WINELAND THE GOOD 



Incidents such as the bartering for skins with the Wineland 

 Skraslings, and the combat with unfortunate results, seem to 

 refer to something that actually took place; they cannot easily 

 be explained from the legends of the Fortunate Isles, nor can 

 representations of fighting in which the Norsemen were worsted 

 be derived from Greenland. They must rather be due to en- 

 counters with Indians; for it is incredible that the Greenlanders 

 or Icelanders should have described in this way fights with the 

 unwarlike Eskimo, or at all events with the Greenland Eskimo, 

 who, even if they had been of a warlike disposition, cannot have 

 had any practice in the art of war. This in itself shows that 

 the Greenlanders must have reached America, and come in con- 

 tact with the natives there. 



The very mention of the countries to the south-west: 

 first the treeless and rocky Helluland (Labrador?), then the 

 wooded Markland (Newfoundland?) farther south, and then 

 the fertile Wineland south of that, may also point to local 

 knowledge. It must be admitted that this could be explained 

 away as having been put together from the general experience 

 that countries in the north are treeless, but become more 

 fertile as one proceeds southward; but the names Helluland 

 and especially Markland have in themselves an appearance 

 of genuineness, as also has Kjalarnes. The different saga 

 writers, in the Saga of Eric the Red and in the Flateyjarbok's 

 *' Gronlendinga-f^attr," give different explanations of the reason 

 for the name of Kjalarnes, which shows that the name is 

 an old one and that the explanations have been invented 

 later (cf. Vol. I, p. 324). A point which agrees remarkably well 

 with the trend of the Labrador coast and may point to 

 a certain knowledge of it, is that Karlsevne steers well to 

 the south-east from Helluland; but this may possibly be 



described, it is natural that its shortest day should be given a length which 

 according to Prof. H. Geelmuyden [see G. Storm, i885, p. 128; 1887, p. 6] 

 would correspond to 49° 55' N. lat. or south of it; in other words, the latitude 

 of France, and that was precisely the land that the Icelanders knew as the 

 home of wine, and that they would therefore naturally use in the indication of a 

 Wineland. 



23 



