The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 | Page 8

Icelandic, already described, by Rafn, Reeves, Vigfusson and Powell, and Storm, it may be mentioned that the Flat Island text is given in Vol. I. of Flateyjar-bok, ed. Vigfusson and Unger, Christiania, 1860. There are translations of both texts in Beamish, Discovery of North America by the Northmen (London, 1841), in Slafter, Voyages of the Northmen (Boston, 1877), and in De Costa, Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen (Albany, 1901). But most of these are confused in arrangement, and the best is that by the late Mr. Reeves, which by the kind consent of his representatives we are permitted to use in this volume.
JULIUS E. OLSON.
FOOTNOTES:
[4-1] Eiriks Saga Raudha (Copenhagen, 1891), p. xv.
[5-1] A translation, with the title "The Story of Thorfinn Carlsemne," based on AM. 557, may be found in Origines Islandicae, II. 610.
[5-2] Origines Islandicae, II. 590.
[6-1] Den oldnorske og oldislandske Litteraturs Historie (Copenhagen, 1901), II. 648.
[6-2] The Discovery of America, p. 212.
[6-3] Prolegomena, Sturlunga Saga, p. lxix.
[7-1] Snorri, the Icelandic historian, says that "it was more than 240 years from the settlement of Iceland (about 870) before sagas began to be written" and that "Ari (1067-1148) was the first man who wrote in the vernacular stories of things old and new."
[7-2] "Among the mediaeval literatures of Europe, that of Iceland is unrivalled in the profusion of detail with which the facts of ordinary life are recorded, and the clearness with which the individual character of numberless real persons stands out from the historic background.... The Icelanders of the Saga-age were not a secluded self-centred race; they were untiring in their desire to learn all that could be known of the lands round about them, and it is to their zeal for this knowledge, their sound historical sense, and their trained memories, that we owe much information regarding the British Isles themselves from the ninth to the thirteenth century. The contact of the Scandinavian peoples with the English race on the one hand, and the Gaelic on the other, has been an important factor in the subsequent history of Britain; and this is naturally a subject on which the Icelandic evidence is of the highest value." Prefatory Note to Origines Islandicae.
[8-1] Studies on the Vinland Voyages (Copenhagen, 1889) and Eiriks Saga Raudha (Copenhagen, 1891).
[8-2] Of the same opinion are Professor Hugo Gering of Kiel, Zeitschrift f��r deutsche Philologie, XXIV. (1892), and Professor Finnur Jonsson of Copenhagen, Den oldnorske og oldislandske Litteraturs Historie, II. 646.
[8-3] The Kristni-Saga, which tells of the conversion of Iceland, says: "That summer [1000] King Olaf [of Norway] went out of the country to Wendland in the south, and he sent Leif Eric's son to Greenland to preach the faith there. It was then that Leif discovered Vinland the Good. He also discovered a crew on the wreck of a ship out in the deep sea, and so he got the name of Leif the Lucky." For passages from other sagas that corroborate Leif's discovery on his voyage from Norway to Greenland (i.e., in the year that Olaf Tryggvason fell, namely, 1000), see Reeves, The Finding of Wineland the Good (London, 1895), pp. 7-18.
[10-1] See, in support of Storm, Juul Dieserud's paper, "Norse Discoveries in America," Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, Feb., 1901.
[10-2] Discovery of America, p. 182.
[11-1] See Origines Islandicae, I. 294.
[11-2] See notes 6 and 8 to Papal Letters, p. 71 of this volume.
[12-1] See note 1, p. 43.
[12-2] In other respects the editors speak highly of the saga as found in Hauk's Book and AM. 557: "This saga has never been so well known as the other, though it is probably of even higher value. Unlike the other, it has the form and style of one of the 'Islendinga Sogor' [the Icelandic sagas proper]; its phrasing is broken, its dialogue is excellent, it contains situations of great pathos, such as the beautiful incident at the end of Bearne's self-sacrifice, and scenes of high interest, such as that of the Sibyl's prophesying in Greenland...." II. 591.
[12-3] Icelandic Prose Reader (where AM. 557 is printed), notes, p. 377.

THE SAGA OF ERIC THE RED
ALSO CALLED THE SAGA OF THORFINN KARLSEFNI[14-1]
The Saga of Eric the Red, also called the Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefni and Snorri Thorbrandsson.[14-2]--Olaf was the name of a warrior-king, who was called Olaf the White. He was the son of King Ingiald, Helgi's son, the son of Olaf, Gudraud's son, son of Halfdan Whiteleg, king of the Uplands-men.[14-3] Olaf engaged in a Western freebooting expedition and captured Dublin in Ireland and the Shire of Dublin, over which he became king.[14-4] He married Aud the Wealthy, daughter of Ketil Flatnose, son of Biorn Buna, a famous man of Norway. Their son was called Thorstein the Red. Olaf was killed in battle in Ireland, and Aud and Thorstein went then to the Hebrides;