings found in some editions.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 255:"Det har imidlertid ikke forhindret de senere forfattere, der benyttede Adam, fra at blive mistænksomme, og saalænge Adams beretning stod alene, har man i regelen vægret sig for at tro den. Endog den norske forfatter, der skrev 'Historia Norvegiæ' og som foruden Adam vel ogsaa bar kjendt de hjemlige sagn om Vinland, maa have anseet beretningen for fabelagtig og derfor forbigaaet den; han kjendte altfor godt Grønland som et nordligt isfyldt Polarland til at ville tro paa, at i nærheden fandtes et Vinland." Storm, inAarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed, etc., Copenhagen, 1887, p. 300.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 256:See below, p.386.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 257:Burton,Ultima Thule, London, 1875, i. 237.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 258:SeePickwick Papers, chap. xi. I am indebted to Mr. Tillinghast, of Harvard University Library, for calling my attention to a letter from Rev. John Lathrop, of Boston, to Hon. John Davis, August 10, 1809, containing George Washington's opinion of the Dighton inscription. When President Washington visited Cambridge in the fall of 1789, he was shown about the college buildings by the president and fellows of the university. While in the museum he was observed to "fix his eye" upon a full-size copy of the Dighton inscription made by the librarian, James Winthrop. Dr. Lathrop, who happened to be standing near Washington, "ventured to give the opinion which several learned men had entertained with respect to the origin of the inscription." Inasmuch as some of the characters were thought to resemble "oriental" characters, and inasmuch as the ancient Phœnicians had sailed outside of the Pillars of Hercules, it was "conjectured" that some Phœnician vessels had sailed into Narragansett bay and up the Taunton river. "While detained by winds, or other causes now unknown, the people, it has been conjectured, made the inscription, now to be seen on the face of the rock, and which we may suppose to be a record of their fortunes or of their fate."
"After I had given the above account, the President smiled and said he believed the learned gentlemen whom I had mentioned were mistaken; and added that in the younger part of his life his business called him to be very much in the wilderness of Virginia, which gave him an opportunity to become acquainted with many of the customs and practices of the Indians. The Indians, he said, had a way of writing and recording their transactions, either in war or hunting. When they wished to make any such record, or leave an account of their exploits to any who might come after them, they scraped off the outer bark of a tree, and with a vegetable ink, or a little paint which they carried with them, on the smooth surface they wrote in a way that was generally understood by the people of their respective tribes. As he had so often examined the rude way of writing practised by the Indians of Virginia, and observed many of the characters on the inscription then before him so nearly resembled the characters used by the Indians, he had no doubt the inscription was made long ago by some natives of America."Proceedings of Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. x. p. 115. This pleasant anecdote shows in a new light Washington's accuracy of observation and unfailing common-sense. Such inscriptions have been found by the thousand, scattered over all parts of the United States; for a learned study of them see Garrick Mallery, "Pictographs of the North American Indians,"Reports of Bureau of Ethnology, iv. 13-256. "The voluminous discussion upon the Dighton rock inscription," says Colonel Mallery, "renders it impossible wholly to neglect it.... It is merely a type of Algonquin rock-carving, not so interesting as many others.... It is of purely Indian origin, and is executed in the peculiar symbolic character of the Kekeewin," p. 20. The characters observed by Washington in the Virginia forests would very probably have been of the same type. Judge Davis, to whom Dr. Lathrop's letter was addressed, published in 1809 a paper maintaining the Indian origin of the Dighton inscription.
A popular error, once started on its career, is as hard to kill as a cat. Otherwise it would be surprising to find, in so meritorious a book as Oscar Peschel'sGeschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, Stuttgart, 1877, p. 82, an unsuspecting reliance upon Rafn's ridiculous interpretation of this Algonquin pictograph. In an American writer as well equipped as Peschel, this particular kind of blunder would of course be impossible; and one is reminded of Humboldt's remark, "Il est des recherches qui ne peuvent s'exécuter que près des sources mêmes."Examen critique, etc., tom. ii. p. 102.
In old times, I may add, such vagaries were usually saddled upon the Phœnicians, until since Rafn's time the Northmen have taken their place as the pack-horses for all sorts of antiquarian "conjecture."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 259:See Palfrey'sHistory of New England, vol. i. pp. 57-59; Mason'sReminiscences of Newport, pp. 392-407. Laing (Heimskringla, pp. 182-185) thinks the Yankees must have intended to fool Professor Rafn and the Royal Society of Antiquaries at Copenhagen; "Those sly rogues of Americans," says he, "dearly love a quiet hoax;" and he can almost hear them chuckling over their joke in their club-room at Newport. I am afraid these Yankees were less rogues and more fools than Mr. Laing makes out.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 260:Laing,Heimskringla, vol. i. p. 181.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 261:"Their höfdhu medh sèr allskonar fènadh, thvíat their ætlödhu at byggja landit, ef their mætti that," i. e., "illi omne pecudum genus secum habuerunt, nam terram, si liceret, coloniis frequentare cogitarunt." Rafn, p. 57.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 262:Major,Prince Henry the Navigator, p. 241.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 263:Irving'sLife of Columbus, New York, 1828, vol. i. p. 293.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 264:Histoire chronologique de la Nouvelle France, pp. 40, 58; this work, written in 1689 by the Recollet friar Sixte le Tac, has at length been published (Paris, 1888) with notes and other original documents by Eugène Réveillaud. See, also, Læt,Novus Orbis, 39.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 265:John Smith,Generall Historie, 247.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 266:Darwin,Animals and Plants under Domestication, London, 1868, vol. i pp. 27, 77, 84.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 267:The views of Professor Horsford as to the geographical situation of Vinland and its supposed colonization by Northmen are set forth in his four monographs,Discovery of America by Northmen—address at the unveiling of the statue of Leif Eriksen, etc., Boston, 1888;The Problem of the Northmen, Cambridge, 1889;The Discovery of the Ancient City of Norumbega, Boston, 1890;The Defences of Norumbega, Boston, 1891. Among Professor Horsford's conclusions the two principal are: 1. that the "river flowing through a lake into the sea" (Rafn, p. 147) is Charles river, and that Leif's booths were erected near the site of the present Cambridge hospital; 2. that "Norumbega"—a word loosely applied by some early explorers to some region or regions somewhere between the New Jersey coast and the Bay of Fundy—was the Indian utterance of "Norbega" or "Norway;" and that certain stone walls and dams at and near Watertown are vestiges of an ancient "city of Norumbega," which was founded and peopled by Northmen and carried on a more or less extensive trade with Europe for more than three centuries.
With regard to the first of these conclusions, it is perhaps as likely that Leif's booths were within the present limits of Cambridge as in any of the numerous places which different writers have confidently assigned for them, all the way from Point Judith to Cape Breton. A judicious scholar will object not so much to the conclusion as to the character of the arguments by which it is reached. Too much weight is attached to hypothetical etymologies.
With regard to the Norse colony alleged to have flourished for three centuries, it is pertinent to ask, what became of its cattle and horses? Why do we find no vestiges of the burial-places of these Europeans? or of iron tools and weapons of mediæval workmanship? Why is there no documentary mention, in Scandinavia or elsewhere in Europe, of this transatlantic trade? etc., etc. Until such points as these are disposed of, any further consideration of the hypothesis may properly be postponed.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 268:Laing,Heimskringla, i. 141. A description of the ruins may be found in two papers inMeddelelser om Gronland, Copenhagen, 1883 and 1889.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 269:Sometimes called Eric Uppsi; he is mentioned in the Landnáma-bók as a native of Iceland.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 270:Storm,Islandske Annaler, Christiania, 1888; Reeves,The Finding of Wineland the Good, London, 1890, pp. 79-81.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 271:Storm, inAarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed, 1887, p. 319.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 272:Reeves,op. cit.p. 83. In another vellum it is mentioned that in 1347 "a ship came from Greenland, which had sailed to Markland, and there were eighteen men on board." As Mr. Reeves well observes: "The nature of the information indicates that the knowledge of the discovery had not altogether faded from the memories of the Icelanders settled in Greenland. It seems further to lend a measure of plausibility to a theory that people from the Greenland colony may from time to time have visited the coast to the southwest of their home for supplies of wood, or for some kindred purpose. The visitors in this case had evidently intended to return directly from Markland to Greenland, and had they not been driven out of their course to Iceland, the probability is that this voyage would never have found mention in Icelandic chronicles, and all knowledge of it must have vanished as completely as did the colony to which the Markland visitors belonged."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 273:Storm,Monumenta historica Norvegiæ, p. 77.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 274:Laing,Heimskringla, i. 147. It has been supposed that the Black Death, by which all Europe was ravaged in the middle part of the fourteenth century, may have crossed to Greenland, and fatally weakened the colony there; but Vigfusson says that the Black Death never touched Iceland (Sturlunga Saga, vol. i. p. cxxix.), so that it is not so likely to have reached Greenland.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 275:Laing,op. cit.i. 142.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 276:Yet this learned historian was quite correct in his own interpretation of Zeno's story, for in the same place he says, "If real, his Frisland is the Ferro islands, and his Zichmni is Sinclair." Pinkerton'sHistory of Scotland, London, 1797, vol. i. p. 261.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 277:Major,The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers, Nicolò and Antonio Zeno, to the Northern Seas in the XIVth Century, London, 1873 (Hakluyt Society); cf. Nordenskjöld,Om bröderna Zenos resor och de äldsta kartor öfner Norden, Stockholm, 1883.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 278:"Or M. Nicolò il Caualiere ... entrò in grandissimo desiderio di ueder il mondo, e peregrinare, e farsi capace di varij costumi e di lingue de gli huomini, acciò che con le occasioni poi potesse meglio far seruigio alla sua patria ed à se acquistar fama e onore." The narrative gives 1380 as the date of the voyage, but Mr. Major has shown that it must have been a mistake for 1390 (op. cit.xlii.-xlviii.).[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 279:It appears on the Zeno map as "Trin [p-]montor," about the site of Cape Farewell; but how could six days' sail W. from Kerry, followed by four days' sail N. E., reach any such point? and how does this short outward sail consist with the return voyage, twenty days E. and eight days S. E., to the Færoes? The place is also said to have had "a fertile soil" and "good rivers," a description in nowise answering to Greenland.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 280:"Però non ni dirò altro in questa lettera, sperando tosto di essere con uoi, e di sodisfarui di molte altre cose con la uiua uoce." Major, p. 34.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 281:"All these letters were written by Messire Antonio to Messire Carlo, his brother; and I am grieved that the book and many other writings on these subjects have, I don't know how, come sadly to ruin; for, being but a child when they fell into my hands, I, not knowing what they were, tore them in pieces, as children will do, and sent them all to ruin: a circumstance which I cannot now recall without the greatest sorrow. Nevertheless, in order that such an important memorial should not be lost, I have put the whole in order, as well as I could, in the above narrative." Major, p. 35.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 282:Nicolò Zeno,Dello scoprimento dell' isole Frislanda, Eslanda, Engronelanda, Estotilanda, & Icaria, fatto per due fratelli Zeni, M. Nicolò it Caualiere, & M. Antonio. Libro Vno, col disegno di dette Isole.Venice, 1558. Mr. Major's book contains the entire text, with an English translation.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 283:The map is taken from Winsor'sNarr. and Crit. Hist., i. 127, where it is reduced from Nordenskjöld'sStudien ok Forskningar. A better because larger copy may be found in Major'sVoyages of the Venetian Brothers. The original map measures 12 x 15-1/2inches. In the legend at the top the date is given asM CCC LXXX. but evidently oneXhas been omitted, for it should be 1390, and is correctly so given by Marco Barbaro, in hisGenealogie dei nobili Veneti; of Antonio Zeno he says, "Scrisse con il fratello Nicolò Kav. li viaggi dell' Isole sotto il polo artico, e di quei scoprimente del 1390, e che per ordine di Zieno, re di Frislanda, si portò nel continente d'Estotilanda nell' America settentrionale e che si fermò 14 anni in Frislanda, cioè 4 con suo fratello Nicolò e 10 solo." (This valuable work has never been published. The original MS., in Barbaro's own handwriting, is preserved in the Biblioteca di San Marco at Venice. There is a seventeenth century copy of it among the Egerton MSS. in the British Museum.)—Nicolò did not leave Italy until after December 14, 1388 (Muratori,Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, tom. xxii. p. 779). The map can hardly have been made before Antonio's voyage, about 1400. The places on the map are wildly out of position, as was common enough in old maps. Greenland is attached to Norway according to the general belief in the Middle Ages. In his confusion between the names "Estland" and "Islanda," young Nicolò has tried to reproduce the Shetland group, or something like it, and attach it to Iceland. "Icaria," probably Kerry, in Ireland, has been made into an island and carried far out into the Atlantic. The queerest of young Nicolò's mistakes was in placing the monastery of St. Olaus ("St. Thomas"). He should have placed it on the southwest coast of Greenland, near his "Af [p-]montor;" but he has got it on the extreme northeast, just about where Greenland is joined to Europe.[Back to Main Text]