IN NORTHERN MISTS 



ship, and that he had a " husa-snotra " of "masur" from 

 Wineland. Both accounts show how highly timber was 

 prized in Greenland and Iceland. It is likely enough that 

 this was so, since they had no timber in Greenland but 

 driftwood, dwarf-birch, and osiers. But in order to find 

 timber the Greenlanders need have gone no farther south 

 than Markland (Newfoundland?); and this name (perhaps 

 also Helluland) may therefore have the surest historical 

 foundation. 



If Adam of Bremen (circa 1070) mentions no more than 

 Wineland, this is doubtless because he has only heard of that 

 legendary country; the belief in its existence may already 

 have been confirmed in his time by the discovery of new 

 lands. More remarkable is the statement of the sober Are 

 Frode (circa 1130) as to the Skraelings who "inhabited 

 Wineland" (" Vinland hefer bygt"). This looks as if Wine- 

 land was familiar to him; it may be the mythical name that 

 has passed into a common designation for the countries 

 discovered in the south-west (cf. Vol I, pp. 368, 384). But there 

 is also a possibility that only the mythical country is in question, 

 and that, as suggested above (Vol. I, p. 368; Vol II, p. 16), its 

 inhabitants are merely the Skraslings of myths, since this myth- 

 ical land and its inhabitants were the best known and most 

 talked of. If this be so, it does not exclude the possibility of 

 Are's having heard of other, less well-known, but actually dis- 

 covered countries in the south-west, which he does not mention. 

 To make use of a parallel, let us suppose that Utrost with its 

 fairy people was better known in Nordland than the islands to 

 the north with their semi-mythical Lapps. If then we had read 

 of a discovery of Finmark that traces had been found there of 

 the same kind of folk (" f>j6S ") who inhabit Utrost, then we 

 should no more be able from this to conclude that Utrost was 

 a real land than that Vesteralen and Senjen, for instance, had 

 not been discovered. It must be remembered that it does not 

 appear with certainty from Are's words where he got his Wine- 

 land from (cf. Vol. I, p. 367). 

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